Never Too Old to Learn Something New

I have once again conned my husband into following me down the path on a new project. We are both taking a class on birding given at the local community college. There are only 5 evening classes and the teacher is a milk-toast (and I say this in the nicest of descriptions) of a little man who actually reminds me of my brother (a former teacher). Our teacher has experience banding birds and studying birds, but his background must be in something else currently.  

Only four students arrived the first evening and one of those students was his wife, so I am letting you know that there are only three students, really, with hubby and I making up two-thirds of the bulk of the discussion. Small town college stuff! The class has, therefore, become an informal meet-up allowing all of us to share our anecdotes to enhance the discussion as it moves along.  We also discovered that the teacher works just up the road from us on a nearby private preserve of several dozen acres.  We now have access to a new nearby area for exploration, within walking distance.

I am a perpetual student and love taking classes if they are more than just philosophical improve your life or spiritual growth stuff.   It has to be something more practical like science, history, literature or art.  I always did love school and my intellectual curiosity has been my passion since I was a child. I loved school.  My husband is most generous to come along on this because he has a PhD in zoology and probably could teach the class himself with a little planning. And yet after the first class and a quick field trip we both have learned to listen better when bird watching and have learned the songs of the little flycatcher and the ovenbird among others. AND most importantly while practicing what we learned, we have discovered that these two songsters exist in our yard, which we did not know.

If you have ever wandered to my other blog, you will know that it contains a number of entries on birds.  I try to study them before I post so that I can add a little knowledge about the species.  So now I can add more fact and less theory?

I encourage others to take classes of all stripes as they age.  Even if it is something you know a lot about, the world is changing, we are learning so much more and I guarantee you will learn something new.

Silly

Once again Tabor encounters an eye-opening cultural event as she runs errands.  This time she was in the local Target department store trying to find lip gloss among other items.  I love Burts Bee's colored lip balm and no longer use lipstick since I discovered it.

I reached an aisle that was crowded with a young mother and her toddler sitting in a shopping cart.  At the other end of the aisle was a man in his 70's, well dressed, with a paper list in his hands.  He was scanning the shelves with a frown on his face.  The young mother carefully worked her way past him as she selected something from the shelf on the other side.  I was scanning the shelves as I approached slowly.

Suddenly he lifted his head and said in a rather loud voice, "Can you ladies help me?"

We both looked up accommodatingly.

"Do you know where the bar soap is?"

I looked down to the lower shelves just beside me and pointed as it was filled with various brands of bar soap.

"Okay, can you tell me where the Dove bar soap is?" he continued.

I hesitated, and then the young mother pointed just beyond me and said, "It is over there at the end of the shelf."

He smiled and moved slowly in that direction as we both moved down the aisle in the opposite direction.

He turned to us after we passed and said,  "My wife has broken her ankle and I have to do all this shopping!"   He groaned and then added, "Maybe I should just take her out to the back yard and hose her off and be done with all this soap!"

I explained that I had hurt my ankle recently and my husband had taken on the cooking, cleaning and everything else for several months.

He smiled.  "I can cook,  I just hate these errands and looking for all  this silly stuff."

I moved on to the next aisle thinking how lucky I was to be married to someone who was adaptable and didn't consider bath soap silly!

Bear Denigration

The scene is a small town post office (one that is not closing) where I am picking up my mail. Just around the corner I hear the voice of a woman and a small child.  When they turn the corner I see a woman whose age is hard to determine.  She has dyed blonde hair, is a little overweight, but could be the child's mother, grandmother or aunt.  The child is a small boy about five of mixed race.  The little boy has some type of electronic game or tablet in his hand that is taking most of his attention.

Mom:  Remember that big black bear on the TV?  Remember the man who was texting and not watching where he was going?  He almost got eaten by that bear!

Boy:  That was a BIG bear!

Mom:  And that man almost died!  He wasn't paying attention.  You need to pay attention.

They headed toward their car still talking.

I agreed with the Mom that walking and looking at an electronic screen were not the safest of things to do and certainly not safe when done by a little boy who had only learned to walk a few years ago.  But I am not sure that the correlation of being eaten by a bear when texting or playing a game is quite the argument I would have presented.  I think falling down and breaking one's nose was more compelling and certainly more likely or being hit by a car while crossing the parking lot.  Do we have to pick on those poor bears?

Where I Live

During my preteen and teenage years growing up on a chore-filled small farm in rural Colorado I longed to be anywhere else.  The world was full of sophisticated lifestyles and exotic locations and I was sure that I was missing out on all of it  As an avid reader of all kinds of books I knew that the world was turning fast everywhere else except in my little farming town.  The commonness of my hometown was suffocating my soul and my greatest promise to myself was to find a way out as soon as I could.

When I was 22 I managed to save enough to go to graduate school, and as luck would have it, there were only two or three schools with accredited programs in my field.  The cheapest one was in Hawaii.  I could afford the plane ticket, but not the place to live.  As my faithful readers know, I became an au pair to a nice middle class Jewish family on the island of Oahu and was able to attend graduate school at the same time.  Poor though my life was as a grad student, living in Hawaii was a phenomenal experience and fulfilled my earliest expectations on the rewards of seeing a 'distant' part of the world.  If you must be poor then the Pacific Islands are most accommodating to such a frugal lifestyle.  My story continued with even more distant travel upon graduation, lucky soul that I was, and my regular readers have heard tales on this.

I sit here this afternoon and listen to music from the Beamer Brothers.   Music is wonderful for taking us away and this one puts me on a slow moving outrigger canoe within sight of a beach.  The music is like soft waves on a distant shore.

My winter has been mild but still cool and while I love my woods, nothing is big-leaved green and exotically fragrant and the ocean is not in view filled with lovely colorful fish and exotic shellfish.  Fresh ripened fruit does not grow on nearby trees year round.  People who live on the Pacific Islands this morning wake up to a very different lifestyle.  Warmer air, sweeter smells, perhaps a slower pace for some islanders, and I am envious and I would live there in an instant during the cold winter days except for my loves that live nearby and hold me fast with a chord that is stronger than anything I can imagine. 

Is there another place on this great earth that sometimes calls to you and that you would live if you could?

(This was written before the news of the recent earthquake in the South Pacific, and I would still live there.)

In Sync

I am was staying in the hoitty toitty Palm Beach area of Florida.  The mansions are multi-million dollar monstrosities, the shopping is fantastic if you have the reserves, and just outside the luxurious resort areas are some very striking neighborhoods of poverty and crime. Yesterday afternoon, within a few blocks of the infinity edge swimming pool at one of the hotels, stood an inebriated woman dressed for her night work outside a nightclub, if you get my drift.

The place where I am staying is a place where people (usually from Chicago or New York) wear rather elaborate jaw-dropping jewelry to the swimming pool.  Their children are stocky verging on fat and have rather intense attitudes about who is in charge of their lives...they or their parents.  Then the parents open their mouths and you wonder where they got their education as well and you forgive the children.  (Sorry for my prejudices.)  Still the place is really uncrowded for an Easter week and my grandchildren can find plenty of room for fun either at the beach or one of the two pools or the playground. 

As I sit on the balcony of the condo where we are staying, I have my little grandson who will turn one in a few days in my lap with his heavy head resting against my breasts.  He is fighting stomach flu and lying lethargically with the side of his face tucked into my arm as he watches the waves greet the shore.  We are sitting outside because every time he sees one of his parents he demands they take him away from this old lady, but once they are out of sight, he is my little surrendered lover.  The only sound is that of  the soothing waves and some distant music from the swimming pools fifteen stories below us.  I am enjoying the way he has given himself over totally to my arms in spite of being in that stage where mommy and daddy are the preferred mode of transportation and rest.

An ocean breeze floats wisps of his baby hair up and down near my cheek. 

I sing a little lullaby and even though I am off-key he looks up at me with such adoration that I keep on singing.  He has that honest innocence of love in his eyes that your dog has when he sees you each day.  The kind of love you probably do not fully deserve, but are more than willing to take.

There is a three-quarter moon hanging in the mid-morning sky and the gang of 12 pelicans is making their routine morning rounds up and down catching the rising air drifts over the beach.  We both watch them wishing we could fly like kites up high.

I have caught his stomach flu and not been able to enjoy any of the expensive and inexpensive meals we have eaten out.  I have been on a liquid diet for 4 days with no appetite for anything including my favorite wine, but I really do not care when he is in my arms and we are avoiding the beach packing chaos that is taking place back inside the condo.  For this brief precious time in his life and mine, we are in sync and I am totally happy.

For You

I am on travel but always thinking of my readers and wanted to share this screen saver for those for whom spring seems a bit late.  This native columbine was one small plant two years ago and today I have at least 6 or maybe eight coming up!

Or perhaps you are in a blue mood and would rather have this one...

Difficulties in Aging---Not What You are Thinking

Ronnie at Time Goes By and Rain at Rainy Day Thoughts both wrote about aging and all its discomforts and our honesty with that.  So I had to add my two cents.

Remember when people carried you everywhere and wouldn't put you down so that you could explore freedom on your own...no?  Well at my age I can explore all I want and society provides artificial joints, walkers, mobile wheel chairs, pain killers and nice level boardwalks so that I can continue to do this exploration and I can do it on my own.

Difficulties in aging as a toddler:  I remember when I was a toddler the first time I hit my head on the doorknob, and I realized that getting taller had its disadvantages. The next time I had to wear pants that were too tight and a dress that cut me under the armpits because I had outgrown them overnight.  Now I am only slightly smaller than I was a few years ago and I have stopped growing and I like my height just fine, thank you. I no longer have to worry about doorknobs or clothes.  If I outgrow my clothes, it is my own damn fault.

I remember when getting dressed was something that required intense study.  The right length skirt, the perfect blouse, those awful bad hair days.  Those were my teen years.  Today getting dressed is primarily getting clean and finding something clean and comfortable to wear.  I sometimes care that I don't look like a bag lady, but I don't dwell on it, because I do not care all that much what others think about how I look.

I remember the strain of new job interviews, the pain of writing proposals, the agony of public speaking, the careful dance of arguments with colleagues and the constipation of biting my tongue during my adult years when dealing with a crazy person in the office.  I no longer worry about any of that stuff.  I will not argue with you if I think I cannot win you over to my way of thinking, but I also do not hide my beliefs nor fear them.  I will also listen to your side because I also do not think my beliefs are carved in stone.

I remember the agony of watching my children grow and leave me to pursue adventures of their own.  The sad dullness of an empty house and my being fired as a parent.  That was a real difficult age.  I have out grown that agony and in these elder years I find I can accept the fact that I must allow my children to make their own mistakes and live their own lives, because that is what I wished from my parents.  I also welcome all the free time I now have.

I remember during my 50's the concern and a little dread about aging and the difficulty of looking into those elder years ahead and becoming an old person who would have little to do with their time.  Now that I have arrived here, I find it is just like being a younger person.  It has its challenges and rewards and it is what you make of it.  Some of the challenges can be overcome and others must be accepted with grace and compromise, like that teenage figure you were given.  And the rewards at this time in my life are are a morning sunrise and and an evening sunset and all the time in the world to enjoy them.

So difficulties in aging are just a part of life at any age and if we did not have them, I am thinking we would not enjoy life nearly as much.

I saw an interview with the poet, Christian Wiman, who was diagnosed with a serious cancer in his 30's and I was amazed and pleased by the grace that he shows day to day.  So difficulties must be handled at every age.  Quit your whining.

The Mystery of Mist

Once we have checked out how the garden is doing and put to permanent sleep the weeds that have been awakened by spring we sometimes get the urge to take a drive and see how the rest of the land is doing.

We went for just such a drive the other day (the day I took those peach blossom photos in the orchard that I posted on my other blog) and as we headed across this large peninsula to the side that greets the large bay we noticed the fog had banked inland and was holding its own even though the morning was waning.  Since it was just before lunch we headed to a little town down the road.

A heavy fog rolls in off the bay on many of these spring days as the night air is just cold enough to capture the water and hold it, and if there is no wind, the mist just floats around hiding the corners of life.  This white cloud gets a short way inland and then the heat of the land and/or the heat of the sun seems to make it melt before our eyes.

This little town we reached was once an escape for city folk who were tired of summer heat and wanted a respite by the shore.  There is a small beach here and several nearby marshes that are just perfect for a change from city life.  It is still a tourist town, but the ability to travel greater distances to much larger beaches has pulled most of the tourists further away from this area, and I think that has helped this little community retain its charm.

The horizon line of the bay was hidden by deep fog and yet the warmth and quiet of the morning brought people out.  Various water birds were enjoying new algal growth or building nests. There were two naked toddlers playing at the edge of the water under the peaceful eyes of parents.  Three ladies sat in beach chairs and chatted quietly while one knitted.   And, of course, there were lots of dog walkers.

We took a walk along the newly constructed boardwalk beneath the spring blossoms of various trees and enjoyed the magical mist along with several others who had taken the morning off.  As with most small towns that have not yet been drowned in tourism people were ever so friendly and smiling.  We greeted them and patted their dogs on the head, commented on the strange weather, and talked about the good old days, even though we had shared different good old days.  It was lovely with temperatures in the 70s.  We had lunch at a small table just outside one of the local restaurants that was close to the local Post Office, which of course, provided us the perfect "Andy from Mayberry" experience...just thought I would share.

War is Addictive

My heart goes out to the family of the Army Staff Sgt. that I wrote about in the poem in the earlier post.  They suffer so much when he is stationed in danger and they worry about him every day when he is overseas.  They worry about his emotional happiness when he returns to a regular life style at home.  But they never expected this new hell that has entered their life.

When the expert talking heads were reviewing the situation, which was a violent and horrible killing of 16 Afghan civilians including children one evening outside a U.S. military base in that country, on television and discussing the diagnosis of PTSD they also talked about how many of those who are wounded in battle work very hard to return to the front as they feel they are needed to make sure that those they have left behind are covered.  The territory they must defend is not their homeland or their backyard but the area where those soldiers are stationed. The call of the brotherhood is stronger than anything else.  This is what war does to these brave young men.

Years ago I saw the movie The Hurt Locker which is a war movie created and directed by a woman.  It was a compelling movie to watch because it has a very different and more nuanced approach to the characters in the movie and the reality of war.  I remember a scene without dialogue where the protagonist who is on leave stands in a well-stocked store aisle looking for something on his wife's grocery list.  He just stands there as if looking at thousands of brands of the same product and as if he cannot possibly make such a complicated decision.  His brain just shuts down.  He finds himself in a surreal position.  He is OK with diffusing bombs but deciding on laundry soap is too crazy and too frivolous a waste of his time. He loves his family but grows more attached to a young Iraqi boy in the village where he is stationed.

Clearly this Roger Bale's brain just shut down over something else on his 4th tour to this area after being wounded twice.  War is hell and I continue to wonder about all those young men that will return in the coming year who have had their senses honed for battle and we ask them to return to a 'normal' life.

Dying Tulips

 

Red tulip petals fall to the ground

Not as precious as the splash of blood on desert sand,

But lovely in their death no less.

This early spring day is so quiet it makes you panic.

The bird chatter so squeaky I see you wince.

I saw you study the warm wind out of the East

And I felt the anxiousness growing in your soul.

The time of year for contact was upon them once again.

And you wanted to go and shout once more

I got your back,

I'VE GOT YOUR BACK!

You wanted to return

And finish

And be a part of the final push.

The winter was almost behind them now.

They no longer hunkered.

They no longer bunkered.

They were no longer cold statues in camouflage

Watching sand rifts come and go

Against the walls of empty houses.

The spring was upon them as well

Calling for

A patrol to revolutionize the villages

To win the trust of the poor

And to kill all the others.

My tulips will stop blooming soon

And I will stare into space

Remembering when you helped me plant them.

(First Draft)(For Sgt. Robert Bales)(Just one more comment and I will move on, I promise.)

Down Music Lane

As a young girl coming of age I never had money for records and popular music was not on TV quite yet. I did have a little transistor radio (the size of a deck of cards) that I got from somewhere and I would listen to it at night when I did my homework. The very first performers that caught my imagination were the Everly Brothers. They would become a little too country for me as I changed toward more "sophisticated" tastes.  But at the age of 12 and 13 I could listen to them forever and just fly on that harmony...and I think it was years before I even knew what they looked like.  Their harmony was stupendous to someone who was from a non-musical family.  I listened to the Beach Boys and while I liked Elvis, I was not crazy about him.  When the teenage generation got to have their own TV shows such as American Band Stand and Ed Sullivan, I was introduced to Paul Anka, and those great musical icons, The Beatles.  Holding the core of the pure liberal that I was destined to become I eventually moved on to loving folk singers and those with a message like Simon and Garfunkel,  Joan Baez and the Mamas and Poppas.  

If you stroll down your musical memory lane, who was the first group or singer that captured you as a teenager or pre-teen?


Boy does THIS ONE bring back memories. Yes, it is a little hokey and unsophisticated by today's tastes. But that harmony is an endless reward.

Gifting

The boot is off and I have been instructed to keep exercise and hiking at bay for another 3 weeks. But I feel free at last. So, to celebrate, I am gifting to my readers my corner in spring glory.  Have a nice week!

My Little Corner

When I built this expensive house (while I am not part of the 1% I did save substantial money by living overseas for several years) I knew that I would probably want space for a few indoor plants.  I included a corner at the end of my kitchen that had a strip of tile next to the wooden floor for protection.  The windows in that corner do not have the glaze on them that filters full sunlight and protects objects from fading.  These windows while double glazed are just plain windows.  They face the Southwest side so that my plants get plenty of winter sun.  In a few weeks when the dangers of very cold nights are gone most of these plants will head outside.  The amaryllis will be done blooming and will be tucked away in a place below the deck but near my patio where they will remain unnoticed until I bring them in for a dormant period in mid-October.  They are removed from their pots, the soil shaken away and the bulbs put in black garbage bags and kept in the coldest part of my basement until January where I start the process all over again.  This year because of my ankle injury I was going to abandon them totally, but hubby generously planted them out and while I would have selected other pots, he did a good job as I have beauteous blooms this time of year.  (I still have the other tropical bulbs in the basement waiting for freedom!)

The tiny tree in the middle on the top shelf is my calamondin lime tree.  I replaced it last year as the one I had purchased a few years ago was stressed in some way and the roots never grew.  The other large tree on the right is my kaffir lime tree.  One of the most interesting plants.  I use both the limes and the leaves in Asian cooking.  It does need full sun through the winter and is somewhat temperamental, but you can see it is going to overtake the space.  In the late spring it goes out on the deck.  I protect it with cloth for a few days so it can adjust to the more intense light, but it eventually adapts and enjoys the summer months.

The jasmine in the white pot was a sale purchase for about $4.00 and looked really sad until I revived it.  I don't think the little white blooms are fragrant enough unless you really get close, so it may be a sale item for the Master Gardeners plants sale this spring.

The ugly grasses are lemon grass which my husband insisted on wintering over.  I find that cooking with lemon grass is a real challenge as ones that grow in this climate are tough and not as flavorful as they are in the tropics.  These two will go outside into the garden next month and they will take off like gang busters, but I am still lobbying for their demise in the fall.

The lime green pot contains a geranium.  They are easy to purchase new in the spring, but I always save at least one for the winter months and pinch it heavily to keep it from being too spindly.

Hidden in the back on the bottom shelf are my succulents.  They survive very well if ignored.  They will go outside soon.  Then this corner might return to an area for a summer buffet table.  (You know, like on Downton Abbey...a side board where hot breakfast waits for guests...yes, I am joking here.)

The Time is Ripe

I have developed a schizophrenic personality.

I have hated this boot and all the compromises that it has made me make.  Spring is teasing outside and I have so much gardening that has fallen behind schedule.  I have turned the corner of my living room into a cluttered office so that I can have everything within reach reducing my need to get up, but it looks so much like an old person's corner.  I can no longer just run upstairs to work on photos, but have to schedule it as part of my day so that my stair climbing is done only once.

Still and yet, I have passively enjoyed being a slug.  It is nice to make meal suggestions and get hubby to do most of the cooking (thank goodness he is a reasonably good cook) and to outline the household chores that need to be done for the week and assign myself all those chores that can be done while sitting...such a folding clothes.  It is great to give him a list of things to bring up from the basement to replenish the larder or the bathroom cleaning supplies.  It is nice to be able to say no to volunteer requests without guilt.

On this Tuesday I get another x-ray, and if the orthopedist confirms, I can take this monster off and return to a "normal" life.

One of the first priorities will be re-entering the world of exercise...I do hate that, but it is a must do or die earlier from immobility.  Dynamic change does not fit easily on one's shoulders as one ages.

It is Now Everywhere

I read the book that the scientific writer in this video wrote and it is very compelling but not as much as this video.  Since I had Lymes over a decade ago and caught it early, I am one of the lucky ones.  This video makes a very strong case for getting Federal oversight on health care.  If not the profit makers will walk you to your grave.

Post Script.  I was surprised at how the disease has spread throughout the world and also how varied all the side infections and parasites can be.

Moment of Zen

Since I have been doing nothing and thinking too much (RL, marine lawsuits, etc.) I will provide (as Jon Stewart says) a moment of Zen.

PEACE!

Filling Time

As I am on my own for two more days (hubby has met up with the kids and their kids at Disney World and they are sooo happy to meet him and take advantage of the ratio of three adults and three children that he has agreed to stay for another day) I am settling in further to this extended being-on-my-own mode, hoping I do not get to like it too much.  I am now eating my dinner on the couch in front of the television.  I have become a slug, a slob, a sliver of my former self, except I have probably gained pounds so sliver is not the most accurate image here. 

I am like my son...or my son is like me...ask his girlfriend.  She said many of his friends have told her that they see him so much more now that he is dating her.  They say he used to hold up in his apartment in the evenings and on weekends working on his music, but they are glad she now gets him out and about.  This sounds like the roles my husband and I play in life.  He is the gregarious get-me-out-of-the-house one.

I have tucked away in this house for days, except for one day when I went shopping and ran a few errands taking my boot off to drive and then putting it on to walk through the supermarket. I did get out one warm afternoon to prune my roses which were beginning to leaf out.  Of course, my foot has made me be cautious and as immobile as possible in the house and I have been amenable to that excuse.  I have heard too many stories of people falling and breaking something else when wearing the boot!  AND I really want it to heal, but there is nothing on TV (rarely is there ever) and I have almost finished reading "A Thousand Acres" and my own novel is stuck on Chapter 6 already.

The person that I am trying to interview for the Master Gardener program has not returned my 4 phone calls...guess that is a wash and I will not try to take it personally.  One of my neighbors called to see how I was and my hubby's hostess in Florida and I had a nice chat, but my voice has not been used for much else these last 10 days.

The days are so gray that photography is only an ambition.  Even the sunsets are silver at night. 

I have had so much time to bird watch that I can tell the difference between the various tufted titmice that visit the deck feeders and almost have reached the stage of giving them names.  One has lost his tuft.  He looks so effete and lonely and I wonder where he misplaced it.

I bought the movie "The Way" on cable and it is a nice ride (walk) through Spain/France with Martin Sheen.  His sons are very talented...even the one with issues.  I have watched two different versions of  "The Phantom of the Opera" on TV and listened to every Keb Mo album that I own all this afternoon.

But too much of a good thing is really too much of a good thing.  (Why do I think I have written that before?) 

All Alone

I have been alone since February 24 and will be alone until late on March 3 or mid-day on March 4th.  For those of you who live alone regularly, this is like writing that you have eaten a breakfast in the morning.  For those of you newly alone on a permanent basis it is, perhaps, like a reminder of a bad dream that you thought you had woken from.  For everyone else it is just reading someone's blog.

My husband, whom I love more than I show him and not as much as he deserves, has taken off on a wilderness voyage with two men older than he into the depths of the Everglades for several days by canoe.  This is in reality a dangerous trip, but I have heard today that he is safe, and since he is the best canoe guide I ever knew, I am relieved.  They are all seniors...he is mid-60's and one is mid-70's and the last has just turned 80.  What possesses men to insist they can recreate their youth is something we all understand.  But those of us married to them feel more like parents rather than spouses.

I have enjoyed the quiet mornings when I can lay in bed and read with the second and third cup of coffee.  I have enjoyed the quiet of my house with only my sighs to mingle with the wind and unscheduled grazing and meals that seem to fall together rather easily.  But I am ready for his energy and crazy ideas and desire to make the day last long after sunset.  I am ready for him to return. 

She Writes It Much Better Than I Can

A Slower Pace

I Used to Be One of These...

...and I am proud of that fact!