Sand in the Hourglass

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.

Swimming in the Past

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.

The Landscape Game

I stumbled upon this web site American Digest and an interesting article about something called
The Landscape game. It consists of a series of questions that you are supposed to answer and will, according to the author, be revealing.

Here are my answers and I'm curious as to what they mean. I dream a lot and my dreams are very vivid and detailed. It will be interesting to see what others have posted or answered.

1) You are sleeping and you dream. Describe your dream.
My dream last night. I was part of a team of people competing against another team to decorate a room. The room was not described and there were no real rules so we had no idea what it was supposed to be. However, we did get a hint that it was supposed to be a bedroom.

The teams were given access to a warehouse of furniture and other accessories. (I've dreamed of this place many times and it is really cool because there are so many things to discover and find.) We choose several items. A bed, which is a hospital bed. We aren't really happy with this but it is the only bed in the place. Some chairs, very neat art deco light wood and a geometric blue print. Side tables, lamps and so on.

The moderator? or person in charge now gives us the particulars of the room and it is very weird. It is a narrow and long room. About 8 feet wide and 20 feet long. We are quite upset and irritated because now the stuff we selected might not work.

Suddenly I realize that we might be able to make use of the spaces within the walls of the room. and I ask the moderator if that is approved. Yes. So we make the beds (somehow we have a lot more material and the hospital bed is immaterial) inset into the wall on both sides of the end of the room. Twin beds that can fold up into the wall and when folded down meet together in the middle of the room with some fold out feet for stability. When the beds are folded up, the underside is decorative with pictures and paintings.

We realize that the end of the room has a dormer window and that there is a lot of room inside the walls on either side and we build in some dresser drawers and cupboards. So when the beds are folded up there is a clear path to the window seat in the dormer window.

The rest of the room is furnished with a seating arrangement with the art deco chairs a book case and the lamps.

I'm very satisfied with the result while still being ticked off about not knowing what the rules were in the first place.

2) You wake up in a house. The house can be anywhere within the world. Describe the house and where it is located in the world.

I wake up in a "dream house" meaning that I dream this place often. It has been part of agroup of recurring dreams for years. Somehow, and weirdly, it is very much like the house I live in now.

I don’t know where the house is. The house is located on a bluff, a rather steep bluff, overlooking a lake. It is difficult to get down to the lake but it is a great place to swim. The house is like a long low ranch house with many large windows facing the bluff and the view. Facing the view, the right hand side is the living quarters. The left hand side is the sleeping area. The interest of the house is the screened in porches/decks and area that goes down to the lake. There are neighbors but they don’t really matter much. The front out to the street is a long ways and fairly rural

3) When you wake up, what time is it?
8:00 am

4) You get up and go into the kitchen. What kind of kitchen is in this house?
A really great kitchen with a center island and seating on one side All the appliances and utensils. Ceramic counter top with a good dining area right off to the right. It feels like a slightly 70’s vibe, which is not what my real kitchen has. Attached to the kitchen is a dining area for casual dining. Off to the side is a more formal dining area attached to a large living room

5) You are going out for a walk. As you go to the door, you notice the trees around the house. How many are there and how are they placed in relation to the house?
More than five but not much more. They are Aspens and Maples. The trees are to the right shading the house as I leave because the driveway is to the left.

6) You are following a winding path of stones and sand, past rocks and dry reeds that rattle and hum in the breeze. You crest a rise and start down. Looking around you see, beside the path, a bowl which you pick up and carry with you. Describe the bowl.

A wooden bowl carved from a burl of wood. Maybe manzanita.

7) The path moves on past ruins, there are false turnings everywhere, but you move straight on. Beside the path you see a key which you pick up and carry with you. What is the key like?

Iron and really big like those from the 1800’s ornate and heavy.

8) The path moves out of a forest into the open. It grows hot. You find yourself at a body of water. What kind of body of water is it and what do you do when you come up to it?

A meandering stream that has created a deep pool shaded by more trees. The stream/river runs over many large rocks and the pool is deep and clear. I take off my clothes and swim.

9) You move on along the path and, after some time you come to a wall. What is the wall made of? What you do when you come to it?

Stones. Like an Irish fieldstone hand stacked fence covered with moss on the shady side. It is about 4 feet high. I lean on the top of the wall and look over the top.

10) What lies beyond the wall?

A pasture green and beautiful with cattle and sheep and with more stone fences in the distance

Retirement----Sort Of

To retire or not to retire. That is the question.

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.

So....What Happens If California Goes Bankrupt?

California, like many many States, like the Federal Government and like many Citizens, is teettering on the edge of bankruptcy. Unlike the citizens who have to make some hard decisions about what to buy, what to eat, if they can keep their house, if they can keep their car..... the California Legislature refuses to cut back or scale down any of the ridiculous pipe dream projects that the brain dead liberal voters shoved through the referendem process and through the legislature.


They refuse to cut back on entitlement programs, on top heavy beaurocries, on expensive state vehicles for everyone, parties, junkets, useless building projects, redundant departments....>HUGE pension and benefit packages. Nothing. They just refuse. Head in the sand. La lalalalala.

So, my hubby (The Dumbplumber) and I were saying. So what? What if California goes bankrupt and can't pay its bills. How will this affect us. We decided...not that much.

What could happen

Cal Trans will have to lay off workers

• Instead of 6 guys leaning on shovels, there will be 3.


• They don't fix the roads here in our rural area anyway so for several years we shouldn't see many problems. Too bad for the cities.


• When it snows, we have to plow our own roads anyway and all of us have 4x4 capability.


• We might be in trouble in the winter for food delivery to the grocery stores. But, not to worry. I have the Armageddon Pantry and there are plenty of people with chickens, rabbits, cattle, sheep, goats and large gardens for seasonal vegetables and fruits.

The Highway Patrol won't have time to try to hassle people for not wearing seat belts, cracked windshields and trailer ball infractions. The donut and coffee shops might suffer...but sooooo?

The local Countie Mounties won't be able to patrol our area. Oh...wait....they don't anyway. We have one guy on duty at night for a several hundred square miles area. We are on our own now. How much worse can it get?

Maybe the welfare queens and druggies getting welfare and rent subsidies will either have to get freaking jobs or better yet....move back to East LA where they came from. The truly needy will be helped by our existing support groups of the Food Pantry, Churches and Fraternal Organizations like the Lions and Masons.
The schools may have to lay off some personnel. They will threaten us with the teachers being laid off. Notice that they never get rid of administrative people. However, since they don't teach much now anyway and most teachers are not all that educated in the first place, I think the gap can be filled in with qualified volunteers. We have a plethora of retirees who obtained their educations before the liberals dumbed down the education system.
The local DMV and County regulatory offices may have to close or be pared down. Big deal. They aren't open all the time anyway and mostly exist to make our lives a pain. Maybe now we can build that storage shed without having to pay through the nose for inspections and permits and be annoyed with stupid regulations. Like...... are there any butterflies that breed in the area that you want to build. Seriously. That is one of the studies you have to do before building.
Garbage service. Don't have any available here.
Recycling centers. You must be joking
Water. I'll use my well like everyone else does....thanks.
Fire Department: all volunteers not supported by the county, although they do get some small portion of the property tax rolls.
Cal Fire: Well, now this IS one that I would miss. If we have a forest fire we do use the California Dept of Forestry fire crews. On the other hand, since the Federal Government has seen fit to lock away much of our lands from us and instituted the 'roadless' rule, maybe we should just let the Feds take over this also. Most of our fires are lightening caused. What did the Indians do about fires before the 'white man stole his land'. Nothing. Let'em burn. Guess this is what we will have to do also.
Power. Well, one of the largest hydro facilities is right next door, so to speak, and we have people who have already volunteered to "divert the grid" if push comes to shove. Plus there are several private bio mass power plants that can be "localized" and solar arrays and some wind power farms.
Of course, California, instead of reducing costs, lowering payroll by paring back on useless and redundant positions, policing the welfare rolls and getting illegals off the system and off of our backs.....the Legislature will try to raise taxes even more driving more businesses out of the State or underground. That will be bad because some people may have to move out of State and towns will suffer through a declining population and declining amount of money circulating in the economy. Cash will be king and barter transactions will increase.
So. Go bankrupt California. Not much will change for me. Since the State of California doesn't do much for me now other than take my money .....I'm not going to miss it.

We Took A Sunday Drive and Had a Picnic.

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 and  Geese 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

Here: Majestic Mt Shasta 
         The Wider View
         Coyote on a fence

The Universal Train Ride: More musings on life and death

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.