I will miss this backyard view when we move from this house. This tree has seen many moves I am sure.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzz

After the long drive up to Connecticut the males on the trip needed a break while daughter and I unpacked. Precious photo I thought.

Buiilding my house and moving on at the same time

Settlement for the construction loan FINALLY went through. So I have been blogging there and since clearing of the road, etc. actually starts next week I will probably begin the diary of that process on my other blog. This means weekly trips to the land 70 miles away.

This weekend I will start to pack the miscellaneous in the kitchen (all those huge platters and casserole dishes that I have not really used since we moved into this tiny house.) We drop off the rent deposit to the apartment today as well. Maybe we will be able to move in clothes and small stuff on Sunday. I am so eager to get this move over with as it is the third in as many years!

I am one of those anal types that do things way ahead and then regret the exaggerated efficiency. For instance, on May 24 I sent in an address change card to the Post Office and marked that I wanted mail delivered to my new address starting June 24. Those of you smiling know exactly what happened. The person at the post office stopped delivering mail on May 24! My husband told me I was too efficient. I just want some lead time. So it took me an entire week to get my mail back...it will be interesting to see if it stops coming on June 24. We will be out of the house, but still checking the mail until the end of the month.

We also have to get out of here because I started buying nice linens and towels (all my stuff is 20 years old) and my boss gave me a Pack and Play and needless to say, things are filling up here again after my clean out. MUST STOP SHOPPING! This is probably displacment for all the gardening I can no longer do.

I will try to stop by Son's condo and post a picture. I am eager to see how it looks since he got some new furniture.

OK. I Now Accept That My Job has Died

I think I mentioned a while back that my job was morphing. I am slowly losing my budget. What actually happened is that another department has now taken on the mission from the department that funded me. While I have spent the last few months kissing butt, spending hours finding ways to assist, working on committees and using higher ups to encourage continued funding, I think I need to accept that my retirement years are going to fizzle out like cold water on a sparkler. "They" are re-inventing the wheel and I had hoped that my years of experience would save them some time and mistakes...but they want to do this on their own. (This department has the reputation of being controlling and secretive even among their own staff.)

I realized it this week when I was pretty much eliminated totally from a big push for a press release on something that we have worked on for years before this new department took control. I was 'accidentally' left off the list for meetings and while told the announcement would be on my website, I now find that because I was out at a doctor's appointment today, they were going to put the link up (tomorrow) on their department's website. When I emailed between doc visits I was generously told I could link to their page!

In an email earlier this week "they" emphasized that they would need lots of help in distributing packets, setting up panels, etc. at various venues and when I volunteered to do ANYTHING they needed, I was pretty much ignored and sent a schedule via email if I wanted to attend.

This doesn't mean I will lose my job, just that I have a few years of boring activities to fill before I retire. (I actually could BS my time and no one would probably get concerned.) Unfortunately, I need to be doing something useful and intellectually demanding...so...that is the challenge for my future. Fortunately, my boss likes me and is on my side.

If I was younger, this would be a devastating blow to my ego and career. See, getting old has its benefits.

Also, and MORE IMPORTANT, the mole was a benign keratosis which doc froze like the gum commercial.

At Loose Ends

Been busy...just got back from a weekend babysitting in Connecticut while my son-in-law and daughter went to a wedding. Really nice weekend and not too many rough spots and probably worth some blogging just for the memories when I have more time.

Hubby is now in Maine at a meeting and since Son has moved out I am ALL ALONE in my house for the next 4 days. Weird feeling. I don't mind being alone after the intense weekend of people and babies and confined car traveling...but still a little odd.

I have a doctor's appointment with the dermatologist tomorrow to get a mole removed. It has started growing like mad and both itches and is tender, and since my sister died of melanoma, I am a little concerned. But, just a little. It is not the Buddhist way to worry about things you have no control over. I tend to have lots of moles and as I have aged, lots of strange skin changes. Lost my fear of ugliness a long time ago when I could not longer hang on to my youth ;-).

So, I am now going to unpack, go through my weeks mail (which just arrived yesterday--this is another long blog about being too efficient) and then a long relaxing bath.

Question for Twenty-somethings

This post may be a little racy for some...no not THAT way. I found an extra bathroom rug at my house and took it to my son's place and decided to store it under his sink in the bathroom while he was helping his dad with the AC unit. (As background he has slept in the house one night thus far.)
As further background there were some of his things, like TP under the sink already.

I had to move somethings to squeeze the rug in the back and saw a small strange box. Being the curious snooper, I turned it around as I placed the rug behind it. It was a box of tampons. Any ideas? Is this something I don't want to know?

Two Women Driving in a Car with a Baby in the Backseat

"Hey, Mom, how would you like to go to St. Kitts in November?"

"I don't know, Hon, I am taking two weeks off in August to babysit your boy."

"It could be fun at that time of the year."

"Yes, dear, but, on top of that, we will be in the middle of building our house and need to be nearby for construction issues."

"Oh."

"Also, it costs money. We just don't have that to spend right now with the house and all."

"But it would be for free."

Thought crosses Mom's mind that someone else will be paying for this babysitting...?

"We will be staying at a Marriott and you have all those Marriott points and Dad has a lot of United miles for travel, right?"

Right, have fun at your friend's wedding, Honey.

Things I will Miss and not Miss

I will miss those spontaneous conversations in the late afternoon when our paths crossed before he headed out to work at night.

I will miss his help in lifting, moving, mowing.

I will miss the young people who occasionally dropped by to go somewhere with him.

I will miss the smell of his aftershave.

I will miss his hugs.

**********************************************************

I will not miss scattered pennies on every floor of the house.

I will not miss turning lights off that have been left on all night or the refrigerator or microwave or dryer door that gets left ajar.

I will not miss two months of laundry piled high on the floor.

I will not miss dirty glasses EVERYWHERE.

I will not miss dirty dishes in the sink.

I will not miss having to be quiet on Saturday mornings until noon.

Saturday May 28

4:45 awake--can't exercise because basement is full of son's junk
5:30 need coffee so I get up and make some
6:00 do some blogging waiting for others to get up so I can make some noise
7:00 hubby is up, change sheets (son is taking our bed to his condo--long story) and take apart bed frame as quietly as possible
7:30 breakfast
8:00 start laundry and fold son's clothes from the pile on the sofa and the pile in the dryer
8:30 Husband backs out trailer and starts to work on connecting to car--lights don't work since this is a new car--requires getting electrical cord son threw out and splicing and taping.
9:00 Son's friend shows up to help (son still in bed, of course)
9:05 wake up son and remind him he has reserved condo elevator from 9:00 to 1:00
9:15 crazy people moving furniture, boxes, yelling at each other
10:00 start loading car and trailer, I make some iced tea for everyone
11:30 hubby, son and his friend head to the condo--twenty minutes away
11:45 I start to finish cleaning carpets in sons bedroom and living room (have to return carpet cleaner by 1:00!
12:45 I head out to the supermarket to return carpet machine
1:00 I take package to post office to mail gift for dad on father's day--dozens of little children running around, people from Asia and Africa trying to communicate in English
1:30 Starving, heat up some leftover Cornish game hen and eat two chocolate covered graham crackers and drink a quart of sparkling water--now feeling very full
1:35 Big ugly storm clouds forming--hope they get the stuff inside!

My son is moving out this weekend. Can you tell?

One for the Books

I work with books everyday since I deal in information, education, and outreach with my webwork. In addition, I love books. They are an addiction for me. I never travel without one or two in my backpack. I keep one in my purse to read while waiting for people. I have the hardest time weeding my book collections each time we move.

I grew up with a mother who read to us each night. We were not well off in terms of money, so sometimes she had to read adult books to us for entertainment. I am sure that she cleaned them up as she read them to us, we as children would never know. I remember a time when I was about six and we were in transitional living status while my dad was changing jobs. We were in this cute little house in a small mountain town with very little to keep us (me and my brother and sister) entertained. On the shelf were some books that the prior owner/renter had left behind. One was a western about a cowboy named Red Ryder. My Iinternet research found at least one book written by S.S. Stevens that has Red Ryder in the title. Well, each night my mother would read us a chapter from this book before bedtime. I am not a big fan of westerns and I actually cannot remember the story at all today, but at the time we sat on the floor glued to her knees to get every word.

Yesterday, my daughter called half laughing and half crying. She said her newborn son was just like his father. When I asked her to explain, she said that every time she picked up one of the many childrens books that she had in the baby room and started to read to him, he would cry. She tried reading while looking at him, while looking at the book, with expression, without expression, soto voce, etc. Each time he would crinkle his face up and cry. She could sing to him, listen to all kinds of music with him, dance with him, and all of these activities brought him joy…but the open book thing he did not like. Her husband does not read so that is why she compared the baby to him.

“What are we going to do, mom?”

I answered that we would keep on trying and just wait until he can start to understand words, focus on pictures, etc. Her response was, “I want you to come down to the house this weekend and try to read to him. I want to see what he will do.”

I just couldn’t help laughing. What a joy he is going to be.

The hyper spazz society I live in

I headed to the office kitchen today for a break and saw someone was there ahead of me using the microwave. I wanted to heat some tea water and waited. Below her (the someone) and in front of her on the floor were two crumbled paper towels that had missed the wastebasket which is tucked beneath the counter under the microwave.

She proceeded to avoid them and after removing her food, I bent over and picked up the paper towels, tossed them in the basket and then put my cup in the microwave.

She looked at me a little horrified and said she hadn't wanted to touch the towels and that is why she left them there. I explained to her that I planned to wash my hands, which I did. Now, please note, these paper towels had no visible food or stains on them. They were just white crumpled paper towels.

Someone help the American people. They are not long for this world!

Don't Get Dooced.

Yes I am blogging at work, but it is now my lunch hour. I have been working 6 hours straight and I am wiped or whipped or whatever. Too many meetings and too many small projects and programs to justify my existence. That is another story, but probably not for blogging because of the following reason: I sent some advice (unsolicited which is what I always provide) to Hedwig-the-Owl regarding her job interviews and then I found more support for my advice. Urban Dictionary actually has the definition of this phenomenon where your blog can cost you your job! Poor Heather B. Armstrong.

Bloggers talk about their family and work relationships, this personal stuff goes out to the Web where potentially millions can read it and then it will be archived somewhere forever...it will be baaack to haunt them someday. It is amazing what people will share with the world, myself included.

This parallels another phenomenon. Celebraties willing to share intimate details of their lives with their fans and virtual strangers. I remember an interview Oprah had with Sting's wife where she talked about them trying Tantric sex to strengthen their marriage. I mean get a grip!. You are telling all of these strangers in Oprah's audience about your married sex life. And she is not the only celebrity. What about that nightmare hodge-podge of homemade videos from Brittany and her husband? (I'll admit I haven't seen it...I really have no interest in her life. And, yes, I realize the money machine was behind this.)

Is this a reflection on the isolation we all are feeling due to the busy structure of our lives? Does it reflect something else in the culture that we need to share this stuff with people we don't know and says something about our inability to communicate with people we do know? Or is this just a byproduct of our high technology society?

Condo mania

This is the condo that I spent all of Saturday and most of Sunday painting. This photo was taken before we started. What is shown is the wall between the dining room and the bedroom--I think the bedroom was a sunroom porch at one time. There are three open window frames and some weird gauze curtains for privacy. Clearly the prior owner didn't know how to sew or they would have hemmed the curtains. They even put some elaborate valance in navy blue on the dining room side! Something really heavy and totally inappropriate for the space. This picture was taken looking out from the small bedroom looking out into the living area. 600 square feet and all this luxury at a price you wouldn't believe!

Early Sunday Morning

I think I will have to change the Weekly Wino to Monthly Wine Musings since I haven't entered anything since mid-April. I've been putting away the wine, but not contemplatively. Just squeezing in a nice respite at days end before the million things I do before and after dinner. I now have 4 (yes 4) plastic bags filled with my clothes to donate or throw out. This is surprising since I have already done this same exercise twice before and cleaned out closets. I guess I have a lot more stained, torn, out-of style-clothes than I thought.

I am sitting here waiting for my spouse and son to drag themselves out of bed so that we can go painting again. H. and I put in 8 hours yesterday on walls and trim in the boy's condo. C. (the boy) stayed about 6 hours later to continue the project. Floors are being sanded and refinished on Monday so we are on very strict timeline here. Wish those males would get up...we all went to bed about the same time...!

Decorating Da Vinci style??

What makes life so great is NOTHING stays the same

It is an interesting time in my life and the lives of my children. About two to three years ago when my son was too busy with college and friends and my daughter was too busy with a weekend social life and her husband, my husband and I made a conscious decision that we had to go forward with our lives. We would have to fill our weekends with our own interests and hobbies because our children were busy with their lives and could not fill ours. We knew that we would have to settle for seeing them every few months, even though they lived very close.

Therefore, on weekends our project was to find a quiet country place to which we could retire. It had to be on the water for my husband’s comfort. I only needed a view…mountain, stream, valley…didn’t make a huge difference to me. Waterfront property on the other hand is very, very, very expensive…even if found in remote areas of the East Coast. So it took many weekends to find something. With some compromise we found a narrow, very expensive lot and decided that this would be our retirement home. It was a little more than an hour from where our children might be living, but we wouldn’t get to see them much anyway with their busy social lives.

Well, here is my warning to all of you who have very social children in their early twenties. When they reach their mid-twenties to late twenties, they suddenly need you. They need your expertise on financial matters; your free time for babysitting; your weekends for socializing when their spouse is gone and baby is the only company. And, perhaps most interesting, your male child will suddenly want your opinion on furniture, wall colors, floor refinishing, and kitchen cabinets! It seems as if my entire life has changed its focus in a matter of weeks.

My weekend—THIS weekend—I am probably going to be keeping my daughter company shopping for something…don’t know what the errand is yet. I have also learned that I will be helping my son paint his condo as well as check out a furniture module he wants to purchase. I sat with my son just now discussing a “da Vinci theme” with warm colors. We were learning how to pick and match and discussing whether a natural floor stain would look better rather than a walnut stain after he refinishes his condo floors. My free time on the weekend is gone. And, of course, since I love them both and want to spend time with them, I will find another way to get my errands done. I know that this ability to spend time with each of them can change in the blink of an eye.

By the way, you would have to know my son to realize how outstandingly strange this is to be discussing ‘da Vinci decorating themes”.

Brittany Spears Look-Alikes

I have often felt that our culture is in demise in terms of art and style. The one commodity that we export in surplus to the global economy is our entertainment industry. They gobble it up in spite of the fact that it has become mediocre and thus lacks uniqueness, lacks depth, lacks introspection, lacks surprise, lacks insight and of course lacks truth.

I do firmly believe this. We will eventually find much greater art emerging from India, Afghanistan, and wherever else it is encouraged to flourish and wherever money does not drive it to death.

And even though I believe all of the above is true, we still have those cultures that are in love with our culture. They are fascinated with us.

I was reminded of this today when I got on the elevator with two young Asian girls. They were in their 20's and dressed casually as girls dress in this country. Yet something about their body language, their smiles, told me they were visiting foreigners to our campus. The real give away was evident as I turned to face the mirrored elevator door. I clearly saw them check out my new shoes and slacks and evaluate my clothing style. Only girls this age from another country would be checking American styles this closely. I am too old for our American girls to care what I wear.

God is Truth

Well, I learned my lesson a few days ago and am composing this blog in MSWord…instead of online. I did several blogs which disappeared into thin air with a Blogger response something like…’Houston, we have a problem, we know it, we are working on it, we won’t get back to you on it…so try again later.” I was so irritated having spent so much time on the blogs. Then I saw that most of my posts to other sites also never made it…although I got no such error message! It is sort of like being in parallel worlds, but we don’t know when the lines converge.

I was reading on of manababies blogs regarding her relationships with close and distant relatives and the death of her grandfather. I have had so many of the same feelings. I am the one blood relative of my immediate family (now that my younger sister passed away) that lives on the East Coast, all the rest of them live in Colorado. They have gone through various stages of their relationships with each other. I have missed it all being out here living my life. I miss that, and while I have tried to keep my children close to them through expensive plane visits over the years and picture exchanges, etc., it is not the same thing as living within driving distance. I often wonder what I have missed and how my feelings for them would be different if we shared more of our lives.

I do know that the death of my sister a few years back really brought us all much closer together. It was the big neon sign on the wall that said ‘Time is passing…How are you living out YOUR life?’ We started emailing more often and trying to make plans together. Then the recent death of my mother brought my sister and I much closer as we went through the process of obituaries, dinners, etc. I began to realize that my sister is a very unspiritual person. She gets irritated by religious myth and really irritated by people who practice religion on holidays and family funerals only. She got into a little spat with my sister-in-law who was raised as a Catholic but doesn’t attend church anymore and hasn’t for decades. My sister-in-law at the last minute wanted to have us ‘light a candle’ for mom at a church in downtown Denver. She clearly wanted us to go with her. I am pretty anti-Catholic…but only for myself. What others believe, what ‘myth’ they follow, that is their choice. Clearly my sister felt this was very hypocritical of my sister-in-law and said she was going to stay home and finish the obituary for the newspaper. This was not a word fight—just subtle tension one notices under the service. I saw my sister-in-law’s request a little differently. I didn’t see it as my sister-in-law trying to take control of stuff or being hypocritical, just maybe a calling deep inside her from a prior Catholic life to do something symbolic. I went with her and actually felt it might be good for me in some spiritual way. Unfortunately it was Sunday with back to back masses and so we sat through a mass and didn’t get to light a candle as we had to leave early. (The sermon was on the ‘dictatorial relativism’ that was pervading our society…the priest was clearly talking to all the liberals such as I at the service.)

My brother (the conservative one) was with Mom when she died. She passed in a matter of an hour or so, he and Dad were the only ones there. He says that she squeezed his hand and looked up at him, briefly and smiled just be fore she died. I am assuming that she actually did that, as I don’t think he would be trying to make it easy for us. Mom was cremated at her request. We had a small viewing at the funeral home for immediate family but no funeral or memorial service. The big family dinner was mostly people looking at pictures and reminiscing. It was not a formal sit-down but a buffet at my brother’s home. There was no real opportunity for words to be spoken in memory of my mother. Clearly some of the old Italian relatives there were confused about the informality of it all. My dad was probably relieved as he hates ceremony of any kind. I wished there had been an opportunity which forced me to say something…but I am getting more Buddhist and realize that the center of me is at peace and what surrounds me and what decisions are made outside do not need to be fought over. Not in this instance anyway. My mom knows I loved her, my family saw me give six weeks to her care and they know I loved her, I spent many hours with her, so I am at peace and do not need symbolism to solidify it. On the other hand, if we would have had a funeral Mass, I could have dealt with that process also. The priest would have called my views here dictatorial relativism…nope, it is truth. An as Ghandi said, God is truth.

Man and the Center of the Universe

I am currently reading "Ismael: An adventure of the mind and spirit" by Daniel Quinn. It was featured in book stores back in 1992 when I bought it and I am just now getting around to reading it after finding it on the bottom of a book shelf. (Amazing what packing your household belongings will unearth.)

The story premise is sophisticated, but the dialogue between the two characters and the character development is not, so I am a little disappointed. The theme appears to be all about Man seeing himself as the Center of the Universe and the problem with that premise.

Along these lines, I attended a lecture today by a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution who works with dingoflagellates and other small stuff in the marine environment. His research is all about the algae that causes algal blooms (i.e. red tides, etc.) in the bays and oceans. This research has uncovered through the years new knowledge that what was once thought as cellular parts of an algal organism is in reality a parasite that later emerges (Alien style) and takes over the algal organism. The speaker showed an actual video on this process and it does emerge exactly like the Alien did from the human gut!! (This is, of course, an oversimplification of his decades of research, as he has discovered lots more interesting stuff...but my point and I do have a point...)

Ok, what is my point here? Well, one of the questions from the audience was 'how can we use this information on algal parasites to control the growth of the "bad" algal blooms' and this question was coupled with another question about the new research on non-indigenous oysters also being introduced to the Chesapeake Bay for much of the same reason--control of algal growth. This scientist, in spite of his love of research and desire to culture the parasites and watch them interact with the algae, made a clear and important point. This control approach was all about treating the symptoms of the disease in our oceans and not preventing the disease.

And I guess my statement here is that mankind causes much of the earth's problems and then spends much intellectual effort trying to control the universe to fix these problems which he alone has caused. All he has to do is stop causing the problem in the first place.

(For those of you not into science, we need to control the agriculture runoff, cattle allowed to wade into streams, building and development inland, toilet flushing, car driving, global warming etc. and the algal problem in our oceans will diminish greatly. Of course, this does mean some economic sacrifice on our part--duh.)

The Bible says that man was put in dominion over the plants and the animals. I don't think so. They seem to get the rhythm of life without our interference. We are the ones that keep screwing up!

OK. Enough blogging. Just glad to get access back after days.