Dischordant Harmony

Sweetmango wrote a post about how we must learn to live with nature and not try to transform or fight its natural flow. This is true and good advice, except for those of us who are gardeners. Our entire mission is to transform the soil, the light, the day length, and the habits of the natural enemies of each and every plant we place in the ground. We try to do this as organically as possible, but it is still an unnatural effort on our part to manipulate nature to meet our goals.

We were teased with a brief respite from the cold weather over the weekend and into early this week. Temperatures were 70F (21C) which is very inviting. We moved dirt to beds, added compost to beds, finished retaining walls, weeded (yes they are already peaking above the soil in the flower beds and strawberry beds), finished a wire fence around the vegetable garden (my hands are cut and bruised from twisting wire ties), finished tacking the rest of the wire to the ground and out about 8 inches to discourage diggers, finished the gate to the garden, planted pak choi, swiss chard, broccoli, arugula etc. into the raised beds, made two temporary greenhouse covers, hauled many wheelbarrows of landscape brick and sand to border the new flower bed, transplanted a few indoor plants, moved the citrus trees to the deck (temporarily) and welcomed a hot shower or bath to ease weary muscles at the end of each exhausting day.

My fingernails still have dirt under them after a long soak.

All this energy spent but in one accident of nature (a wayward deer or groundhog, a strong wind, a flooding rain, a very hard freeze), most of these cool weather plants can easily 'bite the dust' if you pardon the pun.

The deer fence goes in tomorrow and it will be interesting to see if this expense does reduce the tick population and the grazing decimation by deer. Today we saw five of them in the ravine eating the new growth on the wild roses which are considered an invasive species. So they do have a good purpose in the spring when they graze.

Is there a point to this ramble, you may ask?

In the photo above is a stray arugula plant that found a home just outside the garage door in the black gravel of the driveway last fall. We walked on this volunteer frequently and most likely drove over some of it at times. Yet, it lasted until the first freeze. My point is that nature is very mercurial and while we think we can control it the joke is on us.

A Dear Old Coot

I think one of the biggest surprises I have discovered in blogging is how one can grow to love and admire another blogger. Some become like a brother or sister. When I first started blogging I went to Gene's blog and after reading his funny and somewhat shocking post (as were all of his posts) I started to leave my first comment. When I found that I was going to be number 36 or 38 or whatever, I almost didn't post anything. I figured he was so popular...who would read down that far?

I am glad I posted anyway, because he told me he was glad I had commented and that I should never feel bad about being the last to post. Throughout the years there was a little contest among his readers about who would be the first to comment on a post. I continued to read his blog after that. He was sometimes a little shocking for me, but always with a great sense of humor. He was like that relative you love who always has to tell a dirty joke at Thanksgiving dinner just to see the reaction. Yet, he would return and comment on my blog at various times with a joke or encouragement.

I reviewed his blog on my blog roll comments posts when I used to do that before my blogs-I-follow list got so long.

He passed away yesterday and I will miss him as if he was my good friend. Oddly, I had just visited his blog yesterday in hopes that he would be back in good blog form. I stole the photo from "Vicki" who was a much closer friend than I, but I do not think she will mind.

Rest in peace you dear old coot.

Style Maven or Prima Donna?

Is there ever, ever, ever a day when they dress you and it is not so, so, absolutely wrong?

Gran Torino

I do not like doing movie reviews. There are enough critics out there and I disagree with most of them, and besides, everyone has different tastes in movies. BUT...!

After hubby and I dropped off the grandchildren to their respective day care facilities we headed to the big shopping mall, the one we had not visited since before the winter holidays. We bought some expensive tea, some books and CDs on sale and I bought a blouse that I am now thinking of returning.

OK enough about shopping...we were just killing time anyway in very expensive way waiting for our matinee movie to start.

We wanted to see what all the hoopla was about Slumdog Millionaire and bought two tickets. I got a discount as it seems I am now a senior citizen for this theatre! A week-day matinee with senior discount is probably the cheapest I will ever see a movie. We went straight to the theater and I left my coat on the seat next to my husband and told him I had to visit the ladies room and made a quick dash before the show started.

When I returned he was watching the previews. These should have given us a clue as they were all pretty serious movies. Once they were done, we realized we were in the wrong theater as we saw that this theater was showing Gran Torino. Hubby quickly left and checked the other theaters and returned telling me we should have been in the theater next door. By the time he got back I was not in the mood for leaving.

I am so glad that I did not leave. I really enjoyed this movie. It is tight, extremely well directed, Clint Eastwood develops a great over the top character with fatal flaws, and they do not stereotype the Catholic priest, which is unusual. Most of the characters like those in Slumdog Millionaire are foreign and not ones you would recognize. They are given dimension in being good guys and bad guys. This and the authentic look of the setting in Michigan is what makes the movie so real and so interesting.

Maybe I liked it because I could identify with the challenges of aging, but I don't think it is that simple.

I was crying by the end...but sad movies always make me cry.

Words

I have always had a love affair with words. Beginning as an early reader at 3, I took my favorite books everywhere with me in place of a security blanket.

I was thinking about all the places that I have read to myself and/or others both silently and out loud. I have read at the kitchen table (but not when others are there), I have read on the backyard deck, in the living room, in front of the TV, in bed, on the toilet, in the bathtub, on boats, in the canoe, in cars (but not when moving as I get carsick), in a tent, beside rivers, on many beaches, beside many swimming pools, in a number of hotel lobbies, in my grandchildren's beds, in their rocking chair, in front of a classroom, on stage, backstage, in front of the computer (natch), on the dock, in a plane, on a train, in front of a fire (struggling in the dim light to see), under a table, at a park, in my garden, at an ice rink, in a ski lodge (but NOT on the ski lift), in a church, resting on a dog, under a clothes line (much to my mother's dismay---I was supposed to be hanging clothes.), in a stadium, at a bull fight in Spain (avoiding watching the fight), behind a barn, inside a barn, under a tree, in a book store, at a restaurant, at many desks, in many libraries and classrooms, and at the kitchen counter during cooking waiting for the stew to boil. It seems I always have something to read in my hands.

For a number of years now my favorite word has been essence. This may change, but right now it means the hint of the special that is. The potential for the whole, without being overwhelmed by the whole. The intrigue that keeps you searching and wondering.

What is your favorite word? Where is some special/odd place that you read?

Not to Put Too Fine a Point on It

Some people cut a little brush and others cut a lot of deadfall. The tree trimmers came today. We did NOT cut any live trees, only the dead ones that were in the path of the deer fence and that were too large for us to deal with. At $300 an hour we think this is a bargain as the largest logs could not be cut by any chain saw that we own. The photos were taken through the screened window upstairs and like most of my photos can be clicked on for a high resolution. (It took only 2 hours to remove a ton of stuff!)

They shred most of the small limbs into mulch that goes into the ravine and will be good for the rest of the trees and plants and bugs growing down that way. We have removed some food for the woodpeckers, but we have dozens of other trees that are dead or dying.

The work is dangerous and watching them do this gives me tremendous respect for the skills needed in this job. The large logs they are able to cut so that they fit almost exactly as they drop them not too gently into the back of their big truck. This is all done by eye.

It is interesting to see the different colors of the shredded material that comes out of the chipper. Some is rich and red, and other brown. We did not try to save this as mulch because there is so much poison ivy vine mixed in with it. We also sacrificed some of our future firewood because we did not want to interfere with their progress by trying to pick and choose. Everytime you talk to these guys it is money! ;-)

If my dad were still alive he would love watching this. He had worked hard all his life and had a deep appreciation for work that was completed by hand and machine. I miss the guy on days like this.

Now I must go outside and measure the edge of the final flower bed to see how much more landscape brick I have to save for. I need it this month...but probably won't be able to add it to the spring's expenses.

Thus It Begins

I awoke at 6:00 from the demands of our Cardinal, Don Quixote, tapping at the window at the bedroom patio door reminding me I can never sleep in again.

I got up, made some coffee, and was blogging away when at 7:00 AM the phone rang and a man with a gravelly voice said, "Tell your husband we will be there to cut the trees tomorrow morning early unless it rains."

"OK." I said and hung up.

Five minutes later the phone rings again.

A young woman's voice, "Are you ready for the top soil today?"

"Uh, sure."

"OK, they are on their way now."

I call to hubby who can sleep through almost anything and he slowly but eagerly rises.

Thus begins the $500.00 broccoli project, followed closely by the $500 tomato adventure. We do love to garden. And thus on a fixed income we continue to support our local businessmen.

Some Good Omens

'Seth' is a very dignified elder with a carefully groomed handle-bar mustache and a very gentle and gentlemanly demeanor. He did the prayer/chant and painted the various symbols in the air with his hand. His wife 'Dora' was in charge of getting all the elements necessary for the house blessing together. One last element she brought was a green candle which she lit and said was her own personal blessing for us for as long as we lived in the house and we were to keep the candle burning until it went out and therefore at the end we placed what was left of the burning candle into the fireplace.

The house was blessed with a very eclectic blessing ceremony involving some Asian symbols, some Jewish blessings and some pagan symbols and chants. Smoke and light and aromas were involved and every single room was blessed and every entryway and window protected from bad energies.

During the process, which was new and somewhat strange to hubby and I, Seth who was in each room happened to look out one of the upstairs windows to the house across the way and asked about our neighbors. Hubby said they were a very nice retired couple. Our guest then tapped his chest and said he felt something fluttering there. My husband then told him the man had just had quadruple bypass for the second time and our guest said that explains the tingle in his chest!

We went downstairs and looked out across the river and our guest said he felt the house across the way was troubled and therefore he sent more positive energy to that part of the walls and windows of our house and a stronger block for bad energy from across the way. Interestingly, the people directly across the river had been the ones who had called the permit office on our building project to insure it was being done legally and we had also heard from another neighbor that the wife of the couple was a trouble-maker. Seth and Dora live far from here knew none of this.

Then hubby decided to test our guest and asked him if he had any feelings about the neighbors to the East of our house. Our guest looked across the way and said he felt only joy and happiness. These neighbors are the ones who bought a $100,000 yacht this summer and never got around to using it and who invited their church to hold two church services outside in their front yard this past summer filled with singing and praying, but were polite enough to call me each time to let me know there would be some noise as they were having the service outside.

This analysis of our neighbors seemed to be too much coincidence to think that our guest didn't have something going on with his 'third eye' and therefore we thought he must know what he was doing in blessing and protecting our house. At the end of the blessing a very healthy pair of red shoulder hawks flew to the trees that were very close to the windows in the back yard and rested briefly before heading down the river. These are the first hawks we have seen in our neighborhood in well over a year and I took that as a good omen for strength, love, and new beginnings.

The FB --- 13 Lessons

A colleague asked me to join facebook several weeks ago and as a result I have learned a few things:

1. I find it a real time sink, because pages take forever to load with my rural connection.
2. I have discovered 'friends' of friends of distant friends and these are people I rarely see or talk to...so that is kind of interesting and disconcerting at the same time to open these connections and see their photos after decades.
3. I 'chatted live' for several minutes with my son who was online at the same time at 1:40 in the early morning. Intermittent insomnia is obviously genetic. This was a greater exchange of words than we have had in months as he never rarely answers my emails or phone calls! While the chat was quick and superficial...at least we connected.
   
4. Since on facebook you have dozens (in some cases 100s to 1,000s) of people who can read what you write and know who you are...you have to really avoid "thinking out loud." (i.e. you cannot "write on a friend's 'wall'" about how so-and-so has aged or put on so much weight and you should not post in detail about that rather crazy party you recently attended as the younger members so unwisely do...complete with photos.)
5. It is kind of like being at a cocktail party with absolutely everyone you know listening to most every word you say and you are getting dizzy from the multiple ongoing tiny conversations since many of the people you overhear are people you barely know and they are not talking to everyone as they are at a different party.
6. In one session you may see or read brief notes about a sonogram, a drinking party, a political rally, an open invite to the movies and mountain hike depending on the diversity of your "friends."
7. Some of my kids 30-something friends think I am cool for joining and I must admit that is an ego boost when you are approaching crone-hood. I am kind of glad this technology was not around when I was 20-something as I am sure I have forgotten more embarrassing adventures than I like to admit and I would hate to have had them made available to all my future friends down the road.
   
8. I have yet to reach and comment on the page of the colleague who originally asked me to join while I have "written on the wall" of many others!
9. This must be a demographers and social scientists dream. I hope I am still alive to read the books on the analysis of this phenomena and the analysis of culture.
10. FB ---as the 'young folks' call it (what an old foggy phrase)---has said they cannot promise that you can permanently delete anything you post...it will always be floating out there somewhere having been captured by someone else...just like those embarrassing incidents in high school that come up at reunions.
11. If you follow current events regarding these social networking sites you will know that there are still important questions about copyright and ongoing use of material you write and the photos you upload in this venue. ( I have taken a few copyright seminars and this sounds like a nightmare.)
    
12. When I eventually load my FB page...after much delay in loading...it is kind of like finding myself in a tabloid over which I have some control.
13. The FB does give the impression that some people spend all their time networking rather than working at work! This is another questionable impression a young person does not want to make.
    

Some Lagniappe: The new TV series "Trust Me" on TNT had an episode recently where the dad who is an advertising man secretly got the password and logged on to his teenage daughter's FB page and found she had only three friends, one of them her teacher. Being an ad man he was concerned that this represented her lack of popularity. She is portrayed as a bit of a geek in the series. He sent her an electronic message asking to be a 'friend' and she denied him. When he asked about it and about her few friends she said that she was just being very selective. Is FB like being in junior high once again? (Another rant about FB here.)

Thursday Thoughts #23---Housekeeping

• Company is coming to stay overnight this weekend to visit and perform a house blessing Hawaiian style. ( I wonder if I need to get out that grass skirt and do I dare wear it?) I MUST patch the ceiling in the guest bedroom before that time. Bad Karma to sleep with cracks above your head. The hardest part is finding the can of matching paint.
• Need to plan a nice menu for them as they have entertained us numerous times. They cannot visit easily as they have goats, chickens, etc. that are pregnant this time of year.
• Babysitting for kids completed this past weekend. Check that off the list. (Daughter did not have to travel to New York over the Valentine's weekend...good news...but may have to fly out this week.)
• Must finish the magnetic photo hanging project that I started. Too many small magnets lying around waiting to accidentally erase PC stuff. In order to save money, I tried to do it myself and have ended up purchasing and re-purchasing parts thus costing even more than the pre-made kit would have cost. (I never learn.)
  
• Considering planning a March trip somewhere...again just considering...craving a change of scenery. Must do some Internet surfing.
  
• It is really hard to get 50 brand new one dollar bills from your bank...I know I have tried for days! These days banks only have dirty money. (A belated birthday addition for my baby brother.)
  
• Planning a budget for the deer fence installation. One determined deer caught his/her head in the wire cage I had placed so carefully around the new smoke bush and dragged the cage into the yard before freeing themselves. They had pruned the smoke bush cleanly insuring I will get no smokey blossoms this year!
• Finished The Time Traveler's Wife but found this love story very heavy and too depressing to pass on to hubby to read. Don't know what to do with the book now. Ditto feelings on Revolutionary Road, but for some reason liked it much more.
• Must drag out all my 8 to 10 swimsuits, many over a decade old, and decide if indeed I should purchase new suits for the "Cruise." (I have decided to focus on photography during this cruise and therefore won't feel so anxious...I have other reasons for anxiety that have nothing to do with my looks in a swimsuit...like being confined with members of 5 different families on a boat and being encouraged to play competitive games. I am like Oprah and would like to hide in the closet at the Kennedy compound.)
• Caulk all the trim work where it is separating--5 rooms. Done! See, I am not a total procrastinating couch potato.
• Post process all the Valentine's weekend photos. That was fun.
• Off to 'cut brush' and pull weeds this afternoon...one of the very few things I have in common with our prior president.
  

One of My Favorite Valentines

Egad

I always thought that over-sugered, obnoxious kids would not be my cup of tea. BUT, it looks like Valentine's Day breaks all the rules. Anyone want to label or caption this? Click to enlarge if you need more creative angst. (Please help me with a caption.)

I would post a photo of the flowers or candy or romantic dinner that I got for Valentine's Day...but I didn't get any of those! But this man has dived into waters to save a drunk stranger, work long hours without pay for environmental causes, and is cooking dinner tonight (if he remembers) so I have to accept my lot in life. Romantic, not. Good and honest, definately.

Back Seat Valentines

I started this blog to track the important times and thoughts in my life and maybe to help me build a road map as to where I am (or should be) going in these later and important years of my life. I also wanted to build a history for any grandchild or great grandchild that needed to understand how and why they got to be so quirky and slightly crazy (blame it on granny). Little did I know that I would acquire backseat drivers (my blog readers) along the way who would challenge, agree, suggest new paths, and map my way in directions I had not planned. If I was down they would reason and cajol and if I was up I would find balance by reading how they were facing the big challenges in their lives. This depth of relationships with and among bloggers was not something I expected. Thus I thank you and wish a Happy Valentine's Day to all of you and those you love.

Recent Email Received From Daughter

"Did I tell you how thankful I am that you are coming. My life in insane right now. Xman still needs to make two more valentines by Friday...all the parents are volunteering (not my idea but I didn't want to be rude and be the only to not help out) to throw a surprise breakfast and lunch for the teachers at CHMS (read below). I volunteered to make a breakfast casserole..so sometime tonight i have to throw that together..then get up at 6:15 am to put it in the oven ...and then it has to be dropped off on Friday morning at 7:30am for bfast. Then Xman needs to be dropped off by 8:50am. So we will have to talk and see what make sense. I think I might be on an 8 or 9am flight to NY and then on a 3 or 4 pm flight home."

I think I remember those days...she is a Type A like me...but I don't ever remember trying to squeeze in a business trip to NY!

Honest Abe

"Perhaps a man's character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing." Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln compiled and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 43.

Distinguished Looking---NOT!

I stopped dying my hair in December of this year. I saw no point in trying to look younger than I am since I no longer worked in an office. My real hair color is a very dark brown but in anticipation of the grow-out I began highlighting it last fall. The dark brown and gray can be seen in the top and back but the sides and front still have the blond highlight thing going on.

My hair grows fast, but this seems to be taking forever! I was hoping I wouldn't look this way on the April cruise but my hair stylist doesn't think the brown will be gone by then unless I cut my hair very short.

The good thing is that I will no longer be paying to have my hair dyed or dying it myself in between times in the future...what a pain!

Why in this Western culture are men considered distinguished with gray hair and women are thought of as cronish or witchy?

Settling In !

Our house was completed (mostly) in June of 2007.

Within the past month I have noticed two doors in this house that are sticking at the top of the frame when I try to open and close them. Really sticking so that I have to tug quite hard to get them open or closed. One is an inside door and one and outside door on opposite sides of the house. I have checked door hardware and it appears that settling has caused this instead of loose hinges. In one case the hairline crack runs from the corner trim through the sheet rock right up to the ceiling. (All photos can be clicked to enlarge.)





I have also noticed that many of the window trims have started to separate at the top corners and baseboard corners. I am guessing over time this can happen to a house as it ages, but I do not remember seeing so many trim corner cracks in the first house we built.

So, I did a walk around inspection and find also that the window frames in a very few instances are pulling from the sheetrock and therefore the paint is chipping.

I also found a nasty case where the ceiling tape is pulling loose as can be seen in the photo above.

While much of this can be repaired with spackling or caulk and paint, is this much settling normal as a house settles? Is this because of green wood? Should we be more concerned? On days when there are big changes in temperature this house will let out an amazing creak or two in the evening as the air cools down. There are no foundation or cement floor cracks, thank goodness.

Isn't It Romantic?

When you have been married as long as I have, and I have been married a lot longer than I ever thought people could tolerate each other, it is hard to buy an original romantic something for that certain someone. Since we were heading up to the city to babysit last week, I had planned a nice dinner at a favorite restaurant in the city for the following night and then taking in Casablanca on the big screen at a theater. My idea of real romance...probably not my husband's...but as much as I love him, he is no where close to being a romantic, so I took the lead on setting this up.

Anyway, as is well-known, he got the flu big time last week and all had to be cancelled including the theater with the resulting loss of the pre-paid theater tickets.

So, not to be stymied, I had a fall-back idea. I had ordered something for him that I knew he was going to love. It was very expensive and I didn't realize how heavy it was until it arrived, and over three days, continued to arrive in various boxes! Thus, hubby had to find out ahead of time about the gift to help me lift and put the thing together.

I am sure any nosy neighbors across the river were wondering what kind of sex toy this enormous frame with chains, etc. represented since we put everything together in the bay window of the master bedroom. The directions said that it could be put together in about an hour. Well, that is assuming your husband reads directions and lays out all the parts ahead of time. He started pushing in plastic parts and it wasn't until we reached an impasse that I pointed out that the plastic parts were supposed to go elsewhere. (No you cannot comment on our sex life here.) This was about an hour into the project and we sighed in exhaustion and gave up until the next day. This morning hubby was determined to pull out the plastic end pieces and with some drilling and pulling and sweat he succeeded. We once again started the project. In about an hour the project was finished and looked pretty good.

Boy are the lights bright on this baby! Now we will worry about whether the neighbors think we are growing medicinal plants in the bedroom. We also will have to watch the timer as that might indeed have an impact on our sex life.

This unit has three long shelves that he gets to fill with spring seedlings and he is so excited he even said I could have some of the space. Cool huh?

Post Script: No I do not have shades or drapes for the bedroom. We are saving up for that, although with this recession that may be a long time coming. If anyone wants to watch two old farts walking around naked in their bedroom, here' s to em!

Post Post Script: I think this little project with its hundreds of pieces should count for good elder brain exercise. I haven't done something like this in a while.

PPPS: Yes we once had a homemade seeding unit (quite ugly), but we no longer have the patience to try to build something like that again. We are the kind of people that keep the gardening catalogs going.

City Mouse versus Country Mouse

Bob Brady at PureLandMountain featured this article about the human brain in a recent post. Since my blogfriend at One Woman's Journey has been dealing with this issue---as have many of us retirees--- I found the article most fascinating. (After you read it, you can talk among yourselves.)

Thursday Thoughts #22 You Have to Keep Your Sense of Humor--

1. A recent quote by Thomas L. Friedman in an Op-Ed column of the New York Times regarding the recent work of Congress in approaching the financial crisis... "I’ve always believed that America’s government was a unique political system — one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots. I was wrong. No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it."

2. Hubby came home from his dental appointment and said they wanted to watch him more closely with follow-up appointments because of his deep pockets. Are you sure they were talking about the condition of your gums? I asked.

3. I got an email from the online retail marketing company called Overstock in which they said that they now are offering a real estate section of their Internet catalog. My husband said "Of course, it fits. Real estate is certainly an overstocked item these days."

4. Late last night as my hubby and I fell into bed after a particularly full day of house work and errand running I said " Is it Tuesday ALL READY! What happened to Monday?" My husband looked up at the ceiling and pulled the covers snug under his chin and then said, "Monday came and went pretty fast. Oh my God, we ARE actually going to die."

5. I don't know if you have seen the "Twilight Zone" television ads from the Corn Refiners Association where they claim in their new campaign that sugar, honey, and high-fructose corn syrup are, "nutritionally ... all the same." This isn't funny, but I had to add it to my Thursday thoughts because it makes me smirk.

6. I learned that we laugh because "When people laugh a lot, those endorphins get running around up there in the brain and interject into the hypothalamus and all that stuff, and the humor just comes out, and that is beneficial," says Kurt Kilpatrick. Sounds good to me.

7. How to tell a joke..."Only tell a joke to people who have expressed interest in hearing a joke. If people laugh at the joke, leave the room immediately. That way you look cool." — Tina Fey, creator and star of NBC's 30 Rock