Hanging in Until the Last Round

I am not exactly an optimist. I am more of a tenacious fighter who hangs on no matter what happens. I refuse to lose. Months before the 9/11 tragedy, one of my younger sisters emailed me that she had skin cancer. They couldn't find the original mole but it had moved into her lymph glands in her legs. This bad news was followed by the attacks in New York.

That winter I began having back problems. It seemed that some days I was in so much pain, I didn't want to get out of bed. I began to understand what depression truly was and felt myself spiraling downward.

All of this happening over just a few months began to wear on me, but I got angry. I went out to visit my sister and tried to send her optimistic thoughts and also started an intense exercise program to get my back in shape. I was told that I had just a touch of arthritis and there was nothing that could be done. Well, my back returned to much less pain but my sister died that summer.

We sold our house the following spring and it was a very traumatic time as the buyer was a smart real estate woman who kept claiming more and more from us until finally we had to go to a lawyer to get the whole thing to stop. She got the house and we got peace of mind--for a while.

We moved into a rental house that flooded three times that summer---the wettest in history on the East Coast. After much midnight mopping and the loss of some of our "worldly" possessions, we broke the lease and moved once again into another little house. Things calmed down... for a while.

This past fall my mother got ill and this winter, as you readers know, she began to die. Upon my return from putting her in hospice we learned that my husband had stenosis of the spine and needed surgery on four of his vertebrae. The surgery is this morning.

Our landlady cannot renew our lease, and so, in four months we have to find a new temporary place to live incurring all the costs and time of packing and moving once again! Probably buying a condo with our son and absorbing all the costs that entails...working longer and not being able to retire as early.

Last night as I lay in bed, I began to think of all these stresses. It seems my life had been so calm and normal before. Maybe this is now normal life and I lived in some pathetic dream time before. I don't know, but I am still fighting. Only now I am getting a little tired.

Passing the time

Surgery on hubby's neck is tomorrow at 11:45. He is nervous since he has never been in a hospital for any type of surgery and he knows enough anatomy to drive himself nuts. He took an hour walk before dinner because he just couldn't sit still.

Right now after dinner he is walking to the supermarket to buy stuff--one of which is Dial soap which they say he needs to use when he showers since it leave the least residue.

This is going to be a rough night.!

The Blogging Neighborhood

I have been surfing blogs and routinely stumble on ones that I like to read and/or find something in common with and post a comment to them. Surfing blogs is like taking a walk in a field outside the city. You come across all kinds of stuff. Gum wrappers, dog droppings, pages of advertisement from a magazine and then every once in a while you find a lovely page from someone's diary or a photograph of a thousand words or a lovely piece of jewelry or an extremely strange and exotic plant.

I find myself attracted to boomer bloggers because I have something in common with the history of their life. But I also find that I am attracted to the young married guitar player, the five brothers who work in geekdom, the young owl, mom's with babies and teenagers...all of which keep me linked to the people in my real life that I love.

Then, because I have traveled so much in my life I am always intrigued by those who live around the world and are able to blog in English...so that I can maybe show that Americans are indeed more complex than the sum of their parts.

Blogging is certainly going to change the world in so many ways. Some which will be surveyed and measured...but I think there are going to be many private stories of change that will never get recorded.

Anyway, I need to start thinking about changing the links on my blogsite to add some of the other blogs I visit regularly. Just think, each of us will create our own electronic neighborhood. The good thing is that we won't have to put up with crabby old lady next door or those drunken newlyweds that fight all the time. We can design our neighborhood exactly the way we want to.

My Datsun Sportscar

During the summer that I was taking one last class before getting my teaching degree in Colorado, I went to the car dealership with my Dad and bought a car. Since I didn't have any money, I got that American right of passage called a car loan.

The red Datsun in the previous picture was the car I bought. I thought that summer that my dates should increase exponentially---just like guys do. (I really must have looked good in that car.) But my date situation was just as stale as all the prior months. Go figure.

This, by the way, was the only car I have ever bought on time. I learned well from my parents and every other car that I have purchased in my lifetime I have paid in cash. Now that I have that habit, making a car payment would make me very ill.

My first car.

The Numbers Game.

According to Andrew Tobias " 111,111,111 times 111,111,111 equals 12345678987654321"...Don't ask my why I find this so interesting on an early Tuesday morning.

A really easy salad to make.

Baby Showers

I am off this afternoon with my sweet little girl to her baby shower. None of my side of the family will be there since they live so far away...but that's OK as she has tons of friends...should be a good group of people.

I am bringing the crib quilt which I finished. (Her father and I got her a very nice glider rocker and ottaman already.) I also am supposed to bring "something for the Baby Wishing Well." I asked at work what the heck this was and no one in my generation seemed to have a clue. Is it money, savings bonds?? I have wrapped a small picture frame and a CD of lullabies.

I also made a nice little platter of pears and cheese for the luncheon.

The Megapode Bird

(Link to a website is in the post title) This fellow weighs a little less than a pound and is not a beautiful bird to look at. He/she looks like a brown ugly chicken. He is VERY VERY shy and although we lived there for years I only caught shadowy glimpses of them. If I remember correctly, their sound is that of a very cautious chicken clucking a warning. I would try to follow that sound as I crossed one of the islands. Because they were so hard to observe, I was always fascinated with them.

They have heavy thick legs which they use to build nests on the ground. These nest are quite large and if you come on one, it looks like a pile of compost in the middle of the island. Thus the strong legs. The chicks don't have an 'egg-tooth' and use the strong legs to kick out of the shell. The heat from the next is what allows the eggs to incubate and then hatch. Thus, sometimes they are called the incubator bird.

Since their nests are at ground level, they are subject to all kinds of predation and exposure. Therefore, they are really endangered. When I lived there, which was decades ago, their habitat was under pressure. I hate to think what has happened over the years and now with this television show... Maybe when I retire I can do some kind of volunteer effort to help the cause of protecting them.

Conveniences of Modern Life

As commented, electricity and running water are 'givens' in this civilized world of ours. I remember coming back from living in Palau (as well as another overseas place) and facing the loss of electricity after a snowstorm or a hurricane or whatevaaa. My neighbor who lived in a lovely LARGE colonial house on the hill behind us would call within minutes of finding herself without one of the 'givens.'

"Do you have electricity?"
"How long have you been without electricity?"
"Did you call the utility company?"
"When do you think we will get it back?"

I can remember thinking that there are people who live without electricity for much longer than 30 minutes or three days or whatever crisis hits the U.S. I remember thinking what spoiled brats Americans are...what failures at coping. What a little princess I have living next door. She really needed to be in a condo in the city, but she and her children wanted to go to a certain school and she had to live in a large house surrounded by acres filled with such scary things as deer, fox, ground hogs, etc.

Since my hubby and I loved camping it took us no time to get the fireplace going for warmth or cooking and a lantern or candles for light or brushing our teeth on the back deck since our septic pump didn't work and then we went back to what we were doing.

I will admit that now that I have lived with the 'givens' for a couple of decades, the hurricane two years ago that left us without power for 5 days, WAS a challenge. But it was mostly the challenge of having to wait to get stuff. Long lines and traffic problems without lights.

For my owl friend I will blog next about megapode...not a a parrot but cool none-the-less.

This came from the Palau Visitors Bureau...credit to Kevin Daviso

Pacific Island Memories

My husband and I made a special point of watching the first edition of the new "Survivor" series on TV last week. We are not Survivor fans, (the show sometimes reminds me of all the pain I went through in Junior High School.)

But, this season we made a special point to watch because we had lived in Palau for about seven years back in the late 60's early 70's. The beach where they brought the new survivors was a beach that my daughter had run naked on for many an afternoon...of course she was only two at the time. It is a lovely long beach and we would dig for small clams for soup before we headed home. It was an easy beach to swim or snorkel from as well.

There are many beaches of all shapes and sizes on the islands and if we saw a boat at a beach that we were heading for (on a very rare day), we just turned and went somewhere else. As newlyweds my husband and I could camp overnight and spend most of the day naked on the island. Yep, it was idyllic. Of course, back at our apartment in the town of KOROR we could go for most of the day without electricity or running water. Just depended on generators working and the guy who turned on the water spicket not being drunk.

We lived there before the traffic lights, the television station, etc. So, the only entertainment was a Japanese drive-in movie which showed mostly kung-fu stuff, playing Stratego with other expatriots at the resort hotel or boating. We had a motor boat and a catamaran. Both got lots of use. Maybe, I'll get lucky and go back there some day.

This graveyard is probably really cool on Halloween. It was very Salem witch trial and had lots of captains buried here.

Haaavaaad!

Ah, yes, the infamous bigdig in the foreground looking back to Boston from Little Italy.

Posting hiccups and Boston

This past Friday, I had tried to post comments on a number of the blogs I regularly read...talking electronically...but for some reason...either Blogger problems or Comcast issues, my posts (which were particularly intellectual and insightful, of course) never made it to the blogs!

Then as time passed, I had to leave for a trip. My hubby (with the help of my daughter, as he would have NEVER done this years ago) took me to Boston for the weekend as a surprise for Valentine's Day. Only we went this past weekend instead of Valentine's weekend. I had never been to Boston, but it certainly is a city that is easy to love. And I say this after braving the 20 to 30 degree weather and blasting winds each day! Very easy city to get around in and the food at Little Italy is the best food I have eaten in quite a while-excellent wines as well. One of the waiters introduced me to an Italian rose (not the cloying sweet type) and as soon as I find the notes on it, I will research for my wine blog.

We took in a comedy improve show, saw Blue Man Group, went to Harvard and the Fogg museum (which was my homage to Gilmore Girls-yes I am an addict)and even went to an IMAX show and stopped and shopped in Chinatown at a local store. We also walked and walked and walked to see as much of the Freedom trail as we could with the nasty weather. I'll post a few pics for those who have not been there.

UGH!

Comcast and/or blogger is having a h... of a time getting me to a post window.
Enough time has passed that I have to go upstairs and pack! I am off to Boston.
Will fill you in when I get back!

Coming of Age Stuff

Had a lengthy talk with my son this afternoon after I got home from work. He works for a large network and handles the evening audio work for some of their programs a lucky entry level job he got. He is starting to discover all the sneaky stuff, the insecurity of higher ups, etc in a high pressure industry. Seems that a little scandal with one of the program stars as well as another promotional event that went awry has given him the job jitters. His job is probably still pretty secure, but he has seen people get disciplined for a failure that was not due to their work and it bothers him that the executives don't want to move beyond placing blame...i.e. finding out what happened and trying to prevent it from happening again.

Some of the executive's friends complained about the sound of the promotional program and all the clues lead to the locale and the distributing network--not the original audio engineer who my son thinks is one of the best in the business.

Fortunately my guy is smart enough to realize all the crap that people put themselves through to make themselves feel safe and important. But it doesn't help the bottom line which is to produce an excellent product and to back up good talent. He would make an excellent head of the department---hope he lasts that long.

I have always worked for the public and while never being able to make bonuses or a large salary, I do have job security. That is the trade off. The office politics crap still exists though, if on a smaller and less tense scale. Welome to the real world.

My Bulb Mania

Actually the story on this Amaryllis plant is more interesting, since superMANA commented. I once would buy an amaryllis bulb every year. Then I would put them outside in the spring after blooming and kept them slightly watered and fertilized and then bring them in to go dormant in the fall. In a few years I had dozens of bulblets alongside the bigger bulbs and soon I had about 3 dozen plants blooming each January through March. They would be standing in front of my french doors like wooden soldiers. When I moved to this rental house I knew I had to get a grip. So I donated my babies to the library white elephant sale for $5.00 each. They were huge bulbs and did make some money for the library. Now I am down to five plants--three with potential to bloom. The fifth plant is a Scadoxus multiflorus from South Africa that I bought at the Phildelphia Flower show three years ago and which I have managed to keep going and blooming each spring by treating it the same way. It is an exciting flower and I will take a picture of it when it blooms. Right now it is sitting in the pot looking dead (and surrounded by three --count em---three new babies!).

This is my amaryllus which I have nurtured for 4 years and which brings me an early spring every February! The roses are from my lover.