Where Did I Leave That Guidebook

I was sitting watching the movie "Lost in Translation" on television this week.  (I had vacuumed and mopped the kitchen floor, washed the cupboards, made cookies, cooked some marinated pork for later easy BBQ...all for the impending company and I needed a movie break.)  I had seen this movie originally at the theater years ago and fell in love with it at that time.  It is so well written and acted and so different from what one expects in a love story.  If you have ever been on a business trip to a foreign country or traveled with your spouse on such a trip or spent time on lay over in a country where you are killing time, this movie so expresses that lost feeling and that time for re-evaluation of where you are in living your life.  I have been to Japan several times for various reasons and all of the scenes in this movie reminded me of those trips in some way.

Trying to figure it all out, trying to absorb the culture, trying to understand the culture, trying not to be so homesick, trying not to be so different, and being away from your familiar home as if on another planet and feeling a misfit and re-viewing what you want out of life and what decisions you have made thus far is kind of what what this movie is all about.  The lead man is Bill Murray playing an over-the-hill actor who has adjusted to fame and wealth, but is at that time in his life where he can see the world through the un-rose colored glasses.  He sees people as they are and with casual humor moves through each day with equanimity.  The lead woman is Scarlett Johansson who throws a wrench in that movement.  I do not know if this was her first big movie, but I had never seen her before in anything and her charisma  and charm and earthiness is all over the place.  She plays the young end of the lost generation.  She has followed her famous singer husband to Japan and finds herself spending most of her time waiting for him in a hotel room and trying to find herself.  These actors could not have been better cast.  They both come across as real people who through no fault of their own find themselves living in some exotic artificial emptiness and who are able to find each other in that maze growing toward a solid friendship.  It is far from a traditional love story.

Well, perhaps, I have not made this movie sound as interesting as it is.  It is all about values, self-awareness, shallowness, and people who are 'stuck'.  We have all been there and most of us survive that period, and some of us jump off a cliff and find ourselves face down on the concrete. 

Guess what?  I think that this is my first movie review!

Follow-up

As a follow-up to my post below, it appears my blogroll on my sidebar is now working.  Do not know what the on/off glitch was yesterday.   So the death of Google Reader is not to be mourned.

Technology Tweaking is Tantamount to Torture

Well, I ignored all the news blurbs on Google Reader and the concerns by select bloggers recently, because I try to keep my internet social activities to a minimalist experience when discussing coding.  I have not felt any need to make my blog commercial or to make sure it is discovered by many readers.  In my cases and with my subject matter, that effort usually results in more spam rather than more insightful comments from new readers who do not have the advantage of a depth of experience with me.  Yes, stunning writers capture you at "Hello," but writers such as I have to grow on you a bit.  I get less Zen and more Zeitgeist if I try to be innovative in a technological way.

Years ago when I taught HTML to myself just to get through web development at my job, I was glad to be nearing retirement and more able to ignore each new version and change and added acronyms such as XML!  I was the go-to person for many software projects, but it was all a false front because we were the blind leading the blind, and most of us had other things we wanted to accomplish with or without the ever changing technology.

So, is this death of Google Reader, which is something I do not really understand, some type of RSS feed that affects the setting on my Blogs I Follow feed that I set up under Google Blogger years ago?  Is this why I can no longer get new blog post feeds from my blog pals and scroll and select as I did in the past sometimes and can get it other times?

Yes, I get post updates if I go to the Blogger dashboard behind my blog page and peruse the Reading list that falls below...but I am not sure this includes all the blogs I now follow.  What about those under a different service?

I have a wedding to go to and do not have time for this falderal (not a code).  It is like all of the blogs that I follow have fallen behind the iron curtain of coding.  Is this what I deserve for getting this for free for so many years and for naively believing it would continue forever?  I need to be archiving select posts!!

Compulsions

I think we all have them.  Whether we are born with them or they come about because of our lives, we feel compelled to do something a certain way at a certain time.  We react in a certain way to certain people.  Some compulsions are stronger than others.  Some people can control their compulsions...but  if they are accepted by society, some of us find we must do them or explode.

My compulsion is cleaning and beautifying.  I can live in a fairly messy, dusty house for months on end, but if company is coming I must get every dust bunny and streak and errant article of clothing out of sight.  If company is coming to stay...and if company is family...then I cannot control my whirling dervish energy dust bunny.  Yes, I can get a little testy during these times, but I think I try to realize that others are not as crazed with such goals as I, and I let them go cower somewhere until I am back to normal.

For instance, I took the leaf blower and blew our the garage yesterday.  But that was not enough, because I then attached an ammonia cleanser to the hose and washed down the inside windows, the garage door, the garage floor and the steps to the house.  I straightened all the garage shelves and garden shoe and boot piles and assorted odds and ends by the entry.  Yes, I could have rearranged all the shelves in the garage and not just the most visible and really do it up proud, but I found my finished work acceptable.

As my 'fans' know (and the rest will have to catch up) I will be leaving for the wedding soon and bringing relatives back to the empty house after five days away.  This presents a challenge regarding food.  What can I prepare ahead of time and leave in freezer or fridge?  Do I arrange the cut flowers for the bedrooms before I go, or will they all be wilted and petal-dropped when I return.  Thus, do I make a quick cutting trip to the garden while guests unpack on the late afternoon of our return?  Perhaps, since I am an early riser, I can cut and arrange small bouquets the next morning before breakfast?  I have checked the soaps and shampoos and conditioners.

I will have laundered every single floor rug that can be washed.  The rest are vacuumed to within an inch of their nap.  Yesterday I hose washed the outside of all the windows and showered away the webs in corners.

Today I will select the CDs that are most appropriate for dining and pleasant conversation and have them ready in the player for our return.  I have purchased a case of red and a case of white wine, a little more expensive than the wine I buy for myself.  I need to buy beer, but am at a loss, as I don't drink it.

Now I am wondering if I should go through my shoes and straighten those...just kidding.

Some of us have compulsions of a more personal nature...like watching that television series at a certain time, arranging the remote and coffee cup just so each morning,  combing their little boys hair in a certain way before he races outdoors, feeding the cat the exact homemade food formula, or insisting on sorting and reading the mail/newspaper first in the household.  Think about it a minute.  What are your compulsions? 

The Devil is Always in the Details

Regarding my prior post, please note that I am old enough to know that drawing battle lines over this wedding issue helps no one.  Least of all me!  My brother is the sweetest most hardworking and loving guy!  He is a really good looking and tremendous man and his first marriage was a disaster with a woman who cheated on him!.  Seriously, I had better never meet that witch face to face in the future or there will be blood...hers!

Therefore, I am frustrated that this second marriage is far less than he deserves.  But I will not point this out to him...or anyone else.  I just had to point it out to you-all.  His wife is not a bad person.  Who knows what her childhood was like with divorced parents?

Anyway, got my wedding haircut today and it is a little shorter than I hoped, but she spent 45 minutes and really layered it and it is probably the best haircut I have had in years.  Cost $50...which is more than the $12 I usually pay at the walk-in, but worth it.  Maybe I will post a photo of me at the wedding, if I can get someone else behind the camera lens.  I probably cannot post wedding photos as those are copyrighted.

We are driving my son up after work next week three days before the wedding as his car cannot make the trip.  (There is another story in that!)  Since it is a 6 hour drive, we will not be getting in until midnight.

My son has said absolutely nothing about the mother/son dance which concerns me a little.  I guess we are going to wing it.  Pray that we look divine as I can dance well only with a strong lead!

I have finalized the rehearsal dinner number at 80...but since most guests are coming from out of town, that is not unusually large.  It is a BBQ on a beach catered by a BBQ place selected by my future DIL since this is in a town where her parents live.  When I had first called them months ago, they thought I had said the 3rd of July...not the 4th.  When I called again last week, they said they were closed on the 4th!  Yes, I had a mini-heart attack...but they said they could do it if I was willing to pay holiday overtime.  I threw caution to the wind and said I was...thinking this might add hundreds to the bill.  She said overtime would cost $50.  Don't you just love doing things outside the big city? 

I do think Son has picked a '+10' when it comes to his bride-to-be.  We really lucked out on that and I could not be happier for him!  I will next look forward to my grand-children's weddings...and yes, I do expect to be here for that!

Family!

Family!  I think that the best of us, and the worst of us is brought forward at weddings and funerals.  I love each of my brothers (2) and my sister (1) and my dearly departed sister (1) tremendously.  I like my brother-in-law; I like my sister-in-law; and I tolerate with patience my other sister-in law.  None of us are perfect and we all come from various backgrounds and relationships, and if you love someone you tolerate those they love.  I am lucky in that I do not live too close, and therefore, find it easy to keep my opinions to myself. 

When I used to fly out to visit them, I would have to stop by my "baby" brother's house, because he could never get away to see me the entire week I was there at my parents farm only 8 miles away.  He would fix me and my husband a lovely dinner and we would visit and enjoy each others' company.  His wife would never be there, though.  She was always off visiting friends or doing something vague which never was clear in my mind.  Years later I learned that her first child had arrived her Senior years in high school and resulted in a quick wedding that did not last.  She never went to college but I really think she never wanted to.  One marriage and two more children later, she married my brother.  That was when I believed her insecurity at being with us college educated types without such divorce histories was her reason for avoiding us.  I went out of my way to make her feel I was not judgmental in any way and made sure that she understood I thought her three children from two prior marriages were shining examples of good people...which they really are!  Yes the first two have illegitimate children and have never married, but they are basically good solid folk.  The last (under my brother's stronger influence) did make it through college without getting pregnant and seems to have a solid relationship with someone and without children at this time.

Anyway, the stimulus for this diatribe post is my brother's public comment on FB (not the private messaging venue) that he did not have a suit for my son's upcoming wedding.  I thought he was joking and we commented back and forth over a few days until I finally explained that a shirt and tie would make him more comfortable than those in suits sitting in the late afternoon summer sun...the wedding is outside and a suit was not compulsory. 

Now this week, just 12 days before the wedding he PUBLICLY comments on FB that there is a 'snag' in their plans to fly out for the wedding and the later drive to my house.  The dog sitter they had arranged for could not come and they hope to find one that "they approve of" before they have to leave!  He has never come out to see me in all the years I have lived on the East Coast except for my daughter's wedding ten years ago.  Although I have been to visit him at least three times since then.  I do love him, but think this is all someone else's insecurities coming forward.  I think someone does not want to spend time with all the in-laws and is hoping she will not have to.  Unfortunately, even her first born son had said to me years ago that she is a very selfish and self-centered person. 

Do I sound just a little annoyed?  Well, I am.  This  is not a big deal to anyone, but me, of course.  OK, got it off my chest, now I can enjoy this wedding.

Taking It One Step Further

A few days ago Grannie Annie had posted a question on her blog asking her readers to name the historic figure they would most like to meet if they had such powers or opportunity.  It could be a celebrity or a dead historic person...whatever.  I said that I wanted to meet my great grandchildren and my great, great grandchildren in the future and not go to the past.  Why?  Because I have an ego that would like to know if any of my loves, beliefs, etc. filtered through the generations. Did I have the right perspective?   I would also be curious as to where they were in the grand scheme of things.  How they made a living, what they loved, what they fought for and how the world was treating their generation.  Did they still have the freedoms we fight for today?  Were they able to live their lives as they wished?  Did I recognize anything in their personalities that touched a chord?

One of Grannie Annie's readers/responders (who is in the music industry) posted that they had met celebrities and found that they were just regular people.  I think that is true with most of the famous folks.  They are not super smart, super strong, super beautiful...they were just in the right place at the right time and made the right decision or history rewrote their story and it seems to us that they made the right decisions.  Or they were given a great talent and they were smart enough to nurture it.  (Then, of course, I would pay money NOT to have to meet some of these celebrity idiots today...like that woman who just had a baby and is married to a controversial rock star and whose accomplishments consist of pouting and sticking out her (plastic?) chest.)

About 20 years ago I was watching a street festival in the Bahamas as part of a happy crowd. I glanced up at the over 6 foot thin black man standing next to me.  I recognized him but could not for the life of me place him.  After a time, I realized it was the man my children had watched on the TV show, The Electric Company.  It was Morgan Freeman, whose fame is far greater than that educational program...although he still works on education with a TV space science program today.  He even attended an international conference of physicists recently as a guest.  I was both too intimidated and too polite at that time to interrupt his Caribbean vacation and act like a fan, and therefore, I let him be.  I glanced at him now and again, and could have touched him we were so close, but we both had our privacy because it was dark at night.  I do sort of regret that, but I am sure he does not!

We have all had these mental exercises of whose brain we would like to pick.  One fun exercise I read (or heard about) a few years ago was a dinner party guest list.  If you could invite 5 interesting people to eat dinner with you...who would you invite?  I would most certainly include Morgan Freeman because he is such an eclectic and good person.  Also at that time I  read about this exercise I was younger and enjoying and thinking of inviting the humor columnist, Erma Bombeck,...an early woman's liberationist's advocate who used a laugh instead of a bat to make her point. She could keep us laughing right into dessert.  Two down and three to go...whom would you invite?  And perhaps a neat additional question...what on earth would you serve?

Gives Me Pause

Today is Father's Day and with the monumental job of being responsible for the successful journey of a child from infancy to adulthood no father can take total blame if things go astray.  Fathers can only be thankful for what went right and accept the lessons learned and then start over.   

In my role as a mother, I remember that my son and I had a somewhat rough time together when he reached his teen years.  He is blunt, like me.  He has a strong creative muse that does not let him rest and comes before others, like me.  He is stubborn in his ideas, like me.  He had periods of depression, unlike me. We grew apart for a while with a mutual peaceful understanding after some heavy discussions as he entered adulthood.  Then in his late 20's he returned to the fold and we fell in love with each other once again and became good friends and best supports for each other.  We still are finding our way on this winding journey.

My, now 30-something, son said to me the other day...not his exact words but the gist of it..."All of my friends like you guys.  I told them you are a little crazy, but they like you anyway."  Is this a left-handed complement or what?  Should I avoid analyzing it?  Should it be taken seriously?  Have you received any strange complements from your adult children that give you pause although they make you smile?

Planned or Unplanned Obsolescence

Things your great great grandchildren may ask about:

What were postage stamps and why did people collect them?
What was a telephone?
What was a wall clock?
What was a radio?
What does the word 'cash' mean?
What was a hard drive?
What was cork and why was it used?
What was a book?
What was paper? And what was a newspaper?
What was a love letter?
What was an address book?
What was a photo album?
What is a FAX machine and why does it have that odd name?
What was ironing?
What was a power line?


Here are things I hope they do not ask!

What was spaghetti?
What was privacy?
What was a swing?
What was a nursery rhyme?
What was a butterfly?
What was a bumblebee?
What was a board game?
What was a sing-along? (NOT Karaoke)
What was retirement?
What is a misspelled word?

Asian Woods

Many of my readers were more impressed with my rattan furniture than any of the hours and hours (and hours) of work I completed.  I guess some were speechless, others felt guilty, and the rest of you just ignore a braggart.

Therefore, I thought I would discuss my rattan.  First, rattan is a type of solid vine and wicker is type of weave that can use any number of materials such as rattan, bamboo, willow, rush, etc.  Rattan is the most sturdy as it is solid core and related to the palm tree.  It grows straight up and then winds down and around for a loooong way.  My furniture came from the time I lived in Indonesia.  I cannot remember how much it cost, but I know it would cost a lot more to purchase it in this country today.  Hubby's employer at the time, the State Department, shipped it back for free as part of our household goods.

It is best used indoors, and for a number of years I had a sunroom, where it was used.  For the last five years it has been under this deck of my new house.  The deck leaks to this patio below in spite of the protection.  Therefore, I try to keep the rattan sheltered in the winter with a plastic cover and make sure I paint it every few years.  It is still in pretty good shape with only a few places where the rattan has started to crack although I have owned and used it for over 20 years.

Yes, I used a spray can to paint it as Peruby suggested.  It took 7 or 8 cans and I had to spray two coats as well as a touch up after turning the furniture upside down and seeing places that I missed.  My fingers were stiff!!

I bought two cheap (very cheap) plastic chairs at the hardware store that sort of compliment the color and help add more seating.  I say they are cheap both in structure and price, because they are not all that solid when you sit on them in spite of their appearance and I will have to lock them down if a hurricane comes this way.  Behind is an Asian-look water fountain and on the other side of the steps toward the far back is my black bamboo that I planted years ago and must keep in place each year.  It does not spread like crazy as real bamboo does, so just a spring cut back seems to work although the early spring growth can dust your face with rain dew when you descend the stairs.  I can cut away some of the inner bamboo once it turns black and it makes an attractive support structure for plants.

Yes I changed the color of the outdoor rug because that red rug was falling apart...and I have company coming after all.  The contrast color is red, because my window trim is deep red all around the house and when the furniture was white, that was cool.  We will see how long I like this spring Christmas theme.

The Pace of Retirement - Part of Just One Week- Who Knew?

So, after my last post one might envision me sitting on my deck with a camera and a book and contemplating the summer dancing shadows for several afternoons while sipping a favorite wine.  Fat chance!  I have decided I am my own worst enemy.  With company (6 adults for 3 days) coming immediately after my return from a distant wedding the first week in July, I am determined to have a spotless house and yard it seems and I made this list to see what I could accomplish and actually surprised myself!  I am bats++t crazy...just a little.

Tuesday:  2 hours working with my volunteer gardeners at the museum, three loads of laundry done, transplanting plants into pots at home, cooking dinner.
Wednesday:  1.25 hours running, lifting weights and stretching, cleaning the big closet, dusting upstairs bedrooms in the corners and cornices and under furniture, weeding flower beds, washing off deck, watering plants on deck, cooking dinner.
Thursday:  Meeting on the children's garden at the art museum, grocery shopping, cleaned carpets in basement, cleaned sectional sofa and the loveseat and one rug on main floor (with hubby's help), returned carpet machine and did a little shopping at the small mall and ate out at the Thai restaurant.  Insomnia woke me at 2:00 P.M. so finished reading "Me Again"on my Kindle.
Friday:  Put all furniture back in place on slightly damp carpet, washed down the elliptical and dusted other stuff, one hour heavy exercise, brief update on blogger, called Toyota dealer for appointment, sorted the dozens of magazines piled on and beneath the huge coffee table in the main room, cleaned out the laundry room cupboard under the sink and threw away a bunch of stuff, folded one load of laundry, checked off stuff on my list and added stuff to my list, took a nap, washed out and re-arranged the coffee cupboard in the kitchen, and cooked dinner (popcorn).  (It poured rain all day so this was easy!)  Doesn't it all look so shiny clean down there?

Saturday: Washed upstairs bedroom windows (6) and screens and dusted the trim.  Changed the sheets in one bedroom.  Fixed (after 20 minutes of work) a stupid casement window that would not close--the left one in the photo below!  That is the area where we keep the kids books and toys.  (I hate Eagle windows.)  Cleaned the upstairs bathroom and put out new shampoos and soaps.  Selected two photographs and hung them in the upstairs guest bathroom (talk about tooting my own horn!) but they matched the orange accents in that room and believe it or not, I just eyeballed the placement.  Vacuumed and mopped the tiled areas of the basement outside the carpet and rug areas (in photo above), mopped the landing and stairs, cleaned up hubby's grow light area, cleaned basement bathroom and shower (and discovered the shower sprays everywhere when you open the door to use it so got a quick shower!!).

Grow light unit.

Sunday: I will clean the guest bedroom downstairs, wash the two basement windows and the one set of french doors in the basement, dead-head roses and sundry other dead-heading after the two days of rain. There is one hour of regular exercise that I have promised myself to complete.  

Last week I painted these...they used to be white!  My goodness what a slump I will be in when I finish all on the list!  I realize I have to quit beating myself up on not getting organized for this...cause I guess I am moving it forward regardless once I started listing all that I do get done.

Charging Around or Re-Charging

My daughter has invited me to a belated sharing to celebrate Mother's Day now past.  I have told her time and again, I just want time...perhaps a lunch at a cafe and a movie matinee.  But, she is bringing along my 5-year-old granddaughter who sometimes seems more like 6.  It will be a girls day and I am not sure what it will be.  At first I thought it was the rose show in her area, but she said we would be spending the time in-doors and not walking much and I am sure my granddaughter is not (yet) into roses.  All will be revealed later and it will be fun.

BUT this post is not about that.  It is about how busy my life seems these days.  With a wedding, various holidays, a field trip I am planning for my volunteer group, my volunteer work, my own gardening, relatives coming back from the wedding to my house for several days, babysitting the grandchildren for three days twice this summer, and a schedule next week for an oven repair, I am beginning to feel like life is too busy for me.  Many of these are necessary time sumps and others are things of joy that I love.  But as a creative soul, I find they take away from my reading, my photography, and my writing and my re-charging.  With age I am finding that quiet time is so essential to my soul.  I need it like most people need water, and now that I am retired, I really want to cram as much quiet time as possible into my days...those few thousand days that us old folks treasure.

Those of you who are young wonder why two or three days full in an otherwise empty week can be so draining, but someday, if you are lucky to live a long life, you will find that bouncing back is just a little harder and greed for this me-time is just a little stronger.  Perhaps it is a rebound from all the hours, days and weeks we sacrificed for our family and job when we were younger.  OR you may be like my husband and have a passion for filling every single hour of every single day with some project or activity and totally forgetting many of these things when they collide on a calendar!

Yes, I can still juggle three grandchildren, their meals and fun times, and my email and bills and housecleaning and travel and exercise and hobbies.  But once I get a day of unscheduled breathing room, I tend to stare into space and breathe slowly for hours or read poetry or watch a good British mystery on TV while I slowly fold clothes.  I am like a cell phone that needs to be plugged into the wall and not used for hours.  I can't even carry on a conversation as that is too draining!

So if there are greater gaps in my blogging you will know that I am downloading some energy somewhere.

The Burial

Such a hot day to revisit the old barn.  The door is loose and swings open almost by itself when I release the metal latch.  The bright sunlight outside blinds me to the dark blankness inside.  It feels cooler and I relax in the shelter from the hot air.  Eventually my eyes adjust to the faint contrast of slices of sunlight as they filter through cracks and holes catching dancing dust fairies which hang above the earthen floor in stasis.  Their glimmer is the only movement in the quiet stillness all around me.  There are two empty but familiar stalls staring at each other on the far end of the building.  An old bit of rope hangs from one wooden support post.

It is so stale inside as if nothing alive has been here for hundreds of years.  This is odd because there is only weathered wood between the bird and insect noisy traffic outside.  There must be mice and dark beetles at home in small corners and behind the wooden boxes stacked to one wall.  I tilt my head to one side and listen, carefully and with slow intent.  Such a peaceful quiet is foreign to my city ears and I hear just a soft creak as the big door moves when caught by the small summer breeze.

It is not how I remember it at all.  This was once a busy place with milking cows, an old tractor with its insides open and undergoing constant repair, swallows leaving their mud bowl nests under the trusses to dive bomb the dogs beneath them, and above it all, unseen, was a loft of sweet smelling hay.  There was always movement and sounds and animals grunting. 

I cross the uneven earth and test the first step of the wooden ladder to the loft.  It holds very firm as does the rest of the ladder as I climb it slowly to the very top avoiding splinters from the edges of the wood.  I pull my knee over the edge at the last step and scoot up onto the floor.  There is no hay, just dust and pieces of wood.  The large door to the hayloft is gone and light floods the area making it easy to see that some animal, probably a vulture or barn owl, had recently made its home here.  It smells faintly of must and poultry.

I sit with crossed legs at the edge of the loft door, the hot sun on my arms, my eyes in the shade and look across the land.  It is fallow and growing mowed weeds these days.  Colored wildflowers fight for attention in the center.  It still looks familiar.

That crazy summer floods back in my memory.  I had learned that I was a woman by the way the young boy we had hired for the summer watched me out of the corner of his eye.  It was an uncommon electric feeling that fed my soul and changed everything I did each day.  It changed how I wore my hair, how I walked, and how I modulated my voice.  We got to know each other over the weeks in between heavy-duty chores and lost our self-conscious pretenses.  We shared lemonade, jokes, and a swim in the river down by the cherry trees.  We loaded bales of hay onto the wagon and laughed as we grew sweaty and tired by sunset barely able to walk back along the dirt road to the house.  By August, we held hands and kissed and he smelled of raw corn or green grass and soap.

Then we almost made love one afternoon in this loft.  He was the one who pulled away at the last minute as he felt my body give in and my arms welcome him close.  He was the smarter one, and I was the thoughtless romantic.  He had three years on me and plans for another three years.  I was still into romance novels and gossip and another boring year of high school.

It is tempting to think what might have evolved if we had made love.  I am old enough now to know what a tragedy that might have been back then.  That foolish romantic in me is long gone.  I never heard from him or about him after that summer.  It was as if he was a character in those romance novels I read and had faded into a fictional fog with the end of the summer.  It was as if he did not really exist except in my imagination.  It was as if he was a canceled summer series on television.  It was as if that girl did not exist either, because I was someone else now.  I had responsibilities, I was sophisticated, I was working on a plan.  I had buried that silly child somewhere far away like a faded valentine or pressed corsage that doesn't look quite as wonderful as it did on the day it was given.  Today I was a foreigner in a foreign land.

(Bits and pieces are true, of course, but the story is fiction.)

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Yes, it does break the rule of thirds!

While we enjoyed our son and fiance's visit over the holiday weekend the recent holiday Monday itself we spent canoeing.  We have been so busy with volunteer and social obligations that we have not taken the time to get the canoe out on the water before the mosquitoes and warm weather make it more of a trek rather than a trip.  We took the smaller canoe and that meant loading less paraphernalia.  The canoe itself gets balanced on hubby's upper back and transferred to the top of the car where he climbs up and ties it off in 4 places.  The landing was only 20 minutes away.  Still at our age we feel blessed to be able to do this.

I am 66 and proudly taking no medications.  I am beginning to feel arthritis creep in after I exercise or do yard work and my getting up in the morning would give you a laugh as I hobble to the bathroom.  Once the joints are warm and greased I can do almost anything including touch my toes with no pain.  I do get a bursitis in my left shoulder if I exercise too much and that can last all week.  As I age I have noticed a nasty cough that catches me by surprise if I am not keeping up on my fluids and my less than stellar eyesight is most annoying as I love photography.  My desire to lose weight continues and I run on the elliptical about 6-9 miles a week, lift heavy (10 pound) weights and do stretching.  I do some yoga, but must be careful as I can push it too much and then regret the joint and tendon pain for days.   Still, I think I am very lucky for my good health at this time in my life.

Hubby has always been very healthy as well, except for problems that started years ago.  He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and while some men are doing the watch and wait, he had the radiation seed treatment and by the year's end he was pretty much back to normal except for check-ups through these past years.  That was 6 years ago and his appointment last week was his last as they now have declared him cancer free.

About 10 years ago hubby also started having problems walking and seemed to be stumbling often.  He is a reasonably athletic person and was able to recover without falling to the ground most times, although it did make for some interesting acrobatic moves on his part.  I thought he was just being careless as he talks a lot when he walks.  Then he got intermittent numbness in his hands and the eventual diagnosis was stenosis of the spine.  This meant the canal that carried his spinal cord was narrowing in places causing the nerves to be pinched.  If it was left untreated and got worse he could be paralyzed down from wherever the stenosis begins.  In his case it was his neck!  He went in for spinal surgery and had the back part of four vertebrae removed...yes removed...so that now his spinal cord rests in the open channel and is covered by muscle only.  I exaggerate not at all when I say he was out of the hospital the day after surgery and home and walking with a neck brace in the suburban neighborhood where we lived within days.  Within weeks he was back at work part time.  He was determined that this would not set him back one inch.

By the end of the year we were hiking, canoeing, bike riding and continuing our fairly active lifestyle once again.  Unfortunately, now years later. the stenosis has returned as it sometimes does.  His neck is too stiff to turn too far to either side when driving,  it hurts if he hits a bump while riding the bike, and he is being careful many times by wearing a neck brace.  He does the assigned exercises.  The doctor has recommended painkillers and Valium as a muscle relaxant and are taking a wait and see approach.

Hubby is being brave, but having a science background, he tends to be more analytical and also understands anatomy very well.  I put off the images that you know flit across my mind on occasion, and try to make him be more careful as we age together.  None of us knows what the future will hold, and we only hope that we hang on until the very last laugh or scoff depending on our mood.

Old age is not for the weak of heart or spine, it seems.

Spam You!

Get a clue!  I dare you to prove that you have made one dollar in this enterprise of driving us all into an irritating frenzy of pushing the "remove forever" key.

If you praise my blog post or say it is unique among all you have read or wonder how I have been able to market myself so well, your comment will be marked as spam and deleted.

If you say you are committed to my cause, praise my writing style or ask if I would like advice on getting search engines to find me more easily, your comment will be marked as spam.

If you ask if I know that my text is running off the screen and  tell me I may need to change browsers and ask that I visit your site at the very end AND provide a link, your comment will be marked as spam...and thus deleted.

If you write in barely acceptable English using bigger words, stilted grammar and clearly do not know how to write a comment post you will be marked as spam.  You will not force me to use word verification for my busy readers no matter how many times you comment!  I can see through you!  I win.  You lose!

My HTML will trump your XML.  The ICMP will find your traceroute TCP/IP  ASAP if enough of us complain about this system!  You can Phish and Pharm all you want but we will win in the end because we use blood and hearts to fire our electricity and catch our readers.

But since you are a soulless computer and select me via a random algorithm clearly ignorant of the fact that this stupid spamming does not bring anyone to your site, and you will not actually read or understand this post anyway, I can only hope for more successful spam blocking via another computer filter developed by someone else with blood in their veins in the future!  It is the war of the computers while those of us with hearts hope a server gets unplugged.

Dinner with Wine and Water

 While continuing to explore the issues of water in this country I was very disappointed to learn that this liberal environmental state that I live in has the worst water pollution in the country! Thirty-three percent of our sources have some pollution.  I guess I am going to have to start some letter writing on that.  Years ago when rivers outside of Cleveland would catch on fire due to pollution we had no regulations on what and how much disgusting byproduct that could be dumped into them.  They were gigantic toilets that became someone's problem downstream...we naively thought.  Under Richard Nixon's administration, Congress passed the Clean Water Act which  began the slow uphill climb to make industry and agriculture take notice of how they were treating our waters.  Then as the years passed we learned that we as individuals also bore the guilt of this and had to change our lifestyle.

When you are focused on an issue it creeps into your conversations with others.  Hubby had done some connection recently across space and time and this connection resulted in a last minute dinner guest the other day, which throws this anal retentive into a bit of a tizzy.  I was busy reading up on my state's water plans instead of cleaning house.

Anyway, as usually happens it all worked out very well in the end.  The elderly gentlemen brought both white and red wine!  We had fried oysters from the dock, bruschetta on French bread and roasted summer vegetables with herbs.  I made an easy strawberry cream cheese pie with fresh strawberries from the garden for dessert. We drank lots of water and wine.

Our guest was a business man whose main focus in life was using some scientific biochemical technology he developed to help people in both our country and through-out the world to filter things on surfaces and through substances, including water!  He might be an idealist without a chance in hell or he might be a man with a viable mission in life, I really could not tell.  He seemed very nice, straightforward and honorable...a deacon in not one but two churches!

He had recently returned from Poland where he was working but also assisting with a high school science fair outside the city of Krakow.  He had been assigned several children who were working on a water filtering project.  They were trying to filter radioisotopes from drinking water.  When he asked why they had selected this project, they explained that their drinking water was making their people sick from the radioactive particles in it!  He was shocked and also greatly saddened to see these young scientists working on such a tragic problem.   Then as a scientist he had to explain that filtering the drinking water was one small step as they were showering their bodies in this same water and it would be absorbed through the skin as well.  This was not Japan after a tragic earthquake, but Poland where the former footprint of the USSR is still ugly and the black market is more than healthy.  In Japan they are monitoring the radioactivity from the earthquake, but in Poland it is from the lack of regulation from their old power plants.

As a liberal voter I am big on environmental regulation, and I know that means a greater cost in whatever I buy to offset the greater burden to the business owner, but at least it is a transparent choice and I accept, that with our growing population, it will become a more expensive way forward.  We may own less fancy technology and less of it, but our eyes will be open, our lungs will be clear and our organs will be healthy and our children will thank us.

Dinosaur Pee

Do you know where your drinking water comes from?  Many people think that it comes from the kitchen sink faucet or the refrigerator filter nozzle.  When I lived north in this state, my drinking water came from the Potomac river.  It was pumped to a filtration plant where they added things like chlorine (a chemical poison) to kill any nasties that might be growing in it before it reached my stomach.  It tasted OK and it smelled OK and we survived.  We did have to let the chlorine out-gas before we added it to our Koi pond, though.

Many of the nearby well populated communities in the area pulled their water from underground.  They went down just deep enough to get to the first water table, as that is the cheapest when you are pumping for a city.  This water was less than 100 years old.  It was water was made from filtered rain, but went through some pretty disgusting soil before it was collected and then treated by the water plant.  It could have come from some grandpa's toilet!

Today my water comes from an aquifer about 400 feet beneath my land.  A geologist told me the other day that my water is very old and goes back to dinosaur times!  It has sat in that underground lake for many thousands of years.  It probably was created from rain washing over dinosaur poop and pee before we were a twinkle in evolution's eye!  It is very safe to drink, and if you do not mind the hydrogen smell that occurs when we get lazy and do not treat the pipes, it is water that can be added directly to fish ponds or drinking glasses.  I find this mind-boggling.  According to the USGS "Ground water may flow through an aquifer at a rate of 50 feet per year or 50 inches per century, depending on the permeability of the soil above it. But no matter how fast or slow, water will eventually discharge or leave an aquifer and must be replaced by new water to replenish or recharge the aquifer.  Thus, every aquifer has a recharge zone or zones and a discharge zone or zones."  These aquifers vary.  "Rocks that yield freshwater have been found at depths of more than 6,000 feet, and salty water has come from oil wells at depths of more than 30,000 feet.

Water is a finite resource.  We have become addicted to corn for food, food additives and energy, a crop that sucks up water like a sponge and we plant it across the land.  The drought across the U.S. has left water tables in Texas and Kansas and Colorado almost empty now.  Farmers go deeper and suck up sandy water and ruin their pumps in their desperation to grow a crop.  Yes, they are switching to milo and other crops that require less water, but it may not give us enough time to replenish that underground water source.  Refilling that large aquifer would require hundreds if not thousands of years of rains.  There has been a 30 foot decline in the water level.

We are now moving into the Anthropocene epoch, a term coined by scientists because we are changing the climate and resources of our planet so rapidly.  An International Geosphere-Biosphere Program paper says, “On average, humanity has built one large dam every day for the last 130 years.” It adds, “Tens of thousands of large dams now distort natural river flows to which ecosystems and aquatic life adapted over thousands of years."  We are sinking river deltas and removing wetlands which are natural barriers to inland flooding and you can see this on the news everyday.  People in North Dakota are now fighting over water resources (even though they are still in abundance) to continue expanding their fracking industry which makes them one of the primary energy states in the nation.  Let us hope they run out of gas before they tap into the Great Lakes.

Some even blame some of the tragedy in Syria to the lack of water management.  Their dictator (he who shall not be named) took land and gave it to his friends and they farmed it so vastly and carelessly that they ran the small farmers off their land because they could no longer get water from the ground.  Then drought ravaged 60% of the land even more moving 800,000 farmers and herders into poverty.

Water is precious and we must protect and use it wisely.  Writing this has made me thirsty.  I am going to go drink some dinosaur pee.

Let Us Get Our Feet Wet

I live near the Chesapeake Bay on a river that feeds into it.  Five major rivers flow into this bay and numerous tributaries also dump water into this largest estuary in the United States.  Two theories hold strong for the formation of this bay.  One an asteroid collision or two a giant glacier.  If you are a numbers person, the Chesapeake Bay is 200 miles long. fed by 48 major rivers, and fills from 100 tributaries that drain across a 64,000-square-mile watershed.  These are rivers that run by highways, cities (including the Nation's Capital), subdivisions, and farms.  These are rivers that collect lawn fertilizer, farm pesticides, and runoff from highway oils on their rush to the sea.  The fertilizers from farms are one of the worst pollutants creating huge algae blooms and eventual die-offs falling to the bay bottom and resulting in dead zones where oxygen does not exist.  And the average depth of the bay is 21 feet..not very deep at all.  In fairness to farmers, they have reduced their use of fertilizers over the years through better practices.

Cow poop and pee plus packing of the shoreline...not so good for the river.

Two thousand seven hundred plant and animal species attempt to live in and near the Bay.  At one time there were so many oysters in this Bay that the water was completely filtered, ALL OF IT, in a week!  One Algonquin Indian translation of the word Chesapeake is "great shellfish bay."  That was when you could wade into the water and see your feet---I am guessing if you did not cut your foot on the many oysters shells.  "Such huge numbers of shellfish had a major impact on the environment.  Oysters are filter feeders, which means that they remove nutrients from the water as they siphon it through their gill system.  This filtering process removes the phytoplankton and other small organisms that grow in the water.  In essence, each oyster is a small, water-treatment plant that cleans the water passing through it as it feeds.  The cumulative effect of millions and millions of oysters feeding each day was to keep the waters of the Chesapeake clear and pristine.  Biologists have estimated that when the English settlers reached Virginia and Maryland in the 1600s, oysters were filtering the entire Chesapeake Bay once a week.  The result was waters of remarkable clarity, even down to depths of twenty feet or more."  Those days are past as we have less than 2% of the number of oysters growing in the Bay.  They have died off due to disease from pollution stress and also disappeared from over-harvesting.  Work is ongoing to restore oysters to the Bay... a slow, but perhaps ultimately successful process if we get a handle on the pollution and get better cooperation from the oyster fishermen which is a different species than the oyster farmer.

We have a former state senator, Bernie Fowler, who was an avid fisherman as a young man, and noticed the declining clarity of the water on the Patuxent River when he would wade in each spring just north of where I live and try to see his feet.  In 1988 this 'wade-in" became an annual tradition to remind people of the declining clarity of our waters and also gave energy to a movement where then Senator Fowler sued the Environmental Protection Agency for its lack of enforcement of pollution laws.  The Bay is no where near healthy, but at least has stabilized in its decline and Senator Fowler has brought it to the public attention.  He is now 89, but still does his wade-in.

Pinkney Island, South Carolina, protected shoreline

Since we live in the 'critical area' I only fertilize my flowers and perennials with a slow release food and I am super conservative with pesticides and fungicides.  I am removing those plants that require too much spray to survive.  We still keep a few fruit trees that are demanding.  We no longer fertilize or herbicide our lawn so it can look like a golf course.  It does look like mowed weeds and we have allowed more clover to take over.  The clover is good for the soil and rabbits like clover to eat instead of my flowers.  If you live in a first world nation and fertilize your lawn, allow run-off from your roof, are not careful when you fill your lawn mower with gas or any endless number of things that hurt our water quality...remember that like fossil fuels clean water is also is a finite resource.  (My next post is on drinking dinosaur pee...really)

The Treatment

I had absolutely no idea what to expect upon getting a facial.  I did know that I would have to remove my glasses and earrings, but when the young lady took me to the dressing room and told me to take everything off down to the waist and wrap a towel under my arms when I emerged, I realized this was going to be a much more intimate experience than I had anticipated.   My purse and watch and jewelry went into a locker with the key on a cord given to me to wear around my wrist. 

When I entered the room for the facial the key was placed in my bathrobe pocket as I took it off and hung it on the door.

The woman, maybe in her early 40's,  who gave me the facial was from Hungary originally (thus the European Facial ?).  We started out with a nice warm chat about paprika and getting fresh spices and other things as I nervously drove the conversation.  Eventually she got me to shut up and she had me lie down on a soft white hospital type bed.  I had neglected to put on the plastic slippers when I changed clothes so had to remove my shoes as she carefully tucked me under a warm sheet and wrapped my feet snugly.

My  hair line was wrapped with cotton and my whole head wrapped in a nice fragrant towel.  The first treatment was  a minty soap wash on my face, neck, shoulders, arms and hands!  Next was a body scrub of some type which was rubbed in and then rinsed away.  Then (since I had my eyes covered for most of this) I think they put on some kind of oatmeal mask for the face and neck and I sat under a warm steamy wand while she massaged and creamed my arms and hands before placing them in warm mittens.  She was mixing stuff behind me as I sat under this fragrant steam bath for about 10 minutes with my hands so cozy.

Then every thing was washed away once again and she applied a cold cream.  I mean a COLD cream.  I guess that is where the term comes from, because this felt like it came out of the refrigerator! 

Then came a 10 minute massage of my face with this cream.  It was really wonderful!  Firm in the beginning and ending with such a gentle touch I could not really tell when she had stopped!  I was allowed to rest for a few minutes before she once again removed all the stuff from my face with various cloths and tissues.

The next step was a little startling.  She covered my eyes in some fragrant damp tissue and then brought a bright light over my face and I began to feel little stings.  I realized after a time that she was squeezing my black/white heads with some tool and cleaning all of my pores.  It was not the most pleasant experience, but I have a high pain threshold, so sat back and endured and felt just a little embarrassed...I mean, how much money would they have to pay you to squeeze someones pimples?

Then there was one last wash with something else with a more flowery fragrance and a gentle pat dry and I was done!  I did not get a chance during that day or the next day to look closely at my skin, but I did feel really clean and refreshed and I would do it again if I was not so cheap!

My daughter had finished just a minute or two before me, so we were completely in sync to head out for the rest of our day.

Breathe Deep

Yep, it was one of those whirl-wind weekends.  (I think I get one every year.)  At my age it takes me a full day to really recover three days of full social contact.  When I pulled into the yard I could feel the blood pressure lower as my green lawn, my little blue bird couple and my tons of blooming iris greeted me in full spring glory.

I got home mid-afternoon on Sunday in the lovely sunshine and all was well until I saw two very healthy bunnies mating in the front yard under the pyracantha bushes.  Amazing, as the pyracantha has very nasty thorns.  It reminded me of the Tar Baby story, and if you do not know the Tar Baby story, don't worry.

Anyway, the spa day was full and expensive, but I would do it all again in a minute to spend time with my princess.

Check-in at the spa.  Ready for facials and massage!  (I could do a whole post on my first facial!)

This is where you relax after the massage and before the facial.  It is an old building that has been there for over 50 years although the spa has been in existence for about 15 years.

Then there was time for sitting under spring blooming trees and conversation.

And time for a walk and some window shopping.

And time for a long tour of the Torpedo Factory Art Center which is a famous place in Alexandria.

Then we arrived at the restaurant EVE and sipped some wine while waiting for our table.  We were eating early and yet the place was about a third full!

We were placed in the long room and had the whole place to ourselves for most of the dinner.  Notice the nice chandeliers above.

And like all good girls we celebrated the day with exotic drinks and exotic desserts before heading home and back to reality where we had to pick up two of the grandkids who were waiting for us at their older brother's Cub Scout meeting.