This last weekend we finally had a beautiful sunny day.We have had months of sub freezing
temperatures.Between Christmas and the
first week of February,we had only 20 hours where the temperatures were above freezing.There still is snow and ice that are lingering
in the shady spots.But, as always, this
too shall pass and spring is in the air.So, The Dumbplumber and I decided to take a Sunday drive and have a
small picnic.
Arriving at a client's house to sit on their overlook,. we
borrowed their view for a bit.We have a lot of absentee or seasonal
clients for which we do various plumbing maintenance services: like winterizing
so the pipes and pumps won't freeze and break, then recharging the systems in
the spring.Sitting on a bluff of
ancient lava rocks and looking at the beautiful view, we ate fried chicken,
chips and fruit salad and tried to fend off some crows who felt that we should
share.
The view is spectacular
Majestic Mt Shasta close up
Sand Hill Cranes
Next we decided to drive up to the next valley, over the
mountain and at an higher elevation, to see what was happening.The geology of the area is that these valleys
are the remnants of glacial lakes.Every
spring the valleys are full of water from springs and are the perfect areas for
the multitudes of migratory that come through. Ducks andGeese are common in the thousands.This time we had the exciting moment of
seeing hundreds of Sand Hill Cranes in one place.Unfortunately, I severely lack camera-foo
abilities and was unable t see where I was aiming due to sun glare so this is
the best photo I could get.
Driving along we also saw a sight that while unpleasant, is
a fact of life in the 'outback' of rural Western living. Liberal and urban heads are exploding
everywhere.
Am I a really evil person, because one of my first thoughts
was......what a waste of fur?Coyote
coats are the most beautiful things.Yeah....I guess I am.Life in
the country.
Note: these photos were re-sized to be small enough to post. The actual links are
The Circle of Life: Sometimes it just gets broken and there is nothing to do but to deal with it.
By Circle of Life, I mean where you grow in several stages. This is MY perception of how it works based on my experiences. Your results may vary, as they say in the commercial disclaimers.
Stage One: as child dependent upon your parents to guide and mold you. For a while your parents are as Gods. They are wise, all knowing, the source of comfort and everything else that a young child must have.
Mom and Me
Stage Two: Soon, you grow into a teenager straining to find out who you really are. Ah...the teen years. Teen age angst. What a trial for the parents. You go out of ways to assert your independence and to just be contrary to all authority. There is an ongoing power struggle between teen girls and their mothers, sons and fathers. At this point you realize that maybe the parental units are NOT perfect or God like. You've seen the cracks in the facade in some ways. Perhaps it is the party where someone got a bit too drunk, was having fun and became embarrassing. Maybe an uncomfortable argument between the parents. Everything your family does is now worthy of an eye roll or two. Stage Three: Thankfully we grow out of that teenager stage. You go out on your own. College, maybe. Get a job and an apartment of your own. Move to another town. Now you begin to realize that life is more than being a child or an obnoxious teen dependent. The bills keep coming in and you suddenly realize that ....Woah.....someone has to clean the bathroom, change the toilet paper roll and buy the food and all that stuff. This means I have to keep going to my job! and I can't just spend all my money on fun things. Maybe that home and family thing was worthwhile. Still figuring out who you are you experiment will all kinds of things. You might occasionally think about your parents and the fact that they were young at one time and remember some of their stories, if your parents were of a mind to share their own youthful indiscretions. But mostly, it us all about you and your new exciting life.
Somewhere between stage two and three, you discover SEX. You are sure that it has never been this way for anyone before. You are special..... THEN suddenly it dawns on you that your parents have had sex too. At least once or twice, depending on how many siblings you have. Eeeewwww!This may require that I rethink my views of my parents and think about why they dropped us off at the theater every Saturday so we kids could spend the afternoon watching bad B movies...... Naaah.
Stage Four: The real relationship stage. You find a boy or girl that you like a lot and you discover that the 'way of love' is not all that easy. It might work out and turn into marriage or you might find out that it is just a way of woe. Suddenly, your parents seem to be more understandable. Those arguments and quirks that they exibited that were so embarassing to you, make some sense. You might be able to confide in your mother or father and even ask for advice. They aren't Gods like they were when you were small, but.....somehow as you have gotten older, they seem to have gotten so much smarter. Amazing how that can happen.
Stage Five: Marriage and children. If you manage to make it past stage four, you are now married and have children of your own. There is a moment where it dawns on you, perhaps when you are changing diapers or getting up yet again in the middle of the night to feed the baby or walk the floor at 2 am trying to console your colicky child.....WOW. My mother/father did this same thing for me.!!! And I took it all for granted. As a new mother or father, you will now be able to reach out to your parents for advice and ask them. How did you handle this problem. What was it like for you? (They THEY are now Grandparents and working their way through their own Circle of Life.)
Now, you can talk woman to woman or man to man. You parents are morphing into friends and confidants. People. Not just parents, but people who have pasts, likes, dislikes. As your own children grow and you deal with the intricacies of a marital relationship, this friendship grows ever more strong.
Stage Six: Finally, you have gotten your children through their teen years and you also remember just what a little prick or bitch you were to your own parents. (I apologized to my father at that point.) Your children are in Stage Three. Ahhhh. At last. The empty nest. Free at last free at last. Adults without young children and you can do the things you put off while raising the family. Travel. Go to resorts and experience fine dining. Sleep IN on Sunday and walk around the house in your underwear without a snotty teenager rolling eyes at you.
Three Generations
Stage Seven: Finally. Grandchildren of your own to spoil. Now you are the valued source of information.
Somewhere in these last stages, you begin to realize the mortality of your parents and yourself. Life isn't eternal as you think it is in your teen and young adult years. Friends, family are dropping like flies and you realize that time is precious. You'd better spend as much of it as you can with your parents if they still exist and your children and grandchildren before the circle stops spinning..
Such is the circle of life. Wheel within wheels. We are all on the
circle at various points. But....sometimes the circle breaks as it did
for my mother and for the rest of us.
In comments Windbag made the observation that some deaths are just like mule kicks.
It is true.
We expect that people who are older and infirm are going to die. It is just the natural way of life. We have the time to get used to the idea. Gradually accept that the end is near. The sand is visibly running out. We can rationalize the death because we have been able to come to terms with it.
You may think: "She was so ill for such a long time it is a mercy." "He has had a long and productive life full of family and friends. His legacy will live on." Or even "He led such a terrible life with drugs and alcohol that it is no wonder that he didn't go sooner." And so on.
It's a kick in the gut when someone young is suddenly gone. Suddenly. With no warning. No gradual acceptance. Just ...wham...boom....gone.
When I was young, I had a good friend who was pregnant at the same time as I. (I must say here that I don't have a lot of very close friends and haven't had very many women friends in my life. Perhaps 3 or 4. Lisa was one of those) We shared the experience. Our two young families bonded through the experience. We were like family.
Through the good and bad, we shared the experience. Anticipation of what our babies would look like. Would it be a boy or girl? Healthy...God willing. Will my baby be smart, beautiful, handsome, athletic. Laughed at stories of the physical side of pregnancy. Morning sickness. Inconvenient bodily function accidents. We laughed and worried together. Supported each other and drew strength from each other.
Her beautiful daughter was born just 4 months before mine. The children played together and became like sisters.
Suddenly, at the age of 30, Lisa had a seizure while driving to work to her job as a nurse in the local hospital..... and ran into a tree. Suddenly her 2 1/2 year old child was motherless and her young husband was a widower. No warning. No explanation. Just....wham...boom....gone.
The funeral was attended by friends, who were also in their 20's and 30's. Each and everyone of us had been slapped in the face with our own mortality. Stunned. Mule kicked. The two girls didn't understand, of course, what was happening and continued to play happily with each other, as always. Unaware that things had changed forever in the wink of an eye.
Keagan's First Birthday
Watching their innocence, I thought, this could be me. This could be my daughter who is motherless. Who would grow up and never know me, except as a story told by someone else. It could be me who was suddenly gone and I would not have the joy of watching my daughter grow from a baby to a woman with children of her own. As has happened....did I mention that I am a new Grandmother with a fabulously smart and talented Grandson :-)
From that time on, I was aware that each moment could be my last. It could be anyone's last.
So....what does this have to do with the Universal Train Ride?
Get to the point will ya!
We are all on the same train going down the tracks. Some of us get on at different stops, before or after each other. We all have different designated stops to leave the train. Some people, like my friend, have a very short train trip. Others have a long ride. However, you never know when your stop is coming up.......until the conductor calls your name.
So....enjoy the train ride, because you will not know how long or short it is or when your ticket will be punched. I try. Sometimes I fail, but most often I am enjoying the ride and the scenery.
I wonder what the destination will look like. I hope it is nice.
Sad news today. Andrew Breitbart is dead
at the very young age of 43.He was a
tireless champion of truth and fighting against the liberal media propaganda
machine.But....this post isn't really
about Breitbart.There will be plenty of
people who can recap the life and importance of what Breitbart has accomplished
and what his work means to all of us.
This post is about something that I and my husband have
discussed and have been thinking about more and more as time goes on.All around us we see friends and family
getting older.Sometimes with grace. Sometimes not, railing against the enviable
and denying the reality of age.We see
our friends and family facing failing health, failing minds and eventually
death.
We see ourselves.
We are all born with a certain amount of sand in our
hourglass.We have been allotted just so
much time here on earth. What happens after the sand runs out? Who knows. Doesn't matter.
What matters is what you do and how you act now.
It is obvious to us that at the ages of 62, that there is
now more sand in the bottom of our hourglass than there can be remaining in the
top.How much sand?Who knows?We may have just a few grains left.We may have many more years of sand to enjoy.
One thing for certain is that the sand in the top of our
hourglass is worth more to us NOW than it was 50 years ago.In those days the sand was something we
didn't think about.There was an endless
amount of sand to be wasted and frittered away.
We didn't appreciate the meaning of the sand in the
hourglass because it was full on the top.
Now that the sand is running out, every day is a treasure to
be appreciated.We don't have the luxury
of being oblivious to life.Wasting
the remaining grains on meaningless anger.With people you don't like.On
drudgeries that can be avoided.
I plan to use my remaining sand on the little, peaceful
things that make me happy.Spend my
grains of sand by being with people that I love.
Enjoying the activities that may not be changing the world
or impacting society.Just appreciating
that each day and each grain of sand is a precious gift.
Today: I will read a book.Bake an apple tart with the remaining summer apples from the trees in
our orchard.Throw some grain to the
quail in the snow and from my office window, watch the woodpeckers and great
northern flickers enjoy the suet squares in wire baskets nailed to the trees. Perhaps finish a knitting project and peruse
my craft books to plan the next one.I
will call a good friend who is in assisted living, because tomorrow, her sand may run out.
I will enjoy cocktails and dinner and conversation with my
husband.Snuggle together under our warm
down comforter with the cat trying to sleep in the middle of the bed while it
snows outside.
I will be thankful that we still have some sand left and
appreciate every grain.
In a previous post I mentioned my conflict about Christmas as an adult. This got me to remembering some of my childhood Christmas experiences and one of the best ever Christmas displays. This is going to be a long post, but ...hey....I'm blogging for me! Not you.
I'm indulging myself.
Let me preface by saying we spent many of our Christmas holidays in Mexico. My grandmother and my Dad's younger siblings lived there from the mid 1940's to the late 1960's. 30 years as legal residents of Mexico and they had two places to live. One was a very modern apartment in Mexico City and the other a wonderful rustic old villa in Tequisquiapan.
Aunt Rae in the courtyard Tequis....after college
One side of the courtyard
My aunts and uncles were going to the College of Americas or high school in Mexico and since it was Christmas break, our family usually spent several months traveling to Mexico and just visiting. From the late 50's until the family moved back to the States our Christmas was international.
1960 Family in Acapulco.
Acapulco was a favorite spot. At that time it was a resort town for the Mexican elite society and especially the favorite of the college students. As kids, my brother and I loved it. Warm sands, surf and we were able to be pretty much on our own, running up and down the beach and body surfing. There were no 'helicopter' parents in those days.
Some photos from that time. My brother being a butt and refusing to smile because he didn't want to have a photo taken. Ahhhhh. family memories...lol.
Aunt Rae being very "glam" on the beach in front of our hotel. That's my grandmother in the back. Uncle Owen, being a studly high school senior.
(AAARGH I give up...blogger will not let me position the photos on the page how I want or let me resize them!!. )
Rae.... College age
Uncle Owen...high school
But, all this digression leads me to to the most awesome Christmas display ever. Even though we were not immersed in Santa and Rudolph, I believe we got a better understanding of what Christmas is all about. The Christ Child. Baby Jesus. (description of the display after the jump)
Sometimes I think that the world is coming to a final judgement day when I read some of the articles on the net.
The other day there was an extremely disturbing story on the internet. Among the many disturbing articles out there, this one really got to me because in my mind pets like dogs, cats are innocent beings that should be protected and cherished and animals should never be abused or treated cruelly. Yes....yes. We eat animals and death is part of that process. But, there is no excuse for abuse in that process. People who abuse animals are the lowest form of life and deserve no sympathy.
A Brazilian woman who is a nurse beat a small puppy to death, in front of her child. I couldn't bear to look at some of the still photos, much less dare to link to the video that was taken by an outraged neighbor. Too horrible and too inhuman to contemplate. The video was posted on the internet by the outraged neighbor when the police would do nothing. The ire and and well deserved venom that is being heaped upon the woman who beat the dog is incredible.
Millions of people around the world literally hate this woman.
This got me to thinking about the Power of Prayer and positive thinking. The power of positive thinking in healing yourself and praying for the healing of another. There are many inspirational stories about prayer and groups of people praying that seem to have resulted in miraculous cures.
As a somewhat agnostic person, my personal take on prayer and positive thinking is....what can it hurt? Why not be positive? Why not if you believe in a higher power combine your thoughts with others to create a bigger channel to the higher power? A larger and clearer signal uploaded to the higher power or to God.
If you don't believe in God, and want to go more scientific, there have been studies to try to quantify the results of a group prayer. Inconclusive so far. Maybe it could be that the energy from our brains, telepathy, psychokinesis.....who knows.
In regards to the Power of Prayer and Positive Thinking, what if there is a flip side. The power of group hate. Millions of people thinking negative thoughts about YOU. Millions of people literally wishing you dead or wishing terrible things upon you.
Millions of waves of "negative vibes" wafting her way. Millions of minds engaged in group hate
I wonder if this woman from Brazil can feel the hate.
Soooo. The other day the Dumbplumber pipes up and says something like. "He told me the other day that he would be able to have me over tomorrow to do that thing."
I'm thinking to myself, who is "he" and what "thing"? My husband is always thinking and then just jumps right into the middle of the conversation without any preamble or context. It comes from having a busy mind and being preoccupied, but damn! it is frustrating.
I said--(snarkily)------> "You know, we have been married now for 18 years and I still haven't quite gotten that mind reading thingy down pat yet."
He said: "Well, it is easy. Here let me give you some clues . ...humina, humina, humina.....TITS
..humina, humina, humina.....BEER
..humina, humina, humina.....TITS
..humina, humina, humina.....HOT RODS
..humina, humina, humina.....SEX
..humina, humina, humina.....SCOTCH
..humina, humina, humina.....FOOD oh ..... and TITS
See...it IS easy to read my mind."
Oooookaaay. Thanks for the clues.
He also said: "If you don't post this you don't have a hair on your ass."
Well, I don't have a hairy butt, but here is the post.
Who makes me laugh and smile every day. Dumbplumber...that's who.
Ah...the most wonderful time of the year. Ring ling a ling. Christmas is here. Fa la la la la. Bah humbug.
I'm always conflicted about the Christmas season. There is much to love and much to not love.
In the past, before marrying Mr. Dumbplumber and when I was working for minimum wages at a crappy job, standing on my feet for 8 hours a day and living in a crumbling shamble of a marriage, Christmas was a time of stress and hardship. With no money and no happiness in my life, I "put on a happy face" for my child. Keeping up the fantasy of Christmas was tiring, discouraging and depressing. We didn't have family close by so we rarely had any gatherings of relatives. No Norman Rockwell Christmases. Christmas was also a time to remind me how alone I was and isolated from family. We had presents, mostly hand made because I couldn't afford much else. I was the only parent who participated in the Christmas decorating or the Christmas spirit. We did have good food, cookies, candy, cakes and all the trimmings. THIS I can do on a shoestring.
Christmas to me, as an adult, always represented deprivation, hardship and inadequacy. My daughter didn't know this and her memories of the holidays are good. My job as a parent was successful: to protect your child and allow them the joys and fantasies of the holidays.
Things are different now and money isn't an issue, but the stress is still there. Like a cat that has been conditioned by evil scientists with shock treatments, I still am wary about the holidays. My wonderful husband says......GET OVER IT. So I try.
Today, there is much to like about Christmas and much not to like.
I love to give presents. To think about what the person needs and wants and to see their appreciation of the gift is priceless. To try to find just the right thing for each person. I still hand make many of my gifts because I like to do so. It isn't out of necessity now, it is out of love.
I hate wrapping presents. I don't do a very good job because I'm impatient. My packages look like a team of Chimpanzees did the wrapping. Frankly, I really don't see much point in spending lots of money on wrapping, bows, glitter and all that stuff. The package is going to be ripped open and the effort put into making it "pretty" is going to be burned in the trash barrel shortly after Christmas along with the other boxes and trash. Those gift bags that can be used over again are a brilliant invention.
I love decorating the tree. Each ornament.....mostly hand made from salt dough, knitted, quilted from fabric scraps or assembled from feathers from wild game we had killed and eaten, has a memory attached. Granted some of the memories are not so good, but others are. The fun that my daughter and I had making the hair of Santa's salt dough beard with a garlic press. The time we were able to buy a special ornament, that ceramic skating teddy bear or the glass prism stars.
I hate decorating the tree, because all the while I know that I will have to clean up all this stuff. The prickly tree will attack me and leave welts that itch and last for weeks. The lights become impossibly snarled. Each ornament will have to be put back into the boxes or wrapped up for protection. Knowing that as time goes on after Christmas, the tree will begin to look sadder and sadder and eventually be thrown out to be burned. What a waste of time. I'm always tempted to just throw the whole tree out with the lights still attached.
I love the cooking. What a great excuse to make mounds of goodies. To try out new recipes and give the results to friends. The holidays are a cooking fanatic and recipe junkie's best time of the year. Inviting family and friends over for a big feast is something I look forward to.
I love the fact that Christmas is when the days begin getting longer and that we are turning the corner of the short days, dark cold nights to the promise of spring and summer. To every season...turn turn turn.
I hate that my birthday is just after Christmas. January 6. Epiphany. A birthday party was always an afterthought. I think I had 3 birthday parties as a kid. Everyone else was burned out by the holidays from Halloween through New Years. Who wanted to have yet another party? Generally, it was just..."Oh...here is an extra gift for your birthday under the tree". I suppose it could be worse, my father's birthday is Christmas Eve.
In addition, many of our Christmases were spent in Mexico visiting with our relatives who lived in Mexico City or traveling to and fro to get there and back. Most of the childhood memories I have of Christmas are those with a Mexican tradition, not American.
I love some kinds of Christmas music. My favorites are the traditional tunes that are about the religious nature of Christmas. THIS is one of my favorites.
I hate the Christmas music that is everywhere beginning shortly after Halloween it seems. In the grocery store, on all radio stations. If I have to hear Santa Baby or Rocking Around the Christmas Tree one more time, I'm going to find a department store Santa and beat the crap out of him. Ho....freaking HO! I think Christy Lee must have finally biffed it since we aren't bombarded with her advertisements. Thank you God. Having Christmas shoved down our throats 24/7 really doesn't put me into the holiday spirit.
Which brings me to one of my biggest hates about Christmas. I HATE the merchandising The commercial buy buy BUY THIS STUFF attitude. The relentless shoving of products and brainwashing of the children to demand ever more gifts and ever more expensive gifts. I guess this goes back to my first issue of poverty and Christmas. As a parent, you often just can NOT get that Barbie Dream House, new bike, game system or whatever. The children, especially those who still believe in...you know who....don't understand this and when the gift they have their heart set upon getting isn't there, they think that maybe there is something wrong. Did Santa not like them this year? Were they bad? Terrible children? So in order to not disappoint your young child and to not appear to be an inadequate failure of a parent in the eyes of your children, you cave into the merchandising frenzy and go into debt for toys and items that often are just later discarded or wear out.
I try to think about the good things, remember WHY we have Christmas and to appreciate how much better my life is now. You do need to have experienced the downs in life to appreciate the good fortune you have..... and I am very blessed indeed.
Merry Christmas. Have some delicious cookies and don't let me wrap your presents for you.
Watching the Occupy everywhere movement, their fervor and the breathless coverage by the media.....It occurs to me, looking back from my lofty years (61) that life is often a series of re-runs. Events and patterns happen over and over.
When you are young, it seems like everything that is happening to you and that you are experiencing is happening for the first time. And for you....it is. The first time. The first kiss, the first time you have sex, the first shooting star, your first foray into politics. The experiences have power and are unique because they are happening to YOU. And as we all know, when you are young. you are the center of the universe.
The Occupy kids are full of sound and fury and mostly sincere in their efforts and feel like their actions are going to change the world. I well remember the feeling. Kids 40 and 50 years ago felt the same way. Vietnam protests, marching on government buildings, civil rights....even the violence are all re-runs this time around. Same slogans, same energy.....same.
Recessions: the economy sucks today. Guess what kids....it sucked pretty bad 30 to 40 years ago during the Carter era. We thought it was the end of the economic world then. To the adults of that time, it was just another milder re-run of the Great Depression.
Another way to put it is: as you get older suddenly your parents seem smarter.
Life is a series of re-runs. Nothing new under the sun. Even the Romans experienced the same social ills that we are experiencing now.
"Rome--SEPTEMBER 4, 476AD.
Rome falls. In the centuries preceding, Rome had been
overrun with illegal immigrants: Visigoths, Franks, Anglos, Saxons, Ostrogoths,
Burgundians, Lombards and Vandals. They first assimilated, many working as servants, but
soon came so fast they did not learn the Latin language.
Though militarily superior and marching on advanced road systems, the highly
trained Roman Legions were strained fighting conflicts worldwide, and
eventually troops had to be brought home from the frontier outposts, such as
Britain.
Visigoth King Alaric, Vandal King Geiseric, Attila the Hun,
and finally the barbarian King Odoacer, committed terrorist attacks, wiping out
whole cities, until Rome itself was eventually sacked and looted.
Rome had been weakened by a large trade deficit, having
outsourced its grain production to North Africa, and when the Vandals captured
North Africa, Rome did not have the resources to retaliate.
Citizens of Rome were kept distracted with violent entertainment
in the Coliseum and Circus Maximus. The Roman Emperor kept citizens appeased
with welfare and free bread.
One Roman commented:"Those who live at the
expense of the public funds are more numerous than those who provide
them." Tax collectors were "more terrible than the
enemy."
Rome was crippled by huge government bureaucracies and
enormous public debt."
It doesn't mean that just because these same things occur over and over that we shouldn't try to make a difference. The Civil Rights Movement certainly did make a difference. What these repeating patterns or re-runs mean, is that we need to pay attention and learn from our mistakes.
To the OWS kids.....you really aren't the center of the universe and you are not unique.
Been there, done that and still have the ragged tee shirt to prove it.
Spielberg is out with this movie War Horse. I'm sure that as the trailer says, it will make us laugh and cry. Probably mostly cry. Geeze. I'm an easy mark for a tear jerker movie, especially one with animals.
The main reason I can't watch this movie is from my family history. My Grandfather was a veterinarian and in WWI for the US Calvary, he went to the Hell on Earth that was the European battle fields. His task was to try to take care of the horses. Horrible!! The horses suffered incredibly. The men who took care of the horses, like my Grandfather, who cared for the animals suffered, because they were overwhelmed, pained and changed by the slaughter house and meat grinder that the animals AND humans were thrust into.
Unlike men who can be deluded into participating in war; animals have no concepts of patriotism or really much interest in politics. The fear and terror that they must have experienced is unimaginable. The betrayal of the trust that they put into humans. The pain and suffering.
I understand that the use of horses at the time of WWI was necessary. The military was in a transition from human and horse power to the more mechanized and impersonal wars that we have now. Heroic horse calvary charges were standard.
Here is good short film about the reality of WWI War Horses.
So, while Steven Spielberg will have made a movie that will move us to tears and laughter, the ending will probably be sweet. Boy and horse reunited. Stirring motivational music. Uplifting heroism.
I just can't bring myself to sit through a whitewashed version of the horrors of WWI to reach the happy ending. YES. YES. I know that no real animals were hurt in the movie and the technological effects of the film are likely to be fantastic.
When this is what Spielberg is showing us
When THIS is the reality
As much as I would love a happy ending. I'm afraid that I'm much too cynical and realistic to see this movie. Plus.....I think I would need a box of Kleenex to be able to get through the event.
If I'm wrong ....and you can assure me that I won't be sobbing by the end of the movie....give me a review.
So much. So many things to be thankful for in my life.
Life has at times been good, been bad, been indifferent. Today I am thankful for all of it.
My husband. Our health. Our family. Our friends. Our house. Our hard won possessions. Our LIFE.
Thankful that we can wake up in the morning in a warm house under cozy blankets to a hot pot of coffee (made the night before). We can open a refrigerator full of food and choose what to eat. We have nice warm clean clothes. How many people in the world today don't have this comfort, this luxury of food and warmth?
Sitting in front of our separate computers....me in the office with the french doors open and cat on lap while the Dumbplumber sits on the couch with his feet on the coffee table and laptop on his knees, we have the information of the world at our fingertips. We share this information and listen to music. How magical is that?
Thankful for my wonderful husband who keeps me grounded. We will have been married 18 years in the coming spring and it seems like just yesterday that we met. Every day we enjoy each other's company and look forward to being together. Lovers and friends. Arguments are rare. Probably the advantage of age, where we both have learned where to take a stand and which stands are even worth taking. I'm so thankful for the lucky happenstance that brought us together.
I'm thankful for the beautiful and scenic nature setting that we live amongst. Today we took a drive in one of the five trucks(!) we own, while the steaks that we are cooking for Thanksgiving are marinating. (The traditional Thanksgiving BBQed steaks lol ...that's another story). This in itself is a luxury. To be able to drive someplace on a whim. Around the valley floor and up into the the piney woods. Back to feed the quail, the finches and set out more suet for the woodpeckers and flickers. The peace and beauty of being able to sit in a comfy chair by the window sipping a cocktail and watching their antics.
Thankful for our minds and senses of humor. Thankful that neither of us is (knock wood) is suffering from Alzheimer's. Thankful for our health. Do we have some health issues. Yep. Dumbplumber has diabetes, which is controlled and other than the normal aches an pains that come with 60 years of living, we are healthy and active.
Thankful for our families and their health, success, well being and happiness. We miss those who have gone ahead of us and treasure those who still remain.
We are aware that all of this could disappear in a heartbeat. A literal heartbeat. One major medical event or accident from disaster. This fortune that we have, can evaporate through no fault of our own. Through forces beyond our control. Wars. Famine. Political unrest.
My friend, who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy and is now in the middle of chemotherapy with radiation therapy yet to look forward to, has lost her hair and eyebrows. Fortunately, she is a strong personality and has handled all of this with grace and humor. Her husband is a rock that she can lean on and is a pillar of strength. As friends, there isn't much you can do to help and you don't want to intrude or tire her out with too many visits or be overly sentimental. She isn't that kind of person.....and frankly neither am I. That is probably why we get along and she is one of a very few women in my lifetime that I have counted as friends.
There are not many things you can do, but there is one thing that I CAN do. Knit hats. You lose much of your body heat through your head. When you have no hair.....the loss is really significant and noticeable. Not only is your head cold.....you are freaking bald. Now, I know that many men are bald and not happy with that situation, but society readily accepts the sight of a bald man. A cue ball bald woman not so much. So to be warm and to not appear freakish, women who are going through chemotherapy tend to wear hats during the day as well as night. Fancy hats. Frilly cute hats. Warm snugly hats. Hats with a sense of humor.
Since she is not a frilly person or a person who wears dainty pastels [neither am I], the hats I have been making are bold, sensible, warm and comfortable. This is a cabled brim hat. The pattern is from Knitty.com. Man, it is amazing what you can find on the Internet. For those of you who may be interested in knitting or crochet, I really suggest you sign up for Ravelry.com It is a huge on line community of people who love to craft, creative and more than willing to share patterns and tips.
Cable Brimmed Hat
They say that after Chemo and Radiation, your hair grows back in differently. Sometimes it is curly where it was straight before, sometimes it's even darker or a different texture.
So while my friend is waiting for her NEW hair to grow in she has another hat to keep warm.
As we known unemployment is high. Very high. The reports say 9% or 14 million people are out of jobs. Actually, the reports are wrong. It is worse. The government statistics are manipulated to hide the pain. In some counties in the North State, State of Jefferson, where I live the UI rate is pushing 20% or higher. Demographic groups such as young adults and blacks are over 30% unemployed.
Many who were collecting unemployment, or to be more precise being paid not to work, have run out of UI benefits.
How can this be? We are more productive, yet there are more people not working.
Well, the answer is simple. Technology and efficiency. Manufacturing businesses can make the products with less people. Who needs a flotilla of secretaries or bookkeepers when you have computer programs to do the work. Printing shops that employed skilled technicians are replaced by laser printers and desk top publishing programs.
So where are the jobs? Just like in the past when the majority of people in the US were employed in agriculture and farming and those industries were made more productive by mechanization, the unemployed people had to migrate to other areas and find NEW kinds of jobs.
They didn't have unemployment insurance to give them months and years of leisure time. They didn't have the luxury of being able to sit around and whine that their old occupations were no more. They had to find new jobs in other industries. They had to create new jobs and create new industries. The industrial age was a time of unprecidented economic expansion and innovation. The innovations and inventions of those times are the foundation of our society today.
So.....where are the jobs. The NEW jobs?
First: You need to get the government out of the way so that people can be innovative and entrepreneurial. Rules, regulations, fees, licenses, fines all set in place to supposedly protect the public are in fact the main impediment to new job creation and are meant to reduce competition by new challengers to current industry and businesses.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we have a free for all in industry or production or businesses. Safety of food, safety on the job and product quality are important. You want to know if you buy something to eat.....it is safe. You want to know that if you hire a professional to do a job for you, like your Doctor.....they are competent. If you want to have a builder repair something in your house....you would like to know that they will be able to do the job. However, we don't need the government in the middle of EVERY transaction.
The rules and regulations need to be sane and encouraging of new businesses. Cottage food laws in California are (hopefully) in the process of being relaxed. If we had the restrictive rules and regulations today during the industrial revolution, just think of the food products and giant industries that would not have been developed. General Mills, Coca Cola...the list is long.
Second: Instead of wailing that you can't get a job in your old occupation, look for new opportunities. What do people need? What would the people who have money and jobs want from you? What kinds of jobs or services cannot be outsourced to another country or be outsourced to a computer or robot?
Just a short list of services:
Babysitting/ Nanny service
Home maintenance and repairs
Cleaning services
Landscaping
Plumbing
Building and construction
Auto repair/maintenance/detailing
Computer repair
Assistance services for the elderly or disabled
Are these glamorous jobs. Probably not in everyone's eyes. Do people need these services. You bet. Can you make a decent living and even hire other people to work for you...Heck YEAH.
Third: What kinds of things or products are in need or would be innovative that you can make or produce. What resources do you have in your area? The Cottage Food industry is one possibility. Hand made goods. Artisanal goods. Can you manufacture something that would be distinctive, reasonably price and use local talent? Should you.... can you, team up with others in your area to create new industries and new products?
So instead of wailing that jobs are lost, outsourced or that you can't do what you used to do.....look upon these tough times as an opportunity. Opportunity to create something new, to learn something new. Sure, it might require you to sacrifice, to lower your standard of living for a while, to work long hard hours, to maybe move to another area, to get out of your comfort zone.
Society moves on and industry moves on. To stubbornly stand in one place will just leave you behind as others do take advantage of the new opportunities and move on to new prosperity.
While still in the throes of dealing with nature's bountiful gifts this year of apples and plums, I decided to finish off the last 3 1/2 pounds of Italian Prune Plums with a batch of Chinese Plum Sauce.
Apples? Oh YEAH we have apples this year. Previously I made and froze apple pie filling for 12 pies. Now neatly wrapped and stacked in the shop freezer. A friend, who is also up to her eyeballs in apples and pears, gave me a super recipe for crockpot apple butter. Fabulous!. Easy peasy!! No standing and stirring and stirring over a hot pot. Just put the peeled cored and chopped apples in the crockpot with the sugar and spices and go about your merry way.
Finished up canning the apple butter which had been cooking in the crock pot since yesterday. Canned the plum sauce. All the while, listening to Cole Train, Ella Fitzgerald and Delbert McClinton. While waiting for the product to cool enough to handle, decided all that was left for the early afternoon was to get some crackers, brie cheese, apple slices (did I mention we have a LOT of apples) and some wine so that I could sit on the deck in the magnificent Indian Summer sunshine and read a book for a while.
Apple Butter and Chinese Plum Sauce
On another blog a commenter made reference to how blessed and fortunate we, in the United States, actually are. His comment was in reference to the Occupy [insert your city] movement that seems to be stressing how disadvantage the 99% (whatever) is and how oppressed we must be by the 1% who control all the wealth. First of all.....none of that is true but I won't get into the political part of that.
It is the spiritual part that is of interest to me. We have freedoms that are unheard of in other countries. Freedom of movement. Freedom of thought. Freedom to chose all sorts of life paths that we might take. Do we always make the right choices? Probably not. But, we have the ability to chose.
With that freedom also comes responsibility. When you choose badly, as I have often done in my younger years, you either learn from those bad choices and make better choices in the future....or you just keep repeating the same mistakes.
We also live in a society that is caring. Some will say that isn't so because every problem, every person isn't taken care of from cradle to grave. Caring also means sometimes saying "NO". Charities and personal help for those in need are abundant. No matter how bad things get, there IS someone somewhere who is willing to give you a hand up. To help those willing to better themselves and who want to be helped, lift themselves out of the darkness. Hand up is not the same as a hand out. Entitlements and demands to take from others is a perversion of charity.
Looking at my life now, I am grateful for every moment. Even these moments of what others would think of as drudgery (canning, cleaning, harvesting) are to me a blessing and a joy. I have the ability, the skill and the drive to create. Apple butter from raw apples. Knitted hats for friends from balls of yarn. Clothing from cloth. Those moments of leisure following the drudgery: sitting on the deck with a glass of wine are also a blessing. The drudgery and the leisure....they go hand in hand. You can't appreciate one without the other.
Those in the Occupy everywhere contingent who are focusing on the negatives, on money, on possessions and ignoring the blessed life and the opportunties that they have been given, compared to much of the rest of the world, are ignoring the spiritual side of life. They are starving their souls and screaming into the void.
A Kindle (or other E-book tablet) seems like a great idea. It can hold thousands of books, easily transportable, inexpensive downloading and instant gratification. No more piles of books cluttering up the area. What's not to love? I WANT one and will probably buy myself one for Christmas.
However, I think there is a dangerous dark side to the electronic book movement and the electronic photos that we rely on. Who takes a photograph from a negative and has prints made anymore? All of our current memories are digitized.
Our culture is being digitized.
We live in an era where we are losing connection with our own history as a society and with the history of civilization. Schools no longer teach history. Facts, dates, relationships between events and how those long ago events have shaped our present. Not taught. Ask a child in elementary or even high school why we have Thanksgiving. Where did the holiday come from and why do we celebrate and I bet you will find that hardly any child can tell you about the history behind it. Sure they might be able to spout something about Pilgrims and Indians and how the eveeel white people destroyed the Indians yada yada yada , the politicized version, but the real history......not.
We live in a throw away society. We live in a society where technological advances are coming at us at a fast and furious pace. Things that just a few years ago seemed miraculous are now obsolete or quaint. Commodore Vic 20 anyone? Items that are broken are not repaired but are just thrown out, because after all, we can just buy the newest latest thing and it was old anyway.
History that our parents and grandparents have lived through is sometimes relayed in family stories. Personal stories of the Great Depression, World War I and World War II. If we don't have those family stories, we can go back to books and photos that were taken at the time. Photos and stories that show us the lives that people led. How they dressed, lived and what they thought about at the time. Without those books and photos and films we gradually lose contact with our own personal pasts and with what society was like.
We can go back even further and read literature and articles written during remote times and remote eras. The Crusades. Marco Polo explorations. The first people to meet with the Mayans. Even further back the Mayan's own writings. Our historical record consists of stone carvings, clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, velum books, handwritten and printed books. We have a tactile history. We can touch it and see it.
What would happen to our own current history when the digitized versions of our culture have been erased from the hard drives of the future, either on purpose or through some disaster. Our books, our photos, our writings all erased. Vanished in an electronic storm or at the push of a button.
Without 'real' books and hard copies, it may be in the future as if we never existed. Without historical records, history can be twisted to be anything that you want. History can be warped to benefit the latest government, the powers that be. We have always been at war with East Asia.
Pooof. Gone. Vanished.
Those who have not learned history are doomed to repeat it.
Keep your books.....they may come in handy even if the Kindle is convenient.....for now.
Yesterday, the refrigerator died. It wasn't a sudden death. It had been ailing and giving us warnings for about a month, which we hopefully and delusionally ignored. "Maybe it is just a glitch?....Maybe it will get better if we just crank the dial to the coldest setting."
The first warning signs were the juice bars becoming a bit slushy. Or maybe the ice in the icemaker periodically slightly melting and reforming into a block of ice. The ice cream was soft....but .....hey.... I kind of like my ice cream soft.
Well, all the ignoring and pretending has brought us to this. We are camping out in our house for the next couple of weeks, until we can get to an appliance store or get the repairman to come up from the 'big city'.
After The Dumbplumber determined that the compressor was dead, dead, double dead, we had to move all items from the freezer to the big freezer in the shop and from the refrigerator side to the small refrigerator in the shop. Thank God we have backups. Once of which is an almost 40 year old Montgomery Wards upright freezer that hasn't missed a beat since it was plugged in. So much for our new and improved Energy Star pieces of crap that the government insists we have to purchase. Progress......my......ass.
In a way it was like an embarrassing archeological dig. "Wow....I didn't know we had THREE half filled jars of grated horseradish and two opened bottles of sweet pickle relish. And how old IS this cheese.???"
I guess this is one way to completely clean the refrigerator, however.....I can think of more preferred (and less expensive) ways than having my refrigerator die.
Because these next 12 days are completely booked with business trips and my mother-in-law's 80th birthday party in Oregon and the closest appliance store is about 90 miles away, we are just going to have to make do with ice chests on the back deck for items we need immediately and the back up appliances in the shop.
No more automatic ice maker for now, so we break out the trusty vintage West Bend Penguin Hot Cold ice bucket (also good for keeping biscuits hot.......how do it know!?!?) and fill it full of ice from the chest so we can still be civilized and have our cocktails.
Just like the good old days when all people had was an ice box.....with nothing but ice to keep things cool. When you lose an amenity like refrigeration, electricity or hot water on demand for a while, you do appreciate just how much we have in our lives. The luxuries that were unthinkable just a generation ago that we take so much for granted. Luxuries that are really quite fragile. We should be more grateful for our lives.
A few months ago, I made the big decision. After 20 plus years as a financial advisor and insurance agent, it was time to slow down and semi-retire. Semi- because I will still be keeping for a while my insurance business.
Semi retire because my husband is purchasing another business and I will be keeping books for his two businesses as well as our personal finances.
DECIDING:
How did I make the decision? Time and Money.
1. We only have so much sand in our personal hourglass. At 60 I can see that there is more sand in the bottom than the top. It is time to enjoy the sand that I have left.
2. I'm going to be a Grandmother, for the first time. And again....time....it goes by so fast. Do I want to spend my "sand" on shepherding my recalcitrant, balky and frankly ungrateful clients....OR do I want to spend time with my husband, grandchild, my daughter and her husband and my Father who just turned 82 (who also has a limited amount of sand left)
No contest. Family wins out.
3.Time. I haven't had time to do the things that I enjoy. Hobbies that I have let languish over the past 10 years of self employment. Cooking, Quilting, Painting, Gardening, Sewing, Knitting, playing my guitar. I am sooooo...looking forward to being able to exercise my artistic and creative side, instead of my analytical and managerial side.
4. Money. While most of my clients have done very well, even through this latest downturn and many have actually made money, I am just sick of dealing with everyone's problems. Holding hands. Trying to keep people from running off of the rails. Frankly.....I'm sick of most of my clients. One positive sign that it is time to quit.
5. Money. The fees and charges to doing business have gone up and up and up. A 25% increase next year for basic services from my Broker Dealer. Fees added to fees. Not to mention paperwork and compliance up the boo yang. Add in the office overhead, insurance etc. It was a no brainer.
So....I have moved my office to my husband's business. Upstairs above the workshop. Despite his whining that he is going to lose his 'man cave', he admits that it does look pretty nice, manly and .....bonus!!!.. I will be cleaning the office so that there aren't as many manly dead spiders, flies and cobwebs. Another bonus. I plan to set up a wet bar and get some nice recliners and a flat screen television so we can watch movies and just relax.
MOVING:
OMG. The pain of moving almost 10 years of office accumulation, files, supplies, decorations. And moving all of it UP a flight of stairs. I'll tell you one thing. After all these trips up and down the stairs carrying my end of the furniture and boxes of stuff......I will have buns of steel. Right now I feel like someone has kicked me in the rear.
Throwing away items. It is liberating!!. Anything to do with securites. Trash it. Have I looked at it in the last 2 years? Nope....trash it. How many of these pens, folders, whatevers do I really need? Trash half of them. Dumpsters full of trash.
ADJUSTING:
So far, the adjustments to retirement has been a bit strange because we have been so busy with moving and repositioning.
First thing to deal with is the idea that "I don't have to be anyplace at any particular time". I don't have to get up and be in my office at 8:00 am. My time is going to be my own!. At first I felt like I was shirking something.
I don't have to get dressed up into work clothing, which is for me heels, suits or nice pants outfits. Looking forward to the transition into more casual, less make up, less jewelry styling......while being careful not to transition into slob.
Because my time is NOT structured and I don't have multitudes of client obligations, right now, I feel like I should be doing something else. Something constructive.
I know.......I'll bake some bread and settle on a new knitting project, open a bottle of wine and sit in the easy chair and listen to some Coletrane, while the Dumbplumber is busy with his latest book and nap.
Ahhhh.... retirement. I think I can learn to like you.
Remember when you were in school and you were forced to take math... Algebra, Geometry... and you said to your snotty teenage self...."When am I ever going to need THIS stuff?" and dug in your heels and you did just the minimal amount of work to get by.
Well, if you ever plan to be a quilter: or actually to be a carpenter or any other building type of trade, you are going to need those skills. Quilting and especially piece work is all about math and geometry.
Since I have all these scraps of fabric to use, I want to make a small baby quilt for the pending GRANDSON. Something that he can lay on and that they can use as a wall hanging later. I've been informed that the baby's room will be in bright primary colors so I've settled on this pattern?
Cool. So I download the pattern and instructions from www.allpeoplequilt.com. Easy peasy pattern. Just make strips of fabric from the scraps using the rotary cutter and sew together.
Unfortunately, there is a snag. The quilt is too small given the size of strips in the pattern. Each block is 7 inches. All I have to do is figure what size I want the finished quilt to be and enlarge the block and enlarge the strips. No problemo. Right?
Each block is 7 strips wide
Each strip is cut with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. SO then, if I want a 12 inch block then I divide by 7 and add 1/2 inch to each piece. 2.2142857 inches. Hmmmm that isn't going to work.
Ok. 10 inch blocks. 10/7 +.5 = 1.9285714 yikes. Too much math.
Ah... Screw it. I'll just have to wing it!! Cut the strips 2.25 inches and end up with a finished strip 1.75 inches.
Just when you think all is lost. That people are so jaded with life. That people have turned inward to avoid interacting with others. Something beautiful breaks out and brings wonderment and joy to the faces of the unsuspecting bystanders.
On Saturday, April 24th, the Opera Company of Philadelphia teamed up with the Reading Terminal Market Italian Festival for a large-scale "Flash Opera" event! Over 30 members of the Opera Company of Philadelphia Chorus and principal cast members of LA TRAVIATA performed the famed "Brindisi" in the aisles of Reading Terminal Market, entertaining hundreds of Philadelphians, and proving that the perfect accompaniment for all things Italian is a little Verdi!
Lately I've been reminiscing about things in the past. Maybe it is my age...."young, young" my hubby and I always chant when we think about it. But face it. No spring chickens we.
Maybe it is the times we are living in, where we see the America of our youth changing, not to the good, and we see it slipping away. I imagine my parents thought the same thing in the 60's and my grandparents in the 30's. Its a generational thing.
Maybe it is that I'm going to be a Grandmother for the first time and now I'm thinking even more seriously about the next generation and wonder what his/her childhood memories will be like. The idea that Hip Hop music may be the "Oldies" of the future for my grandchild is unsettling.
About the Grandmother thing. YAY!!!! Awesome. I can hardly wait. And I plan to post more about that later.
This post is about reminiscing about the past, so back to my meandering thoughts. On another blog the conversation turned to swimming and which is better. The Ocean or Lakes. I say Ocean is better.
I grew up mostly in California and swimming as children in the summertime was where ever our parents took us.
We learned to swim in summer programs at the local high school. Every day of the week over many summers we would be dropped off for an hour of swimming lessons. Starting with madly kicking our way from one end of the pool to the other behind floaty boards to eventually being able to master the butterfly stroke. Then we would have a lunch break where the pool closed for an hour. My brother and I would walk across the street to the small Mom and Pop grocery store on the corner. We would suppliment our bag lunch with sodas, pretzles, ice cream bars and for my brother the latest edition of The Green Lantern or other comic to add to his collection.
After lunch we would go back and swim for another couple of hours for open swimming. This is when all the kids in the area would ride their bikes in from all over the neighborhoods or their parents would drop them off, pay 50 cents or so to swim. Then we would play and frolic in the water and the sun for hours.
Imagine it compared to today. NO sunscreen, resulting in massive sunburns. No adult supervision other than a few lifeguards. Kids playing and yes bullying, pushing, shoving, dunking without hovering parents or other adults to interfere in the fun. Freely able to wander around the neighborhood. Buy junk food if we wanted. Today parents who allowed these sort of things would be arrested for child abuse. However, we as children LOVED it.
I became quite a good swimmer and was on swim team in high school.
Occasionally, on a weekend, my parents would take us to a company picnic at a local reservoir. Those were fun times but the swimming was terrible. This is where I got my distaste of lake swimming. The only way to swim was to wade out through the weeds, muck and who knows what that your feet could feel on the bottom of the lake until you got out to where you could actually swim for any distance.... if you watched out for boats.
The Ocean is where the real swimming and best summer swimming memories lie for me. As a teen growing up in California if you didn't surf, body surf or at least go to the beach and hang with your friends who surfed, you were a nerd. That word didn't exist then, but the concept sure did.
Beach Boys, Jan and Dean. Hot summer sun at the beach. Cool cars cruising the main in the balmy California summer nights. Clean hot beach sand. The boardwalk with the carnival atmosphere, rides, more junk food.
And of course, warm beer bought by that cool older guy or gal that you happened to know, liquor pilfered from the parent's stash. My parent's later told us, they knew all about it, but figured it was a part of growing up just as they did in the 40's. Rites of passage so to speak. As the 60's morphed into the 70's, beer morphed into other illegal recreational substances and the music morphed into Jefferson Airplane and The White Rabbit, Tower of Power and Bump City.......but enough about that. I'm about to be a Grandmother for God's sake. (smile)
Moving away from the coast to the Sierra Nevada mountians:
I loved to swim in the mountain rivers and streams. The Feather River, before they drowned it under a huge resevoir was wonderful. No crud on the bottom of the river. We would take an ice chest full of food, drinks and walk down steep trails and over flumes to get to the swimming holes and spend all day. You couldn't swim for any distance like I was used to doing, but the water was wonderful to float upon and dive into. Getting down to the river was a challenge. Getting back after a day of 'recreation' was even more so.
Crystal clear and very cold rushing water while the granite boulders were hot from the baking sun and would immediately soak up the wetness from your skin. There were deep pools between the rapids, where the water would be calm and clear. I would dive to the bottom and fluff up the sand and pick up gold nuggets and interesting rocks that had been hidden for years and years. I have a worn down ring that I wear every day that was made from those nuggets and a beautiful rock that I rescued from a deep pool. I've carried both of these with me for the last 30 years.
I look at the rock and imagine the millions of years it took to create it, polish it and wear it down. I imagine the trillions of gallons of water that carved it from a larger shape to what it is now. To me the rock represents time and endurance. Ah....time.
After they drowned the river, we would go swimming in the middle of the reservoir from houseboats or floating platforms anchored off shore. It was strange and slightly erie to think that our previous summer swimming holes were lurking 50 to 80 feet or more below our feet. Never to be seen again. Dark and now covered with silt. Existing only in our memories which will vanish when we do. No bottom anywhere. Just steep mountain sides on most of the rim of the lake.
The memories of swimming. I hardly swim anymore unless we are someplace where there is a pool or we are at the ocean where it is warm. Now when I go out in the sun to swim or to lounge around, sunscreen and hat are the norm. Probably too late to protect my skin from the hours and hours in the sun as a child and youth and young adult, but I wouldn't trade the memories for anything.
