Little House Life Story #13

Living on a remote island in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean requires depending on your resourcefulness almost all the time. The stores in Micronesia were very similar to the old-fashioned one-stop store in "Little House on the Prairie." You could buy almost everything in one of these stores, but there wasn't much of anything at any one time.

There were a few canned goods, a few types of hardware, a little fresh produce. One had to be very resourceful to identify what was useful. You could never predict what you might find in the store. But, interestingly enough, due to the proximity to Asia and India there were bolts and bolts of summer fabric: fabric of all types, colors and weaves. Fabric did not spoil or damage easily on the long boat ride to Guam and the trans-shipment to Palau. There was always a selection of colorful bolts to peruse. If you could sew, you could fill your days with making things.

In one of my recent blogs I mentioned how I made clothes for my baby girl out of fabric scraps. Well I pretty much had to sew everything I wanted out of these tropical patterns. The photo above shows a cover that I made for my bamboo furniture in our little apartment when the original fabric wore out. I am sure that I found this quite the interior design solution.

If you keep reading, you will notice that the fabrics in the photo below are the same as the one on my baby girls outfit. This is a photo of the bedroom. Yes, the bedroom! I must have loved the pattern. I am sure that I thought it was very stylish and a wonderful example of creative interior decorating.

I must have had absolutely no taste after years of living on a remote tropical island. Geeese!!

Three Day Weekend

Hubby is in Korea for a month or so and I am alone (except for noisy and nice contractors finishing the basement) at the house on the weekends. It is VERY odd being able to do anything I want, eat anything I want, watch anything I want for days...a VERY odd feeling.

During this wonderful respite I decided that it was time for another "Lifestory" blog. I was going through old slides and albums for ideas and then came across this photo of my husband and some islanders during one of his many island hopping jaunts when we lived in Micronesia.

I had to scan and post this because the picture tells a story or two if you look closely---no, my hubby is not gay---he is the most unselfconscious, unpretentious person I know and is totally relaxed with his body. Instead, look at the two island boys and imagine what they are thinking and saying. I am sure they had never seen reef shoes. Then look at how the other islander is dressed and also his body language. A thousand words in this photo, right?

The Ongoing Education

Once again Tabor is getting an education in life. I guess it means we are still alive if we can still learn.

I have recently (re) learned the following:

1) When you receive a call from one of those little people that starts with "I go poo poo in potty." you still react with the same manic enthusiasm you did when you had little tykes of your own. Obsession with pee pee and poo poo goes on and on from generation to generation.

2) Potty training means a child may wake up in the middle of the night several times screaming that he needs to go to the potty.

3) Watching a child bounce off the walls due to too much Valentine's Day chocolate and candy is almost as frightening as a Stephen King movie scene.

4) The reason they are called the Terrible Twos is because the child can be really, really, really terrible---behavior that one expects in an insane asylum comes to mind.

5) It is definitely time for mom to feed the toothless one when the toothless one starts grabbing food off of my plate and then commences screaming when I pull the plate away and lick her hands that are full of my mashed sweet potatoes.

6) At day care little girls are little girls---hugging and hanging on to X-man and little boys are little boys--- running around the room casting glances as they try to impress the visiting grandma.

7) Being around small children brings to mind the same question I ask about Presidential candidates...Why would anyone in their right mind volunteer for this!

8) The answer to #7 is that you are in love with the idea, the process and the result.

Happiness is Overrated

The February 11 issue of Newsweek has an article titled "Happiness: Enough Already." The gist of the article is that melancholia "generates 'a turbulence of heart that results in an active questioning of the status quo, a perpetual longing to create new ways of being and seeing." And the authors conclude that this is a good thing. In other words if you are perpetually happy you no longer long for anything and become constipated, boring, and coasting through life. Some of the article is based on a new book coming out - "Rethinking Happiness" by a father and son team --the Dieners.

Since I have not read the book, I cannot comment on it. But I do tend to agree with the Newsweek article on the popularity in our society of medicating anyone who finds themselves depressed. The clinical definition of depression is too easy to fit most of us at many times in our lives. Medicating this feeling away seems to me a false approach to growth and understanding. Yes, there are people who become suicidal and therefore need medical intervention. But too many of us in our wealthy and self-stimulated society are taking pills to avoid normal pain, to pretend that feeling depressed is not natural.

Pain/depression is a lesson. It tells us something is wrong. It tells us we must step back and move in a new direction. It reminds us that we cannot make it alone in this world and we should turn to those who love us for help. It tells us we are alive and when we begin that time of happiness (and it will come) -- great or small -- we will only fully appreciate it if we can contrast it with the sadness. We can also be more emphathetic and understanding of others' sadness when we take time to go through our own periods of the blues.

The cliche that great art results from great sadness seems to be true. Therefore, will our society not produce any great works of art because we are counting out pills from a bottle with each hiccup in our life's path?

I also think that if our society accepted mild depression or sadness as a temporary transition rather than a permanent setback, we would have fewer suicides. If we accepted that folks are going to be gloomy for a little longer than we like, than we would be more tolerant of their struggles. We need a little patience in this solve-it-in-24-hours-so-we-can-get-on-with-our-lives. We need to hold their hands and see if they can turn it around. We need to remind them of the good times or share our good times. We need to be patient. It is a fine line, but if we follow our instincts we will know the difference.

As Lucy would say, that will be 5 cents please.

Contrasts

This special doll belonged to me at one time long ago. I could not leave the room without her crawling speedily behind me almost causing an accident if I stepped back too quickly. Her little green and navy sundress is one of many that I made from scraps of materials I had. Almost all of her clothes were homemade because we lived on an island that had no clothing stores. Most of the native children ran around naked anyway...so she was the most overdressed. Thirty-some years later, HER little girl, on the other hand, has literally three or four very large plastic containers filled with hand-me-downs in pristine condition in all sizes that will last for years to come.

Little Bag of Tricks

Anna at Self-Winding found this link which is such a good fit following my earlier post.

Don't Think Too Far Ahead

I am probably not the most upbeat person to be around. I do love life and I do find each day an adventure, but I am one of those people who is always thinking too far ahead.

For example, when my daughter was a baby, each time I nursed her, I would think sadly about the day I would have to start weaning her. Then when she became a toddler I would get sad thinking about the day that she would head off to school and how I would miss our hours together. Then, as you can probably guess, the years in junior high for both of my children were filled with my thoughts about the empty nest when they would head out to college and their bedrooms would be filled with dusty prom trinkets and forgotten basketball photos.

I really do try hard to live in the moment. I certainly think that is the healthiest way to get the richness out of each day. Having written that though, it seems I am always hardening myself to what I am going to miss when something good comes to an end. I can remember an really odd moment during (probably) desert storm in the 1980s when I saw a handsome and healthy group of sailors at DisneyWorld on leave. They were having a wonderful time. I was sitting at a table with the family eating a hotdog and suddenly tears filled my eyes and my hotdog became a lump of clay in my throat because I thought about what they would soon be facing. I was embarrassed needless to say, and my husband tried to make light of it so that the kids wouldn't misunderstand.

I really try to be an upbeat person...I am sure that is what my family would say...

International Gifts

We have a weekend visitor from Korea. He is in charge of a marine laboratory in Korea and while visiting my husband also will be visiting relatives living nearby. As Asians always do, he brought a lovely gift and presented it with gracious charm. The box itself was first wrapped in a silver-gray scarf with writing that meant something about power (?). When I accepted the gift I was surprised at how heavy it was. It is about 2 feet by 1.5 feet in size. He carried this all the way on his trip! When I accepted the gift I am sure it weighed 15 pounds!! Inside is a very beautiful assortment of Korean sweets. Far more than my husband and I could ever eat. We will share at dinner tonight and I will also share some with my grandson who may enjoy them. Now we have to think of something nice for my husband to take on his trip back next month...

The Sweet Sadness

I am sitting alone in my room watching the first feathery light flakes of a new snow drift onto the gray shingles of the roof outside my window. In the background I can hear the sweet sad horn of Chris Botti playing on the stereo. I had been to a concert of his recently and remembered that I had not listened to his wonderful music in a long while and pulled out the three CDs I own.

Today is one of those days of strange dichotomies. I am lonely and yet savoring it. I am sad for no reason but know that this sadness can only be appreciated because my cup overflows with happiness. I feel the pace of my breath and heart slowing to a rhythmic peace in sync with this silver gray day. This sadness is bittersweet. This melancholy is the one side of the whole that keeps me from flying off into space.

I am savoring 'Empress of China" tea in a cup I had made with my daughter at a pottery place a number of years ago. It is an ugly green and purple and thus fits completely with the strange day.

I know that part of this strange feeling is the nearness of my retirement. I have told the important people at work and therefore solidified this leap. In the spring, I will be retired. No matter what angle I look at this, it is another milestone in my life. It is another major corner turned. It is like a gift that I have been given, but it is like a large beautiful bowl in which I must find beautiful things to place. There is a real danger of filling the bowl with bits of flotsam and jetsam.

This milestone also means that I have definitely moved away from those parts of living that meant so much. There is no innocence, there is no pureness, life is what it is. When the bowl is full there is no more pleasure in finding new things to place there. At the very end, there are only old memories after all. All the fresh new memories will be made by those that follow us.

It is sad, but it is also wonderfully sweet this little bit of life we have been given.

The Lost and the Losers

I think I am not going gently into that good night as I age. I was made aware of the following yesterday and today which showed I am getting old and no longer fit:

Mr. Jobs in introducing his new tools said (among other things):
…Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Last night as I watched television with my two college educated young relatives, I suggested watching the presidential debates and was told that they wanted to watch the two-hour episode of “The Biggest Loser” which we did. Yes, this is a pun in so many ways.

The cherry on the top is that we will be implementing a new security policy in our office where we will need to change our network password every 60 days and it must be 12 (yes 12) characters in length and use upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols. Does anyone think this will reduce security on our PCs other than me for the OBVIOUS reasons?

The Tear

It came so fast.
It was so unpredicted
In eyes that had been dry for what seemed forever.
It flowed across the hollow
And held and glistened.
All the others in the room held their breath,
Concerned and maybe even afraid.
It was as if this sudden precipice
Meant illumination or darkness,
And yet it may have determined
A presidency.

Dancing?

It has been wonderful to get outside with the little ones. Angel wiggles and tries to fly away in my arms as the warm wind caresses her face. It is the middle of January and we three dance across the crunchy leaves...I can't help but think in the very back of my mind that we are dancing at the earth's funeral.

Winter Tastebud Sharpening

Soon in the middle of the rest of this span of short gray days, the colorful catalogs will start arriving. They will be shocking in their brilliance and seduce us once again into purchasing joy for the spring season. I am writing about the seed and plant catalogs, of course. My husband will look forward to the heirloom plants and think about planting his 'half acre' of tomatoes.

Because of my Italian heritage, tomatoes have played a very important role in my dietary preferences. As you may know, if you also love tomatoes, during this time of year (actually during all but the late summer and early fall months) the stores are filled with red orbs that are labeled as tomatoes, but taste like cardboard and have the texture of mushy apples surrounded by a hard gelatenous layer. I have discovered an acceptable substitute in the grape (and sometimes) the cherry tomatoes. These grape tomatoes (the size and shape of grapes, duh) are sweeter and while not excellent, have a touch of the essence of tomato.

I got a Nigella Lawson cookbook for Christmas from my daughter, (Yes she is that lovely and voluptuous--stop drooling guys-- and a wonderful chef as well.) and we decided to check out the tomato recipes and found this recipe below. I have to paraphrase since I left the book at my daughter house.


Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (232.2222222 degree Celsius)
Slice tomatoes (as many as you want) (large tomatoes need more chopping)
Set in large baking pan or dish and drizzle olive oil over all
Chop an herb (basil, oregano or the recipe called for thyme)
Sprinkle herb, kosher salt and a tiny bit of sugar over all. (you can also add pepper to taste)
Pop in the oven and turn the oven off
Leave in for about 12 hours.
Enjoy in so many ways--spread on toast, in salad or eat them like popcorn as I do.



The flavor or the tomato is very concentrated yet they are still a little juicy and less chewy unlike the dried tomato. The recipe allows use of regular tomatoes, but I think that cherry or grape are the best even though slicing them in half takes a little time. If you crave that tomato taste in the winter, as I do, I think you will like this. Let me know what you think if you try it.

PS--While these can be stored in the refrigerator...they must reach room temperature or be gently heated for best flavor.

2008

The Day Before Christmas

My birthday was the 21st and I went out to dinner with my family and that is where I think I caught this awful head cold. I spent the better part of the dinner wiping Xman's runny nose. In spite of this, he was on his best behavior and the dinner went very nicely and my fish dish was excellent. We ordered a chocolate waffle for dessert and almost couldn't finish it.

Last night the geese held one of their all night parties...due to the warm weather being brought up from the South I am guessing. They laughed and chatted and sang (honking with Christmas joy) until about 3:00. I got up to see what had silenced them and the moon was at its brightest and most lovely, casting strong shadows throughout the forest. It was almost as if daylight had begun!

I drifted back to sleep and in the early morning I set up one of my birthday gifts (a tripod) and went out on the deck and caught this photo of the late revelers heading out in an ever so dignified swim to the main part of the river just as the sun was peeking over the branches of the naked trees.

I am off now to finish the sticky buns for Christmas breakfast. We will have only my son this day as daughter is off to the in-laws for the holidays. My husband and I will be most mellow, but I am afraid that son will be bored to tears without his niece and nephew as buffers in the conversation. It will probably be like a Ben Stiller movie and I do hate those.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday and that your expectations are so small that they all come true.

Dangerous Love

There are those women (girls) that fall head-long into love as if it was an endless pillow of cotton candy. They jump in arms wide and mouth open. Even as they see they are sinking to a dangerous point of no return, they do not regret the loss of control and they continue that sweet roll. Not this chickie-poo. While it was intense when I fell in love in my youth, I still had my feet touching the ground and my head was reasonably clear. I sometimes wish I had been the free spirit, free falling type of woman. The lady with the laugh in her eyes and the never-look-back attitude. But, I think that while my passion was not as abandoned neither was my pain as endless.

I have always been able to do two things at one time and while I was studying that sparkle in his eyes and the softness of his lips, I also kept track of exactly where I was standing in this dance. Girls who remain in control of themselves are not as sexy. They also make clear early in the relationship that they have expectations and we all know that men do not like expectations. Most men remain little boys all of their lives. There are a few grown-ups in the XY line, but they are as hard to live with as us females. I do not regret that I was careful in my approach to life, but I do sometimes wish I could have led that other life in another dimension without all its painful consequences...those which would be manifesting themselves in twinging ways as I reach the age I am now.

Yet once again as I age, I have learned something about myself. Everyone has their price. I have fallen head-long in love with the two little humans above. I have jumped in arms wide and mouth open. None of my feelings are being reserved for logical thinking. I know that the pain will be devastating when I am thrown aside for their other loves. The rejection will require numbing medicine and lots of staring into space. But this love is an overpowering, potent,inescapable passion. And I am going along for the ride for as long as it lasts.

Tagged by Maya

I like some memes and others are not as interesting. I have been tagged by Maya whose blog I read regularly, so I will play.

The Rules are as follows:
* Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
* Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.

(Being as this is a gray and cold day at Taborland, my meme responses below are a little moody...sorry.)

1. Anyone who met me would say I am a social butterfly, but I love being alone for long periods of time---days even.
2. Like Maya I loved reading science fiction as a young girl (Bradbury, Heinlin, Orwell, etc.) and to this day I am a big Star Trek fan. This is weird because if you met me you would never guess.
3. I never forget and sometimes never forgive. (I am working on it.)
4. I wish I could wear high heels --- for a few hours at least. Even as a feminist, I like the way they make my feet and legs look.
5. I wish I had the courage to stop dying my hair, but my artistic side can't stand how it will look all heathered gray.
6. I pierced my own ears when I lived overseas in myu 20's and now one of the holes is too large and I hate that, but am too lazy to do anything about it.
7. I let people get under my skin, which is a reflection of immaturity on my part. I don't think I will ever improve as I have started the 60's decade of my life and still let this happen.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

Tag--your it!!

Peruby
Grrlscientist
Mary FFF
Manababies
Hoss
Daily Warrior
Val

4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Now I will venture out and let them know.

Gender Motivation a Postscript

I have been mulling...and like a spiced wine, I am just a little bitter. I think I am attracted more to uniqueness because when I got old I realized (or at least THOUGHT) I would never again have any kind of power. Why try to pursue power and strength? It sounds like a race or a battle and I am not in any nature for that.

The older people I know who have power are pretty demanding and even manipulative. Many use guilt to hang on to this power. Therefore, I am being very female and attracted to 'uniqueness.' Uniqueness means I am closer to being the real me. The inner me, that maybe I don't even know.

My goal in the immediate (and perhaps distant) future is to find and nurture what is unique about me. This is going to be much harder than obtaining power! I don't even know where to begin. There must be some process. Making a list? Making a wish list? Meditating? Going on a fast? How DOES one find one's uniqueness to nourish?

Gender Motivation

I was doing a lot of driving yesterday and I was listening to my favorite radio channel (NPR). Helping me pass time in traffic was an interview with Judith Thurman about her new book "Cleopatra's Nose." Ms. Thurman's book is a collection of her essays in the New Yorker over the past 20 years. When asked by program host, Bob Edwards, about any insights she gained while reviewing the past 20 years of her work, she said that she discovered an interesting difference in the motivation of men versus women. She found that men are in pursuit of doing something important with their lives while women want to be seen as unique in what they do. This sounds quite true to me.

Allow me to gender generalize. Men want to be responsible for change, for completion of large projects, for being know as leading powerful directions in their professions. Women want to be seen as unique --- from other women in particular (since most cultures see them as women first and skilled or talented human beings second) as well as unique from both genders. We want to be special in some way by those we work with or those who love us. Most of us pursue this uniqueness in a good way. Of course, some women want uniqueness in their sexuality or beauty that makes them stand apart from other women---personally, I think that society has short circuited their minds from seeing the big picture.

Anyway, this concept makes sense as women, who were commodities and not human beings, needed to survive in the ancient days and their uniqueness was the only way they they could stand apart from all others. They did not have power or money to be a mover or changer and therefore, being unique was the key in many ways. Scheherazade comes to mind here. Remember her? That skill is still used by many mother's surviving endless days with sick toddlers

Grandma was remembered for her unique recipes or unique quilts. Mother was remembered for her unique birthday parties or landscaping. Today those skills can be translated in the workplace, but not yet to unique leadership skills. Hillary Clinton comes to mind here. She is unique in that she does what men have been doing for years. Her uniqueness is more of a threat to insecure woman and of course small-minded men.

Which is better. To want to do something important or to be unique?

Filling the Vacuum

There is a vacuity in my brain as I seem to learn many new things each day.

1. If you eat pomegranate at your desk at work your monitor screen looks as though you put a tiny slit in your throat by the time you have finished and red drops are sprayed everywhere else.

2. If you spill the peppercorns at home the two-year-old insists on helping with the vacuum and this can take a long, long, …very long time.

3. Even though as an adult with adult children you finally get to design an adult Christmas tree with all color-coordinated ornaments a la Martha Stewart, you must remember to purchase some that are unbreakable for little children to hang.

4. Three-month-old babies are perfectly capable of throwing nasty temper tantrums.

5. This generation of working mothers is phenomenal. Breast pump at 5:00 AM, out the door at 5:30 AM to help with Habitat for Humanity for your company, and then into the office at 10:00 AM!

6. This generation of working fathers is phenomenal. Flying in from St. Louis at 6::00 PM and heading directly to the office until midnight and then home and up at 6:00 AM to feed and clothe two little ones and get them off to day care and pre-school!

7. If you do some Christmas ornament shopping before Thanksgiving…World News Tonight will shove a camera in your face with the threat of showing the world how crappy you look when you shop on the weekends. I never saw myself on the TV…thank goodness…but the season is not yet over.

8. And finally, these do taste and look different when made according the recipes on each can.