The Final Crowdown

I have written about HOB’s love of/spiritual identification with crows here before. Regular readers will remember the dead crow in the freezer story and HOB’s plan to carry the frozen crow through airport security.

Some of you may remember my post about HOB tossing cat food up on the roof each morning so that the crows gather around whenever they hear the garage door opening, making us look like the McCreepy family.

While I find crows to be fine birds and I do appreciate their beauty and their brains, I am not drawn to them the way HOB is. In the evenings, we’ll be out for a walk and I’ll be talking to HOB, sharing one of my salient observations of the day when I sense that his attention has shifted away from me.

That’s when I look over and see his eyes transfixed on a crow in a tree.

Think old black and white western—the wise but wizened Native American stopping to have a mysterious interlude with his brethren the crow. Can you hear the strains of the theme song from The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly in the background? Do you see the close-up on the face of the man as he penetrates the airwaves with his stare, locking eyes with the black, winged creature who stares back at him, conveying the wisdom of the ages?

Yeah, well, it gets real irritating when I am trying to talk to him about how I think somebody should create a pen that has chocolate inside or how cookies are so much better than cupcakes.

All I can do is roll my eyes and wait until the mystical moment is over and then continue my important observations.


When our beloved dog Maddie died, I gave her canned food to a friend of ours for her dog and was dragging the big bag of dry food out of the garage when HOB stopped me. He said, “Oh no. Don’t give that away. That’s my crow food now.”

Later on, he came into the bedroom, actually chewing on pieces of the dog food saying, "I see why they don't like it as well as the cat food. It's really not that good."


Now, in the past the crows hung out in the trees near our house and flew down when they heard the garage door opening signaling snack time. However, about three weeks ago, I noticed they had started to gather on the fence just outside our bedroom window. It’s just a bit unnerving to walk into the room and see six black birds, sitting, perched on the fence, staring into the room. Forget trying to take a nap in the middle of the day.

Normally, if the birds get a little noisy, a few raps on the window or a sharp “Hey!” get them to be quiet and fly away. However, the other day, there was an especially loud one who spotted me in the bedroom and squawked very loudly, bobbing up and down, obviously very worked up about something.

“Quiet!” I said “Shhhh!” “Stop it”

Still more cawing. More urgent squawking.

“Stop it!” I said. “He isn’t here!” I yelled.

(I think the bird knew I was lying. HOB was indeed home, at the other end of the house.)

The squawking was high-pitched and nearly frenetic now. I thought maybe this was a mother bird whose baby was in danger. Perhaps it had fallen from a nest. I called HOB and told him to go and check it out.

He went out and within seconds I heard a somewhat familiar sound. I looked out the window and strained to see out to the far right. There was HOB, pouring out dog food into a dish on top of a small shed at the end of the windows. There were wings flapping. The squawking stopped immediately as the crow and his friends settled down at the apparent lunch counter.

HOB came back in.

“You have a bowl out there for them now?” I asked.

“What?” (HOB’s best stalling technique)

“You can’t do this,” I said. "Haven’t you ever heard of conditioned response?"

"What?"

"Stop that."

"You wanted the problem solved and I solved the problem, didn’t I?” he said.


So now HOB is out of town for a few days. The gang is hanging out and right now it’s all good since HOB left some party food out for them. However, that food is going to run out. I’ve already stood at the bedroom window and shouted warnings to them through the screen.

“Make it last, Birdies, because when it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t rattle me. You can’t train me to be your food monkey. You’ve met your match.”

One of them looked at me, his eye raised, his beak turned up just a tad, like a sneer.

“Yeah. You heard me,” I said, my voice high and my hands shaking the screen a little.

“You’ll see whose the boss," I yelled. “You’ll see."

Just to rub it in, I make loud fake chomping sounds, "Oh, and I've know where the good stuff, the cat stuff, the fresh cat stuff, is too."

They all looked at me, worried.

Real worried.

Berry, Berry Nice!

Hey, People!

I had a little gum surgery yesterday which kept me from pestering you on your blogs.

I am doing fine and have eaten an incredible amount of tapioca pudding.

Tomorrow, I tackle a box of these beauties that I bought at the local farmers' market.

In other news:

We are eagerly awaiting Sonny Boy and his girlfriend who are moving home from college today.

They will be with us for a month before they set out to Virginia for graduate school.

I intend to exercise all my mothering ya-yas while they are here.

Happy Wednesdays to you all!

Poetry Tuesday: "Untitled" by Bruce Dethlefsen

Untitled

what would I write
if I had only
four or five lines worth
of ink or time left?

how we children were put down
around eight o-clock in the bedroom nearby
with a crack of light from the open door
so the grownups could smoke play cards and talk

how I walked my sweetheart home
from eighth grade on that orange afternoon
carried her books from school
and she said the word marriage

how perfect the rainbow of the ball
my triple during
the all-star game
with my father there

how I heard the first cries of my baby
little bundle wrapped
in that thin pale yellow flannel blanket
in my arms against my chest

what would I write?
would I drop an anonymous note to jesus?

would I beg you
to remember to keep
this untitled green and blue
world of ours?

really what would I write
if I had only
four or five lines worth
of ink or time left?

--Bruce Dethlefsen

Monday Morning Flowers and Road Trip Review!

Happy Monday, My People!

I hope your week is starting off well.

Here is your Flower Love:

Some inquisitive readers wanted more details of my time with the English Majors.

Here is just a sample of our exciting activities:

1) Discussion of the words "field" and "prairie" and the differences implied by each.

2) Recitation of "To His Coy Mistress" from memory.

3) Heated argument concerning James Joyce and his place in the literary canon

4) Near brawl over the use of quotation marks in third paragraph of Jane Eyre.

5) Spontaneous game of bowling.

6) Various movie/book reviews.

7) Confusion over numbers on restaurant bill. (Math--not our strong suit.)

8) Debate of name to be given to GPS Lady. Helen? Linda? Debbie?

9) Visit to book store. Played "Read It" at book table display.

10) Stayed up until 11:00 at night!!!!

Whew! You can see why I needed a day or two to recover.

Hope you have a great week!

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.

--Bernard Meltzer

Betty's Back!

I am back from my road trip!

I had a wonderful time.

Molly the dog was one of my hosts.

Also, the very cute Noki kept me company early in the morning while others slept!

We dropped Evan off for his college orientation.

The campus was beautiful.

Then it was time to stop at the Cheese Shop.

We also stopped to admire the vineyards of Sonoma County.

Hope you are having great Sundays!

Road Trip!

Betty will be gone from the Blogosphere for a few days as I travel up north to take Evan to his college orientation.

All the good parents will be attending the Parent Program at the university, listening to experts discuss how best to help students make this important transition from high school to college.

Betty, on the other hand, will be doing some hard-core partying with her grad school buddies who live in the area.

That's right. After I drop the kid off, I'll party with the English majors. We'll play word games, drink soda late at night, and maybe even get into some pretty confrontational book reviews.

It's going to be a blast.

See you when I get back!

Poetry Tuesday: "Rain" by Shel Silverstein

Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.


--Shel Silverstein

Monday Morning Flowers

Happy Monday!

Hope you had a good weekend!

We celebrated Father's Day with a hike. The rock just to the right of HOB's head is called Lizard Rock. That was our destination! We climbed out on the nose of the lizard and enjoyed the view.

Here are your flowers for the week!

Hope they bring a smile to your face.

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

--Flora Whittemore

Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday I was standing in line at the store when I saw them: candy orange slices.

They never fail to make me smile. They were my father's favorite candy--a treat he bought only rarely. Usually, it was at the Woolworth's candy counter. The clerk would place about a half a pound of them in a white paper bag and hand them over. While the candy was good, the real treat was being with him and having him share those sweet moments with us.

As I stood there in that line, I tried to resist the urge to buy them and then I remembered it was the anniversary of my father's death. I reached for the bag immediately and held it close. Later at home, I poured them all out onto a plate and sat there, smiling, remembering.

Just the other day, Evan came home with a pair of house slippers, something he had never purchased before. They were just like the ones my dad wore, and just like my dad, he steps on the backs as he shuffles around the house. I see them on the floor and I automatically smile.

Orange Slice Candy. Corduroy Slippers. These are just two ordinary things that bring back extraordinary memories. I wonder what items make my sons smile when they think of HOB? They will be as individual as they are.

Happy Father's Day to all those men who, just by being consistent and kind, make the world a better place and who leave in their wake simple and eloquent reminders of their love.

It's Cookie Time! Almond Spice Cookies!

My, that last post from Betty was a long, windy one, wasn't it?

Well, now, at last, it's cookie time.

This recipe comes from Kathryn White from the Beechmont Inn Bed and Breakfast.

I gotta tell you, these suckers are YUMMY!

I went a little crazy and made them oblong instead of round, added some dried apricots to the dough, and added some frosting too. Whew! Talk about livin' on the edge!

Almond Spice Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon each ground allspice, cloves, and nutmeg
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup oil (canola or your favorite vegetable oil)
1 egg
4 Tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sliced almonds

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Use Silpat or parchment paper on the cookie sheet.

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat together sugar, oil egg and molasses. Add flour and spice mixture and blend. Stir in almonds.

Drop by tablespoons on prepared cookie sheet. Bake approximately 10 minutes, remove from sheet and cool on rack. Store in an air-tight container with a slice of plain bread to preserve their chewy texture. Makes about 2 dozen cookies (they are about 3 - 4 inches in diameter).

Hope you enjoy this recipe!!!

Make many cookies.

Eat many cookies.

Middle Ground

Some mornings, as I stand at my kitchen sink, I can hear the messages over the PA system at the nearby school in back of my house. “Good morning students! Don’t forget the jogathon this afternoon. Yearbook orders need to be in by next week.”

On a very quiet morning last month, I paused and realized that very faintly, off in the distance I could also hear the PA announcements from the nursing home that sits two blocks from the front of my house. “Mr. Jenkins, we need clean-up in the dining room. Will an aide come to the front desk?”

I stood there at my kitchen sink, considering the voices on either side of me, considering this metaphorical situation, considering where I am in life.

Yikes.

Middle age? Really?

I suppose a big bowl of self-assessment stew seems to make its way to the table of almost everyone at this stage of life. Some choke it down hurriedly while others linger over it. (If lingering, it’s a meal best eaten alone.)

Whatever the case, like grim penmanship teachers, we stop for the mid-semester report.

We begin looking at the slant of our lives, at the loops we’ve made, at the t’s we’ve left uncrossed. We step back to assess our jobs, where we live, how we live and with whom we live. If we have a mate, we may look across the table and wonder, “Why am I with this woodchuck who is slurping his/her soup?”

We all know people who have made drastic changes during this time of life. Some may give up the corporate job for acting. Some may choose to get plastic surgery to set the clock back a little. Some may dump the woodchuck and move to a condo in Hawaii.

Most of us though, stop just briefly in the middle of this pool to tread water and look around. We look back at where we have been, make small adjustments in our trajectories and then dive back under and head for the deep end, not always certain it’s the absolute best thing to do, but because there are people depending on us to finish the swim.

When children are born, giant targets appear over our hearts. We have never had this much to love or to lose. We stand in the halls of the hospital with this new person in our arms and we long for someone to give us a test before we take this helpless infant home. We feel like impostors as we leave the hospital. If only the staff understood that we really don’t know what we are doing, they would stop us!

Women go home from the hospital to find that childbearing has changed the very alchemy of their bodies. A magnetic force has been switched on, one that attracts all the ironclad responsibilities that come with children. These duties land on us and hold fast far into middle age.

After I had children, I became the primary finder-of-things, appointment-maker, and juggler of schedules. Conferences at school, finding day care providers, hauling in groceries week after week—these duties attached themselves to me.

Doctor appointments, dentist appointments, sick children, and injured pets—I took care of them all. During the height of the kid years, I could sign permission slips, untie a knot in a gym shoe, and listen to my son’s detailed plans to build a fort in the back yard all at the same time. I learned how to deal with principals, teachers, coaches, bankers real estate agents and bosses. Got a car salesman? Bring him on! I was a woman who could work a full time job, make a meal in less than thirty minutes, and wrap a birthday present in Sponge Bob wrapping paper wile driving to a birthday party.

These weights became a part of me. For years I swam against the tide, walked against the wind, all the time carrying the clingy, weighty barnacles of responsibility, sometimes embracing, sometimes resenting them.

Now, as my children have gotten older, I realize the benefits I’ve reaped from all that heavy lifting. I’ve developed muscles I never knew I had. I can multitask like nobody’s business. I may not have gone in the direction of my dreams nearly as fast as I wanted to but look at these muscles I’ve developed! Who know I could be so strong?

Alas, unintentionally, we tend to ignore our parents during much of middle age. We are so busy raising children, working at our jobs, and worrying about money. Just when we get things semi-under control, and think we have positioned our children on their own runways, many of us turn to see our parents are beginning to leave us.

The death of a parent can be a blow so fierce that its impact is felt for years. But as we stumble back from the deathbed, we often times bump right into our own children who are there, waiting and watching us. They want so desperately for us to be all right, to tell them we are OK, that we do not plan any sort of exit from their lives soon.

And we assure them, don’t we? However, all the while, we notice that more and more friends start to be taken from us in startling and insidious ways. Brain tumors, car accidents and cancer start to buzz around us like invisible mosquitoes, landing at random, making their presence known more and more as we get older. The girl we went to school with calls to say she has a terminal disease. The man we work with is there on Monday, not on Tuesday. The funeral is on Saturday—the victim of a brain aneurysm. The good man who is the father of three small children is killed in a car accident.

None of it makes any sense.

We stop to realize that the death of a spouse would buckle our knees, send us plummeting into a headfirst dive in a deep river of grief. The death of one of our children would break us into bits, cripple us forever. We hug the people we love. We comfort those around us who lose people they love. We go on with this business of living because that it all there is to do.

Just as in formal negotiations, this stage of life, this middle ground, means give and take. We recognize what we have and what we may lose. Children are given to us; parents are taken away. We feel strong and useful in our day-to-day lives; we feel weak and useless in the face of tragedy. The demands we once made of life are now humble pleas. Our view of life is smaller, but much more textured and fragile.

We are in this middle ground for a short period of time.

We are not the first, nor will we be the last here. All around we see the footprints left from the people who were here before us.

Those footprints both comfort and haunt us.

We realize this middle ground is not claimed nor captured.

It is only borrowed.

Poetry Tuesday: "Dreams" by Langston Hughes

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.


Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

--Langston Hughes

Monday Morning Flowers and Graduation Weekend Update!

OK, OK, I lured you in here with a pretty flower, but it's really just a trap to get you to view Graduation Weekend pictures.

There's your flower. Happy now?

On Friday we watched Evan graduate from high school.

I love this picture of Evan and his three friends walking across campus for the last time.

The next day we watched Sonny Boy and his girlfriend graduate from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

As you can imagine, HOB and I are very proud of our grads!

I just have one question.

How did these two little boys grow up so darn fast?

The Beauty of Forward Motion

For months I have been fascinated with capturing a scene that involves our backyard fence and the children in schoolyard that backs up to that fence.

Every school morning, the children run around the perimeter of the yard and as they pass by, I can see, through in the slats of our back fence, their silhouettes. It’s not exactly slow motion. It’s more like a zoetrope effect. It’s fascinating to watch. My eye and brain try to connect the stuttered movement that flits by so quickly.

My own boys went to this school and ran around the perimeter of this yard in the same way. I hear the healthy, happy kids talking and laughing with their friends in the morning air and I smile, remembering my sons as young children.

Indeed, the movement of these shadows in the morning light creates a dreamlike effect that is the perfect representation of childhood. The image that passes along that fence touches my heart so deeply and so I decided to capture this image with my camera.

Morning after morning, I stood on my patio and clicked away as the shadows passed by. I downloaded the pictures and grew frustrated. The photographs on the screen did nothing to encapsulate the image I wanted. I tried day after day to re-create what my eyes saw, to translate through a picture, the emotion this scene elicited in me.

Finally, I decided that perhaps I should take a video of it instead. I tried, but for some reason my camera froze up on me, clicked off when it should have been filming. I sat in the backyard and watched the scene pass by, irritated at its elusiveness and my inability to catch it and freeze it in time.

I looked down at my trusty camera and had a strange feeling that it was looking up at me, shyly admitting it was in cahoots with the universe in delivering a message I needed to hear.

You see, this weekend is a big one for our family. Today we will go to the high school and watch my youngest son graduate from high school. (My baby—graduating high school already?)

Then, just hours later, we will get in the car and drive up to Santa Cruz to watch my oldest son graduate from college on Saturday. (My sandy-haired little boy—a college graduate? Really?)



This fall they will both be moving on, one to begin college up north and the other to attend graduate school in Virginia.

This weekend when I see my boys in their caps and gowns, when I see them cross those stages and grasp those diplomas, I will try to remember the lesson of the fence.

No matter how much I want to stop time I can’t. Their lives, (and mine) move on, circling the perimeter. The seamless view I had of their childhoods gives way to stuttered ones via scattered e-mails, sporadic phone calls, intermittent visits.

They run on with enthusiasm and zeal toward their own lives and that is the way it is supposed to be.

Though it is tempting to want to stop time, to capture, to freeze it, the attempt is futile and the results, frustrating.

Real joy comes from sitting back, watching life unfold, recognizing the preciousness (and elusiveness) of these moments, and celebrating the beauty of forward motion.

See you all on Monday.

Scared Straight

The Trouble Started Early

Betty is blessed in many ways but naturally beautiful hair is not one of those blessings.

It’s thin.

It’s straight.

It is resistant to instruction or persuasion of any kind.

You want hair trauma stories? I’ve got ‘em.

A lot of them.

I’ve had perms that fried my hair and served it up like crosscut French fries complete with granules of sea salt. I’ve have hairstyles that made me look like various cartoon characters including both female leads in the Flintstones.

That’s right. Betty and Wilma. At the same time.

I’ve tried a lot of different lengths. Long hair makes my face look like a cookie sheet. Short hair only emphasizes the fact that the width of my head is only a few centimeters wider than a pushpin.

Once, I was driving around, feeling very chic, straight from the hairdresser with a new look when a carload of young girls drove up beside me and yelled, “Get a hairdo!!!”

I thought I finally had a hairdo.

People with good hair do not know horror that a weather prediction of 50% or greater humidity brings. They do not understand that a pool party is akin to Night in Terrorville. A convertible to them bespeaks fun and freedom. To those of us with thin, easily tangled hair, well, just stick our heads in an industrial fan, why don’t you? It will produce the same result in a fraction of the time.

I have my immediate family pretty well trained then it comes to my hair. Their ability to have a car window down, for example, depends upon the number of minutes I have spent on my hair. Here is an easy-to-follow chart:

10 Minute Hair: Windows in car can be down halfway.

20 Minute Hair: Windows in car can be one-fourth way down.

30 Minute Hair: Don’t Even Think About It.

So everyone in the car got fairly nervous when my woefully oblivious brother-in-law recently rolled down a car window nearly all the way. The rest of the inhabitants of the car gasped and looked at me. “This is 20 minute hair,” I shrieked. He acted like he didn’t know what that meant. Study the chart, Buddy. He rolled his eyes first, and then rolled up the window.

Believe it or not, I have actually become a bit more relaxed about the whole hair thing as I have gotten older.

In college I once got my hair looking just perfect (40 minute hair). Since I lived in a co-ed dorm, I decided to go to the lobby and make the most of this rare occurrence. Once there, I started flirting with some of the guys who were hanging out.

They looked at me with quizzical glances that I took to mean “Wow! Where has this chick been all our lives? What great hair! She’s so cool!”

Finally, after about ten minutes one of them said to me, “Does your neck hurt?” I brightly replied that it didn’t. “Well,” he said, hesitantly, “Why aren’t you moving your head then? I smiled and immediately excused myself, taking the round head upon the silver platter back to my room.

My attempts to keep my hair perfect had, apparently, resulted in my appearing to wear a very strong back brace.

Indeed, it still takes a lot of time and effort to get the meager strands on my head to resemble any sort of recognizable, socially acceptable form of hairdo. It also takes a lot of what is referred to in the hairdressing world as Product.

It all other areas of my life, I eschew strong chemicals. I use vinegar as a household cleaner. I live with bugs and spiders rather than call the men in the white trucks with the giant insect on the door. I check all the labels on detergents and soaps to get the least harmful for the environment.

However, when it comes to hair products—bring on the chemicals.

Cyclopentasiloxane?

Vinyl Neodecanoate?

Aminomethyl Propanol?

Oh yeah.

More please.

I once found my dream hairspray. This stuff had it all: durability, just the right hold, and maybe more than just a tinge of hallucinatory mist to make the hair preparation time more enjoyable.

One day, to my dismay, I discovered that it was being discontinued, some sort of silly governmental regulation about a lethal chemical. I went on an immediate hunt for more and hoarded what I could. Later, when I found out it was still being sold in Mexico, I briefly toyed with the idea of hiring a hairspray mule to smuggle some back in the States for me.

Early in our marriage, HOB tried to get me to give up the stuff.

He told me it was bad for me and accused me of being addicted to it. He pointed out the highly visible residue on the back wall of the bathroom that had built up like a sticky trap for rodents. “You’re breathing this stuff in!” he said, while waving my own can of hair spray at me.

Sorry, man-with-naturally-curly-hair who just gets out of the shower and dries his hair with a towel. Put the can of hairspray down next to the mousse and the gel and nobody gets hurt.

When we had children, HOB conditioned them early on to run whenever they heard the spraying of an aerosol can in the vicinity of my mirror. “Run away!” He would yell frantically. “Don’t breathe!”

They would run, mimicking his warnings, calling out “Run away! Don’t breathe!” as they scattered throughout the house, frantic to get away.

(This came in handy later when during those brief times when the boys became whining monsters. All I had to do was wave the can and say menacingly, “I’m going to spray!” They couldn’t help themselves. By this time it was Pavlovian. They would run immediately, giving Mommy just enough blessed alone time to keep her semi-sane and off the evening news.)

Naturally, this reliance on product has a price. Both fiscally and psychologically.

As you can easily guess, my frantic avoidance of smokers goes way beyond hideous smell and potentially life-threatening health hazard of second-hand smoke. I see a smoker and I hold the secret, terrifying knowledge that the smoker holds in his hand or has on his body, a device that, lit and held close to my tiny head, could result in my chemical-laden hair exploding into flames—the Olympic torch come to life.


The other day the power company had a planned outage in our neighborhood. I was running late and didn’t get to take a shower until around 11:00. I did so, forgetting the harrowing circumstances that awaited me afterward.

No blow dryer.

No curling iron.

I did the best I could, flopping my head up and down, fluffing the few strands of hair upon my head with my fingers, but in the end, the result was tragic. I looked in the mirror and saw what I would most likely look like if I were in prison. Believe me, it was not pretty. One look in that mirror and I decided to never take up a life of crime, or at least to limit those crimes to misdemeanors at the very least.

It rains quite a bit here in the winter, which really plays havoc with my hair, especially my bangs. There are days when I have to stay on campus from 8:00am to 8:00pm, so saving the hair for my late night class is essential. This is why, while all my students, with their naturally curly hair, stroll across campus in a light drizzle, looking carefree and happy, I cross campus in my black raincoat, the hood, not only up and over my hair, but the drawstrings tightly drawn in around my face. The Grim Reaper cometh to the Classroom.

This brings us to one of my brilliant ideas concerning how to help my fellow hairdo-impaired people. I hereby release this one to the universe so someone can get working on it, hopefully before the rainy season.

I would like someone to modify a heat vent deflector so that it can be worn over bangs in wind or rain. A great idea? Oh yes. It is.

Make mine with a little bling on it and we’ll all be happy.

Poetry Tuesday: "The Flight" by Sara Teasdale

The Flight


Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain--
But what if I heard my first love calling me again?

Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;
Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door--

But what if I heard my first love calling me once more?

--Sara Teasdale

Monday Morning Flowers and Cheesecake

That's right, my People.

You get cheesecake today since I missed getting your Monday Morning Flowers to you last week.

Here are your flowers:

And here is your cheesecake.

Please note: Because you are so darn special to me, I got you the variety pack.

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.

~Erma Bombeck

Vacay Pictures

I know what you've been thinking.

Betty went to Kansas and all she brought back for us were stories that made us tear up.

How about some pictures today?

The countryside was so beautiful and green.

We drove by the farm where Betty grew up.

I went to the wedding celebration of the daughter and son-in-law of my best friend from childhood.

My sister, niece and I took a wild road trip!

We went back to our college alma mater and had a wonderful time walking around and reminiscing.

Thanks for visiting!

Hope you have a happy Sunday!

Sisters

(Reposted in response to my Mom's request when I visited her.)

Those are my sisters there on that lion, with me at the front, clinging on to the mane.

I look at the picture and think about our lives together. Even though I am at the front of the lion, I know they are the ones who helped tame it and who urged me to hang on, even when times got tough.

As the youngest, I never experienced the change that the bringing-home-of-the-sibling caused. My family was set when I was born, my sisters already there, permanent, like planets in space. I joined them and took my place in the family, naturally and without effort. I made my way through life with some struggle, but always with the inner knowledge that my journey had been made so much easier by their earlier sojourns.

My sisters and I now live in different states and have very different lives, yet we have grown closer as we have gotten older. We e-mail each other nearly every day and try to all get together at least every few years.

At our last family reunion, I looked around the noisy room, filled with my sisters, their children and their grandchildren and I marvelled at how incredibly lucky I am to have these women in my life.

Each one brings a different and unique gift to this party of life. For me, the most important gift they give is the sense that even though I am behind them in birth order, in the more important metaphorical sense, they are behind me, their support and encouragement always there. I hope I have given them the same gift.

The truth is, I am crazy about my sisters and love every one of them.

We have taken countless pictures over the years, most of the time lining up in birth order. I take my place at the end of the line, happy to be there, thrilled that this latecomer is included in this beautiful string of pearls.

We turn one way, and I am in front with my sisters all behind me. We turn to face the other way and I am right there, standing strong behind each one of them.

After the picture is taken, we drift naturally into a circle, and what a lovely, lively, strong circle it is.

Thanks, Sisters. Thanks for everything. Thanks for it all.

Nursing Home Trilogy

I.

Mom: I just feel like my brain doesn’t work very well anymore.

Daughter: That’s OK, Mom. I’m not sure mine works very well these days either.

Mom: I noticed that, but I didn’t want to say anything in front of the children.



II.

Family gathered around Mom in nursing home, making chirpy, happy small talk. We stop, realizing Mom wants to say something.

Mom: I just want to die now, so I can die while I am happy with all of you around.

Family: (Stunned silence)

(My oldest, very pragmatic, niece reports Grandma did this same thing during a family dinner with the small great-grandchildren who fell into horrified silence. Her response? “Well, you have to eat your lunch first, Grandma.”)



III:

Last Day of My Visit:

Me: I have to leave now to go back to California, Mom.

Mom: You do?

Me: I do. I have to go take care of my boys.

Mom: (Silence)

Me: I love you, Mom.

Mom: I love you too. (Motions to one of my five sisters who is standing nearby) Take care of your sister.

Me: I will.

Mom: All you girls, you take care of your sisters.

I nod, start to cry, and head toward the exit.

Searching for Earl

I went to Kansas last week to see my mom who has recently been moved to a nursing home, in a section for people in various stages of Alzheimer’s. The Common Room is where most of the residents hang out during the day.

When we entered the room, Hanna Montana was on the large screen TV and there were about ten people gathered in front of the glowing screen. Across the room, some of the ladies were getting their fingernails painted by an aide, and Mom was at a table working with some giant Legos.

Her face lit up when I bent down and told her I had come to visit. She played it safe through most of the conversation, just repeating what we said, and there were times when she lapsed into worry about whether she had missed breakfast or not, but it was clear she was happy that we (three of her daughters, one son-in-law and a niece) were there to visit.

We took Mom back to her room to visit some more. She was missing her glasses so I went back to the Common Room to check if she had left them there.

As I was walking through, a woman in a wheelchair asked me if I could take her back to her room. She explained that she was tired. I asked her name and she told me it was Regina. My niece came with us as Regina directed me to her room.

When we got there, I realized I had no idea how to get her out of the wheelchair and into the bed. My niece gave her the call button and told her to ring it and a nurse would help her.

Regina turned to me and said, “Just go tell Earl I am down here. He helps me with things like this. I need Earl.”

“Is Earl in the Common Room?” I asked.

She nodded, so I went in search of Earl.

I caught up with one man who was slowly walking down the hall, but then noticed "Jim" written in large letters on the back of each of his tennis shoes. Not Earl.

In the Common Room, I looked around and realized there were very few candidates who would fit the bill. I went up to the first gentleman and asked if he was Earl. I got a confused look. I went to the next one. Same reaction.

Meanwhile my niece talked to an aide about Regina in the room and about her request for Earl. The aide nodded her head, “We’ll help Regina. Earl is her husband who died two years ago.”

When I got back to my Mom’s room and relayed the story to my sister, she said, “You do realize where you are?”

OK. I know. I am naive.

And maybe still in denial about where my mom lives.

We finished our visit with Mom in her room and said our goodbyes for the day.

In the hallway, I glanced down at Regina's room, and thought about her, sitting alone waiting for Earl.

On our way through the Common Room, heading toward the front doors, I couldn't help myself.

I knew it was futile, but just for a few seconds,

I still scanned the Common Room.

Searching for Earl.

Betty's Back!

Ah, my sweet bloggy friends!

I have returned from my trip to Kansas.

I have missed visiting your blogs and you can be sure I will be making the rounds very soon.

Don't try hiding behind trees. I will indeed find you.

I am currently baking up pies and preparing the parlor so I can have you over soon and regale you for hours and hours and hours and hours with exciting tales of my trip.

Is that an expression of sheer happiness on your face?

I thought so!

Hope you have all been doing well!