Milestones

This is close to La La Land.

Many years ago when my sister was in her early 40's, she contracted skin cancer and lost the battle against it after only a few months. She lived on the other side of the country and our correspondence was by sporadic phone calls and emails.   The expertise of the staff of a major Los Angeles hospital was not smart enough nor quick enough to save her life.  I flew out to be with her for a few days in the middle of her battle.  When she passed she left behind a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl soon to turn 13 and their Dad.  These two children grew up into beautiful, stable, and sweet adults through some miracle of good parenting and good genes and damn luck.

This weekend I flew out again to attend the wedding of the young man, my nephew.  We were there for only 2 and half days and it was very emotional...more so than weddings are normally emotional for me.  I left the rain-filled skies here in the Mid-Atlantic for the sun-filled skies of Southern California.  

Southern California where real estate prices START in the very high six figures and never seem to end.  This little gray house in the background was worth a couple of million!

This was a special trip for me since I had not had a chance to see my niece and nephew for many years as their careers took them away from the places where I visited their father.  

The wedding was small, semi-formal, and was a chance for me to see my other brother and sister briefly as well.

It was both a tough and terrific time for me and I am so glad I did not miss it.  

Now I am back home and returning to normal---my version of normal that is.

Missing

"The Health and Human Services Department has a limited budget to track the welfare of vulnerable unaccompanied minors, and realized that 1,475 children could not be found after making follow-up calls to check on their safety, an agency official said."--- Time Magazine.   The richest, most powerful country in the world cannot keep track of the children that they make into orphans by removing them from their parents at the border.  OK.  Let us put this in "perspective".

According to the FBI's National Crime Information Center Missing Person File, 36.5% or approximately 32, 121 that are missing are humans under the age of 18.  Of course, these children were not the responsibility of the Federal Departments nor was their separation from their parents an action by the government.  Data indicates that 90% of these are runaways.
The European Commission reports that 250 000 children are reported missing every year in the European Union, 1 child every 2 minutes.  Runaways account for 57% percent of EU missing children.  23% were parental abductions.

The Internet has been a tool for luring children away, but it also has been a tool for finding them.  Cell phones owned by children have been important in finding children who just get lost.  We cannot blame it on technology.

Did the immigrant children go to a relative who is hiding them?  Were they taken in by a foster family that is evil?  Did the children run away in confusion and fear and are sleeping in the desert or the sidewalk?  Is this part of a sex slave network?

I saw the movie Lion based on a true story a year ago and was deeply moved by the overpopulation and poverty in India that created a culture where children were treated like lost dogs.  

I just wish we would fight for the rights of the born as much as we fight for the unborn.

Abstraction and Distraction

The Laughing Tree

I have been watching the National Geographic series Genius. Last year it was about Einstein. This year it is about Picasso. The style of storytelling these days, whether in books or video, is to jump back and forth along the timeline. You reveal a little something in the present and then you go back in time and explain how it came about. While it does add tension and even works for the writer sometimes, I am not as in love with it to the extent that the popular culture seems to be.

I am also not a fan of contemporary and/or abstract art. Moving into the impressionist period was as far as my interest would take me. But I have always loved the work of Picasso and admired his creative and evolutionary talent for his time:  misogynist pig that he was in his personal life. In his blue period, he conveyed such a depth of misery with each painting. In his cubist period, his works invited a more intense study as they slowly revealed an edginess and a novelty and an energy in the inanimate.

His life was very complex, so I am not sure that Nat-Geo has been as accurate as it could be. It glosses over so much and leaves one wondering why and what impact something had.

The casting of Antonio Banderas as Picasso is effective. He has those dark Spanish button eyes that Picasso had.  If you study his interviews you will see that he has much the same passion and devotion and openness in his real life that Picasso had.  Banderas is an underrated actor. The Thirteenth Warrior is one of my favorite movies that he did even though it received mediocre reviews. It is moody, heavy, and slow, with a little too much blood and guts, but full of atmosphere and a wonderful musical score. He is very compelling as the warrior.  

OK, just a review of what has taken up my time, because of the days of rain, I spent too much time in front of the television, on the other hand, my house is pretty clean.

Subdued Holidays

Hoping you had a nice Mother's Day if you are a mother. I am not super comfortable with this holiday because I do have friends and relatives that lost their mother when they were very young, early teens or one in college. For those who have gone through this tragedy, it may bring up days of sweet memories and for others a deep longing for all that they missed. I will be attending the wedding of a young man that lost his mother when he was about ten. He lives on the other side of the country and I do not get to see him as much as I would like.

My daughter-in-law has recently learned that she will probably not be able to have children and her sister learned the same fate years ago.  They both married later in their lives which complicates things.  I think they have both decided not to try adoption, so it appears her parents will never have the joy of grandkids, and they are special people and would have made wonderful grandparents.

This Mother's Day, while special for many, carries baggage for me.  I had a complicated relationship with my Mother.  She was judgemental and overworked and angry much of the time.  I understand it all now but did not when I was a young girl which she burdened and guilted with chores. 

I got a call from my distant son late that evening (certainly prompted by his wife) and nothing from my busy daughter who is a very wonderful mother in her own right.  But they know I would not guilt them about their actions or inactions on this day.  We love each other with or without holidays to remind us.

Anyway, for those who have children, I hope your day was filled with attention and honor by those you worked so hard to raise.

Where Have You Been?

I am impressed (while perhaps not motivated) to find bloggers keeping up their posts in the spring season.  I am compelled and even guilted into being outside most of the time.  There is dirt under my fingernails, those that are still undamaged, and dirt between my toes and some even on my face.  The weeding is endless this time of year.  The dead zones due to winter harshness have been discovered and new perennials have to be placed in those black holes, either from the division of overgrown perennials or shopping for something new.  An entire hedge of pyracantha is looking awful as are we from pruning the deadwood and bloodily fighting the thorns. 

There is also a rather large gray rabbit who is fearless and makes me break into an aerobic run each morning across the lawn.  (I am trying to protect my sunflowers and zinnias!)  He clearly finds my gallumping in slippers mildly amusing.  Where are those two foxes when you need them?

Needless to say, this is NOT the rabbit in my yard.

My Master Gardeners group is in high gear with endless projects, plant sales, and interns to interview.  Gardeners are a distinctly high energy group in the spring.  It is as if they have been revving their engines all winter and spend time arguing about whether a plant is an invasive, a native healthy spreader or a weed before they price it.

April was also the month of birthdays (two grandsons and a daughter) and with gifts to buy there was also a girl's weekend getaway to cram into two days.  I do not use the word "girl's" loosely as both that went with me were in their 40's.  I do not consider myself a girl.  That weekend was mercurial with coolish rains, spring warming sun and fluctuating temps that required on-again off-again jackets.  The only hard plans were staying at a B&B winery/distillery which was a gift to my daughter as she could enjoy the tastings and not worry about driving as I hate the driving part of any adventure.

I learned that I am too old to taste various hard ciders at noon and then hit a free distillery tasting before dinner.  I did sip the lavender gin from my daughter's glass and the cinnamon rum! 

This was followed the next day by a visit to her favorite creamery-dairy farm where we were able to sample the ice cream, pet the cows and photograph a curious alpaca.  

Then in the afternoon was a tour of a historic mansion and talking to several weavers and admiring their work.  The next morning, we took in the antique shops on the antique row for my daughter-in-law where I bought a few gifts and two "whimsical" vases.  

This is the genre of activities that transforms the males in my life into zombies, so we were relieved to just meander and do low-pressure stuff.

Today I have lots of housework which I have ignored forever.  So where have you been while I was away?

An Opportunity for You to Express Yourself

One spring somewhere in Utah.

My days are so full of gardening and planning a weekend get-away with my daughter and daughter-in-law to celebrate their two birthdays, that I hardly have time to slow down and blog.  So, I am going to use a "writing prompt" to get some creative juices flowing and also offer you an opportunity to participate in the comments below. Come on...take a chance.  If you want to write a longer response...just invite us on over to your blog.

Here is the challenge:

"In this world when you turn 18 you are sent an envelope with the name of one person on the planet that you must meet and get to know. Who is your person? How do you meet? What happens next?"

Since the list of those I might want to meet is so long I am going to qualify the challenge and say they must be living today.

I narrowed my consideration further by including women only for consideration since men have had all the breaks for hundreds of years in history.

I want someone not too quippy because I am 18 and going to pick their brain on important decisions in life and mistakes they have learned from. I will ask the most important thing they have learned. I will ask the most important relationships that they have made in their lives. I will ask what they say "no" to on many days. I will ask them about their most important success. I will ask them what they wish they could do over. I will ask them about their relationship with a higher being or what they use for spiritual guidance. I will ask if they think one can be successful in love and what are the keys to that. I will ask them what second career might they wish they could have followed.  I will ask them what keeps them centered on their most difficult days.

How do we meet?  Well, maybe I win some contest.  We would meet on a hike to a mountain lodge or a walk to a cabin on a lake. NO one else, just the two of us stuck together for most of the day.

What happens next?   This would be a challenge for me to try and apply some of what I learned to my own future career, marriage, and decisions on life in general. I would also hope we could keep in touch over the years ahead.

Oh,  you want to know who I selected?  Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  No special reason as there were many authors, journalists, political leaders that I could have considered, and since she has her own exercise program I am guessing we could handle that gentle mountain walk.  Perhaps a spring walk in Utah?

Now, your turn...if you like.

One Word Summary?

The last few days, if you follow our President,  you will have heard news about about peeing, prostitutes in an industry in which Russia seems to have the most beautiful if you listen to misogynist pigs such as Putin, and almost everything else being fake news  and witch hunts (notice how everything bad is either dark or female?). But, if you follow the real news you will learn a First Lady has died. She did not get enough credit when alive, and while I disagreed with her politics, she was an honest and strong person and loyal to family. She lost a small child when she was young, was a military wife with all of the sacrifices that entailed, took on the thankless role of First Lady, listened to others say awful things about her sons who ran for office, and while a white privileged mother, still paid her dues.  I have heard several times in the news that she was known as the "Enforcer."

This got me thinking about my life.  What if I died this year?  Would there be one word that came to the mind of those that knew me?  I was hoping it would be "loyal",  but it could be "loudmouthed,"  or "uncommunicative" or "over-organized"  or "opinionated" or possibly "emotional." 

What would be the word that you think you should be remembered by and is that the same word that others would use?

Curiouser and Curiouser

"I needed to compose you one little bit of observation to be able to give thanks again for those striking strategies you've shared above. It was certainly pretty open-handed of you to offer publicly exactly what most people might have marketed as an electronic book to make some profit for themselves, even more so considering that you could have tried it if you ever considered necessary. The secrets in addition acted like a good way to comprehend the rest have similar zeal like my very own to realize significantly more with regard to this issue. I'm certain there are thousands of more fun moments ahead for those who find out your site. holiday ideas on." (This was followed by a link to the blog.)

I allow immediate comments on this blog because I  usually am able to read them at that time.  After a week I have set my blog to prevent comments from being  published until I give approval as this is usually the time a "bot" or spam blogger posts something in the comments section.  

This comment in quotes above was left on one of  my posts.  One would think "they" could write some routine post that at least makes enough sense to  make me curious to go to the link they add to  their blog.  This must have been written by a computer.  Strange....

I Knew That Already

I use Facebook more than many people do, but I do not judge those who will have nothing to do with this social networking site,  like my husband. I like to keep in touch with friends who live hundreds of miles away. I am somewhat restrictive in my criteria for accepting FB friends and I have written about that before. I usually like to at least have met the person. I have made a few exceptions. In one case the person and I grew close through blogs and the person also had a terrible illness which at least restricted travel on their part. We were probably destined never to meet in real life. In another instance, one of my close relatives was going through a difficult time and one of her colleagues asked to become my friend on FB. I accepted that just to be able to see how my close relative might be doing from another's perspective without actually discussing it! 

I know exactly how many friends I have on FB.  I keep it as close to 100 as I can.  I have very few FB friends here in my community, but I do have a few.  I am very political on FB.

I have not answered friend requests from a few co-workers that I did not become close to when we worked together or that I thought were not generally "nice" people. My judgment---my call, and I am sure others might just judge me the same way.

I have lost only one friend over the decade or so and this was a distant relative who could not stand my political postings.  He 'unfriended' me.  It was sad because he would post "photos" of the "rape" of the Ambassador in the Benghazi debacle and other questionable links.  The photos were not true and violent and fed his conservative fire, and I never pointed out that sources are essential when attempting to post facts.  I let him post what he wanted.  He was young, an ex-marine and a gun-lover.  He had lots of problems with romance in his life, lost his access to his toddler daughter due to his anger, and this was and is sad.  We had a few attempts at face-to-face conversations on his goals and direction in life, but you cannot change the spots on some leopards.  He had been a great marine, which is a structure many people need and his life stalled a little after he left.

Now to the title.  I know that the 'world' knows all of this about me.  I have taken a few of those quizzes, so they know my exercise, food, personality, travel preferences, and my habits and my spending profile.  I did not take many because I realized this data was being compiled elsewhere.  ( I was not smart enough to think about the Russians, but I did think about Pakistan and ID theft.)

I downloaded my FB archive today and it is a surprising history walk, because we do forget the intimate conversations we might have with others.  I am glad that at least others are aware of this.  Elders have less to lose in terms of information compromised, but just as much to lose in terms of ID theft.  

If you have bought anything on the Internet outside of FB, they also have your data.  I have been informed by Target, Office of Management and Budget, Experian, and some others that my data has been stolen which is more than a credit card number.  So let us all blame that shy, awkward nerd, Zuckerberg and ignore all those millionaire CEO's that are storing their money overseas while selling out data to others or at the very least being lazy in keeping it safe.

Four in the Morning

This is actually a sunset and not a sunrise

As many who are retired with no little ones or pets to demand time in a morning schedule,  I have a pretty regular morning routine. My sleep patterns are the most dyslexic. I sleep until 7-ish about three mornings a week and sleep until 4:20 something about four mornings a week. I sometimes take a nap on those days to catch up.   There does not seem to be any reason for my insomnia as it occurs those early mornings when I have been mulling a problem the day before as well as on mornings when I have been pleasantly busy the day before!  Although lately, it seems more coordinated with a full moon(?)?

While up I would love to finish that load of laundry or clean the bathrooms or vacuum (as this is the time of day when I have energy); hubby is sleeping (like  a hibernating bear) and I am polite.  Instead I make my coffee and do the following:

Sip that coffee and check outside in the dark through the porch light to see what might be happening (usually not much)
Check out Facebook (sometimes a fun trip and sometimes a bit disappointing)
Glance at the Google news and then read a bit of the digital New York Times
Do the mini-crossword puzzle from the New York Times (never brave enough to do the real puzzle)
Check my photography website looking for sales or comments
Take a digital class or two from the Great Courses subjects I have downloaded (How  to Boost Physical and Mental Energy, Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft, Introduction to Water Coloring, English in America: A Linguistic History, Everything Gourmet: Recovering the Lost Art of Cooking---Some I have competed and am re-watching these videos just for fun and memory.)
Listen with earphones to a program from the BBC In Our Time  (probably one of the jewels of the Internet)
and then finally read blogs and write on my own blog.

Today I discovered that the author Malcolm Gladwell has a podcast so I am subscribing to that to fill future time.

I am not sharing this to impress you on the industriousness of my mind or to reveal that I might be a bit of a culture nerd or even to show that I am not as empty-minded as one might think...because I am an elder and no longer care about what people think.  I am just sharing to be sharing.

All of this in the hours before the sun comes up.  What do you do on an early morning when you cannot get out and about?

The Whole 5 Yards

With a passion for gardening, we ordered a truck of that Leafgro that I wrote about in the prior post. We have a good-sized vegetable garden and I have to tend about seven various sized flower beds, the rest we sprinkle on our pathetic lawn which is really just an effort to control erosion.

Below is what half of 5 yards looks like.  (Our garden helpers are weeks away, so much of this work we have to do ourselves....sigh.)   ($200 and we will use it all.)

We are about 70% done. Since I have company next week, I want all of the chores out of the way so  I can play.

This is where it goes:

I had to do lots of weeding, some perennial dividing, etc. prior to topping the beds  with the humus and after several days I am DONE with this work. Right now, I just want an afternoon bath and a book!

But I do get a reward and some photos with which to play.

I have written before about this germander speedwell that snuck into a pot of something I was planting so many years ago and since it looks so lovely in the spring I have let it wander.  It is a polite wanderer.  It is also called Catseyes or bird's eye speedwell and we have the wild version  roaming in our lawn.  The wild version has fewer and paler flowers.

Humus with One M.

Do not scroll down through this post. Yes, it is boring and maybe repetitive for some of you, but the next time you feel helpless in fixing this old planet, you now have one tool below.

My state is making an effort to improve the way we deal with waste. We are composting (turning organic material into soil conditioner instead of waste) big time! And, because you may have a busier life than I, I am going to take you on this selective tour with Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists on this cold day.

First, we got a slide show and a brief intro. This man loves his job and these "Masters" were serious enough to take notes.

This facility has a potential for 200 acres but is currently only using 40. They produce two kinds of humus. That compost which is made just from leaves, branches and grass clippings and a second process from plant material and from human food wastes. They are marketed as Leafgro and Leafgro Gold. They accept truckloads from all over the contiguous counties and charge a fee to leave waste. No plastic, ceramic, tissue, styrofoam, diapers, foil or glass is accepted, although bits and pieces do sneak in.

There are rows and rows of this compost in various stages of decomposition.  

The plastic that sneaks in is filtered at the very end.

There was only the odor of freshly chopped wood and garden mulch.  On warmer days the smells may be stronger.  We did have to be careful where we walked as there were some pretty muddy areas.

They were moving into a more technological approach by covering the rows with a permeable long-lasting fabric and then pumping air to control temperature and oxygen levels for the breakdown.

There are environmental companies that pick up the produce and plant materials from stores and restaurants.  This man below had more customers than he could handle and delivered from some of the finest restaurants in D.C. since this facility accepted raw meat!  He had to pay a fee to deposit these materials but still turned a profit from the retailers' fee he collected.

This material was immediately covered by the bulldozer with several feet of plant materials and that insured that no rodents or animals came in.

And for us gardeners, we were drooling over the final product...black gold.  They sold everything they produced and always had a waiting list.  They sold directly as well as through over a dozen retail outlets that sold both in small bags and by the truck!  There was a sliding scale and I cannot remember the price, but it was reasonable.

Now some of my readers may have no interest in this process or resulting product, but you cannot tell me you are uninterested in much smaller landfills, much less pollution, and a healthier environment!  (Don't I take you to the best places?)

The Best Places to Be In

Spring has sprung and so have most of my ligaments. I spent hours weeding and cutting away perennials on my knees in wet soil. My roses never got their late winter cutback and now they are 4 feet high.  

Then there is the danger after taking a warm shower to sit down for an hour or so and go through emails. On these days I need a crane to get me off the couch when all the joints have joined in protest against moving ever again.

A pod from my gardenia.

I have spent much time going through expired packs of seeds and scolding myself for not throwing them all out or even to sprinkle in an area of soft soil, and thus, giving them a fair chance to rally. I also collect seeds in the fall and sometimes I am good about labeling and stratifying and or keeping in sealed containers, but other times they end up in an unmarked envelope and then leak all over the plastic shoe box in which I keep my seeds.  80% will most likely never germinate.  I faithfully gather black plastic seedling flats and fill with seed soil and place on a warming pad under a grow light and try to talk them into emerging.

I learned that pea and bean type seeds can be shocked with very, very warm water for a minute and they will germinate more rapidly when planted.  That is my experiment with my hyacinth bean this year...we shall see.

This week I took a tour of a magical composting facility which is too good to not have a post all its own.  By hanging out with gardeners and farmers I get into some of the very best places!

A Talk About Home Away from Home

We were lucky in that we had time for a quick lunch at the airport before boarding for our lengthy second flight due to the layover in Charlotte. Of course, we landed at one concourse and had to make our way to the end of another. The people traffic was reasonable which made it easier to navigate and work around the people treadmill.

You may not know this, but airlines new move is to not only charge for the class of assigned seats but they now charge for boarding times! I think for $14 we could board before others, and we passed on that just because it seemed so stupid and mean!  Thus we boarded near the last and overhead bins were getting full, and it was harder to get around large knees in the aisle, and stewards and stewardesses were cheering us on to get seated as fast as possible, etc. 

We had an aisle and a middle seat. I almost always get stuck in the middle. The window seat had not been filled, but we put our stuff away and sat. I reset the air fan and turned on the reading light and thumbed through the airline magazine (pretending it was not full of germs) which contained articles on local restaurants, local tourist sights interspersed with full-page ads for plastic surgeons (had they had surgery ?) and executive love-matching facilitators who looked a lot like our President's liaisons. It is so hard to make a love connection when you are rich and busy, I guess.

After a short time, our seatmate was coming down the aisle.  She was a stocky woman in her 50s-60s of Latina heritage with very close-cropped hair and drawn on eyebrows.  Someone commented that there was no room for her hand luggage and she responded that she was not allowed to lift over her head anyway and she would tuck it under her seat.  We did the get-out-into- the-aisle dance while she moved in.  As she reached below while next to me I noticed she had a compression stocking on her arm, and realized she could not lift probably due to some circulatory or surgery issue.

I was not in a talking mood, but she was.  She was flying back to New York, her home.  She asked where we were from and what we had been doing.  I keep my responses polite but short.  Then, my mistake, I asked what she had been doing in San Juan.  I learned the following over the next hour or so:

She was on 30-day treatments for 4th stage breast cancer, but doctors felt she was in good remission and able to make this trip.  She was thankful to God and felt that her future looked bright.  I felt guilty about thinking her drawn on eyebrows were overkill and was impressed by her optimism and energy.

She was born in New York but lived in Puerto Rico for about 20 years of her younger life.  She had traveled various places following her husband who was in the Army.  She had taken this trip because she had to take care of her parents' house.  Her parents had passed on years ago, but neighbors had informed her that a wall and a fence had need of repair due to the recent hurricane.  This house was in a town outside of San Juan and most of the town had taken on substantial damage, so it was complicated getting there.  

While there she visited with a friend of hers, a teacher in her 60s.  This woman was living in a house owned by another and it had been pretty much destroyed.  The teacher has been living in the basement without water or electricity since the hurricane.  The owner was in no hurry to repair the house and the teacher had no friends or relatives that could take her in.  Imagine living in a basement without water or electricity for months!  My new friend on the plane said she got her parent's house somewhat repaired and convinced the teacher to move in and watch it for her for at least a couple of years.  There was still some contracting work to be done and she told the woman that she would have oversight to see that it was done correctly and she left her some cash for that.

All of the blue in the photo above covers roofs that have yet to be repaired on one of the Caribbean islands we toured.

I am sure this was just a smidgeon of the many stories that could have been told in that town.  I read an article the other day that said Puerto Rico had been set back at least a decade in development and infrastructure.  And of course, a new hurricane season is just a few months away.