Now Do You Fell More Secure?

According to a recent Newsweek article the U.S. currently spends over 628 billion dollars on security since the tragedy of 9-11.  This money includes 3 billion for the airport body scanners and the necessary staffing for them over the years.

My recent return from Denver required me to use one of these scanners for the first time as I went through airport security.  This masterful technology designed to keep us safe is a glass (or plastic?) round booth and reminds me of those sound booths they used to have on quiz shows on television, except smaller.  I placed my feet about six inches apart on the stenciled footprints at the bottom of this booth and then the female security person asked that I put my hands above my head, as if I had a gun pointed at me.  The scanner moved around me in a complete circle giving me a dose of  "sub-dangerous' x-rays while someone gets an eye full of my 60+ year old body without the mask of clothes. I am sure she said to herself something like 'What great shape this old lady is in!'  I am guessing this because of what happened later.

After this was all completed she told me she had to run her hands over my abdomen, and she did, ever so gently and carefully, just like a lover.  (Maybe we are almost engaged now?)   I could not resist looking her in the eyes (an attractive 20 something) and saying softly, "I'll bet you just LOVE your job!"

She looked gently into my eyes and said "Yeah" and then grimaced slightly as she walked away.  I guess the romance is now over...so quickly these fickle 20-somethings back away when you try to take the relationship up a notch.

Still Spinning

Trying to slow down now that I am back home.  Bunch of deadline mailings, unpacking, laundry, shopping (since my fridge is still empty from the hurricane visit), emails, land line voice mails, fall stuff and I still have not found time to get outside and check the yard and potted plants.  I hope sometime soon to look at a calendar!

Also trying to get back into the rhythm of being at home.  I am still in rock and roll mode and home is operating on smooth jazz.  Hubby is leaving for a long trip in two days, so trying to get ready for that as well!

I like visiting my relatives every few years.  I do not look forward to it, but once I am there, I realize how important it is to keep in touch with them and how much I do love them with all their idiosyncratic behaviors.  It is so true that ageing hardens your habits and opinions to phobic behavior and I wonder if I appear the same way to them.  They are a mixed troop of conservatives, liberals, shoppers, do-it-yourselfers, rich, poor, hard workers, indoor and outdoor people.  Fortunately disagreements are kept to a minimum when they get together, so they would not make a good situation comedy on fall television.

Weather in Colorado and Utah was lovely with a little more rain than one expects in high desert country.  I took lots of great photos and I will share just a few.

I am still attempting to catch my emotional breath and absorb it all while I push through the errands and tasks of re-opening a house that has been closed for several weeks.  Greeted by a baby black snake at the garage door; just missed running over a tiny box turtle on the driveway; watched a ground-hog devour the clover in the front yard as I drank morning coffee; and am amazed at how many little spiders I keep finding in the corners and fabrics of my house.  It does not take long for the woods to take over once you are gone.  Downed fences and trees still remain for clean-up.

I have been able to catch up on about 60% of everyone's posts, but must admit I cannot finish it all...so if something important happened in your lives (that you want me to know about) let me know in your comments.  You are, after all, my other idiosyncratic family.

(Photo above was taken from my brother's mountain get-away in Colorado.)

Wrong party!

So I have returned and am getting ready to write a new post and find that I am getting a malware message on my site when I try to bring it up and then edit.  I have been told that I have a bad link from imagineomit.blogspot.com".  For some reason Google has flagged it and when I omitted my link to "Imagine" blog from Kenju, it seemed to work. At least I think it is now working and will only know when someone comments.  What on earth have you guys been doing while I was gone??

Solitary Creatures

Alone,
Hearing the sigh of air through the rooms of the house
Feeling the fall of the dust through the sunbeams
Creating the echo of a distant laugh from memory

No other soul to share this faint laughter
No other being to study my countenance
No other person to worry about my sloth

The day moves slowly with no rhythm
Just the length of the shadows skirting the lawn
To remind me of the passing time

Today's solitary activities create
No regrets or anxious goals to be met
or concerns for a different tomorrow

All is at last at an even keel
The balance of a perfect floating bubble
And this I will treasure for the whole of time.

(Oddly enough, this was written before the adventurous weather ride we recently took...perhaps created due to the prior drop in air pressure on my brain, you can see I was in a very different state of mind before the storm.)

Planes, and Trains and Ferris Wheels

I have no idea what the title of this post means...just sounded nice in my mind.  Beginning travel in a few days and not sure if I will have Internet access.  Might be good for me to just deal for a while.

At Last

Power came back on yesterday.  Almost 4 complete days without water and electricity and the loss of hundreds of dollars in food and I am still not complaining...although slowly becoming exhausted.  We brought the Princess (my 4-year-old granddaughter) down here yesterday and she was forced to entertain herself much of the time while I washed out the refrigerator/ freezer and the chest freezer.  The positive side is that both of these fancy appliances are now sparkling clean even if  mostly empty.  We had dragged the old Grumman canoe up into the back yard and tied it to one of the stronger trees.  Hubby left it upright so that the rain filling it would also stabilize it.  That also meant we had lots of water for flushing toilets, rinsing off and washing stuff since we are on a well and there is not water when the water pump is off.

We had also filled several large camping containers for drinking water, although we had enough bottled water to get us through those days.  Two of the days we stayed up at my daughters because she needed someone to watch the little girl while everyone was plugged into jobs and summer camps and that allowed me some computer access.

I think I missed the Blogging and FB and photo access the most.  I will be honest enough to admit that.

There are homes across the big road toward the ocean side that have been completely destroyed by large trees and falling debris.  Some will have to be gutted and completely re-built, so I cannot complain about the inconvenience of the loss of some electricity on my part.

I look around at a house filled with crunchy leaves since a carpet of dead and dying leaves covers all the entry ways and keeps getting dragged inside.  The spiders have recovered the most, as they seem to do after every storm.  There are many large and small ones tucked against window screens and eaves.  I am too tired to move the webs.  Hubby got a new Husqvarna chain saw out of this storm, and he is having fun cutting wood, some of which will go to neighbors who want it and some to the landfill.

I am warmed by all the comments from readers of this blog.  Like good neighbors, you were concerned and had kind words.  May your days be filled with sunny and calm weather.

Two photos

 This old cherry was dying little by little and now with a push from the storm seems to have just missed that budget arbor we put in.

Here are three of our neighbors who came by to help and get that big tree cut into movable pieces so that we could get out of the driveway!

Whoosh...

I am putting it off as long as I can.  This morning was filled with hot and sweaty work outside.  Lots of lifting and carrying and putting in piles made me sweaty and thirsty.  Now I have come inside and opened the fridge for the very last time in heaven only knows how many days to take out the cool ice tea pitcher and finish it off.

The yard looks like an elephant herd was frightened down the street and took a detour past the house and through both sides of the yard.  The only things that do not seem disturbed are the birds and butterflies who have continued their sugar collecting even before the sun broke through the clouds today.   HUGE and small trees are down everywhere and it is a miracle that the house, shed, boat and dock were spared.

I am writing now on a laptop with a waning battery and am writing this post in MSWord as there is no electricity in the neighborhood, and I hope to post it at my daughter’s house.  Rumor has it that 80% of the county is without electricity due to some major power station router being down.  A man up the road who has a tree on his house and works for the electric company said we might get power by 9:00 this evening.  I doubt  it.  I am not complaining because the temp will not break 80 F for the next few days and I do not have large trees resting on my house as those who live on the Bay and elsewhere seem to have experienced.  There were emergency calls about once a minute to the local fire station last night.  (My neighbor, the lottery winner, volunteers as an EMT, and she has had no sleep all night according to her husband.)

I had promised to take my granddaughter down here this week to care for as she has no school or camp…but it looks like we will be spending the week up at her house.  I am putting off opening the chest freezer and emptying the contents into a cooler to take up the daughter’s house where there is electricity.  It seems like such a long and dreadful project, and I am debating whether to complete a wash/cloth bath before or after.  We are on a well and that means no water can be pumped to the house, so everything is done using the water we have set aside.  I have so much food from the garden that will have to be tossed away.

When I return here at the end of the week I have only a weekend left to pack for a two-week trip, and if there is still no electricity, this could be a bigger project than I wanted.  I will empty the fridge, the freezer, and try to check off my list the things that have to be done when one is gone for two weeks to a place far away.  It will be a job with many small errands and projects and I am fighting a chest cold which drains all my energy reserves.  My adult kids want to join us for the next weekend prior to departure, but I am NOT cooking anything while they are here.  Seems reasonable to me?  Either we BBQ or eat out.

At least, with the neighbor’s help we have cleared the driveway of a 16-18 inch diameter poplar and tons and tons of leaves and branches. It is a long drive this evening up to my daughter's house past many black or yellow blinking traffic lights, dark houses, and darker stores.

Checklist

Let's see:

1. Front yard is a lake
2. There is actually a groundhog eating clover in the front yard in the torrential downpour!
3. Back yard is a lake
4. Dining room table has the weather radio with new batteries
5. Dining  room table has electric camp lantern
6. Bedroom in the basement which has never been used has fresh linens on the bed and is where we will ride this storm out due to danger of falling trees.
7. Ice chest has ice and a few bits of food taken from fridge
8. We have all the plastic camp containers filled with water for toilets and washing
9. We have a large plastic tub outside filled with water
10. Boat is on a trailer and parked in the neighborhood turnaround
11. Canoe and kayak have been moved to high ground
12. All patio furniture and light stuff have been moved to safety
13. I am hoping all this prep means all of us, including you, will be able to ride this one out safely and successfully!

Lighting is flickering...so a I am posting NOW!

1,001!

I just noticed that my last post on this blog was the 1,000th.  Quite the journalistic diarrhea I have going on here.  I didn't notice or I would have made greater use of the milestone.  Certainly it was worth a poem, but it appears that both you and I dodged that bullet.

This week I am breathing and eating slowly and catching up on all those murder mysteries that I missed watching when my grandson was here.  I did get him introduced to the Narnia series and now have purchased two other DVDs for when he returns for a few days this fall.

While I was breathing like a yoga instructor and sitting in front of the computer upstairs the house began to sway and jerk.  I did have a small glass of wine at the computer, but I knew it was not that, and instead, hopped like a crazy bunny outside.  I could see the bird feeders swinging dramatically from side to side in the back yard and I waited outside at least ten minutes before going back inside.  I am alone this week as hubby is on a business trip.  I figure I would not be found beneath the rubble for days!  5.8 on the earthquake scale and the largest since 100 years ago.  Everyone up and down the East Coast felt it.

I walked carefully around the house when I got back inside and found only one broken wine glass that had been hanging in the rack beneath the cupboard.  It seems that Colorado got a similar earthquake just a short while ago.  Here in the East we rarely get quakes, so they can be very startling.  Mother earth is settling down after all the water, oil, gas, and shale we have been taking from her layers.

Next week I get the 4-year-old girl for a week.  She is much more clingy and far less in love with the great outdoors  Maybe baking, making cookies, tea parties...!  Then we are off to Colorado and Utah for two weeks.  I will be taking the laptop and hoping to post and looking forward to some dramatic scenery to preserve with my camera.  I sure hope what I have to write about is of more significance and readability than these last few weeks.  I just need some Rocky Mountain air as my gray matter has been very sluggish these days.

Honestly, how honest.

As a grandmother on 24/7 duty this week, I do not have time to post anything!  So go to Bob Brady's    post here   and get an uplifting news story...better than anything we have managed to report on here in America.

Something Good

The morning has been washed with last night's rain and the air is cooler than it has been in almost a month.  One might actually think that autumn is waiting somewhat impatiently in the wings.  I am sitting out on the deck with beach towel covered chairs watching my grandson build animals from "play doh".  Towels keep the dampness from our legs.

Due to summer scheduling my grandson has no where to go this week, so we are attempting to provide some activities that can compete with the activity filled summer camps he has been attending since regular school was out.  Parents who both work spend hours in the spring signing their children up for this and that greatly enhanced babysitting service that can safely and expensively keep children occupied.

Weather has generously decided to be on our side this week and it does not look like we will have to spend hours indoors...as the week heats up again, we will see.

In the background I hear our little water fountain gurgling away on the patio below, my grandson is humming to himself ( a sure sign he is involved in something he enjoys), and the sea gulls are laughing back and forth across the river.  High in the wet tree leaves some bird is singing a joyful song with several movements.  As I type these words a hummingbird graces us with his presence, hovering at the edge of the patio umbrella and checking out our activities, adding another layer of perfection to the morning.

Then my grandson decides to share his latest escapade with Mario and Bowser (do not ask) and it takes some lengthy repetitive telling to reach the end of the story, which after twenty minutes he never actually ends, just stops talking from exhaustion and a need to visit the bathroom.  I realize that no one has probably ever listened to him for twenty minutes any time recently, and I ask questions and add comments, pretending this is the most amazing conversation I have had in days  Being a former teacher, I realize that allowing him to expound is good development towards future communication.  He does not have all of my attention, because I am distracted by the joy in his face and the twinkle in his eyes.

Mornings like these I pause in thankfulness for the reward, and like Julie Andrews, I keep thinking I must have done something good.  ( I do not even mind that my coffee has grown cold.)

Silence

She is tapping away on the keys to her laptop thanking someone who commented on her photo on the photo site where she adds to her collection.  She is distracted by the praise to her immature talent.  The TV has suddenly become so quiet and she raises her eyes to see what is wrong. It is not the TV.  PBS is honoring on the TV screen the 30 precious soldiers that were killed when their helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan.  The faces in the photos are young and handsome and full of generous smiles and hopeful eyes.  They are dedicated to changing the world with bravery and finely honed skills.  The photos were taken when they had many years of living still ahead of them.  In a fiery instant their lives ended over a desert in smoke and sand.  Their skills were abruptly dissolved in the blink of an eye.

I thank them for their huge sacrifice, but I regret that their contribution to peace on this planet was halted so abruptly and I pray (to whatever super power that may be) that this will all end someday very, very soon so that young skilled and talented men can make their contribution in a war less world.

Married Over 40 Years...Who Knew?

My grandchildren are blessed with more than any child needs.  They are being raised by responsible parents who help them develop a good value system, but they still get a large amount of whatever they want.  I asked daughter what to get my little gal who will turn 4.  She suggested two Barbie videos which I ordered over the net.

One arrived before our trip and the next after we got back.  The second one was "Barbie and the Diamond Castle" in case you were interested and are still reading this post.  It arrived with a rattle and when I opened the package I discovered the case lock had been broken and was rattling around inside.  I looked at the DVD and saw it looked scratched on edge in several places.  Therefore, I had to run it to make sure it was not damaged.  An hour of  watching lovely princess types with perfect flowing hair and perfectly fitted clothes sing and dance their way through life is much more than I can handle, so I put it on and ran it in the background while I went upstairs to work on photos.  I could hear if it was working correctly from there.

About 40 minutes later I wandered down the stairs to get something to drink and saw my husband sitting on the sofa, watching the animated feature...watching...really... I was speechless and like a good sport, I did not say a word!  I did drop a hint on FB...;-)

Into the Middle of the Vacation Week

I have never been a heavy sleeper and even less so as I age unless my day has been particularly stressful.  Seems that catching a 4-year-old diving from the pools  edge 500 times in an afternoon is not that stressful, because here it is 3:30 in the morning and I am awake and sitting in the living room of our vacation apartment on my PC.  I woke up for no reason and after a brief trip to the bathroom noticed that granddaughter was sleeping sideways with her feet in grandson's stomach.  I gently straightened her out and feeling wide-awake decided not to return to hubby's side and his gentle snores.

Ten minutes ago as I sat here reading blogs, my 6-year-old grandson stumbled bleary-eyed into the room complaining of a bad dream.  I put the laptop on the table and he crawled into my arms.  His sun-browned body is all boney joints and sharp angles but I cuddled for a brief time before carrying the heavy body back to bed and tucking him in.

It is now 5:30 and I am craving some coffee but hesitate to make it afraid the smell might wake up my daughter who is STILL feeding the 4 month old once or twice at night.  She has tried for three weeks to get him to sleep through until early morning and his crying does not abate.  So she has given up on that effort (she is breast feeding).  He starts on cereal soon, so that might allow her to get more sleep.  She returns to work full time this Monday!  When they were talking about how hard pioneer women had to work, I think about how we haven't really changed that effort.  Less physical but now mothers' days are just as long with more stuff to do.

This week has been fun and well-paced and except for the unbearable heat and humidity, a memorable one.  It is always stressful to cram a family with three children and grandparents into a two-bedroom unit, but we have managed to avoid arguments or stonewalling...except on the part of the 4-year-old who's determined spirit may out do us all.

Two more days of swimming, beaching, mini-golf, shuffleboard, walking, eating, board games and DVDs of Barbie, and then I return to the life of the retired and begin to research how that other group of spirited children (those in D.C.) have begun to destroy my carefully planned and saved for retirement.  I glanced at a headline that indicated Wall Street was not thrilled with debt ceiling compromise and has stamped its foot at least once already.

The First Night

It is three in the morning in a dark bedroom and I am on my knees with my face almost to the carpet.  This is not an EAT=PRAY=LOVE moment as I am not praying...at least not formally.   I am trying to get the courage to run my hand under the edge of the darkness of the bed.  I have looked against the grayness of the sheets and all around the floor with no luck.

There is a little four-year-old whimpering quietly in my nearby bed.  She has lost her 'doggie,'  The bright pink one with the rip in its' bottom that was placed ever so carefully in her arms earlier when she was tucked in bed next to her 6-year-old brother.

Suddenly the young boy sits straight up in bed as if awakened by my gentle search.  I recognize his Elmo doll on the pillow between him and his sister.  But, I see he has something in his arms as he stares across the room.  I reach over and grab the Elmo and take the small dog from his arms and thrust Elmo in his arms and gently push him back down on the bed.  Hubby comes out of the bathroom and I whisper that he has to sleep with his grandson as granddaughter has taken his place in my bed.  I hand her the doggie and slip in beside her.  She is in heaven.  She has her doggie and she gets to snuggle with Neena. I am going to try to fall asleep once again before the sun.

Thus goes our first night of vacation.  Grandkids = 2 and grandparents =0

Will She Return?

I am leaving in two days for a 10 hour trip with a car full of toddlers (with colds) and more STUFF than any human deserves or needs...although 95% of the stuff is not mine.  I have been told I am NOT allowed to bring ANY food...so shopping will be a priority at the other end, or standing in long lines in restaurants!  I will be gone more than a week and we will celebrate at least two birthdays.

If I never return here to post again, you will be left with the mystery of wondering what happened to me.  If you come across some old lady toes sticking out of the beach sand on your next vacation, that might be a clue.

Dining with a Closed Mind or Where Do You Sit (fit)?

I somehow got on this dining memory streak and because the writing muse has totally gone on a long vacation deep into the heart of some black hole, I will have to go with whatever memory string hangs loose in front of me and create a weave of a story from that.  Wow.  Enough mixed metaphors for you?

Lets go back to Guam for this dining memory.  I was in my early twenties and full of career-minded visions.  I was working in a vocational school for young adults from the islands and a conference or meeting or something resulted in my trip to Guam.  I was living on a small island and flew out with one of the other teachers...a young Micronesian man.  I cannot even remember what he taught.  He was handsome and friendly and intelligent...looked a little like Benjamin Bratt except he was shorter.  I was happily and newly married, so our travel together was strictly professional.  We were staying at the same hotel and although he was attending a different meeting that day, we decided to have dinner together at the end of the day.  As I look back on this it was probably my idea and he felt guilty letting me dine alone and accepted.

I do not remember how we selected the restaurant or even if we got there in a rental car.  I remember that I was on some normal school girl planet and looked forward to eating a nice meal at the end of the day without another stray thought in my brain.  As we entered the restaurant, I noticed subconsciously that my dining companion was acting a little odd.  I could not put my finger on it, but I sensed something out of sync as we were shown to our table.  He seemed ill at ease, and I, being the sophisticated married worldly gal, was concentrating on making small talk and smiling and trying to get him to relax.  I thought, naively and egotistically, that he was just impressed with dining with an attractive woman his age, and concerned he didn't do anything stupid.  I knew that many of these 'local' teachers probably did not get to eat out often.

The meal moved on, but there was still an oddness about the stiffness of his behavior.  Mid-way he accidentally knocked a piece of silverware onto the floor.  I winced, hoping it would not mortify him even more, because this sort of thing could happen to anyone.  But, as he leaned over to pick it up I noticed two young men at a nearby table looking our way and chuckling with what appeared to be derision.  Instantly, little miss attractive, got her brain in gear and a casual look around the restaurant revealed several couples and others (about 25%) staring at us with what was clearly rude condescension and/or reproach barely hidden.  It was the first but not the last time I would be exposed to racism in all its subtle ugliness.  But it was one of the few times I would find the derision directed at me and someone I was with.

We finished our meal and returned to our rooms.  I did not talk about it.  I think I was too young to try an intelligent conversation and I am thinking he was more than relieved for me to forget the whole incident.

I rarely have to keep my radar up as a middle class "whitie."  I think it must be a real energy drain to always be compelled to have your radar running.

Dining Out Loud

I may have written about this a long time ago, but I am thinking not.  When my daughter was an only child (for about 2.5 years) we did a bit of around the world (well, half-way around the world) traveling.  Actually I flew alone across the Pacific Ocean and into the mid-west when she was only 8 months old and not yet born...are you following that?  The stewardesses blanched and almost did not let me on the flight.  Today, a future mother would probably need a doctor's statement for a flight of 15 hours not including the 2-hour layover in Hawaii.

Later, we were flying the other direction and she was 20 months old at that time.  Cuter than a bug's ear and quite the chatterbox at such an early age...clearly our little genius.  We landed in Guam around 8:30 in the evening and were starving.  The only restaurants open at that hour near our hotel were the few fancier ones and the only people eating at that hour were adults.  We were tremendously jet-lagged but not too tired to wolf down anything on the menu.  My daughter was so glad to be out of a plane seat that getting her into a high hair at the table required some persuasion until she smelled food and became amenable.  We tried to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible because it looked like everyone was on their important evening away from the kids for a Saturday date night.  I think that was the quietest restaurant I ever ate in...although it could have just been my self-consciousness making me think we were the loudest party there.

Once our meal was finished and we were waiting for our bill, my daughter discovered that her spoon when banged on her plate made the most lovely clang.  Like a silver bullet each clang shot across the restaurant into the quiet conversations of the well dressed diners.  I grabbed the spoon from her hand and turned to put it out of her reach.  She immediately got her father's fork and continued with the tempi movement of her symphony.  Hubby raised his hand higher and with no grace indicated we needed the check as he removed the second utensil from her chubby fingers.  Not to be prevented from showing her amazing musical talents, she began the rhythm portion of her performance by clanging together the metal salt and pepper shakers with glee.  I could not believe that she had only two hands and two arms...but they moved with the lighting speed of a frogs tongue in meeting their goal.  I could not bring my eyes to meet the adults at the other tables,  some chuckling quietly and others groaning, and lifted her out of the high chair and through the door to the peace of the lobby while hubby waited for our bill.

It wasn't her fault nor was it the diner's fault for the clash in atmospheric expectations.  Had we had a better choice in time and place, we would not have brought her there.  I am sure when the customers made their reservations, they did not clarify that they did not want to be seated near any musical genius toddlers.

This whole experience came to my mind when I recently heard in the news about a restaurant in Pittsburgh that is no longer allowing children under six to eat there due to complaints from customers about the behavior of some of the children.  This is an upscale golf resort restaurant.  I thought about this ruling and while there were many that think children should be allowed to eat wherever and whenever and that this was discriminating, I really felt that a restaurant has the right to establish the type of mood and food they want to create.  I certainly do not want to sit next to a chaotic family if I was going out to eat in a nice restaurant for a special evening out.  That might be the kind of thing I would have every reason of expecting at the local diner or fast-food place.  ( I am guessing if that rule was in place on our memorable night, the restaurant would have taken pity on us and provided at least take-out.)

Your turn for input, agree or disagree?

Having Fun

We borrowed a sailboat and took an afternoon sail.

Went looking for ice cream with daughter and caught this image.

Not as many butterflies this year so I made this one appear to disappear.

As can be seen, I do not have the sophistication of a style or genre.  Another witness to my scattered brain.  But I certainly had fun creating them all.