Vanity...is it all?

"In conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others," according to that virtual authority Wikipedia.  I have always had  a tug of war with vanity.  I would never leave the house without a good outfit, groomed hair and make-up.  But if I was hiking and camping I could care less what I looked like.  In contrast, at the end of a sweaty day of hiking hubby cannot take me to a restaurant of any stature.  I refuse to look that bad when eating dinner. 
I had at least 25 pairs of shoes when I was working full time.  Now I tend to purchase only sandals, tennis shoes, hiking shoes for this new life style but I have a dozen pairs of these in various styles and colors. 

Today, the problem is that I can only wear two pairs of tennis shoes comfortably since my injury.  Fortunately I have not been anywhere special in months and do not need fancy shoes.  I rarely attend the holiday fund raisers that are around the corner. My mother wore tennis shoes to my daughter's wedding beneath her long dress.  I honestly thought she was just being difficult, but now I realize I was the one who was being difficult.  Her feet had not been in fancy shoes for years and she was not going to be in pain all evening just for us.  She was never a vain woman.  I remember giving her a magazine haircut when I was 13 or 14 and being so proud of how she looked.  She just seemed amused.

Today I tend to begin to limp and walk slower if I have been on my feet for hours.  We take a flat long walk down a wooded trail and I find my vanity forces me to try to hide the limp and to try and walk more steadily, in spite of any pain in doing that, if I see other hikers!  I get irritated that hikers pass us on the trial when I remember I was the trail blazer in past.  If we stop to chat I find it necessary to explain my ankle injury so they know I don't walk like this without reason.  This must be vanity.
 
Recently, I had one of the clerks in the department store offer me a wheelchair from the front of the store and it took all my resolve not to deck him!  I try to hurry when people hold the door to the Post Office open for me, embarrassed that I cannot walk faster. 

How do people with permanent handicaps show such dignity as they hike through life?

You Need More Greens

Many years ago when my son was a teenager just a year away from college, we had reached that stage that some families reach where you are terrified that your child cannot make it on his own, and yet, you are so sick of dealing with him that you want him out of the house.  Yes, some families do not have to undertake crises management with their children, and you are blessed.  You can believe it is because you were such a great parent, but in reality, luck of the gene pool has something to do with this.  (Your gene pool...not your child's.)  He did end up being forced to go to a therapist for a handful of times, which resulted in a diagnosis of depression.  Glad my health insurance covered this waste of time.  When he found out the insurance would run out and we would be paying out of pocket for the sessions he refused to go.  He insisted he was smarter than the therapist, and I actually think he was!  I tried to get him to test several therapists to find one he liked, but he has the same stubborn dynamic of his dad.  He wanted to deal with his life on his own, a sometimes dangerous decision.

Anyway, he did survive college (majoring in that super useful undergraduate degree, Psychology, oddly enough) and went on with additional training to become a successful sound engineer.  He recently won an award as sound mixer for the year from his company.  He still has issues with mild mood swings, but can deal with it without relying on drugs or alcohol.  We are blessed for that.

I remember his freshman year when dropping him off that I noticed a lovely woods near the campus.  I told him that was the place to work out issues.  Lone walks, intensive runs, whatever he could squeeze in to help with the stress of college.  He actually agreed with me.

To this day, we both realize that the great outdoors is the place to go when life seems so heavy you are down on your knees and knuckles facing the dirt with the hot sun at your back.

In the November issues of Newsweek magazine, Dr. Andrew Weil (one of those new age hippie philosophers), emphasized the importance of getting away from our artificially created environment whenever we can.  The noise of city life, the smells, the continual stimulation is ruining us.  The stimulus of technology which brings us instant entertainment, instant stimulation, superficial connections with people, and overwhelming information is not something our brains and senses were designed to assimilate in such constant and large quantities.  Most of us now have sedentary indoor jobs which are also unhealthy.  Our natural sleep cycles and other circadian rhythms are not followed.  "Human beings evolved to thrive in natural environments and in bonded social groups."  Depression has become so common that children today have been diagnosed with 'nature-deficit disorder.'

Sitting in a field or on a cliff is not as exciting as shooting down a helicopter with your remote control and not as compelling as checking Facebook on your phone every 15 minutes.  But I feel safe in insisting it will keep you alive so much longer and that you will actually enjoy your life so much more.

Now, turn off the PC and go talk a walk.

In a Fog

I am standing in the IHop waiting to be seated.  An IHop is not a dance hall nor a kiddie zoo with rabbits, for those who live outside the United States, Canada, Mexico or Guatemala.  An IHOP is a restaurant famous for its high-calorie, salt-fat-sugar rich breakfasts.  They also serve standard dinners and lunches.  It is very popular (especially with old farts) because the servings are large, the service is usually fast and the prices are not high.  It takes a really bad restaurant to screw up a breakfast of eggs and pancakes.  I am rewarding the healing of my ankle with my first trip to the outside world.  I admit that I am a fan of the International Crepe Passport breakfast.  (Doesn't THAT sound sophisticated? -International Crepe Passport*  Two eggs, two crispy bacon strips and two pork sausage links served with your choice of two crepes with fruit)  I do not eat both sausage and bacon, my heart-attack-waiting-to-happen husband is happy to help with those.  But I do order a side of hash browns which I split with him as well.  I do not weigh 250 pounds and this meal, over 2,000 calories, is usually eaten about 9 to 10 AM and pretty much the only thing I eat all day except for snacking at dinner!  Sinful to have such an abundance of food in a world where many are starving, I know.  Sorry, but like most liberals I carry my guilt to the food table.

Anyway, while I am standing waiting for the hostess, I notice a really sweet little 4-year-old girl in front of me with a 250 pound mom carrying a new baby.  The little girl is focusing intently on something in her hands.  The hostess returns and takes the mom to a booth.  The little girl remains standing in front of me.  I tap her on the shoulder and tell her that her mother is down the way.  The girl looks up at me and I see she has been intently focusing on an IPhone.  (IHop, IPhone?)  She is moving images and links across the screen like an expert.  She looks back down and continues her screen activities.

The mother gets seated a short distance away and gets the baby in a high-chair and then turns back to the little girl and calls her.  The girl does glance up, has heard, but still does not comprehend.

The hostess returns to seat us and I point to the mother as I place my hand on the little girl's shoulder once more before we begin to scoot around her.  The little girls looks up at me again with clear blue eyes and then back to the phone.  We walk around her and head to our booth and I will be darned but she follows us not looking up at all!  Clearly she is joining us for breakfast.

It actually takes some effort on the part of the mother and me to convince the little girl that she is at the wrong booth. Actually the effort is on getting through the fog of technology.

I hate these technological babysitters...they are a drug!  Thank goodness they were not crossing the street and it is amazing they made it across the parking lot.

(For a more enlightening day in the fog...go here.)

Enduring Waiting Without Anger

Well, I am guessing the evil spirits of Halloween or the good spirits of All Saints Day have worked their magic as I am almost back to normal today.  Just the rare achy night and not being able to run are my worst problems!  Still cannot see my inside ankle bone, but swelling is only a 10th of what it was.

I was totally fascinated by the gradual healing which I monitored daily.  I could not push it faster whether I rested more or exercised more.  Yet, every day, probably because I no longer work and can stay at home and have few distractions, I noticed a measurable improvement.  This slow healing reminded me of so many things in life that move forward at a snail's pace.  (Actually these last two days I have been able to noticed a faster improvement if I took two aspirin in the late afternoon and then put my foot under a heating pad...this blood rush did make things better more noticeably.)

• The slow emergence and growth of a seed into a plant.  You can check it each day and see the growth, but there is nothing dramatic or surprising in its changes, unless some rodent eats it to the ground.
• Losing weight requires endless patience and if you give up just one day you will not see measurable loss.
• Babies change so slowly if you are able to study and watch them each day.  They look toward your sound, than at your face and finally are able over time to focus on your eyes and then respond to your smile.
• Good poetry must be read slowly, then re-read (out loud for me) and then over time it grows on you and thickens with meaning.
• Love, real love that goes beyond sex and eye candy, takes such a long time.  The melding of good and bad habits and trust happens over days, weeks, months and becomes a strong if not beautiful foundation only over decades after all of life's tests and challenges have been met.
• Developing an expertise in something comes only with time.  Talent you may be born with, but honing that into an expert skill requires time.  Malcolm Gladwell ( a somewhat controversial author) in his book "Outliers" writes about how long it takes to really become an expert. "Gladwell explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Rule, which he considers the key to success in any field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years. He also notes that he himself took exactly 10 years to meet the 10,000-Hour Rule, during his brief tenure at The American Spectator and his more recent job at The Washington Post."

I do not think it will take me 20 hours of walking for 10 years to be an expert at walking, because clearly I never had the talent to begin with!  My point is that everything worthwhile seems to take a lot of time and therefore we all better learn patience.

Another Holiday to Keep You Busy

(Monitor lizard at the zoo!  He is a little angry!)

Slicing and Dicing

(Being somewhat unable to get around I have pulled up something I wrote a while back and was never going to post.)

They came and took the teachers and all their things.
"You do not need this," they said.
Paints and chalk were placed on the cart.
"Creative thinking is for math and history."
The string instruments were locked in cabinets.
"Self-expression should be in sports or...
well, nothing else really." He said as he packed the make-up.
"We will tell you how to express yourself."
"It is not what you see in this room that is important,
It is what you hear that must be learned."
"Listen, repeat, and repeat again.
That is good."
"Don't you want to pass the test?"
"Don't you want to defend and protect the country?"
"Just fill in the blanks."
"Learning is so easy
Is it not?"
Is it supposed to be easy, I wonder.
"You do not have to add anything.
Just remember what you are taught."
"You do not need to disagree or
question or be so critical.
There is no time."
"Find a space at the end of the row."
"Do what you are told."
The classroom is so crowded.
The teacher is too busy to
attend to my individual quirks.
Science, poetry, acting and art are all too big
for my learning space now.
Sit still...you get 30 seconds of directed attention.


Does anyone have a band aid?  (Photo was taken at the Zoo.)

Luck

It has been eleven days since my careless accident.  The swelling is almost gone!  The pain, while at times unbearable if I twist a certain way,  is mostly minimal as I limp around the house.  I feel lucky that this was not as bad as it could have been at my age!

My cabin fever reached a peak yesterday and I asked hubby to take me for a ride in the country side.  Our goal was to reach the mountains which are about 2 hours away, but along the way we encountered a detour.  It seems a bridge had washed out in the last storm and the road had to be closed for repairs.  This was a major state road. I live in an area of meandering coastlines and rivers and marshes.  Some of you know this means there is rarely a straight line between two points.  This a bridge being gone means we had to detour an hour north to find another crossing.  Sometime during the long detour we decided to fore-go the mountain trip and just explore the nearby countryside and visit a few state parks in the lovely fall..

We pulled over to the side of the country road that passed beside neat Amish farms and brought out our road map to see what might be close (the Truthsayer -GPS- was in the other car).  While holding our heads bent close over the map we heard a loud tap at the window on the driver's side of the car.  We looked up and saw a women in her fifties with frizzy hair, casual clothes, and a very tired look on her face.

Hubby rolled down the window.

"Can you give us a ride up the road." she asked in a gravelly voice caused by many years of smoking.

We both looked at the 'us' and her companion was a twenty something girl dressed in a red striped shirt and too large flowing plaid pants.  She could have been wearing pajamas or a costume.  Not the type of clothes most 20-somethings would be caught dead in.  Both looked pleading and the older woman was panting as if she had already walked a long way.  We hesitated only shortly and complied.

I could smell the cigarette smoke as they entered the back seat.  The trip several miles up the road was to reach a friend's house since the woman's car was no longer working.  The woman just oozed stress and was a very sad candidate for living as she explained how her luck had run out this month.  A sister had just died of cancer, her father had just passed away and the house she inherited from him was being managed legally by another sister who had borrowed money against it and had a gambling problem.  This morning the final bad luck was a car that wouldn't start.  (Yes, I have encountered story teller shysters before, but these people did not ask for money and were able to look me straight in the eye.)

We dropped them off at a small rural house with several cars scattered around the open field.  While we felt sorry for their situation, both hubby and I felt more sorry for the young girl who followed her mother up the dirt road to the door.  Already in her short life she was trapped in poverty.  She would probably marry the first economic light that entered her life and if her luck ran out she would be just like her mother in a decade or so following the same mistakes.

These are some of the people that President Obama says live paycheck to paycheck.  They are not smart nor industrious nor understanding that they make some of their own bad luck.  But in earlier times, before this recession, I wonder if their life might not have been so harsh as they got by week to week. 

Alright, already.

You asked and thus you shall receive...you little Halloween ghouls!  Sorry there isn't more black and bluesing for your blood lust.  (And, yes, the glitter toenail paint was on long before the accident.  If you look closely you will see the legs have not seen a razor in weeks!)

I managed to be on my feet for two hours this afternoon at a volunteer training session.  I am now resting up, but I am getting there little by little.

If Wishes Were...

I know he is trying to be helpful and showing concern but:

I wish he wouldn't ask me if I wanted my morning coffee and then totally forget.

I wish he wouldn't volunteer to vacuum the main floor of the house and then go downstairs to the basement and forget to shut off the vacuum....or forget to put away the long snaking cord that lies like a booby trap in front of the bathroom door. (Yes, it was due to a phone call.)

I wish he wouldn't make a simple stir fry and find it necessary to use every counter space and most of the cooking utensils in the kitchen.

I wish he would accept that dishwashers are environmentally good appliances and not wash 70% by hand and pile things in the drain until they begin to fall away.

I wish he could make it safely back to bed at three in the morning without banging into the bed, swearing, and causing me to slide up against the headboard.

I wish he wouldn't go grocery shopping and forget to bring back the one item I asked for.

I wish he would remember to finish the laundry and not just start it as I struggle to get the wet clothes out of the machine and into the dryer while balancing on one foot.

I wish he would check the mail before bringing it home and finding that no less than 5 of the envelopes were supposed to go in the box next to ours.  (I must admit that this mail snafu rarely happens.)

I wish I liked chile three times a week.

I do not have to wish that he stays in a good mood because he is the eternally happy guy no matter what he must face.

Using What Works

Such a lucky lady I am. I am healing and I can actually feel and see the difference each day. I was religious the first 48 hours in applying the ice at intervals. I stayed off my foot as much as possible and elevated it. Today, 4 days later, I find I no longer need the hiking poles to walk around the house although I limp like a broken wheel across the floor.  There is not much pain if I am careful in how I move.

I must get better sooner rather than later as this morning when my husband heard me hobbling from the bathroom he asked if I was ready for coffee.  I called back in the affirmative as I settled back into the bed, and then 45 minutes later when no coffee smells were even wafting from the front of the house, I hobbled into the kitchen to see if could start something of my own.  He looked up from his book startled and said "Oh, gosh, I forgot.  I am in the middle of a major Civil War battle!  The Battle of Gettysburg."  This nursemaid thing is clearly NOT HIS thing.

Being a semi-invalid does erupt a smack against the head to remind one of how very, very, lucky they are!  The ability to use both eyes, both ears, both hands, both feet.  What a luxury of life!   But being able to adjust, to accept the pain, the compromise in activity, the slow down and to be willing to be patient about the support of others is also an important lesson.  I consciously made an effort to find joy in whatever small things this slow down forced me to notice.  The dance of the afternoon light across the bedspread and through the trees outside, the sound of the wind, the quiet of a well-loved house, the distant activities of a partner, and the taste and smell of food.  All of these I tried to be consciously thankful for to distract me from the impatience.  I am a perfectionist and in old age I have tried to temper that character flaw aspect with a more compromising attitude.  It doesn't always work...but for these 4 days it has.

Cherry-Picken' Pain!

My mother, when she was a few years younger than I am now, was home alone most of the time since my father continued to work waiting for full social security.  He usually worked about 60 miles away from the farm.  One autumn my mother was in the process of picking cherries from our three cherry trees out back by the chicken shed.  She got a bee in her bonnet that using the ladder was not getting her high enough.  (What she was doing on a ladder on uneven ground all by herself at her age makes me shake my head?!)  Anyway her attempt to climb higher in the tree to reach the last of that red ripe fruit resulted in her taking a nasty fall.  She broke the heel of her foot upon landing, and nothing else thank goodness, and had to drag herself about 80 feet across the mowed field, over a dry irrigation ditch and over the gravel driveway into the house and eventually to the phone!  I remember her telling me this story, but I was not as impressed as I should have been at the time.  (What a little twit I was.)  I also remember her complaining at how her other remaining children, all living close but elsewhere with full-time jobs, didn't help her much.  I am sure they did as much as they could with their busy lives.  My mother also loved playing the martyr.

This incident came back to me while I was lying in bed this morning greeting a new day.

Yesterday, my husband and I using a much too small dolly were attempting to move one of those huge old fashioned television sets from the garage to the attic storage in the closet of the guest bedroom.  This old TV belongs to my son who had left it at our house along with a small collection of other furniture since he was moving into his girlfriend's tiny house a few weeks ago. Husband was above pulling the dolly and I was below holding the TV against it.  We had just reached the top step of the stairs which has a larger lip when the television flipped off the dolly platform knocking me down a few steps and then landing on my foot and lower leg mashing them against the steps as I fell back.  I held my ground fearing I might fall all the way down the stairs as this appliance rolled over me.  I managed, although in the early waves of pain. to drag my foot out from under the TV and to put the back of my shoulder against the set and scoot slowly down the stairs allowing the TV to follow against my shoulder.

Hubby could not help because he was at the top behind the dolly and it happened too fast for him to attempt anything.  I reached the bottom step and move away while the television slid to the floor taking a piece of the skin off my forearm as it did so.

I managed to limp to the nearby couch before the shock set in.  Eventually I felt waves of nausea and waves of pain and found myself involuntarily hyperventilating, until my body finally adjusted to what had happened.  After several hours of ice-on and ice-off and two Aleve, I had decided that I had not broken anything because the pain was bearable.  I was also very lucky in that I spend time, after lifting leg weights two or three times a week, stretching all of my joints including my ankles to keep me as flexible as possible.  That has given me some good resilience and bone mass.  We have talked to our doctor friend and all agree an x-ray is not necessary as my pain is easing and I can put some light weight on the foot.

Yes, we were idiots trying to get that 80 pound monstrosity up the stairs. I had told my son to just leave it in the garage since I hadn't decided where to store it, another mistake!   My husband had his adrenaline kick in and actually lifted the set and carried it upstairs by himself shortly after!  Probably another mistake but I was too busy trying to bear waves of pain to protest.

Since it was going to continue to be my lucky day, within 30 minutes the TV news stations were warning of tornadoes and major storms moving into our area and showing a lovely home missing its roof just about 200 miles to the south of us.  No way I was moving to the basement!  Luckily the storm missed us.

This morning my left ankle is now twice the size of my right ankle, but the religious application of ice every 20 minutes today, should continue to help keep the swelling at bay.  I am told that the swelling caused by fluids causes the majority of the pain.  The ankle does not appear black and blue which means little blood loss inside, another plus.

Lots of time to write a long post on this laptop but no way to search for an appropriate accompanying photo as they are on the other PC.  Of course, today the sun is brilliant and the angles are perfect for some photography.  Wouldn't you know it?  Then again, I could take a photo of my ankle....Nah!

Thursday 13 # 35 - More Free Advice - via Definitions (!)

Yes, I have changed the mask of my blog. (Don't you love the jig this bird is doing?)  Hope you like it.

1. Photography.  When photographers say the camera used does not matter, that is 50% true.  A good capture can be made with a cheap point and shoot camera...but a good lens means you have a much better chance of getting that capture closer to what your eye is seeing.
2. Gold.  There is a BIG difference between buying actual gold as a investment and gold stocks.  Do your research or you will be out a good chunk of money down the road.  (Same advice for reverse mortgages that seems to be promoted this year on every single channel.)
3. Loneliness.  Most people are "people who need people" as Ms. Streisand has sung.  But many creative souls are perfectly happy being alone and we should understand and respect that.
4. Parenting.  When you are feeling critical of how your parents reacted to you at some time in your life, just put your child in that same place and think how you would/did react.  (Of course, if you don't have kids, you may have to manipulate this a little for the lesson.)
5. Losing Weight.  The only thing that works, and it is not guaranteed to work exactly as you hope,  is eating less and moving around more.  Just because you don't end up looking like (insert fav skinny/ripped celebrity name here) doesn't mean you aren't getting so much healthier and happier.
6. Compromise.  In our complex world compromise is essential in moving forward, whether you are an environmentalist, a tea party protestor, a politician or a parent.  "My way or the highway" only works in Hollywood Westerns.
7. Pets.  These little organic entities have been proven to enhance, purify, save, and add fun to a life.  If you are allergic you should adopt an animal at a preserve as a remote pet and it will indeed improve your life and help save the world.
8. Trust.  You should trust everyone in the beginning.  Yes, you will get blindsided once in a while, but you will be rewarded more often with justification for that trust.  (This is why I am so against the political fear drum that is being beaten to death every day.)
9. Gift Giving.  The best ( and least expensive) gift you can give anyone is time.  Time that gives someone a break to be with someone else, or be with you and your effervescent personality, or just time for them to take a nap!
10. Moments.  You must try each day to grab some of these and stop and breathe and really look at them closely using every single sense you have.  Surprised?
11. Religion.  Everyone has one even if they say they don't.  Something is your motivator each day.  People believe in something, even if it is their own powerlessness.  Only you can change your religion, others cannot.
12. Cantaloupe.  A poisonous and deadly fruit.
13. Keys to Happiness.  A sense of loving one's self and not giving up...ever...except on those battles that will not win the war,   What war?  The one that fights for you to live your life and not some other person's.

(I searched 'advice' on my blog and came up with 100 entries.  I am the most obnoxious and ego-inflated person I know!)

Apologies

My apologies to the strict and effective writers on my recent sloppy post where I tossed  "person"  or point of view back and forth like a football.   I was just being out to lunch, I guess.  Thanks for wading through the post!!  I will try to be better.  I promise.  Please continue to drop by.  If you didn't notice which post was so sloppy then you are my BEST reader!!!

Three Day Weekend

What do you do on a three day weekend?  Plan a BBQ with friends?  Take in dinner and movie with your love?  Sleep?  Finish most of the stuff on that to-do list?  Chauffeur children hither and yon to their well-programmed activities?  Hit the outlet mall and spend a small fortune?  Volunteer at the fair?  Finish reading that best seller and watch fall creep in?

Well, Tabor is going into the city.  She will probably not shop nor visit the museums, although both of those might be fun activities since Tabor lives in the remote rural woods.  She will pick up her jet-lagged husband from the airport and take him to her empty daughter's empty house (they are visiting friends), and watch him fight the sleep genie for hours before he becomes a mummy in the guest bedroom not to be heard from for hours.  She will get him up around dinner and have him take her out to a nearby restaurant and she will listen to him tell her how successful the trip was.

That night he will be restless and by morning they will both try to plan some activity for the early part of the Sunday knowing full well that jet-lag will rear its sleepy head by early afternoon once again.  Tabor will then heat her homemade chili and cornbread and wait for her children and grandchildren to return to their house and enjoy having them, if only briefly, all together for dinner.

The following Monday holiday she will be babysitting all three little ones...a mind boggling, exhausting challenge as the littlest one now CRAWLS!  Hubby will pretend he is helping.  Then late in the day after the grandchildren's parents arrive home from work she and hubby will escape to the house in the woods and let them worry about their own dinner for a change.

What did you say you will be doing?

Ten+ Things I Learned

Vacations are learning experiences.

I learned that lighting, thunder, and hail will still turn me back from a high mountain hike to reach a silver lake even if I did see a moose dart into the distant underbrush.

I learned that salami, crackers and fresh fruit are wonderful when eaten in the fresh air and beside a rushing river.

I learned that the desert blooms year round in spite of its sparse reputation.

I learned that petroglyphs and pictographs are EVERYWHERE.  Early native Americans lived a pleasant life in this desert with lots of time for art.

I learned that booking a B&B might not mean what you think it means.  Ours was a re-modeled church in a small mining town and the breakfast was a serve-yourself across the street at the sister motel!

I learned that removing mud from vehicles can be a big business in a land with "off-roads" and lots of mining equipment.

I was reminded how dangerous floods are in the desert as we encountered several washed out roads.

I learned that getting a glass of wine or the odd margarita is harder than buffalo hunting in New York City.  This is Mormon country and, as one waitress said, "Getting a liquor license out here is impossible!"

I learned that the best enchilada and the best Margarita can be found way out in the desert at the Cafe Diablo in Torrey, Utah.

I learned that when the restaurant(s) say(s) the meal comes with scones...these are fresh and delicious products, but they are NOT scones.  They are what the rest of the world world calls a hole-less doughnut.

I learned that I am not too old to learn something new.

A Surprise

Upon my return from my 2.5 week sojourn I re-entered my domain with new energies and new eyes.  I saw that my windows truly needed some serious cleaning.  I have LOTS of windows, so this is no idle undertaking.  I started with the kitchen and living area since these are the ones with the views of the woods and water that I use the most.  Three glass doors and 11 windows of casement or sash!  (I have 27 windows or glass doors on the first floor alone and this is why, to date, I have not hired anyone to wash them.  I struggle through on my own spring and fall.  The sash ones tilt out and are very heavy, so my history of doing this on my own will reach a point in time where I have to ask for help.)

I looked up window cleaning solutions on the Internet, got a spray bottle, rags, paper towels and got busy.  I put something on the big screen TV to keep me from going insane with the 'wash on-wash off' nature of things.  Three hours later I had finished that part of the house.  As I went to close the last casement window above the kitchen sink, it refused to shut completely.  I tried opening and closing and after a few minutes I got up on a stool and saw that the cross hinge at the bottom was not attached to the window.  I worked for another 30 minutes trying to understand its dyslexia and even used some WD-40, but could not get it attached.  Another session of huge rains was starting, so I climbed down off the kitchen counter after closing the window as much as possible. 

That next morning I perused the yellow pages, the Internet, and Angie's list and found that my area is so nice and rural that window repair companies are less than a handful.  I picked the first and called at 8:30 AM.

"Hello?"  (He sounded like I had gotten him out of bed.)

"Um...do you repair window hinges?"

(short pause)...."yeah."

"I have an Eagle casement window that will not close."

"Um...where do you live?"

I gave him my address and he perked up a little.  "Oh good, that is just a mile from where I live.  I could get there in about an hour."

My antennae are already vibrating.  (An hour...does he not have any business  today?  He is so lazy he only works a mile from home?  He doesn't even identify his company when he answers the phone!)

He was intelligent enough to ask for my address before he hung up.

Well, he did finally arrive after about THREE hours knocking loudly instead of using the doorbell.  He was a 50 something overweight fellow accompanied by another young 30 something man with long hair who looked a lot like Colin Farrell.  Both were dressed casually, but at least clean and pleasant in demeanor.

"Do I have to take off my shoes?"  he asked standing in the doorway.

Tabor who has the spine of a worm looked at his heavy construction boots and said "Only if they are really dirty?" I really need to buy some hospital shoe covers.

She directed both of them to the kitchen and they began to test how my windows open and close.  As they proceeded, the older man asked the younger if he had a small screwdriver and the young man replied that it was in the van.  I provided a screwdriver from my took kit to avoid them tracking more dirt in and out of my house.  They also needed some wood glue, a small finishing nail and some pieces of wood...which I again provided from my handy took box which I had now placed on the kitchen counter.

They studied the identical working window beside the broken one and within minutes they had completed the repairs.  The younger man went out to the truck to get something and the older man turned to me and smiled and shrugged his shoulders sheepishly with his hands in the air.  "Well," he began, "Don't know what to charge you...Why don't you just give that young man something?"

That left me a little speechless.  I was expecting an invoice and a minimum of a $50 visit charge. 

I smiled  with a little guilt and took $20 (all the large cash I had left out of my wallet after my recent trip) and gave it to them. 

So now I guess I really do live in Mayberry or Our Town.

Now Do You Fell More Secure?

According to a recent Newsweek article the U.S. currently spends over 628 billion dollars on security since the tragedy of 9-11.  This money includes 3 billion for the airport body scanners and the necessary staffing for them over the years.

My recent return from Denver required me to use one of these scanners for the first time as I went through airport security.  This masterful technology designed to keep us safe is a glass (or plastic?) round booth and reminds me of those sound booths they used to have on quiz shows on television, except smaller.  I placed my feet about six inches apart on the stenciled footprints at the bottom of this booth and then the female security person asked that I put my hands above my head, as if I had a gun pointed at me.  The scanner moved around me in a complete circle giving me a dose of  "sub-dangerous' x-rays while someone gets an eye full of my 60+ year old body without the mask of clothes. I am sure she said to herself something like 'What great shape this old lady is in!'  I am guessing this because of what happened later.

After this was all completed she told me she had to run her hands over my abdomen, and she did, ever so gently and carefully, just like a lover.  (Maybe we are almost engaged now?)   I could not resist looking her in the eyes (an attractive 20 something) and saying softly, "I'll bet you just LOVE your job!"

She looked gently into my eyes and said "Yeah" and then grimaced slightly as she walked away.  I guess the romance is now over...so quickly these fickle 20-somethings back away when you try to take the relationship up a notch.

Still Spinning

Trying to slow down now that I am back home.  Bunch of deadline mailings, unpacking, laundry, shopping (since my fridge is still empty from the hurricane visit), emails, land line voice mails, fall stuff and I still have not found time to get outside and check the yard and potted plants.  I hope sometime soon to look at a calendar!

Also trying to get back into the rhythm of being at home.  I am still in rock and roll mode and home is operating on smooth jazz.  Hubby is leaving for a long trip in two days, so trying to get ready for that as well!

I like visiting my relatives every few years.  I do not look forward to it, but once I am there, I realize how important it is to keep in touch with them and how much I do love them with all their idiosyncratic behaviors.  It is so true that ageing hardens your habits and opinions to phobic behavior and I wonder if I appear the same way to them.  They are a mixed troop of conservatives, liberals, shoppers, do-it-yourselfers, rich, poor, hard workers, indoor and outdoor people.  Fortunately disagreements are kept to a minimum when they get together, so they would not make a good situation comedy on fall television.

Weather in Colorado and Utah was lovely with a little more rain than one expects in high desert country.  I took lots of great photos and I will share just a few.

I am still attempting to catch my emotional breath and absorb it all while I push through the errands and tasks of re-opening a house that has been closed for several weeks.  Greeted by a baby black snake at the garage door; just missed running over a tiny box turtle on the driveway; watched a ground-hog devour the clover in the front yard as I drank morning coffee; and am amazed at how many little spiders I keep finding in the corners and fabrics of my house.  It does not take long for the woods to take over once you are gone.  Downed fences and trees still remain for clean-up.

I have been able to catch up on about 60% of everyone's posts, but must admit I cannot finish it all...so if something important happened in your lives (that you want me to know about) let me know in your comments.  You are, after all, my other idiosyncratic family.

(Photo above was taken from my brother's mountain get-away in Colorado.)

Wrong party!

So I have returned and am getting ready to write a new post and find that I am getting a malware message on my site when I try to bring it up and then edit.  I have been told that I have a bad link from imagineomit.blogspot.com".  For some reason Google has flagged it and when I omitted my link to "Imagine" blog from Kenju, it seemed to work. At least I think it is now working and will only know when someone comments.  What on earth have you guys been doing while I was gone??

Solitary Creatures

Alone,
Hearing the sigh of air through the rooms of the house
Feeling the fall of the dust through the sunbeams
Creating the echo of a distant laugh from memory

No other soul to share this faint laughter
No other being to study my countenance
No other person to worry about my sloth

The day moves slowly with no rhythm
Just the length of the shadows skirting the lawn
To remind me of the passing time

Today's solitary activities create
No regrets or anxious goals to be met
or concerns for a different tomorrow

All is at last at an even keel
The balance of a perfect floating bubble
And this I will treasure for the whole of time.

(Oddly enough, this was written before the adventurous weather ride we recently took...perhaps created due to the prior drop in air pressure on my brain, you can see I was in a very different state of mind before the storm.)

Planes, and Trains and Ferris Wheels

I have no idea what the title of this post means...just sounded nice in my mind.  Beginning travel in a few days and not sure if I will have Internet access.  Might be good for me to just deal for a while.

At Last

Power came back on yesterday.  Almost 4 complete days without water and electricity and the loss of hundreds of dollars in food and I am still not complaining...although slowly becoming exhausted.  We brought the Princess (my 4-year-old granddaughter) down here yesterday and she was forced to entertain herself much of the time while I washed out the refrigerator/ freezer and the chest freezer.  The positive side is that both of these fancy appliances are now sparkling clean even if  mostly empty.  We had dragged the old Grumman canoe up into the back yard and tied it to one of the stronger trees.  Hubby left it upright so that the rain filling it would also stabilize it.  That also meant we had lots of water for flushing toilets, rinsing off and washing stuff since we are on a well and there is not water when the water pump is off.

We had also filled several large camping containers for drinking water, although we had enough bottled water to get us through those days.  Two of the days we stayed up at my daughters because she needed someone to watch the little girl while everyone was plugged into jobs and summer camps and that allowed me some computer access.

I think I missed the Blogging and FB and photo access the most.  I will be honest enough to admit that.

There are homes across the big road toward the ocean side that have been completely destroyed by large trees and falling debris.  Some will have to be gutted and completely re-built, so I cannot complain about the inconvenience of the loss of some electricity on my part.

I look around at a house filled with crunchy leaves since a carpet of dead and dying leaves covers all the entry ways and keeps getting dragged inside.  The spiders have recovered the most, as they seem to do after every storm.  There are many large and small ones tucked against window screens and eaves.  I am too tired to move the webs.  Hubby got a new Husqvarna chain saw out of this storm, and he is having fun cutting wood, some of which will go to neighbors who want it and some to the landfill.

I am warmed by all the comments from readers of this blog.  Like good neighbors, you were concerned and had kind words.  May your days be filled with sunny and calm weather.

Two photos

 This old cherry was dying little by little and now with a push from the storm seems to have just missed that budget arbor we put in.

Here are three of our neighbors who came by to help and get that big tree cut into movable pieces so that we could get out of the driveway!

Whoosh...

I am putting it off as long as I can.  This morning was filled with hot and sweaty work outside.  Lots of lifting and carrying and putting in piles made me sweaty and thirsty.  Now I have come inside and opened the fridge for the very last time in heaven only knows how many days to take out the cool ice tea pitcher and finish it off.

The yard looks like an elephant herd was frightened down the street and took a detour past the house and through both sides of the yard.  The only things that do not seem disturbed are the birds and butterflies who have continued their sugar collecting even before the sun broke through the clouds today.   HUGE and small trees are down everywhere and it is a miracle that the house, shed, boat and dock were spared.

I am writing now on a laptop with a waning battery and am writing this post in MSWord as there is no electricity in the neighborhood, and I hope to post it at my daughter’s house.  Rumor has it that 80% of the county is without electricity due to some major power station router being down.  A man up the road who has a tree on his house and works for the electric company said we might get power by 9:00 this evening.  I doubt  it.  I am not complaining because the temp will not break 80 F for the next few days and I do not have large trees resting on my house as those who live on the Bay and elsewhere seem to have experienced.  There were emergency calls about once a minute to the local fire station last night.  (My neighbor, the lottery winner, volunteers as an EMT, and she has had no sleep all night according to her husband.)

I had promised to take my granddaughter down here this week to care for as she has no school or camp…but it looks like we will be spending the week up at her house.  I am putting off opening the chest freezer and emptying the contents into a cooler to take up the daughter’s house where there is electricity.  It seems like such a long and dreadful project, and I am debating whether to complete a wash/cloth bath before or after.  We are on a well and that means no water can be pumped to the house, so everything is done using the water we have set aside.  I have so much food from the garden that will have to be tossed away.

When I return here at the end of the week I have only a weekend left to pack for a two-week trip, and if there is still no electricity, this could be a bigger project than I wanted.  I will empty the fridge, the freezer, and try to check off my list the things that have to be done when one is gone for two weeks to a place far away.  It will be a job with many small errands and projects and I am fighting a chest cold which drains all my energy reserves.  My adult kids want to join us for the next weekend prior to departure, but I am NOT cooking anything while they are here.  Seems reasonable to me?  Either we BBQ or eat out.

At least, with the neighbor’s help we have cleared the driveway of a 16-18 inch diameter poplar and tons and tons of leaves and branches. It is a long drive this evening up to my daughter's house past many black or yellow blinking traffic lights, dark houses, and darker stores.

Checklist

Let's see:

1. Front yard is a lake
2. There is actually a groundhog eating clover in the front yard in the torrential downpour!
3. Back yard is a lake
4. Dining room table has the weather radio with new batteries
5. Dining  room table has electric camp lantern
6. Bedroom in the basement which has never been used has fresh linens on the bed and is where we will ride this storm out due to danger of falling trees.
7. Ice chest has ice and a few bits of food taken from fridge
8. We have all the plastic camp containers filled with water for toilets and washing
9. We have a large plastic tub outside filled with water
10. Boat is on a trailer and parked in the neighborhood turnaround
11. Canoe and kayak have been moved to high ground
12. All patio furniture and light stuff have been moved to safety
13. I am hoping all this prep means all of us, including you, will be able to ride this one out safely and successfully!

Lighting is flickering...so a I am posting NOW!

1,001!

I just noticed that my last post on this blog was the 1,000th.  Quite the journalistic diarrhea I have going on here.  I didn't notice or I would have made greater use of the milestone.  Certainly it was worth a poem, but it appears that both you and I dodged that bullet.

This week I am breathing and eating slowly and catching up on all those murder mysteries that I missed watching when my grandson was here.  I did get him introduced to the Narnia series and now have purchased two other DVDs for when he returns for a few days this fall.

While I was breathing like a yoga instructor and sitting in front of the computer upstairs the house began to sway and jerk.  I did have a small glass of wine at the computer, but I knew it was not that, and instead, hopped like a crazy bunny outside.  I could see the bird feeders swinging dramatically from side to side in the back yard and I waited outside at least ten minutes before going back inside.  I am alone this week as hubby is on a business trip.  I figure I would not be found beneath the rubble for days!  5.8 on the earthquake scale and the largest since 100 years ago.  Everyone up and down the East Coast felt it.

I walked carefully around the house when I got back inside and found only one broken wine glass that had been hanging in the rack beneath the cupboard.  It seems that Colorado got a similar earthquake just a short while ago.  Here in the East we rarely get quakes, so they can be very startling.  Mother earth is settling down after all the water, oil, gas, and shale we have been taking from her layers.

Next week I get the 4-year-old girl for a week.  She is much more clingy and far less in love with the great outdoors  Maybe baking, making cookies, tea parties...!  Then we are off to Colorado and Utah for two weeks.  I will be taking the laptop and hoping to post and looking forward to some dramatic scenery to preserve with my camera.  I sure hope what I have to write about is of more significance and readability than these last few weeks.  I just need some Rocky Mountain air as my gray matter has been very sluggish these days.

Honestly, how honest.

As a grandmother on 24/7 duty this week, I do not have time to post anything!  So go to Bob Brady's    post here   and get an uplifting news story...better than anything we have managed to report on here in America.

Something Good

The morning has been washed with last night's rain and the air is cooler than it has been in almost a month.  One might actually think that autumn is waiting somewhat impatiently in the wings.  I am sitting out on the deck with beach towel covered chairs watching my grandson build animals from "play doh".  Towels keep the dampness from our legs.

Due to summer scheduling my grandson has no where to go this week, so we are attempting to provide some activities that can compete with the activity filled summer camps he has been attending since regular school was out.  Parents who both work spend hours in the spring signing their children up for this and that greatly enhanced babysitting service that can safely and expensively keep children occupied.

Weather has generously decided to be on our side this week and it does not look like we will have to spend hours indoors...as the week heats up again, we will see.

In the background I hear our little water fountain gurgling away on the patio below, my grandson is humming to himself ( a sure sign he is involved in something he enjoys), and the sea gulls are laughing back and forth across the river.  High in the wet tree leaves some bird is singing a joyful song with several movements.  As I type these words a hummingbird graces us with his presence, hovering at the edge of the patio umbrella and checking out our activities, adding another layer of perfection to the morning.

Then my grandson decides to share his latest escapade with Mario and Bowser (do not ask) and it takes some lengthy repetitive telling to reach the end of the story, which after twenty minutes he never actually ends, just stops talking from exhaustion and a need to visit the bathroom.  I realize that no one has probably ever listened to him for twenty minutes any time recently, and I ask questions and add comments, pretending this is the most amazing conversation I have had in days  Being a former teacher, I realize that allowing him to expound is good development towards future communication.  He does not have all of my attention, because I am distracted by the joy in his face and the twinkle in his eyes.

Mornings like these I pause in thankfulness for the reward, and like Julie Andrews, I keep thinking I must have done something good.  ( I do not even mind that my coffee has grown cold.)

Silence

She is tapping away on the keys to her laptop thanking someone who commented on her photo on the photo site where she adds to her collection.  She is distracted by the praise to her immature talent.  The TV has suddenly become so quiet and she raises her eyes to see what is wrong. It is not the TV.  PBS is honoring on the TV screen the 30 precious soldiers that were killed when their helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan.  The faces in the photos are young and handsome and full of generous smiles and hopeful eyes.  They are dedicated to changing the world with bravery and finely honed skills.  The photos were taken when they had many years of living still ahead of them.  In a fiery instant their lives ended over a desert in smoke and sand.  Their skills were abruptly dissolved in the blink of an eye.

I thank them for their huge sacrifice, but I regret that their contribution to peace on this planet was halted so abruptly and I pray (to whatever super power that may be) that this will all end someday very, very soon so that young skilled and talented men can make their contribution in a war less world.

Married Over 40 Years...Who Knew?

My grandchildren are blessed with more than any child needs.  They are being raised by responsible parents who help them develop a good value system, but they still get a large amount of whatever they want.  I asked daughter what to get my little gal who will turn 4.  She suggested two Barbie videos which I ordered over the net.

One arrived before our trip and the next after we got back.  The second one was "Barbie and the Diamond Castle" in case you were interested and are still reading this post.  It arrived with a rattle and when I opened the package I discovered the case lock had been broken and was rattling around inside.  I looked at the DVD and saw it looked scratched on edge in several places.  Therefore, I had to run it to make sure it was not damaged.  An hour of  watching lovely princess types with perfect flowing hair and perfectly fitted clothes sing and dance their way through life is much more than I can handle, so I put it on and ran it in the background while I went upstairs to work on photos.  I could hear if it was working correctly from there.

About 40 minutes later I wandered down the stairs to get something to drink and saw my husband sitting on the sofa, watching the animated feature...watching...really... I was speechless and like a good sport, I did not say a word!  I did drop a hint on FB...;-)

Into the Middle of the Vacation Week

I have never been a heavy sleeper and even less so as I age unless my day has been particularly stressful.  Seems that catching a 4-year-old diving from the pools  edge 500 times in an afternoon is not that stressful, because here it is 3:30 in the morning and I am awake and sitting in the living room of our vacation apartment on my PC.  I woke up for no reason and after a brief trip to the bathroom noticed that granddaughter was sleeping sideways with her feet in grandson's stomach.  I gently straightened her out and feeling wide-awake decided not to return to hubby's side and his gentle snores.

Ten minutes ago as I sat here reading blogs, my 6-year-old grandson stumbled bleary-eyed into the room complaining of a bad dream.  I put the laptop on the table and he crawled into my arms.  His sun-browned body is all boney joints and sharp angles but I cuddled for a brief time before carrying the heavy body back to bed and tucking him in.

It is now 5:30 and I am craving some coffee but hesitate to make it afraid the smell might wake up my daughter who is STILL feeding the 4 month old once or twice at night.  She has tried for three weeks to get him to sleep through until early morning and his crying does not abate.  So she has given up on that effort (she is breast feeding).  He starts on cereal soon, so that might allow her to get more sleep.  She returns to work full time this Monday!  When they were talking about how hard pioneer women had to work, I think about how we haven't really changed that effort.  Less physical but now mothers' days are just as long with more stuff to do.

This week has been fun and well-paced and except for the unbearable heat and humidity, a memorable one.  It is always stressful to cram a family with three children and grandparents into a two-bedroom unit, but we have managed to avoid arguments or stonewalling...except on the part of the 4-year-old who's determined spirit may out do us all.

Two more days of swimming, beaching, mini-golf, shuffleboard, walking, eating, board games and DVDs of Barbie, and then I return to the life of the retired and begin to research how that other group of spirited children (those in D.C.) have begun to destroy my carefully planned and saved for retirement.  I glanced at a headline that indicated Wall Street was not thrilled with debt ceiling compromise and has stamped its foot at least once already.

The First Night

It is three in the morning in a dark bedroom and I am on my knees with my face almost to the carpet.  This is not an EAT=PRAY=LOVE moment as I am not praying...at least not formally.   I am trying to get the courage to run my hand under the edge of the darkness of the bed.  I have looked against the grayness of the sheets and all around the floor with no luck.

There is a little four-year-old whimpering quietly in my nearby bed.  She has lost her 'doggie,'  The bright pink one with the rip in its' bottom that was placed ever so carefully in her arms earlier when she was tucked in bed next to her 6-year-old brother.

Suddenly the young boy sits straight up in bed as if awakened by my gentle search.  I recognize his Elmo doll on the pillow between him and his sister.  But, I see he has something in his arms as he stares across the room.  I reach over and grab the Elmo and take the small dog from his arms and thrust Elmo in his arms and gently push him back down on the bed.  Hubby comes out of the bathroom and I whisper that he has to sleep with his grandson as granddaughter has taken his place in my bed.  I hand her the doggie and slip in beside her.  She is in heaven.  She has her doggie and she gets to snuggle with Neena. I am going to try to fall asleep once again before the sun.

Thus goes our first night of vacation.  Grandkids = 2 and grandparents =0

Will She Return?

I am leaving in two days for a 10 hour trip with a car full of toddlers (with colds) and more STUFF than any human deserves or needs...although 95% of the stuff is not mine.  I have been told I am NOT allowed to bring ANY food...so shopping will be a priority at the other end, or standing in long lines in restaurants!  I will be gone more than a week and we will celebrate at least two birthdays.

If I never return here to post again, you will be left with the mystery of wondering what happened to me.  If you come across some old lady toes sticking out of the beach sand on your next vacation, that might be a clue.

Dining with a Closed Mind or Where Do You Sit (fit)?

I somehow got on this dining memory streak and because the writing muse has totally gone on a long vacation deep into the heart of some black hole, I will have to go with whatever memory string hangs loose in front of me and create a weave of a story from that.  Wow.  Enough mixed metaphors for you?

Lets go back to Guam for this dining memory.  I was in my early twenties and full of career-minded visions.  I was working in a vocational school for young adults from the islands and a conference or meeting or something resulted in my trip to Guam.  I was living on a small island and flew out with one of the other teachers...a young Micronesian man.  I cannot even remember what he taught.  He was handsome and friendly and intelligent...looked a little like Benjamin Bratt except he was shorter.  I was happily and newly married, so our travel together was strictly professional.  We were staying at the same hotel and although he was attending a different meeting that day, we decided to have dinner together at the end of the day.  As I look back on this it was probably my idea and he felt guilty letting me dine alone and accepted.

I do not remember how we selected the restaurant or even if we got there in a rental car.  I remember that I was on some normal school girl planet and looked forward to eating a nice meal at the end of the day without another stray thought in my brain.  As we entered the restaurant, I noticed subconsciously that my dining companion was acting a little odd.  I could not put my finger on it, but I sensed something out of sync as we were shown to our table.  He seemed ill at ease, and I, being the sophisticated married worldly gal, was concentrating on making small talk and smiling and trying to get him to relax.  I thought, naively and egotistically, that he was just impressed with dining with an attractive woman his age, and concerned he didn't do anything stupid.  I knew that many of these 'local' teachers probably did not get to eat out often.

The meal moved on, but there was still an oddness about the stiffness of his behavior.  Mid-way he accidentally knocked a piece of silverware onto the floor.  I winced, hoping it would not mortify him even more, because this sort of thing could happen to anyone.  But, as he leaned over to pick it up I noticed two young men at a nearby table looking our way and chuckling with what appeared to be derision.  Instantly, little miss attractive, got her brain in gear and a casual look around the restaurant revealed several couples and others (about 25%) staring at us with what was clearly rude condescension and/or reproach barely hidden.  It was the first but not the last time I would be exposed to racism in all its subtle ugliness.  But it was one of the few times I would find the derision directed at me and someone I was with.

We finished our meal and returned to our rooms.  I did not talk about it.  I think I was too young to try an intelligent conversation and I am thinking he was more than relieved for me to forget the whole incident.

I rarely have to keep my radar up as a middle class "whitie."  I think it must be a real energy drain to always be compelled to have your radar running.