The View from My Broom

When You Drop a Pebble, Sometimes It Ripples Back

2012-01-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

Being a Special Education Para Educator as well as the mother of a Special Needs offspring has taught me gratitude. You learn to be grateful for tiny things. Moreover I have come to judge students by how they treat Special Needs students and whether or not I’d pick them at what I call “The Kid Store”—you know if you just went and picked out a child. My husband laughs about this last part, but not the first.

Today I found out that I’d made a difference in someone’s life. A co-worker tracked me down and said that the health tech substitute wanted to see me. Great, I thought, am I going to have a problem taking my student to the bathroom in the health room after lunch? I wasn’t even in the ball park. “Hi, I’m Mrs. Farelli. My son is Bill. When I told him I was substituting today he told me to look you up and say hi. He graduated in 2004.” Quickly I thumbed through my mental files. They are full of cobwebs and names have never been my forte, but the minute I put the name Bill with Farelli I knew exactly who she was talking about and I broke into a big smile.

Back in 1999 I moved from the middle school level to the high school with a student who had full blown Autism. On some levels Michael was/is brilliant, but even acknowledging others was and is difficult for him and I felt at sea in a school full of great big children that were on the brink of adulthood. Michael was mainstreamed, per the insistence of his parents, so it was that we ended up in a web design class where the teacher considered us as welcome as skunks on a picnic. Having a student who jumped up to run around and flap his hands every little bit was way too weird. I knew that I was going to have to work hard to convince the teacher that even though Michael had some weird behaviors, he was pretty computer savvy and really was going to learn something. I had one thing going for me and that was Bill Farelli.

Bill sat next to Michael at a long line of computers and almost immediately I realized that he was one of those kids I’d take home from the kid store. Even though Michael seldom even made eye contact, much less talked back, Bill always talked to him. He rapidly figured out that my student had a mental list of movie titles from which he could tell you whether a movie was live-action or animated, what year it came out and what studio had produced it. He’d memorized movie catalogues. Bill would try to stump him and laugh when he couldn’t. Bill was a reason to look forward to going somewhere I felt so unwelcome. Now, all these years later, I was standing talking to this lovely boy’s mother! How lucky I felt to get to tell her how wonderful I think her son is.

“You gave him a gift at Christmas,” Mrs. Farelli said. “He’s never forgotten that.” I inwardly cringed. We are NOT supposed to give gifts to students as it can be seen as “grooming.” I don’t even remember what it was. It was probably a chocolate Santa. I do remember what I told him. I’d told Bill that if he didn’t learn one other thing in his life that he needed to know how powerful the little things we do can be, how his being a friend to my student was like a pebble being dropped into a pond and the ripples went out to touch family and friends. I guess it stuck because here I was, twelve years later, talking to his mom because he, who is now married and living in CA, had told her to look me up. See, I was right about Bill. He’s a keeper! And I guess I dropped a pebble of my own.

A Rose by Any Other Name

2012-01-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

What’s in a name? Quite a lot. When I was growing up during the ‘50s and ‘60s it was unthinkable for an American woman not to take her husband’s last name upon marriage. Families were identified by their last name. Of course divorce was a word that was only whispered, too, but as grounds for divorce were expanded and it became more common the issue of last names became more complicated. I can not only name that tune, but hum a few bars. When my parents divorced my mother returned to her “maiden name” but since I was 18 and an only child, I didn’t much care what she called herself. There was no family in my opinion.

Growing up I wasn’t over fond of my last name. I got teased a lot. “What’s your mother’s name--Deep?” And of course during the ‘60s television show Batman it came to include, “Your dad must be Mr. Freeze.” I heard them all. My best friend’s last name was Beard. The teasing was one of our early bonds. We were the girls with the funny last names. Neither of us was upset to quit our last names when we married. Stephanie Casey. There’d be no problem there. And there weren’t even when six years and three children later we divorced. I was offered a chance to return to the last name of Frieze, but my ex-husband was giving me enough problems about the children and I wanted to make sure that there was no doubt about who their mother was.

Then I married again. “Kianersi”—an Iranian name that Americans inevitably try to make a nice Polish “Kianerski.” In Iran women do not take on their husband’s last names and I probably should have opted to stick with Casey or return to my “maiden” name right then. Another child and another divorce later my mother asked me if I was going, “to go back to using your Casey name.” What sort of message was that going to send to my four-year-old son? That I loved his brothers and sister more than him? No, by then I knew that the only last name I wanted was the one my dad had given me. After 36 years I’d grown up enough to value my connection to my father’s family more than what anyone else thought.

So when I remarried in 1990 I never took on my husband’s last name—Haeck. We talked about names. In turns he offered to legally adopt all of my children or change his name to Frieze. Aside from ending whatever meager child support I received from Mr. Casey, I knew that neither father was going to be happy about having their children adopted by another man. Nope. Not an option. And I knew that my own big family was going to have a hard enough time integrating into Mr. Haeck’s (pronounced “hake” and originally spelled H-o-e-c-h) family. If he changed his name to mine it would not be a good way to start off a life together. Our best man counseled against hyphenating our last name since Frieze-Haeck “sounds like something you’d find in the frozen food section of the grocery store.” No one can properly pronounce either of these German names. Prior to caller ID it made it easy to know when a sales person had called the house.

I supposed technically some court somewhere considers me to be Mrs. Haeck, but when people used to call asking to speak to Mrs. Haeck I’d tell them that my mother-in-law didn’t live with us, but I could supply her phone number. I was in my righteous period, letting people know that I wasn’t chattel belonging to my husband. I got that. I’d never understood why on contracts women were referred to as “a married woman,” but men were not “married men.”

When I began working in schools I tried to be Ms. Frieze. Mrs. Frieze was my grandmother. It was weird. “Ms.” has never really caught on. I’m traditional enough to prefer that the students not call me by my first name. I’m still formal enough to call my aunts and uncles by “Aunt” and “Uncle.” My younger aunt and uncle have repeatedly said that it was not necessary, that they could be Sandra and Jerry. No they can’t. “Aunt” and “Uncle” are my claim on them. They are not passing acquaintances, they are family, my family.

In my own nuclear family it has been interesting. My Brazilian formerly-married to-someone-else-daughter-in-law has kept not her maiden name, but her mother’s maiden name. I certainly understand that. My other daughter-in-law, who grew up Heckle (think Heckle and Jeckle) opted for “Casey.” I get that, too. All three of Dave’s nieces who married last year chose to take their husbands names as did his new sister-in-law. Even though they are different generations, they are traditionalists. If my youngest son, who is old enough to be Mr. Kianersi now, ever marries it will be interesting to see how his bride handles this question.

I never quite understood why my step-sister, Stephanie Ann, called my step-mother by her first name or why Phyllis let her. Which brings up a minor victory this holiday season. My step-mother, who’d seen me through two divorces, was content to let me be Stephanie Frieze (although she thought it was weird) as long as I was unmarried, but as soon as I married Mr. Haeck I became Mrs. David Haeck, thus losing my tentative grip on identity. Why this woman would let her daughter call her by her Christian name, but could not let me be who I was, was annoying. “You’re his wife. That’s who you are.” Cards, letters and checks eventually began to arrive to “Mrs. Stephanie Haeck,” but the check thing was a nightmare. I politely asked that at least the checks be written to “Stephanie Frieze” since Dave and I didn’t even share a bank, much less a name. I disliked having to stand at the bank cashier’s window and recite my entire life story in order to cash a check. Finally, finally, finally, a crack in the wall of this otherwise dear woman appeared this year when a letter arrived addressed to “Mrs. Stephanie Frieze-Haeck.” Coming from her, I’ll take being a frozen fish.

In the House of Memory: Ancient Celtic Wisdom for Everyday Life

2012-01-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

Dave tells me that I am in with the in-crowd because for Christmas I got both of the top two best sellers on the New York Times list, Stephen King’s 11/22/63 which I actually got two copies of and so Dave returned one and got me Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James because I love Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I like Jane Austen for her romances so I don’t know about this last one. We’ll see.

For returning to my job at Gig Harbor High School I chose to take In the House of Memory: Celtic Wisdom for Everyday Life, by Steve Rabey. This is one I bought for myself on my 60th birthday nearly a year ago and is not too big to lug all over the building. We’d gone to Victoria, B.C. and no visit there is complete without a visit to Monro’s Books. I hate to see the disappearance of book stores and was glad that the stately Monro’s is still in business and crowded. I guess I’m not the only one who loves physical books.

In the House of Memory explores Celtic spirituality from Ancient times to its influence on Christianity and a delight for anyone with spiritual or emotional ties to Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Many Americans, myself included, are of Celtic stock. Are we not more plentiful here than there? I’ve been interested in Ancient Celtic spirituality for some time—drawn on some sort of molecular level so this book will keep me well entertained at lunch and during breaks.

Olalla Polar Bear Club 2012

2012-01-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

It’s New Year’s Day and for most of the 21 years we’ve lived in Gig Harbor Dave has participated in the Polar Bears’ jump off the Olalla Bridge a noon on New Year’s Day. Today was the mildest in memory. We’ve slipped and slid in snow out the windy hills to the hamlet of Olalla for this event. Although participation in this event holds nothing for me, it is not a mystery as to why Dave does it. In short, he has a thrill seeking gene. When he asks where mine is, I tell him that I satisfied it marrying him.

The event at the Olalla Bridge has been going on for twenty-seven years. The crowds of people and cars have caused authorities to threaten to shut down the event, but in all the years we’ve gone I’ve never seen anyone get hurt or there to be any sort of altercation requiring the police. They come, but mostly to make sure that the gawkers don’t wander out in front of cars.

At noon (or just before in today’s case) a cannon is fired and people of all ages and garb (and occasionally sans garb) jump off the side of the bridge over Olalla’s lagoon. There’s a bonfire on the beach to warm the jumpers and there’s free coffee and cocoa at Al’s Store. There you can pick up your certificate and buy a sweat shirt, the money from which goes to the food bank.

There weren’t a lot of costumes this year, but there were a few including a pair of ladies in black bathing suits who had 2-0-1-2 written on their bums in black marker. There was also a cowboy and an angel and of course Dave in his Goofy hat, a birthday gift from my son Frank and his family.

I was able to snap Dave’s picture just before the pulled off his sweatshirt, but he jumped before I could make it down to the beach to get his picture. I think that was on purpose as he said he didn’t want his picture taken with his shirt off.

Saying Goodbye to 2011

2011-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

2011 was not particularly good to us and I need to feel that I am working physically as well as emotionally toward a better 2012.

I really like New Year’s. I don’t get gussied up and go out and drink; I’m lucky if I’m awake to ring it in by watching Seattle’s KING5 broadcast of the celebration at the Space Needles, but I like New Year’s just the same. I wonder if Catholics feel about confession the way I feel about New Year’s. Absolution. Of course one could choose any day to embark on new habits, but there’s something about the collectivity of knowing that so many others are doing the same thing and the notion of a brand new year inspires me to get organized—a yearly resolve that meets with a little more success each year.

We returned from eight days at our home on the coast to discover that my son Frank had gotten us down the road on the process of organization by having cleaned the family room, the laundry room and the kitchen. I could have kissed him, but he was passed out on his bed as he’d stayed up all night cleaning for me. There is still debris from his, Ana’s and Gabriel’s celebration of Christmas strewn around the living room, but considering the mess that usually is left in the wake of Ana’s preparation to take Gabriel to Brazil for a month, I was gob-smacked at how well the house looked.

I have a few days of my break from my job at Gig Harbor High School left and am determined to get as much done as possible with the time left. People talk about Spring Cleaning, but I find Winter Cleaning and the sense of starting the year afresh much more satisfying. 2011 was not particularly good to us and I need to feel that I am working physically as well as emotionally toward a better 2012.

I’ve started excavating the refrigerator of its science experiments while the washing machine hums with the laundry we left and that which we brought home. I’m also making a pile for Goodwill. That is an ongoing process—to get rid of as much of what I’ve spent nearly sixty years collecting—and now I’ve decided to be ruthless. I am overly sentimental and my children are decidedly not. If I pare down my pile now there will be less to deal with when we move along whether it is to Ilwaco permanently or just…well…along.

December 7th, Seventy Years Later

2011-12-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

A Sentimental Journey

It has been seventy years since the attack on Pearl Harbor and the surrounding airfields including Kaneohe where my father, Conrad R. Frieze and his brother Richard S. Frieze were on December 7th 1941. There are few survivors left and as their Baby Boomer children age I wonder if that date will become just another date on the calender. Twenty years ago I was substituting for a teacher's aid at a middle school on Dec. 7th and was appalled that the young teacher of the resource history class wasn't sure if the attack on Pearl Harbor was the beginning or the end of WWII for the United States. It made me physically ill that the Peninsula School District has anyone that ignorant teaching school.

Beginning in 1981 my father went to Pearl for memorials every ten years. When he died in 2002 I’d intended to go for him for the 70th anniversary, but our financial situation changed in the meantime and the time away from work and the money such a trip would cost wasn’t in the budget.

Last week my darling husband Dave saw an article in the News Tribune about a PBY Memorial Foundation that has been set up at the Sea Plane Base at Oak Harbor NAS. One day away from work and a ferry ride between Port Townsend and Whidbey Island was doable. It was a bonus that Oak Harbor NAS was my Uncle Dick’s last post before he retired from the Navy and Whidbey Island is not unfamiliar to me.

I was able to arrange an excellent sub to be with my student at school and so I was set. Then it occurred to me that the museum to which we were going might enjoy having a large pen and ink drawing of a PBY which I had inherited from my father. We have a lot of wall space in our cathedral ceiled living room in Gig Harbor, but when we move to our home in Ilwaco there will be no such wall space. Since my father, who was many things including an artist, did not draw the picture I could part with it and believe that he would have approved so down it came.

The base was having a ceremony to commemorate December 7th, but it was to be at 8:30 AM. We might have gone the night before and stayed in a motel, but between a dog and a Special Needs daughter it didn’t seem advisable. I had to be content with visiting the museum and taking them my picture.

Oak Harbor was dressed in American flags in part for December 7th and because the last large squadron from Oak Harbor NAS returned from Iraq this week. When we arrived at Building 12, where the museum is housed we took pictures of the buttoned up PBY parked next to the building. I had never been that close to the sort of plane my dad and Uncle Dick fought back from on that Sunday morning. Seeing the waist hatch I could almost see those two, just babies really—19 and 20—with my father feeding his older brother ammo while Uncle Dick thudded away on a fifty caliber machine gun and even downing a Japanese Zero or so our family mythology goes. We cannot prove that it was Uncle Dick’s hunting prowess that brought down the Zero who once disabled crashed into a hangar, but as far as I am concerned, those two boys were true American heroes.

Inside Building 12 we were greeted by Richard Rezabek, the chairman of the board of trustees for the PBY Memorial Foundation. When I told him that I had a picture I wanted to donate he and the other docents were thrilled. Dave brought the picture in and it was ooed and ahhed over. I donated it in memory of my father and was delighted that it had a home where more people would see it and it would be well cared for.

The paperwork done, Dave and I wandered around the exhibits viewing bits and pieces of the PBY’s past. I could almost feel my dad walking beside me telling me about what I was seeing. How I wished he was. There are certain days that I miss him more than others and December 7th certainly is one of them.

While focusing on WWII and the Navy’s use of the PBY, there are other exhibits there was well from the Korean War in which my father’s younger brother was a Sea Bee, and the War in Vietnam. As I walked around and viewed the exhibits it occurred to me that I have other memorabilia that might be best served by being at this museum and will probably donate more things in the near future. We were told that during the summer the PBY on display outside will be open for viewing and I think a family outing that includes children and grandchildren would be wonderful. The museum is open Wed. - Sat., 8 AM to 5 PM. You need photo ID and car registration to get onto the base.

I am older, by a long shot, than my grandmother was seventy years ago tonight when she lay awake in her cousin’s bed in Bona, Missouri listening to the radio reports about the attack and the deaths at Pearl Harbor. It would be several days before she arrived back in Vancouver, Washington and received a telegram from my father and Uncle Dick telling her and Grandpa that they were well and wishing them a Merry Christmas. How they must have suffered not knowing if their oldest children were dead or alive. As the mother of sons I am well able now to appreciate how young they were and how my grandparents must have felt.

2011-12-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

This is not the most comfortable subject, but I believe it is worthy of discussion—namely “hen pecking.” The dictionary definition is “To dominate or harass (one’s husband) with persistent nagging.” Before you get your dander up ladies, I am well aware that the nagging street runs in all directions, but as a hen myself I recently had cause to examine my own behavior.

We all criticize our mates when we are tired, don’t feel well, or when they are acting like idiots. Hopefully most of us remember to compliment them when they not only do something extraordinary, but also when they do the ordinary. Years ago I learned to literally count my blessings and find delight in the mundane, but like anyone else I can get into a rut of feeling sorry for myself or put upon. I try to remember to tell my husband how much I appreciate it when he carries the laundry basket upstairs, unloads the dishwasher (even if things get put back in wrong spots) or makes a funny joke. Everyone likes to feel valued and too often we forget to value those we are supposed to love the most.

I am reminded of the time my daughter-in-law’s ex-husband and his current wife came to our house. Obviously this man is not a prince—if he were my son would have missed out on a special princess—but upon introduction the man is charming. The same cannot be said for his wife who made herself look like “the-world’s-worst-wife” by berating him constantly. The result was that he looked not only charming, but patient. She might have thought that our family would be predisposed to not like this man, but instead we certainly had no respect for her. I think that we can get so caught up in our feelings of being put upon that we forget how our behavior will look to others.

Every once in a while we need to remind ourselves to be kind to those we love and to save the disagreements for private times. Remember, you don't always have to be number one in the pecking order!

A Grammy and GranDave Weekend

2011-10-31T06:15:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a Grammy Weekend. Dave and I got to take our Grandson Gabriel to the beach for the weekend to help us shop for his great-grandmother and to have some fun. Needless-to-say, he was somewhat spoiled while shopping although when you shop at Goodwill you can get off without breaking the bank. While I finished up Great-grandma’s shopping at Fred Meyer and Gabriel was assured his Pringles were safely in the shopping cart, he and GranDave headed off to Rite Aid to see if they could replace the flip-up sunglasses Gabriel had knocked off GranDave’s face and which landed badly. They did not find just the sort of glasses that my somewhat OCD husband has to have, but although Dave has a quick temper he is also a soft touch so Gabriel returned clutching a bag with a new Halloween decoration in it, a horrible, frightening rubber head!

On Friday night Gabriel had become a little homesick and needed to talk to his dad because he had been asleep when Frank went to work and we had left for our weekend before he came home. “Do you ever miss your daddy, Grammy?” he’d asked me. “Every day.” It seemed to amaze him that a sixty-year-old could feel the same way about her daddy as a seven-year-old. Fortunately, Gabriel was able to talk to his daddy when we arrived in Ilwaco and texted him a lot on Saturday.

We returned from Astoria to Ilwaco just in time to eat some dinner and for Gabriel to transform into Harry Potter before heading to Ilwaco High School for the Halloween Carnival the high school put on for the children of the Peninsula. We took our cottage guests who have a three-year-old boy who is not very often in the company of other children and certainly never in a gymnasium full of boisterous ones and he was overwhelmed so they left. We stayed while Gabriel did everything once and some things like the haunted house and the Extreme inflated slide thing twice. We won brownies frosted with orange icing and Gabriel came away with a plastic frog that can jump. We were all surprised to discover that some of the candy he won was organic and he didn’t have to sell it to GranDave.

My favorite part of the day (or any other) was the going to bed part. After Gabriel had sung most of his Harry and the Potters album at the top of his lungs while I attempted to read, we turned off the lights and he asked for a story. I am pretty good at reading to children, but making stories up on the spot is Gabriel’s father’s forte. I’m better off sticking to the facts so since it is so close to Halloween I picked the story of my father’s voyage to Hawaii from San Diego in 1941 aboard the USS Tippecanoe. He was 18, a newly minted seaman and on his way to join his 20 year old brother on a PBY squadron based on Kaneohe. Aboard was a lifer, Chief Larzenarski, who was just about as mean as Capt. Hook. He was universally hated. Three days out of San Francisco the ship ran into a gale while towing a barge.

Papa, I told Gabriel, had barely gotten to sleep when he was awakened by the watch petty officer and told to stand watch from twelve to two on the port wing of the bridge. He donned his peacoat and watch cap because a gale was raging topside. Sometime during the first hour of his watch he saw a dim figure moving along the cat-walk. Papa couldn’t see who it was, but thought the person was wearing the hat of a CPO and he assumed it was Larzenarski making a round of the decks but he did not come up to the bridge were Papa was so he couldn’t be sure. Papa also thought he saw the shadow of another person move aft in the direction Larzenarski had gone, but in all the rain and spray he could not be sure.

At muster the next day Larzenarski did not muster and a search of the pitching, rolling ship revealed no trace of the abrasive man could be found. It was assumed that in the roil of the sea he had been pitched overboard during his round of the decks. Papa was questioned by his division officer as to what he’d seen on his watch. The eighteen-year-old told him what he thought he’d seen, but could not be sure if there were another figure on the deck besides the CPO. That was the end of it. Larzenarski was listed as missing and presumed drowned during the night. Papa, I told Gabriel, sailed into Pearl Harbor on his 19th birthday, very thankful to have completed his voyage and be reunited with Uncle Dick.

Gabriel wasn’t satisfied with one story and asked for another. My father’s life is rich with stories so I continued with Hawaii. I told him that Papa had wanted to go to Annapolis. I explained to him what that was and that Papa wanted to be a Naval Officer. While at Kaneohe he has asked to take the test for Annapolis and a date had been set for December 8th. On Sunday morning December 7th he had been asleep in the barracks, dreaming that he was asleep in his grandmother’s yard. Bees buzzed around his grandmother’s hollyhocks and around his head annoying him. He awoke to discover that the buzzing was coming from Japanese Zeros (fighter-planes, I explained) who were bombing and straffing the hangars and PBYs parked on the tarmac. Papa’s first thought was for his brother who had been on night watch so he pulled on his clothes and bolted from the barracks. Eventually he found Uncle Dick and together they mounted a machine gun in the waist hatch of a PBY that was empty of fuel and fought back with Uncle Dick shooting down a Zero. Unfortunately, the attack on Pearl Harbor and Kaneohe destroyed Papa’s dreams of Annapolis in more ways than one. He desk in which his test was locked burned in the attack and America was now at war and there wasn’t time for Papa to do anything but fight.

Gabriel sighed. “When I am grown up I will go to Annapolis so I can live his dream for him. I will write about it and put my writing where he is buried.” Now I sighed. My father had always hoped that one of my boys would want to make a career of the Navy and attend Annapolis. They never expressed even a smidgen of interest in either one, but I know he’s smiling now. I know, too, about seven-year-old promises, but the fact that in that moment in the dark, snuggled in my bed, Gabriel meant every word. In reality I am more concerned that he not sing Harry and the Potters for three solid hours on our trip home.

Postscript: As we prepared to return to Gig Harbor on Sunday, Dave discovered that his truck had been ransacked. The thieves got away with a three pack of ink for his printer, two cans of shaving cream, and half a tank of gas. It wasn’t until we returned to Gig Harbor that Dave was disappointed to discover that he could have included “severed head” on his police report. That would have been awesome in the police report in the Chinook Observer!

Morrigan's Cross by Nora Roberts

2011-10-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

I told my friend Smitty that sometimes I need the literary equivalent of a toasted cheese sandwich. It’s not particularly good for your body, but sometimes it comforts the soul. “Morrigan’s Cross,” by Nora Roberts falls into that category. It combines magic, time-travel and vampyres. The first two are things I really like for a good escape and the last is how I got turned on the Anne Rice before she found religion.

At this point there will be some eye rolling and moving on. If you’re still with me you probably know that Nora Roberts is best known for her high end Romances. They aren’t in the Harlequin category, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I don’t read her as a steady diet.

Several years ago I picked up Roberts’ “Three Sisters Island Trilogy” because it had a sprinkling of magic in it, like she was testing the waters. Maybe she thought that if “Harry Potter” hadn’t been thrown on too many piles of flaming books, a little magic for the grown-ups would fly. “Morrigan’s Cross” is definitely a “happy meet” book. If Roberts is not a practicing Wiccan, she’s done her homework well. Not only does the novel (the first of a trilogy) have magic, it has time-travel and vampyres. Stephanie Miller certainly has given vampyres a shot in the arm. The young adult section is full of them. I would have been satisfied with the magic, delighted to have the time-travel as an addition, but the addition of vampyres seemed unnecessary at first, but as I got into it I saw how they fit. Instead of our witch heroine fighting some hussy for the attentions of her 15th century sorcerer love, they are fighting vampyres with a host of magical companions including the sorcerer’s vampyre brother.

If I had a complaint about this book, which is the first in a new trilogy, it would be that the characters who are Irish do not sound Irish. I want to hear a brogue. The story is good enough that I need to find out what happens and have ordered the next installment, “Dance of the Gods.”

Judy Blue Eyes

2011-09-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Dave and I braved the rain and traveled from our home in Ilwaco to Astoria, Oregon’s Liberty Theater to see Judy Collins. I was excited. We hadn’t been inside the Liberty Theater since it was rehabbed, although I’d seen a little piece on the Turner Classic Movies channel about it. Mostly I was excited because I have loved Judy forever. She sings like an angel and her songs have been the sound track of my life in so many ways. Dave’s sister-in-law even sang “Since You Ask” at our wedding twenty-one years ago and her version of “Amazing Grace” gives me goose bumps.

Judy is still beautiful and still sings like an angel, but I was a little disappointed. First of all she fiddled with her ample white hair away too much, fluffing it like a teenage girl, and frankly, she didn’t sing as much as I would have liked. Okay, there was an opening act we hadn’t anticipated. Kenny White turned out to be a joyful find. He’s funny, a cross between a crooner and Randy Newman and can make a grand piano sing. He was on long enough for us to want more (we bought a CD), but not enough to feel it was going to cut into Judy Blue Eyes. Well, Judy managed to do that.

I like it when performers tell stories of their lives and are relevant to the songs they are performing. Arlo Guthrie is a master of telling stories of his father Woody and of his own musical history, explaining the genesis of various songs. As Judy talked and strummed and tuned her guitar I was interested in stories of her childhood. I didn’t know she was born in Seattle. How cool! She’d start to strum a song and I’d get set for a treat, then she’d stop and start telling another story. She’d sing a line, even encouraging the audience to sing along and then, boom, stop to tell another story. She has a book coming out next month which I would be delighted to read and may even go on my Yule wish list, but we spent $90 to hear her sing.

This went on for probably 15-20 minutes. Finally she did a very long piece she’d written for her mother that is on her new album and one other from it. One encore song and it was over. I was left let down. Yes, Judy Collins still is beautiful and sings like an angel…just not enough.

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

Everyone, regardless of where they were, has a story to tell of 9/11. Only what’s left of the Greatest Generation remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor and their Baby Boomer children remember the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK. Nine eleven took the horror of those days and magnified them. Tom Brokaw has said that if the turbulent ‘60s were the death of American innocence, 9/11 shattered our security as a nation.

Usually I have the radio on 24/7, but for some reason that day I hadn’t turned on the one in our bathroom when I got out of the shower. It wasn’t until I got into the car to drive to my job at Gig Harbor High School that I heard something about a plane or planes having flown into the World Trade Center in New York. When I reached the Special Education classroom I worked in the other staff members had the television on and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but my first thought was Osama Bin Laden. No other person or group was as malevolent as his. Many Americans were oblivious to Bin Laden, but he had instantly become a household name that made the Ayatollah Khomeini look benevolent.

My second thought was that there might be a reaction to Americans of Middle Eastern heritage similar to what happened to Japanese Americans following December 7th, 1941. I had a personal reason to fear that. My youngest, who was just beginning his senior year in high school, is the son of an Iranian-American. It wasn’t the first time I’d feared for his safety, but previously I’d feared his abduction to Iran as a small child. I had sought the help of the US government then. Now I was worried about what the government would do to Americans of Middle Eastern decent. What other Americans would do. Osama Bin Laden was not Iranian, but there was plenty of prejudice against Iranian Americans (and even Hispanic Americans) during the hostage crisis. Americans have difficulty differentiating between Arabs and Persians.

Recently, when he was home from college my husband and I asked Nadir if he felt that he’d ever been hassled while going through security during his twice yearly trips from California. He said that he hadn’t. I’m not altogether sure he’d tell us if he were. My boys tend to keep Mama Bear in the dark where any sort of insult is concerned. Nadir has complained of discrimination when looking for a job and I am sure TSA takes a really good look at his ID and American passport with his very Persian name.

Fortunately the government seems to have learned from their appalling error in systematically rounding up Japanese Americans and putting them in concentration camps. Had anything similar been attempted with Middle Eastern Americans, his father, my husband, and I were prepared to find a way to get Nadir into Canada.

As a child I had lived in complete belief that the grown-ups would destroy the world in a nuclear war. Even as an adult I believed that as long as there were nuclear weapons, someone, sometime would use one or more. The fall of the Soviet Union lulled me into a false sense of security. Not since the Civil War had a war been fought on American soil—other than the attack on Hawaii which was not yet a state—and I felt safe. We were far from the crazies. Turns out that they were already here.

The intervening years since 9/11 and the death of Osama Bin Laden (a Seal Team Six bumper sticker is on my car) has done little ease my fears. Now we know how vulnerable we care. Now I have grandchildren born into a very different America where we may not fear a nuclear missile strike, but a dirty bomb in a suitcase is a real cause for concern. Nine eleven did not make a hawk or a conservative of me. If we become paranoid, prejudiced and jingoist, the terrorists win. We cannot condemn people of any faith, creed or ethnicity. We cannot let our fear erode the freedoms upon which this country was built. Our diversity should be our strength.

Please Mr. Postman

2011-09-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Write a letter to your Aunt Fanny tomorrow.

I love to receive personal mail. Don’t get me wrong, I like hearing from friends and family via email, but it’s nothing to having a letter to hold in your hands, knowing that someone special held it, to rereading over and over and maybe even packing around in a pocket or purse. Just ask a Vietnam Vet.

When I was a child my father spent extended periods of time in the South Pacific for Boeing and the United States Atomic Testing. Fifty-five years later I still have nearly all of the letters he wrote to me. Recently I purchased an archival box to keep them in. I have most of the letters my grandmother wrote to me when I was a young adult and young mother. She was the lynch pin in our family, loved getting mail, and was good to write to everyone in the family and share family news. I hope that someday my grandchildren will enjoy reading those letters. Are they going to get to read my old emails? Not likely, but to be honest, I did print off a lot of what I got from my father before he died. Most of us just hit delete and unless you are very, very, techy or on the Homeland Security’s radar, they are gone.

I am not alone. The mother of my friend Sue kept the letters Sue wrote to her when her own daughter was tiny. Now Sue can reread them and relive her own history. And hey, this stuff can turn up interesting family history. In my grandfather’s Spanish War trunk I found a packet of love letters from a girl who wasn’t my grandmother. My grandmother was considerably younger than my grandfather and a small child when these letters were written. I’ve always wondered about this lady and what happened to her.

Now the U.S. Postal Service is in trouble due to the economy (advertizing is down—yes, that stuff you hate and throw in the recycle) and email communication. The result is that post offices all over the country are going to be closed and service seriously cut. This will be especially hard on small towns and villages that don’t have home delivery and rely on popping down to the PO to get their mail. It will also be a loss of identity for some of those little villages. If they are unincorporated and have no post office they will become an unincorporated part of some county.

Allowing the Postal Service to deteriorate is a slippery slope. We are relying that technology will always work with no interruptions of power or service. There are all kinds of disasters, manmade and natural, that could leave us with no means of communication other than the Postal Service. That was exactly the point of Kevin Costner’s The Postman. I know it got panned, but I loved it and believe that the danger of losing means of communication that do not rely on technology. My grandchildren love to receive mail and I try to oblige them, especially the ones who don’t live with me. I worry about their children and grandchildren. Will they know what “snail mail” is?

So I guess this is a call to action. Write a letter to your Aunt Fanny tomorrow. You’ll make her happy and make a memory for yourself or grandchildren.

Little Egypt and the Road Less Traveled

2011-09-06T21:55:00.000-07:00

I get to pass roads and waterways with names like Cranberry Creek, Preacher’s Slough, and Muddler Road.

Together and separately Dave and I make a lot of trips from our home in Gig Harbor to our home near the sea in Ilwaco. To keep things interesting and because we like exploring a bit on the byways we have come up a number of alternate routes to get to and from, none of which involve hectic I-5.

Forever and a day I had bombed down I-5 from the Puget Sound Area to Olympia where I took the Ocean Beaches exit toward the coast. I began driving that route when I was 16 and rode it with my parents for the sixteen years before that. When Dave and I moved to Gig Harbor Dave convinced me to try going through Shelton and avoiding I-5. He tried it and said it only took fifteen minutes longer than driving on the freeway and was so much more scenic and less stressful. I tried it and LOVED the lack of the freeway.

Once past Shelton we’ve developed several combinations of routes and we each have our favorite. Mine is to take the Cloquallum Road between Shelton and Elma, then the Montesano-Brady Road before catching the highway at Montesano. Dave likes to take 101 to the McClearly exit and then the Elma-Hicklin Road to Elma where he catches the highway to Montesano. We both like to occasionally take the road from Shelton to Matlock and Matlock to Brady before either catching the highway to Montesano or staying on the old highway that parallels it.

One of the things I like about taking the by-ways is that I get to pass roads and waterways with names like Cranberry Creek, Preacher’s Slough, and Muddler Road. On Labor Day I decided to indulge my long time curiosity about a road I’ve driven by numerous times coming from Shelton—W. Little Egypt. Where would W. Little Egypt take me? For once I was not in so much of a hurry that I couldn’t see where the road went so I turned my Screaming Yellow Zonker to the right.

Although I did discover Pyramid Ct. after I turned right onto Little Egypt, I didn’t find anything to explain how it got its name, but I did discover four miles of lovely country road where the shoulders are grass, the speed limit is 25 and it winds around through farms and trees until it hooks up with Highland Drive and takes you back out to the highway a few miles back from whence you came.

My little adventure probably cost me a half hour in travel time, but it was relaxing and entertaining time and I will continue to take the roads less traveled. Maybe in two weeks I will check out W. Dayton Airport Rd.

Back-to-School Shopping, then and now

2011-08-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

Third grade brought my first soap and water saddle shoes!

When I was a child back-to-school shopping meant getting dressed up in good clothes and going with my mother on the bus (we were a one car family for a long time) from Bellevue to downtown Seattle to shop at J.C. Penney’s and Fredrick and Nelson. No department stores at Bell Square yet. I got bored while my mother looked at patterns and fabric, but getting a new readymade dress was much more fun. Lunch was yummy chicken salad in the restaurant at Fredrick’s where there were table clothes and you had to sit up straight, put your napkin in your lap and act like a lady. The restrooms in Fredrick’s were exactly that. The ladies restroom had comfy arm chairs and couches where you could---well—rest. I do not know if the daddies got to rest like the mommies and grandmas.

Back-to-school shoes were at Nordstrom’s (which sold only shoes then), but for the several years of my life they were black and white corrective saddle shoes which did nothing to improve my decidedly flat feet. My consolation was that the girl next door had the black boot type of corrective shoes. It made me feel moderately better. Third grade brought my first soap and water saddle shoes! Gosh, I was excited.

By the mid to late 1970s and into the ‘80s, when I had three and four school age children, back-to-school shopping happened at thrift stores out of necessity and I have school pictures of the older boys in the same shirt—different years. We handed down and wore it out. I told them it was character building. I liked to believe that my children didn’t mind, but that wasn’t entirely true. When my oldest son was old enough for a newspaper job he began working to earn money for his own school clothes and always had a job thereafter.

September was always a thin month with lists of school supplies, emergency packs, school pictures and shoes. Shoes and underwear I bought new. I had an annual every year in high school. Out of the three older children, two of them got annuals their senior year. The third escaped high school for TCC and could not have cared less about annuals. By the time Nadir came along our circumstances had improved. Annuals were purchased for him and I don’t think he cared one way or another as long as he had his black J.C. Penney’s Arizona jeans.

Today we took our Granddaughter Linda for a little last minute back-to-school shopping. School starts tomorrow. I swear that all thoughts of economy and moderation fly out of my head where the grandchildren are concerned, but we landed somewhere in the middle of my back-to-school experiences. I still got dressed up because my mother taught me that you tell people what you think of them by how you dress and I do adore my grandchildren. Lunch was at a teriyaki joint near her home. I miss Fredrick’s and Nelson.

The shopping was done at Fred Meyer where I was happy to use $50 worth of coupons, but still spoiled her well with a pair of her favorite Twinkle Toes shoes and a pair of “stylish boots,” not to mention hair ribbons, tights, a new pink water-bottle and a Sponge Bob Squarepants Golden Book along with a Tinker Bell one for her little sister. Linda’s in second grade this year and excited to start. Grandson Gabriel is home schooled in our home and consequently is liable to be the recipient of things piece meal, but is spoiled just the same. Wait until little Lydia begins school. What fun we will have taking two little girls shopping!

Back to School

2011-08-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

On some really delightful days I’ve been known to say that I’d do my job for free...

Along with my favorite season, this time of year means back-to-school and back-to-work. I love my job, although I’d really rather be at home with my daughter, my husband, my grandson and daughter-in-law, but as jobs go, mine isn’t bad. I am perpetually stuck in high school which at age 60 is a little weird and cool.

Because I am a “para educator” (a fancy word for teacher aid) I see school from a different vantage point than the classroom teachers. Rather than having a home base, I am a gypsy, moving from room to room where there are Special Education students. Every year, every semester is different. It makes the day go quickly and it presents its own problems as I have to deal not only with a multiple of personalities in the students, but in the teachers as well.

Teachers are some of my favorite people. We are a family of teachers. My son Frank is a high school art teacher. My in-laws are retired teachers, two of my brothers-in-law are teachers and two of my sisters-in-law are teachers, but I am sure that single one of their classrooms would be different and I have to adjust my brain to get in sync with each one as I move through my day.

Because I am on the move and seeing something beyond the individual teacher’s classroom door I am privy to what is going on in the hall. In many ways it’s like watching my own high school experience. While technology has radically changed how students interact, write and do research, the drama of being a teenager is pretty much the same.

Last year I spent two thirds of my day with one student. He is quadriplegic and very, very smart. I am his hands. I take notes during lectures, type when he dictates, fill in bubbles and blanks on tests. For that last bit we go into the hall. This year we will be together all day—which includes geometry, not my favorite subject. Yes, he’ll get it, but it helps if I do, too, since I’m the one writing everything down!

Last year was my student’s freshman year. My plan is to see him through to graduation and it will be fun to watch him grow intellectually. Besides smart he is funny and compassionate when someone else in his situation might be bitter and cranky. It is an honor to work with him and he is very good to tolerate an old lady. He laughed one day and said, “Between the two of us we have one good brain.” We’d BOTH been struggling with an algebra problem on homework.

The four years between freshman and senior years are huge. And then they walk up to you in the community and tell you how much you meant to them when they were in school and it makes even the bad days worthwhile.

On some really delightful days I’ve been known to say that I’d do my job for free and been told to be quiet. At the rate we are going with state budget cuts I will be putting my money where my mouth is any day.

Looking for Ruth

2011-08-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

I’m looking for my grandmother. She’s buried in Vancouver, WA, but the start of her life is murky. When she died in 1972 my mother and her sister had difficulty getting a death certificate since the State of Washington couldn’t find a record of her birth. I don’t know how they finally obtained a death certificate. Someone must have taken it on faith that Grandma was born on August 16th 1894 in the village of Ocasta, WA because there’s no evidence that she was despite the family mythology. There’s no record of her birth in Grays Harbor County period and no little girls were born there the year she was supposed to have come into the world. My mother had always believed that the records were burned in a fire, hence no birth certificate. There was no such fire.

Looking back my Aunt Mary knew something about it and didn’t tell my mother. Before his death my aunt had had a conversation with my grandfather who had sworn her to secrecy. When Grandma died Aunt Mary should have figured that her oath was lifted and spoken up while there might have been a trail to follow back to my grandmother’s beginnings, but she kept her secret for a good long while even after both of her parents were dead. As far as I know she kept the secret even after my father and uncle were dead and they knew something about it or thought they did.

My father and Uncle Pat used to tell my mother and aunt that their mother was adopted and Indian in ancestry. She had high cheekbones, dark hair and eyes and her daughters assumed they were taking advantage of those facts to give them a hard time. Being Native American would not have been a badge of honor in Vancouver, WA in the 1940s and ‘50s when I remember them making the claim. Seattle still had Jim Crow signs in shop windows. My mother laughed it off. At some point my aunt didn’t.

One day my aunt got into a fight with her husband over this allegation and in a fit of rage drove to my grandparents’ house to confront them. My grandmother was not at home, but Grandpa was and according to Aunt Mary he confirmed the story of my grandmother’s origin. And here’s where it gets even crazier. He also claimed that Grandma didn’t know and swore my aunt to a secrecy she kept too well.

Undoubtedly my aunt was upset about this revelation and was only too happy to keep it a secret. It wasn’t until her own daughter became too ill to work and needed health care that the story came to light and EVERYONE who might have known something was dead. Obviously it would have been nice to question my grandfather. He was 13 years older than my grandmother and had known the family from the time they moved from Grays Harbor to Vancouver, WA and obviously could have known that Ruth was not Amanda and Royal Austin’s natural daughter. My father and uncle had some reason for alleging the very same thing. Where did they get their information? If the story was circulating in Vancouver had my grandmother heard it?

And there’s one more piece of information that could be a clue. Amongst my grandfather’s effects my aunt found a letter that was in her grandfather’s papers. In the handwritten letter Royal bequeathed a sum of money to a home for unwed mothers in Lewis County should his wife and daughter precede him in death. They didn’t and the bequest was never made, but it does make one wonder.

So, I’m going to quit looking for Grandma in Grays Harbor County and look in Lewis County. The problems I face are the age of records and the real possibility that if she were Native American her adoption might have been suspect. Tribes were loath to give up children, but it is possible that her mother was white which would account for a home for unwed mothers being part of the equation. The University of Washington Library Archives suggested the Timberland Library System as well as the Lewis County Museum so I've sent queries. On the advice of the Lewis County Clerk I’ve also ordered a copy of my grandmother’s death certificate, but I expect it to contain erroneous information. Stay tuned.

Ain't Apologizin'

2011-08-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

I am over feeling guilty for having been well pleased with the weather this summer. I am not a sun worshipper. Were I, I’d probably be living somewhere in the Southwest, but with the exception of the first 18 months of my life spent in Wichita, KS and six years in the middle in the Bay Area; I have lived and enjoyed the weather in Western Washington. I am what my friend Lorraine calls an old mossback.

The fact that we have not had days of 80 plus degree weather this summer suits me just fine. It wasn’t until I was at a family gathering where my husband’s family was bemoaning the weather this summer and my brother-in-law Corky piped up, “I’ve been loving the weather.” At last, another one! I wasn’t alone!

Part of my delight with the weather is that Autumn is my favorite season. That is counter intuitive because Autumn is when my break from my job with the school district is over and I have to go back to work. Autumn is my compensation for that. Other than having to get up in the dark each morning to go to work, what is not to like about Autumn? And I don’t so very much mind the dark anyway. I love the colors, smell and feel of Autumn, plus it is the season of my two favorite holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

As we rejoice in the bounty of the gifts with which Mother Earth has rewarded our labor, the She and we prepare ourselves for the quiet, inward turning of the winter--cold quiet days when we recharge and contemplate the turning of the wheel of life.

In truth the Ancient Celts, for whom I have a great deal of love and respect, viewed the month we call August as being the beginning of Autumn. The holiday of Lugnasa was the first harvest festival and occurred on the first of August. If we are harvesting then are we not in the harvest season? And even though the nights do not yet have that nip in them that I so love, there is a Vine Maple out in Chinook who has already dressed herself in shades of orange.

So although I shall be sad to leave our home by the sea I return to a job that is mostly agreeable and to the pleasure of the Autumnal Equinox which happens to be my husband’s birthday and when he will catch up with me!

"I Come to the Sea to Breathe"

2011-08-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

I know for a fact that there are people who live on the coast who go for weeks, months and even years without getting out on to the beach.

A sign in the bedroom of my cottage at the sea reads “I come to the sea to breathe.” When I saw it in a shop I had to have it because it describes my feeling upon arriving at the sea—I can breathe. It is not that the air in Gig Harbor is so very foul. On the contrary, many mornings I marvel at the smell of the Doug Firs and flowers, but there you don’t have the smell of the sea.

Last night we took the dog and went to the Sid Snyder beach approach and walked along the boardwalk to the mid-point where we plunked ourselves down to watch the sunset. I let the sound of the breakers and the wind in the grass and smell of salt and seaweed wash over me, releasing the stress of my early summer and savoring the icy blue the ocean becomes just at sunset.

I love the sea in all it's moods from stormy to peaceful. During the Easter storm several years ago Dave went up to North Head Lighthouse to look at it. I prefer that stormy sea from the comfort of our car on a beach approach, but the power of the breakers crashing on shore is both humbling and energizing.

I know for a fact that there are people who live on the coast who go for weeks, months and even years without getting out on to the beach. I don’t understand it. I’m not just talking about folks like my mother who do not have a car and can’t go unless someone takes them. I’m talking about perfectly fit people so caught up in their day to day lives that they never stop and smell the sea. They live in one of the prettiest parts of the world and fail to realize it. I am very sorry for them.

Growing Up in Bellevue

2011-08-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Several said that they'd learned not to say that they were raised in Bellevue.

Since our high school class picnic (see below) I have been ruminating on the experiences of my classmates and my growing up in Bellevue, WA, a city that could now be considered part of Silicone NW. As our evening at Lake Sammamish State Park drew to a close and twilight and good food blurred our edges, people spoke of their experiences in telling others where they had been raised. Many said that they had ceased telling people where they’d grown up. They said that they always met the expectation that they were rich and snobby. Several said that they'd learned not to say that they were raised in Bellevue. I know that when I moved to the Long Beach Peninsula as a 36 year old and told people where I’d been raised I got tagged as “the Bellevue Princess” which could not have been much farther from the truth.

It is true that to teenagers who came across Lake Washington from Seattle to dance at the Lake Hills Roller Rink on Saturday nights, we may have appeared affluent. We certainly were middle class and the housing tracts we lived in quintessential post WWII suburbs. But even within Bellevue there was stratification. I grew up in Lake Hills in the eastern part of Bellevue. Lake Hills was not considered as affluent as “old” Bellevue and some of the swankier housing tracts. My mother chronically suffered from house envy.

Bellevue in the 1950s (my parents and I moved to Bellevue in 1957) was nothing like the Bellevue of today. The downtown area was a few blocks of buildings on which there was a three story height restriction. There were grocery stores downtown and in the housing tracts which were populated largely by veterans of WWII and purchased with VA loans. Initially when we moved there from Seattle my mother and I dressed up in our Sunday best and took the bus or car (we had one for years and my father ride-pooled to Boeing) to Seattle to shop at department stores. I still remember when Fredrick & Nelson built a store in downtown Bellevue and how relieved I was to not make, what seemed to a child, long boring trips to buy whatever it was my mother thought we couldn’t live without.

The student parking lot at Sammamish High School only held about a dozen cars. At Gig Harbor High School where I work the student parking lot is several times larger than the staff lot and sprinkled with BMWs and F150s. Most of us rode the bus to school all three years. The boys who had cars were is large demand by the girls, thus eliminating the need for having parents cart them on dates. Those of us who had cars had ones that were ten years or older, not bright, shiny new ones. The gearheads, boys who knew cars inside and out, took great pride in keeping their cars looking nice and running well. In the district where I work the automotive program has been ghettoized by being moved out of town to another city where today’s gearheads are bused for part of the day. Talk about elitist. Although available to students, our district doesn’t want the program visible. The former automotive classroom houses a weight room now. I have no idea if the Bellevue high schools still have automotive programs.

During the 1950s and ‘60s the Bellevue School District was considered the best in the state, but apparently it wasn’t a given that everyone received a proper education. With elementary classes as large as 40, teachers had their hands full just keeping us in line. My first and second grade classes sat in alphabetical rows and there was little cooperative learning. It is not surprising that there were students whose learning styles fell outside of the set curriculum and fell through the cracks. Only recently did I learn that one of my classmates never learned to read until well on his way to senior citizen status. That fact that he has learned late in life is proof that he could have learned then if someone had had or taken the time to figure out a different way to present the material. But there are stories like this in all school districts, although it makes my heart ache at the years of pleasure this man missed in recreational reading, much less reading that would have helped him in his job life. Fortunately he’s making up for lost time.

Another student from our high school was a wonderful athlete, but no one addressed his dyslexia. There were plenty of girls willing to help him with his homework so he completed high school functionally illiterate. Although he married his high school sweetheart, who became a college graduate and teacher, the marriage didn’t last because it was colored by his inability to even read notes sent home by his children’s teachers. How might their lives have been different had he received the right instruction?

From a distance our lives might have been viewed at perfect. Most of our parents owned their own homes, many of the fathers worked at Boeing; most of the mothers were stay-at-home moms. We undoubtedly looked bright and shiny ourselves on that June evening in 1969 when we walked across the stage and received our diplomas. Despite what other communities might have thought, we were not born with silver spoons. For the most part our Depression Era parents worked hard to give us what they had not had and that level of comfort allowed our generation to cause a social and political upheaval, the ramifications—both good and bad—are still felt today.

Most of us have been successful in that we’ve faced struggles as varied as the raising of handicapped children to alcohol and drug addiction and managed to build lives that range from well off to comfortable with a few who have, despite a good beginning, messed up their lives . We are aging doctors, dentists, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, hippies, conservatives and liberals. Most of us are grandparents who will not retire in as much comfort as many of our parents did. I know we won’t.

The only time I have demurred at telling people where I was raised was to people unfamiliar with the Puget Sound Area. Back in the 1960 and ‘70s if you said you were from Bellevue, WA you were frequently met with a blank stare. If you said Seattle, well that was a city they understood. Where the World’s Fair was, right? No, if anything makes me loath to claim my hometown it is what it represents now. I’m glad we grew up there when we did. Not all of our families were Father’s Knows Best, but we were better off than many. I wonder what they young people of Bellevue today think of their hometown.

Class Reunion 2011

2011-08-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

The ten year reunion it was essentially just exactly like high school. (photo courtesy of Jodi Ruddenberg)

I wasn’t going to post a blog today. I don’t have time. We are getting ready to go back to my beloved old house on the Long Beach Peninsula. It’s been a wonderful weekend and if I don’t write about it I will be sorry and by the time I have regular Internet access the blush may be off the bloom so to speak, but I doubt it.

Saturday was magical. After not having any reunions for twenty years, our high school class of 1969 has taken to having them yearly. We have a lot of time to make up for. Last year was wonderful, but too hot. This year the crowd was smaller and the weather was Baby Bear perfect. The smaller crowd meant that I was able to talk to everyone save one who sneaked away when I wasn’t looking.

Prior to one intrepid classmate taking the bull by the horns and organizing our 40th reunion we’d only had two. The ten year reunion it was essentially just exactly like high school. Everyone stood around with the same folks they had stood around with in high school. It was all rather ill planned from the motel in Issaquah, where we did not grow up, to the Vienna sausages on tooth picks and the fact that our dance music came from another group in a room next door. They opened folding doors and we got to see the back of the band. It was miserable.

Things were a little better at our 20th reunion. I was delighted to see so many familiar faces, but at this point people were anxious to impress each other with their accomplishments. We did grow up in Bellevue and the expectation was that everyone had been to four or more years of college and were highly successful. I hadn’t, but that didn’t stop me from having a good time, but even I held onto some of the high school sensibilities. I found the dentists and lawyers insufferable in their need to impress and I became hysterical when a cheerleader and one of the women from what we called the “sosh” clique discovered that they’d come in the exact same beautiful cream colored suit. I thought it was a Kodak moment and nearly rolled on the floor. Not very mature, but would have made a great scene in a movie.

I’ve written previously about my experience at our 41st get-together, about how none of that stuff matters anymore and this year was even sweeter. It was gratifying to watch a couple of people who had never been to a reunion and who had agonized about attending, come to the realization that we are just a bunch of old people, mostly grandparents, who have a shared history. We were a diverse bunch—a plumber, a musician, a Sufi, mechanics, teachers, artists. We spoke the names of those who are no longer with us with the knowledge that at our age there will be more and more on that list.

I felt thirsty to hear everyone’s stories. Some I hadn’t known a whit in high school and now I wanted to know everything from what it had been like in high school for them to what they are doing now and hope to do. One woman, so dear to me in junior high, had left at the end of our sophomore year and my heart sang to see her.

There were tears and a lot of laughter.

I must not have been alone in this hunger for connecting with our roots because this year people lingered all the way through the evening until darkness, mosquitoes and park closure sent us on our ways with promises to get together again before another twelve months have gone by and determined to find more of the missing.

Eating Locally

2011-08-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

It is such a labor of love for us, and worth all the shoveling, weeding, and mucking about in manure.” ~ Tim Ruddenberg, Camano Island backyard farmer
(picture courtesy of Jodi & Tim Ruddenberg)
Today we got to indulge in one of our favorite summer activities, the Tacoma Thursday Farmer’s Market. The bulk of our time this summer has been spent on my beloved Long Beach Peninsula and been busy caring for extended family and their pets and home improvements. Coming back to Pierce County this week has been more relaxing and when Dave suggested we take a trip across the bridge to Tacoma’s Farmer’s Market that happens every Thursday during the summer.
We were gratified to see lots of people taking advantage of buying right from farmers, butchers, bakers and candle makers. After checking out a few of the stalls and deciding what we’d come back and get, we made a beeline for something to eat. There is a whole section of food vendors on the plaza next to the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts, but we chose two down along the street. Dave got Mexican from a taco truck and I had a turkey-cream cheese-cranberry sandwich on a rosemary bagel. Yum!

When our lunch was finished we got a cookie to share from the bagel man and then strolled the rest of market, stopping to listen to a street musician doing Cab Callaway tunes. On the way back up Broadway we stopped and bought organic raspberries and beets before heading home.

On the way home we talked about living locally. It is Dave’s and my belief that the best way we can spend our limited income is in purchasing straight from the folks producing the products we want. Imported products, particularly Chinese products, are inescapable, but whenever we can we prefer to keep our money in the community because it fuels the local economy and makes for a smaller footprint on the Earth.

(picture courtesy of Jodi & Tim Ruddenberg)

Another activity that we believe is important to the environment, health and finances are backyard gardens. Our house in Gig Harbor is surrounded by Doug Firs which makes for a cool house in the summer, but for little in the way of garden. Nevertheless, we admire those who can and do grow much of their own food. An example of our food heroes are Jodi and Tim Ruddenberg on Camano Island. “I have always raised food for the family, not to sell. We give away virtually all our excess to family, friends, and neighbors, “says Tim, a photographer by trade.

“It is such a labor of love for us and worth all the shoveling, weeding, and mucking about in manure. Living, farming, buying locally is dear to us, but our concern is always price. I suppose that is why we give our garden away. Seems that those who need it the most are the least likely to afford it. My interest lately has been longer term consecutive crops, late Fall and early Spring crops, and overwintering crops. We really don't need to buy anything during the season.”

Local farmers know each other and while “chatting” with Tim he mentioned that their friends Don and Elaine had just stopped by and he’d chatted with him about gardening. They own Open Gate Farm on Camano, have a roadside stand and Don bakes. If you get up their way, check them out. I’m itching to get to Camano to see Jodi and Tim and when we see them at our high school class picnic I may try to wangle and invite for this fall.

The Ruddenbergs keep chickens as do our friends Sydney and Nyel Stevens of Oysterville. We have chicken envy and this year Dave attended a chicken workshop at the Proctor District Farmers Market and there may be chickens in our future. We have a good safe spot behind our garage and living outside the city limits of Gig Harbor should not have trouble with ordnances.
picture courtesy of Jodi & Tim Ruddenberg)

(In her blog Sydney of Oysterville, Sydney Stevens recently wrote about an editable garden tour on the Long Beach Peninsula and a conversation she had with the educator in charge of the Career and Technical Education of the Ocean Beach School District, Mark Simmons, and possible sustainable gardening projects for students. That got my educator juices flowing and so I asked Tim Ruddenberg what he thought about creating more backyard farmers by teaching it to students. “I am in favor of as much exposure as possible. I work with homeless kids on the weekend, and we have started a garden for them. Most kids don't have a clue,” Tim told me.

I believe that Americans need to change their relationship with food for the sake of their health, pocketbooks and the environment. The activity at the Thursday Market certainly gave me hope and the idea of creating a new generation of backyard Victory-type gardeners is exciting. There are farmers’ markets all over the country this time of year so get out and get up close and personal with your food!

Portland's Grotto

2011-08-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

You cannot help but feel at peace there.

Although not Catholic this summer I visited The Grotto in Portland, OR. My cousin had told me about it last fall and after visiting her in a hospice house in Vancouver last month I decided that I would go and was very glad I did.

When you drive into the Grotto parking lot and step out of your car, you leave behind the city—the world. Regardless of your religious inclination the feeling of peace and serenity settles around you like a soft blanket. The huge Doug Firs and rhododendrons absorb the noise of the city and perhaps the prayers of the millions of visitors since Father Ambrose Mayer brought to fruition in 1924 a promise he had made to God as a child—to do something great for the Church.

The Grotto itself is carved from an old Union Pacific Railway quarry which Fr. Mayer, a Canadian Catholic priets, made a down payment of $3,000 and his faith in 1923. An altar stands in the carved out rock hillside with a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà above. The Church of Our Sorrowful Mother stands just beyond the Grotto. Being of limited time that particular day I did not go into the church nor explore the extensive grounds that include an elevator ride to the top of the grotto, but I did go into the gift shop, purchase a candle and light it for my cousin, asking for an easy passage for her.

From the website you will see that there are many beautiful services done throughout the year including one on August 15th for the celebration of what Catholics believe was the assumption of Mary into heaven. Religiously eclectic myself, I must admit to feeling the appeal of focus on the feminine aspect of spirituality and would recommend a visit to Portland’s Grotto regardless of your spiritual persuasion. It is hard to believe that you are in the midst of a large city and you cannot help but feel at peace there.

If this isn’t a recession, what the heck is it?

2011-08-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

The belt is going to have to come in a few more notches

As this past week has shown, things don’t really seem to be getting better in this country. I’m still hoping for change, but angry that the regressives in this country seem to be having their way. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer and in the meantime it’s sometimes hard to see the fun.

When the bubble burst, stock market crashed, and the Great Recession started in ’08 I figured that we’d hunker down, tighten our belts and wait it out. In the meantime my husband’s job was eliminated. True, he had retirement from 25 plus years with the FAA, but that is a half salary and there are not a lot of jobs for aging airtraffic controllers in the private sector. True, he could have continued working for the company that took over his sector of the FAA, but it would have meant relocating to undesirable parts of the country (Sorry, Texas, Arizona, and Virginia) leaving behind aging parents. His unemployment is due to run out in October and my live-in son and I will be receiving a 2% pay cuts this year.

I have a friend who insists that circumstances are a matter of visualization and attitude. It is hard to be optimistic right now. My daughter-in-law has taken to not watching the news and reminding me that we have each other and our heath. Blessings indeed, but that hardly makes the mortgage payment on a house worth less than it was three years ago. I probably should stop listening to the news, too, but I'm too much of a junkie to do that. The belt is going to have to come in a few more notches and yet economists can’t seem to agree. Is the recession over? Are we going into a double-dip recession? If this isn’t a recession, what the heck is it?

Summertime, Reuniontime

2011-08-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

I thought it was emblematic of the day

Summertime is the season of reunions, familial and school. My in-laws have a reunion/family barbeque planned for this summer at their home before moving into assisted living. My husband and my high school picnic is the day before the family event so we will be busy that weekend. I am excited about both. My husband’s family is large and most amiable and I have come to value each and every of our classmates, regardless of our relationship, or lack thereof, in high school so I look forward to lively conversations all around.

One of the perks of becoming a senior citizen vs. a high school senior is having a grasp of who we are and what is important. All the labels such as “jocks,” ” socishes,” and “motor heads” have made way for “grandma” and “grandpa.” We are classic members of the Boomer Generation, raised in the post-WWII ‘burbs. Most of our daddies fought in WWII and many of those men went to work for the Boeing Company the wages for who fueled the Bellevue School District to afford us an excellent education. In short, regardless of any differences we perceived amongst ourselves growing up, in truth we were more alike than different.

The class of 1969 of Sammamish High School is pretty disorganized. Were it not I would not have been involved in organizing reunions the past two years. I was not a part of high school activities—far from it. I ran with a group who identified itself as anti-establishment, anti-war, and anti-school culture. How ironic then that, when twenty years had passed since our 20th reunion, with no sign of gathering, it was one of our number who took it upon himself to organize one. And he roped me into helping locate classmates.

Due to a conflicting family commitment and Dave having to work, we did not make it to the 40th picnic, but made it a point to attend the 41st. Even at our 20th reunion I’d felt a difference in how our classmates related to each other, but by the 41st all I felt was joy at seeing people, many of whom I had known since childhood and many of whom I wanted to know better. Because I didn’t run with the “in-crowd” there were plenty of picnickers whom I’d never spoken to. One of them, one of the most popular girls in school, arrived late, but made a point of thanking me for having arranged the picnic. I kept telling people that it was Smitty, not me, but I was the most visible on Face Book so I was getting the credit. Anyway, I thought it was emblematic of the day that one of the most beautiful and popular girls at school, whose notice I’d been beyond, genuinely seemed grateful to me. I did not know that she was seeing into my heart and mind.

I felt I had plenty of grist for the blog mill, but was exhausted by the time we got home and lo, my thunder was stolen by above mentioned woman who it would seem has as beautiful a heart as face. For someone with whom I believed I had never had anything in common with she managed to take the words right out of my fingers, creating the exact perfect end to a perfect day.

Now we are approaching our 42nd year picnic and I eagerly anticipate seeing many of the faces of my childhood, all of whom are most beloved. As the Baby Boom Generation we grew up during a unique time in American history and in our case, the quintessential ‘50s, post WWII suburb of Bellevue.

2011-07-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

When I was a child my mother kept a jar of buttons. I thought it was fascinating. The buttons were all sizes, colors and textures. Mother had saved them from clothing that had worn out and could tell you about the pieces the salvaged buttons had come from. They told stories of clothing my parent had owned before I was born in much the same way my grandmother’s quilts did of an even earlier time. If a button was lost from one of my father’s white shirts that he wore to work at the Boeing Company, out came the buttons for the search for another. My parents were raised during the Great Depression and didn’t throw away much.

I don’t think buttons have ever been inexpensive. Go to Joann Fabrics and price buttons now and you won’t want to pay $5 for a card of four buttons just to replace one on a cuff or front placket. Even now it’s good to have a jar of buttons on hands. I save several. Besides saving them from our family’s worn-out clothing I’ve purchased them, but not on expensive cards at a retail store. Obviously my mother and I are not the only old ladies with jars of buttons. Other old women pass away and their families don’t realize the treasure they’ve been left in those jars and the jars end up at barn sales and thrift stores.

My most recent acquisitions came from my ex-mother-in-law. When Mom C passed away and Dad C went to live in assisted living my children and grandchildren were invited to come to the house and take whatever they wanted. My then six-year-old grandson Gabriel wanted his Great-Grandma’s buttons. They sat untouched in his room for a year until his mother decided that space being at a premium, the buttons would have to make way for action figures and puzzles. Because Gabriel was saving money for a personal DVD player I offered to buy them from him and he readily accepted.
Mom C’s collection of buttons was huge and fascinating.

And too good to keep to myself. While sorting through the vast collection, sorting them by color, I found some so unusual that I knew that there was a future for them beyond the possibility of my children sending them to the thrift store sometime in the future. I have a friend whom I’ve known since high school who is an artist. Marlys sews what she terms wearable art from fabric she finds in thrift stores and since many pieces are shirts running the gamut from mid-century pop to the exotically beautiful. Some of the buttons were so small I could not see how they could be anything but decoration and I knew that Marlys would know what to do with them as well as some sets of unusual buttons that were just screaming her name. I popped them into the mail for what Marlys declared was Christmas in July.

My buttons don’t just sit on a closet shelf waiting for some clothing malfunction. To me they are art. The jar with the red and green ones comes out at Christmas to nestle amongst vintage ornaments on the breakfront in my kitchen. The purple ones sit in a jar with my amethyst glassware in an antique kitchen cupboard. I have oranges and yellows for fall and jars of white, blue, black and pink. I know that people sell vintage buttons in shops and on eBay and since I will be getting a pay cut come fall, I might try my hand at it.

Elbow Room

2011-07-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

I have been gone from my blog for nearly a year. Last summer my life got crazy caring for my aging mother and then when I returned to school last fall I had a much busier schedule that left me satisfied, but exhausted. This summer has not been much better. My mother is better, but her sister is worse and my cousin worse still so I’ve run errands and walked dogs, done laundry and dried backs and a lot of the time while at our summer home we’ve not had an Internet connection. I have discovered that there is a coffee shop with WiFi where I hope to post some blogs during what is left of my summer. Below is something I jotted down before the end of school, but until now had not had time to post. It is ridiculous, as most of my thoughts are, but after a year away here it is:

Recently I attended a bridal shower for one of my nieces. The hostess had set out a basket of cards and some metallic pens with a sign directing the guests to write a piece of advice for the bride. One of my daughters-in-law’s advice was to not listen to advice. Probably that was the best advice. With three marriages to my credit (or discredit) I am probably not the best person to give marriage advice. I doubt if brides ever take this sort of advice seriously anyway, but this was better than those stupid shower games so on a whim I grabbed a card and wrote “Remember to cream your elbows.”

My first mother-in-law, whom I revere to this day, said she could “tell the cut of someone’s jib by their elbows.” Mom C had been in the Navy so her turn of phrase was not as surprising as her observation. When I asked about it she said that if someone had grimy, dry elbows it showed a lack of attention to one’s hygiene and sloppiness in other areas of their life. It made me pay attention to my own elbows.
Think of how we abuse our elbows. They get a workout every day as we use our arms to carry things, eat, hug loved ones. When we are tired or sad, what do we lean on? At least one if not both elbows. Like any friend they need care. I make sure mine don’t grimy and stay soft. I cream them every day before I dress and as I do, I think of Mom C.

Dreams of Peace

2010-08-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

This collage was done by my artist friend Mizu Sugimura of Federal Way. Until I began writing on the Tacoma News Tribune blog I’d never met Mizu and yet although we were separated by only a few degrees. How I am connected to this soft spoken gentle soul, so unlike me and yet so connected, has been much on my mind lately as I have begun to climb the mountain of memoirs my father left. Mizu’s Japanese American family was imprisoned during WWII. My father was at Kaneohe Naval Air Station on the island of Oahu on December 7th, 1941. It is this chapter of his life that I have been working on to try to catch the eye of a publisher. That day changed the lives of Mizu’s and my father’s forever.

Recently I heard that an Atomic Museum has opened in Los Alamos, New Mexico featuring replicas of the Enola Gay and “Fat Man” and Little Boy,” the bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year for the first time the United States sent representatives to Hiroshima for Japan’s Peace Day remembrance of what happened sixty-five years ago. I am happy that we can now acknowledge the destruction we wrought and fascinated and revolted all at the same time with the museum. Following WWII my father participated in Operations Redwing and Hardtack testing the atomic bomb on Eniwetok in the South Pacific. I am revolted that there’s a cathedral to an event that caused in the neighborhood of 240,000 deaths immediately and an estimated 350,000 by 1978.

I know the conventional thinking is that American lives were saved when an invasion of Japan wasn’t needed to end the War in the Pacific, but I cannot help but wonder if the same effect would not have been achieved had a bomb been dropped over the ocean as a demonstration of its destructive power. I am also fascinated to learn that Japan may have been in negotiation with the Soviet Union at that time to surrender to them because the government thought they would get a better deal with the USSR. I will be interested to find out more about that since I cannot imagine that any sort of occupation by the Soviet Union would have been superior to that by the US.

Pearl Harbor and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened before Mizu and I were born and yet they shaped our lives by creating the atomic age we grew up in. Both of our father’s went on to work for Boeing and both of us attended the University of Washington School of Communications, although we did not meet until some four years ago. Getting to know Mizu has put a face on the other side of a conflict and period of time that was pivotal in my father’s life. As I work at finding a publisher for my father’s memoirs and as we recognize what happened sixty-five years ago I wonder if we will ever universally understand how close we are as human beings. By the time he wrote his memoirs in the late 1980s my father expressed his hope that we were seeing the dawn of universal peace for all time. He self published his writing for the family and went on to live to see September 11th and our invasion of Afghanistan and his hope end. Do we still dare to dream of peace?

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Grammy Summer Camp

2010-08-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

I refer to days when my granddaughter comes to hang out with all of us as Grammy Camp days. Linda and her cousin Gabriel, who with his parents live with us, are finally old enough that they don’t squabble as much as they used to. They are within two months of being the same age and have adored each other since Gabriel’s mom took care of Linda as an infant. Cooperative play hasn’t always come easily so I was delighted last week when Linda came for a night and everything went so well I didn’t hesitate to say yes to another night. On several occasions we have taken the grandchildren individually to our summer home on the Long Beach Peninsula. Taking both was out of the question, especially before Dave retired, but they are getting to an age where taking the two of them will be plausible.

When I was the age of my two oldest grandchildren my cousin Janice and I began going to our grandparent’s house in the country outside of Vancouver, Washington. Janice and I were almost as close in age as Gabriel and Linda and the only girls in the family. She lived on a farm on Whidbey Island which was fun to spend time at, but it was also fun to go to our grandparents because as everyone knows grandparents are not your parents and will cut you more slack than parents would.

It being the 1950s there wasn’t much on television that a child cared about so our days were filled with playing outside in Grandpa’s little corn field or feeding the chickens and looking at the rabbits. An owl decided to take up residence in their yard which was also very entertaining as he seemed to not mind people in the least. One year our grandparents took us to the dime store and told us we could pick out a toy. We chose identical small baby dolls that came with little plastic bath tubs and baby bottles. As I remember Janice’s baby had a blue tub and romper and mine had a pink. There was one television show that we were allowed to stay up and watch. Our grandmother liked staying up to watch Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show. We were even allowed to eat Cheerios off of TV trays before the television. That was our secret. I NEVER stayed up that late at home.

I treasure my memories of visiting my grandparents. Out of the total of my life they are precious few days, but make up such sweet memories they might have been months or years. I hope that I am making memories for Linda and Gabriel. They will be small for such a short time and soon will not want to own knowing who their grandparents are, much less hang out with us.

Yesterday their Uncle Nadir, who is here visiting from California where he is going to school, decided to do some ice cream science with the children. He went out and purchased dry ice, whipping cream, and vanilla. This wasn’t just a cooking lesson. Uncle Nadir explained how dry ice is made and what makes it different from the ice our refrigerator makes. They were not to touch it. They combined the whipping cream, vanilla and sugar in a large plastic bowl and took turns running the mixer while Uncle Nadir shoveled in the dry ice. Soon the mixture began to thicken and spoons came out for a taste test. More mixing and more ice ensued. When Uncle Nadir declared it done a little extra ice was thrown on top and the bowl went into the freezer. While their science experiment hardened their uncle let the children stir pots of “witch’s brew” with dry ice creating the bubbling, steaming effect. As a single young uncle is want to do, their let them have a dish of ice cream before dinner. His mother will remind him of this when he has children.

On the way to meet my son at Linda’s swimming class, she begged another night and it is very hard to say no to her so her clothing is washed and hanging out to dry and the children spent part of the afternoon decorating the front patio with sidewalk chalk to welcome our family friends Jo & Jon—or JoJon as they call them. We are celebrating Jon’s birthday. Jo and Jon have no grandchildren yet, but we let them borrow ours.

Bridal Showers

2010-08-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

It’s official. I’m old. I’ve started saying, “Back in my day….” Our current onslaught of family weddings is overwhelming mentally and financially. Currently I am having a problem with the notion of a wedding shower.

Back in my day the purpose of the shower was to assist a bride in setting up housekeeping in her own home. She was going from her parents’ house to that of a new home with her husband who presumably didn’t have a lot in the way of linens and kitchen furnishings. Showers had themes usually linen, kitchen or lingerie. Increasingly it appears that showers are a second bid at a wedding gift since the shower hostess will include the name of the store or stores where the bride and groom are registered. “I’m just getting something from their list,” my daughter-in-law said sanguinely regarding my niece’s shower. Not me. If I shop off that list it will be for a wedding gift. Shower gifts are supposed to be inexpensive and the party more about celebrating the bride. Nowadays many brides and grooms have had homes alone and together for a number of years before they decide to marry and there is no longer an actual need for a "shower."

I like old fashioned embroidered tea towels. My husband had no clue what a tea towel was when we married and I still have to constantly remind him that these towels are not for dirty hands. I don’t have the time to embroider them myself anymore although I did back in my day, but I shop enough antique and second hand stores to find them. So rather than purchasing something off of my niece’s Macy’s list I hit a couple of my favorite antique malls and got three beautiful tea towels, staying away from some that were really rather racist—napping Mexicans and pickaninnies. I admit to also purchasing some sweet measuring spoons, too.

There is a real possibility that I will not be buying off the Macy’s list for the wedding either. In the last few years I’ve begun giving family brides and grooms pictures of their grandparents. Family is important to me and so I will be scouting out a nice double frame for copies of the sweet pictures I have of my in-laws when they were young.

On the other hand, a baby shower, especially for a first baby is quite another thing altogether. Fortunately, we haven't any of those looming on the horrizon. Three engaged nieces and one engaged brother are quite enough, thank you.

Is the Red Delicious or Eye Candy?

2010-07-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

I’m on a broom. I work in a high school and there are a lot of vending machines. The machines make money for the student body for dances and assemblies and I have a problem with them best left to another rant. When I was a teenager the only vending machine we had was one which vended cold, crisp, juicy Red Delicious apples. It was nice at the end of the day to stop at the vending machine and get an apple for a dime to munch on the way home. I always liked Red Delicious apples and the fact that they were grown in Washington was handy.

Twenty years or more ago I noticed that Red Delicious weren’t so delicious anymore. They looked pretty, but they had no taste. Our household has long since switched its loyalty to Fuji and the occasional Gala apples. This morning I read a letter to the editor of Grit Magazine that explains why. According to former orchard owner Carol Coddington of Alexandria, Pennsylvania, the reason Red Delicious apples don’t taste as good as they used to is American public demand? Did we ask growers to great tasteless apples? No, but we did demand redder, more picture perfect apples. Apparently with apples you can’t entirely judge a book by its cover so those beauties that make for great pictures are more eye candy than taste treat. Now, says Coddington, growers are beginning to mess with Gala Apples. If they start messing with Fujis I’m going to be really mad! This is one more reason to eat locally. If you can find someone with an apple tree in their yard, bang on the door and ask if they will share or go to a local farmer’s market and buy direct from a small farmer. That’s the view from my broom.

Oregon Lavender Festival 2010 Day Two

2010-07-12T02:50:00.000-07:00

We did not get as early a start today as we usually do during the festival. It being Sunday, Gail had some obligations at church that could not be escaped. Had it merely required attending a church service I would have gladly gone along with her since I was raised in the Episcopalian Church and can discern little difference in her Evangelical Lutheran, which despite its name, is pretty mainstream. No, she had to go and rehearse music with the organist and singing is not one of my talents—I would have been sent out the door to the curb promptly I opened my mouth—and it involved a meeting following the service which would have become boring for someone not enmeshed in the doctrine and goings on there so I stay at her house and amused myself by reading an article by Harper Lee’s biographer, it being the 50th anniversary of the publication of that wonderful novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Uninterrupted time can be as much of a blessing as any church service.

So following a hastily eaten lunch at Gail’s home in Mt. Angel, we set out, but unfortunately had to back track to Yamhill to exchange some lavender festival t-shirts she’d purchased. The expense of time was soothed by more lavender snickerdoodles and some may even make it home to my grandson. Hopefully at least one. We visited Lavender Thyme, but they seemed depleted on items and vendors and it was hot. As has happened before our best farm of the day was the last one which we barely made it to before closing. Parrot Creek Herb Farm in Oregon City has a beautiful setting and because all the other festival followers had headed home the owners had time to chat. This happened two years ago at a farm no longer even on the tour. The end of a hot day, when it begins to cool a bit can be magical and we enjoyed our chat before turning the Civic towards Mt. Angel. The best part of the day may have been the rum cake we had at a German restaurant there.

Another Oregon Lavender Festival has been appreciated and will be thought of and talked about next year when we go again. It was not as hot as two years ago, but not as comfortable as last. We did not go to any farms that were unpleasant and this is the year I got to see my friend Marlys. Undoubtedly the cold lavender milkshakes at the end of a hot day will be mentally appreciated for years to come, too!

Oregon Lavender Festival 2010

2010-07-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

My yearly trips to Oregon for the Lavender Festival are about more than lavender. They are a chance for me to go to a pretty part of the world, relax and recharge with a friend I’ve known and loved since I was six. That is more years than I care to own. I love my big household and doing homey things, but it is divine to come to a place where you can set a thing down with a reasonable expectation of it being in that spot minutes or hours later. A household of six and a small dog cannot be as peaceful as a household of one and a cat. It is nice to occasionally visit a different world.

This year arriving in Mt. Angel, OR was an even larger blessing because of the traffic on freeways between there and my home in Gig Harbor, WA. I have long had anxiety regarding freeways which HBP medication has helped to a certain extent, but does not entirely ameliorate. Although I left Gig Harbor at 11:30 AM, a reasonable time, a trip which I have made in 3.5 hours in the past took five in 90 plus degree heat and with an air conditioner that, like a couple of things on my car, decided to take a little break! So I was grateful when the air conditioning kicked back on and I was able to get off of I-5 and onto the back roads of Oregon. I am seriously considering taking the train next year!

A salmon dinner and a shower soon made me feel better although Oregon’s heat wave prevented me from sleeping as well as I might. Undaunted, Gail and I set out Saturday morning on our quest of all things lavender. Our journey began with a short ride on the Wheatland Ferry across the Willamette River. The ferry is quaint and adds to the ambiance of a beautiful rural area.

It would be impossible to say which our favorite lavender farm is although we have hit some duds in three years of perusing. Our first stop this year was Red Ridge which quite possibly has the most beautiful prospect. As its name implies it sits on a hill top with fields of lavender sloping away from the house and gift shop. From there you can see the surrounding bucolic countryside and our visit there is always pleasant.

Willakenzie is another favorite. It, too, has a beautiful setting, an extensive gift shop that includes hand-knit items from the wool of the alpacas the farm raises along with lavender. We always find treasurers there and this year was no exception. After we’d done some retail therapy we enjoyed lavender sorbet on the porch of the shop and took away lavender lemonade and lavender ice tea for the road to Yam Hill.

After a brief stop at the Carlton General Store where I purchased sunscreen (having left my own bottle in my car in Mt. Angel) we got to Yamhill and the festival in the park there. Booths with crafts and art line the edges of the park under ancient trees while a band played on the bandstand in the center. We particularly enjoyed an extensive display of local paintings of the many lavender fields that surround the countryside of Yamhill. At a picnic table we unpacked our picnic lunch which we might have enjoyed were it not for a couple of people who seemed to think that the area we were in was the smoking area. Although our chicken salad sandwiches were good (if I do say so myself) they might have been better appreciated somewhere else. Before we left the festival grounds we purchased two lavender snickerdoodles to enjoy on the road.

Helvetia Lavender Farm was eagerly anticipated by me. It is always the busiest stop on our lavender journey with lots of booths, music and food, but this year it held the special attraction of another childhood friend, Marlys Violet Spencer, seamstress extraordinaire who lives and creates “wearable art” in Hillsboro, OR. Marlys a year ahead of me at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, WA and unquestionably the most entertaining of my acquaintances. She has done work for large and small theater groups as a costumer around the Pacific Northwest and in Hawaii. She returned to her childhood home of Hillsboro to care for a dying father and create yet a new chapter in a very interesting life. She sews wedding dresses, kitschy shirts that truly are art, and beautiful scarves all made from repurposed fabric she finds at garage sales and Goodwill. When we first stopped at the booth where I quickly spotted her wares, Marlys was nowhere to be seen, but the farm and festival is extensive so we wandered the many booths and before we left found her returned. Big hugs and introductions ensued along with a lengthy chat to catch up. When a customer needed Marlys’ attention we moved toward the car and I was dismayed to realize that I’d not gotten her picture. Before we left she told me to choose a scarf since she reckoned she owed me 40 years worth of birthday presents. I was already determined to buy a scarf for myself and one for my daughter-in-law who loves pretty things so I eagerly chose a purple and gold one for myself and one featuring shades of orange for Ana.

We ended our lavendering at Mountainside Farm where we had a barbecue chicken dinner that featured lavender potato salad. It was quite possibly the best potato salad I ever ate and since I have culinary lavender at home I am determined to add it to the next potato salad I serve. Please note that I did not say “make.” Costco sells a very good potato salad which I doctor up to suit myself saving time and effort. Potato salad is not important enough to me to labor over.

Our day was not done. We stopped at a large berry stand that included an ice cream parlor where we ordered lavender milkshakes which we enjoyed in their outdoor eating area. A cool breeze had come up and it was the perfect end to a lovely day. Gail said that the milkshakes were even better than the lavender sorbet we had at Willakenzie. That’s a tough call and I’m glad we had a day that included both.

Looking for Organic Beets

2010-06-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today Dave and I went looking for organic beets. Sometimes I feel like I’m the “hunter/gatherer” in my quest to find healthful food for our family.

We are committed to eating as organically as possible and to that end try to buy from local farmers and organic stores and even have organic produce and dairy delivered to our home in Gig Harbor. We seldom/never shop at Whole Foods because of the attitude of CEO John Mackey who came out against health care reform. Yes, eating healthful food can help you stay healthy, but people get sick even if they exercise and eat right. My sister-in-law died young of pancreatic cancer despite years of eating organic and exercising. A coworker has been organic forever and a day and within weeks of retirement was diagnosed with breast cancer, so it happens. Mackey thinks were stupid if he thinks shopping at Whole Foods is better than health care reform.

On the Long Beach Peninsula, where our “someday retirement” home is, finding organic food is more problematic than at home in Pierce County. Still, it is possible. Today we set out and started with Green Angel Organic Farm on the back road. They sell to the little organic market in Long Beach, but I like to cut out the middle man if I can. We wanted beets, but got skunked and settled for summer squash instead. Next stop was the Organic Market where we found potatoes and hotdog buns.

Seeing how the mist seemed to have settled in hard enough to discourage yard work we decided to sneak over the bridge to Astoria and see the new digs for the Astoria Co-op Community Store. I liked their funky old store located in one of Astoria’s aged downtown buildings. Their new place is nice, slightly bigger and they have an eating area they didn’t have before. They don’t have a deli like Marlene’s in Tacoma, but they do have some packaged salads that can be purchased and consumed on site. During the 1970s my first husband and I joined a co-op that grew out of a play group our children participated in. We didn't have a store front, but took turns going to Seattle to the industrial area to pick up large quanities of food stuffs the members wanted, then took it back to Kirkland where we lived to be divided into orders for members. Getting healthful food without breaking the pocketbook has always been a problem. The agribusiness likes it that way. Thank goodness that there are getting to be more and more organic store fronts and that mainstream markets are carrying more and more organic products!

Because I have a guest coming early Wednesday morning for tea while her husband is down the road at physical therapy, I wanted scones to serve with the tea and so we stopped by The Blue Scorcher Organic Bakery where I bought hamburger buns, but no scones. I finally resorted to buying a scone mix and will brave my screwy oven that seems to run hotter all the time. Fingers crossed that I don’t scorch the scones!

A New Teacher Launches

2010-06-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about having a blog is sharing other interesting blogs. Recently I was turned onto the blog of a young woman who is just starting out in life and teaching for the first time. Sadie Newell is the daughter of a friend from my days as a Special Education paraeducator at Ocean Park Elementary School on the Long Beach Peninsula. Sadie was a toddler in those days. It is hard to believe that she’s all grown up.

Following graduation from the University of Washington Sadie was one of 8,000 accepted applicants, from 46,000 for the Teach For America program and will be spending two years in Tulsa, Oklahoma far from the beach community where she grew up or the Puget Sound Area where she attended college. Along the way she is doing training and teaching summer school to low income students in Phoenix, AZ. She’s keeping a blog that I’m sharing. What a wonderful thing this bright young woman is doing. Check out her blog and maybe drop a note of encouragement or teaching tip.

Two Very Different Stories of Family

2010-06-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

A REVIEW FROM MY BROOM

My Uncle Dick always said that the Ozark Mountains are the oldest mountains on Earth. The Internet says that geologists don’t know for sure, but nominate the Appalachians and Urals as possible candidates. I was never of a mind to argue with Uncle Dick. Besides, the Ozarks feel ancient—primordial. Human beings may have come out of Africa, but the Earth came out of the Ozarks. You can feel it.

Although I have never lived there I am of the Ozarks. Our people have been there since well before the Civil War. I study the Ozarks like it was a foreign country because for someone raised in the Pacific Northwest it is foreign. The food is different, the notion of time is different, the language is different. When I come upon something having to do with the Ozarks, specifically the Missouri Ozarks, I sit up and take notice. That’s why my summer reads have been Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell and The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton. Both of these books are set in my father’s beloved Ozarks and are very, very, different books. I believe they show two different aspects of life in the Ozarks. Both authors were born and raised in the Ozarks, separated by 40 years. Both novels are about family and loyalty and tradition. These families face different challenges that they handle differently, but in the end it is that “blood is thicker than water” belief that draws them together.

The Moonflower Vine is a re-release of a novel first published in 1962, again in 1990 (don’t know how that slipped by me) and again in 2009. Set in the 1950s, it is the story of a family and their lives outside Renfo, MO. The adult daughters come home together in the summers although they are scattered as far as New York. The Ozarks call them back, not unlike they called my family back over and over. It’s a family you wouldn’t mind visiting, sitting on the porch and watching the moon flowers bloom. It has the heat and humidity of summers back there—those days that are two shower days, although the Soames don’t have indoor plumbing and in the summer bathe in the creek. By the 1950s my grandparents were living in Washington State, but the Soames are a family not unlike the Friezes—especially those relatives who remained there. Although Renfro is in Moniteau County, reading the Moonflower Vine is like a step back in time and south to Dade County. Jetta Carleton was born in Holden, Missouri, not far from Renfro.

Winter’s Bone is a contemporary novel about a family with problems that many Americans may believe are the province of big cities. In Woodrell’s Ozarks methamphetamine has replaced moonshine and fifteen year old Ree Dolly’s daddy is a crank cooker. Dad has put up the family farm as bond and disappeared. Ree needs to save the farm to care for her mother, who has escaped to more peaceful places in her mind, and her two younger brothers. Living in a holler that’s populated by family who are distrustful of the law at best and outlaws at worst, Ree’s world appears different as can be from that of the Soame’s in Moonflower. As the title suggests, it is set in the winter and the language is as jagged and raw as the winter wind. It bites at you. This is not my father’s Ozarks, but yet it is. We may or may not have had our moonshiners and outlaws, but the bond of blood was the same.

Winter’s Bone got the attention of director Debra Grankin as well as the Sun Dance Film Festival where the movie version (Ree is 17 in the movie) won Best Picture and Best Screen Play. Filmed in Taney County, my cousin predicted that anything filmed there was going to be a “yawn.” If the movie is anything like the book, it is anything but. It opens at the Grand in Tacoma on July 26th and I plan to be there.

Old Mother Frieze and the View from Her Cupboard

2010-06-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

Gradually we have switched over to eating as much organic and local produce and meat as possible. The factory farms are the agricultural equivalent of BP. They are only interested in making money regardless of the risk of genetically engineered food, the chemicals used in processed food or the inhumane treatment of animals. You do away with all that by buying locally grown and organic food.

I wrote a blog about this on the Tacoma News Tribune blogspot “In Your Neighborhood” a couple of years ago and was accused of being un-American and seeking to bring down capitalism. Now this guy is a Rightwing wacko who likes his Big Macs and I know that. Buying meat from the farmer down the road if you can or organic meat at Costco or your local market, if you’re lucky enough, ensures that fewer animals are leading miserable lives. Cooking from scratch or at least finding organic versions of processed foods is the most healthful and humane thing to do. And it isn’t that hard.

Safeway and Fred Meyer carry organic products and the more people buy them the wider the variety is. For a mainstream store, Fred Meyer is the best with an extensive selection of organic product, even in bulk, at reasonable prices. They carry organic chicken and some beef, although organic beef is expensive. Some, but not all, of the Costcos carry organic meat. If you can find a local farmer who raises beef cattle at least you will know how the animal was treated. If you are in doubt as to who factory farms treat animals you can find videos of it on the Internet, but it’s not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach.

We are fortunate enough to get fresh organic produce delivered to our door by Terra Organics. They have farms all over. I have a friend who gets their produce down in CA. Smith Brothers Farms, based in Kent, WA, carries organic milk to our door, too. We shop at Marlene's Market in Tacoma where we enjoy meals in their deli while we shop the store. They make the best vegan chocolate cake you ever put in your mouth.

You can find coupons for organic foods on the Internet. Organic Valley has coupons for milk, butter, eggs, and other dairy products. If you visit the websites of organic products and email them how much you like their products you can get coupons for all sorts of things. I have received coupons for carrots, organic chips, dishwashing liquids, etc.

There are local health food stores and co-ops like PC in King County and Marlene’s in King and Pierce County. I don’t like Whole Foods because the CEO, John Mackey, is against health care reform. His opinion is that if you do your shopping at his store you won’t need health care. I have a sister-in-law who ate all organic and still got pancreatic cancer so you can still get sick, your chances are just less if you aren’t putting all the chemicals that come in factory farmed meat and produce and processed food into your body.

The best thing you can do for yourself and family is to cook from scratch and then sit down together. It does more for the body and spirit than anything else you can do. Yes, it takes a little longer, but it's worth it. That's the view from my broom and my cupboard.

First World Health Care?

2010-06-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

I’m on a broom about health care in the United States. The only folks who are happy with our current system are the ones with Cadillac insurance policies, but for common men and women, especially the elderly and under insured, getting help is a nightmare. Families are expected to become impoverished and overworked to care for chronically ill family members which actually damages their health and therefore puts the family unit at even more risk. Caretakers are forced to extreme measures to get help from the medical community and Medicare.

I have a friend whose daughter has been battling chronic Lyme disease for more than a decade. This devastating illness has robbed the girl of her youth as well as her health. My friend has been unable to work as her daughter requires around the clock care and Medicare has ceased paying for a home health nurse, forcing mom to care for medical procedures that are out of a mother’s job description unless there’s an RN after her name. Because of the word “chronic” Medicare will also not pay for prescriptions that improve the quality of life for the daughter thereby increasing her symptoms and making a bad situation worse.

My 86 year old aunt has Lupus. As a result she suffers from water retention in her legs making it difficult and sometimes impossible for her to walk. Like the chicken and egg story, one thing just exacerbates the other setting up a cycle of downward spirling existence. Twice last year she was hospitalized when she became unable to walk and then sent to a nursing home for rehabilitation. Each time she got better, only to come home and have the situation recur. It happened a third time and when her daughter, who herself has Lupus, fibromyalgia, and emphysema, had her taken to the hospital following a fall, they refused to admit her because her malady is “chronic” and Medicare doesn’t pay for chronic conditions. With a cracked eye socket and swollen lip and face, my aunt was sent home (in an ambulance because she could not walk) where she was accidentally dropped in the yard by the firemen, bruising her bottom, and told that if she couldn’t walk to the bathroom, to put a commode by her recliner where she basically lives. Her world had shrunk to a few square feet.

When she could not even stand well enough to do that and her exhausted daughter could no longer change and care for her, my cousin called the Medics again and had her taken to the hospital. This time she resorted to something no family member should be forced to, she didn’t go to the hospital with my aunt. She was afraid that they would tell her to take her mother home and she couldn’t face it. I cannot imagine how my cousin felt at not being able to be in the ER with her mother nor how my aunt must have felt at being there alone, but my cousin saw no other way to get help. Without hospitalization my cousin could not get her mother into a rehab center and get help. Fortunately this time the ER doctor realized the truth of the situation and even apologized to my cousin when she finally went to the hospital.

So this is the glorious system the Rightwingers so vehemently want to protect. Some would even abolish Medicare, thereby depriving recipients of what little help they can now get. Is this how we treat the Greatest Generation and our fellow citizens? God help us all.

Ruminations on an Unknown Life

2010-06-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

My car radio is on vacation. It does this every once in a while. I thought it was back this morning since it worked for about three minutes. My tachometer acts weird too, but I’ve learned to live with that. We tried to get the radio fixed, but there aren’t repair people in the world anymore. My appliance repair guy fixes things over the phone. Maybe I should call him. I don’t want to replace the entire unit because I love my four disk CD changer. It’s just right for the 150 mile trip to the beach I make every two weeks.

Anyway, once in a while the sound begins misbehaving so that there’s a few seconds of sound when you turn it on or start the car and then nothing which gives me plenty of time to ruminate these days. Recently, following my weekly trip to Goodwill, I ruminated on the clues we leave behind about our lives. We tend to think of archeology having to do with ancient civilizations, but I’m more contemporary in my digging.

Purple is my favorite color and when I’m shopping my eyes scan the goods for shades of purple. My eye lit on a photograph at Goodwill what either by age or design was purple. It wasn’t a very clear picture, almost Impressionistic in fuzziness. I turned it over to see if the photographer had signed it or if there was information about the picture where I found a handwritten statement: “Looking East toward the Med from Harry’s place in Fuengirola, Espana, 8 PM New Years Day. Taken with one minute time lapse” this explains the dreamlike quality of the picture. The handwriting speaks of another era. Taken in 1980 the photographer is most likely dead. It is a moment of at least two lives in a very pretty place.

Through the what I still consider the magic of the Internet I looked up Fuengirola. It’s beautiful and I thought of this moment of an unknown life captured forever. Was the photographer a man or a woman? Whoever it was had a friend named Harry who had a house in Spain and spent New Year’s with him in 1979. Harry is not a Spanish name so he was an expat of some variety, either an older American or a Brit? Having never gone anywhere of note and having no friends with homes on foreign shores, I find the whole thing rather romantic and certainly entertaining enough to get me from Goodwill the four miles home in a silent car.

Postscript: I couldn’t get the photo out of my mind so yesterday I returned to Goodwill and purchased the picture for $1.99.

2010-05-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

Another Memorial Day is approaching. A lot of folks have forgotten the reason that they are getting Monday off from work and school. It’s origins like in the post Civil War South when some Southern ladies wanted to remember their menfolk who had died in that great American tragedy. In an effort to reunite the states the holiday became recognized nation-wide, honoring all the soldiers who had died in that war. Over time many communities extended the commemorating to include all Americans who have passed away. In some places it is known as Decoration Day. My cousin has told me that Memorial Day in the Ozarks, where our family is from, is a big event. People there take it seriously.

Until his death my Uncle Dick put flowers on all the family graves in Dade County, MO. Our family has been in that neck of the woods since before the Civil War so there are plenty of deceased to honor. He took flowers to about 70 graves including several in a long forgotten cemetery in the woods. He crawled through barbed wire fences and walked through fields to get to some of the cemeteries. Some of those graves will probably never see flowers again since Uncle Dick couldn’t get the town interested in tending the one in the woods.

I’ve got a cousin in Vancouver, WA who tends the graves of our family there. Each year he washes the graves and places flowers on each one. He’s no Spring chicken now and sick this year so just getting the flowers there will be a struggle. Maybe one of his boys will step up, but youngsters today don’t seem to care unless they’ve got a friend in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Since I can’t take flowers to my father’s grave in MO we have a trip to the Tahoma National Cemetery tomorrow. I’m taking flowers to my best friend’s father and brother. Harley Beard was the pilot of the Liberator over Germany during WWII. After the war, when he’d gone to work for the Boeing Company as a test pilot, he became friends with some of those German pilots he fought against. His sons both served as pilots in Vietnam, one in the Air Force and Neal in the Army flying helicopters. Neal died a year ago and a Huey did a fly-over while the pastor said prayers and the VFW lauded him.

The Civil War is long since gone from our collective consciousness, at least in the North, and even Vietnam is just so much history to the young ones. I hope that at the very least Americans will think of the sort of love and sense of duty that causes young men and women to go into harm’s way. Many, too many, don’t come home and whether or not we agree with the conflicts they die for we ought to be moved by their willingness to serve.

You'd Look Neat Upon the Seat of a Bicycle Built for Five

2010-05-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

On August 1st, 2009 Bill Harrison and his wife Amarins left their home in Mt. Vernon, KY with their three daughters, ages 7, 5, and 3, for Fairbanks, AK with $300 on a bicycle built for five. Since then they have loges more than 5,300 miles—averaging 30 miles per day—of a nearly 7,000 mile trip. Recently they took a little detour on their way through WA to the Long Beach Peninsula to the spot where Lewis and Clark first reached the mouth of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.

Harrison told Damian Mulinix of the Chinook Observer, the Long Beach Peninsula’s weekly newspaper, that their daughters were the inspiration for the trip. He characterized himself and his wife as gypsies at heart and they decided to see the United States and give their daughters “something they will never forget.”

Bill Harrison has used his skills in mechanics, plumbing and carpentry to do the odd job along the way. He plans to use those skills in AK to help get the family through the winter and do some volunteer work.

The family is journaling their trip on their family Web log at www.pedouin.org. There you can see pictures of them on the road and read about the various places and people they have met. While they have chosen Fairbanks as their destination, they don’t have a plan set for what they will do when they get there or how long they will stay. This, they say, is all part of the adventure.

And Now You Know the Rest of the Story

2010-05-23T07:06:00.000-07:00

Recently thirty-six year old Tacoma graphic designer Joshua Casey opened a showing of Warhol inspired oil paintings at the Rosewood Café in the Proctor District. Trained at the Northwest College of Art in Poulsbo, Casey went to work for Burke Gibson Inc in Auburn following graduation. In 2006 he struck out on his own with his own graphic design company, Josh Casey Designs, based in the North Tacoma home he shares with wife Jamie and their two daughters. Just as he was beginning to develop a clientele the economy took a nose dive in the fall of ‘08. Despite some struggles finding projects, he’s been able to acquire some commissions that if not lucrative have been highly visible.

The First Night Poster for 2008 was a feather in his cap and helped garnered him some work with Metro Parks designing brochures for the summer programs at Pt. Defiance. The down economy also allowed him to be Mr. Mom when Jamie—who works as a court reporter from home—gave birth to their second daughter Lydia in the fall of 2008. At the Day of the Dead Exhibition at the Tacoma Art Museum, Casey had a work featured on one of the altars.

The down economy also gave him time to return to his first love, painting. The result is on display at the Rosewood located at 26th and Warner in North Tacoma. A long-time fan of Casey’s work, I have a signed First Night poster hanging in the entrance to my home and some of his earlier works, much earlier works, in my bedroom. You see, this talented 36 year old happens to be my oldest son. And to borrow from Paul Harvey, “Now you know the rest of the story.”

I Can't Believe I Used to Eat That!

2010-05-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last night we stopped in Shelton to see my aunt and uncle on our way to the Long Beach Peninsula to shop for my mother and her sister. I don’t have many of the “grown-ups” in my life left and these two happened to be favorites even when I had a bunch.

We decided to keep dinner simple and made sandwiches. I commented that since I started buying Costco’s Kirkland Brand sliced turkey for sandwiches I can’t hardly abide the packaged lunchmeat they sell in the supermarket. I’m sure my daughter-in-law would say it’s the chemicals and she’d probably be right.

We started talking about things that we used to eat that just don’t seem as good. I was raised on a typical American 1950s menu that included white bread and a large allotment of canned food. Mind you, canned food is a blessing when a winter storm hits and I keep a modest supply in the pantry, but for the most part I steer away from canned and packaged food.

As a child my mother fed me a prodigious amount of canned macaroni and cheese (gag). Maybe the boxed kind that required the addition of milk and butter and the time to boil the noodles, but Franco American carried canned (gag) macaroni (gag) and cheese….And I loved it! The macaroni was long and fat and looked like some sort of Albino worm that slithered in a pale yellow sauce. Once, back in the 1980s in a fit of nostalgia I decided that I’d take a can home from the store and have a little comfort food. Oh my goodness! I have no clue either why my mother thought that stuff passed muster as food or why I didn’t balk at eating it. Goodness knows I sat at the table for hours refusing to eat canned peas. It’s true that you can’t go home again. But sometimes you can.

Recently my uncle was laid up from knee replacement surgery. With a lot of time to lie around in a drugged state his mind wandered back to food they used to eat and hadn’t had in a long time. He lit on creamed tuna on toast and poached eggs (not at the same time) and when my aunt obliged him they discovered old friends and even went out and bought a new egg poacher.

One comfort food that continues to please me are toasted cheese sandwiches.

The Power of Objects

2010-05-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

I am a recovering packrat. For a couple of year I have been attempting to divest myself of the pile I have accumulated in the past 50+…well, -60…years. Don’t laugh. I have my Teddy bear and dolls from the 1950s so the pile has gotten rather large. I think I have always valued people over things, but there is no denying that I attach a lot of emotion to certain objects which have been owned by or remind me of people I love. Looking at them, touching them, wearing them connects me to the past or a particular person.

I use jewelry as talismans. When I have a potentially stressful appointment or day ahead, I put on jewelry that has belonged to people from whom I can draw strength and calm. I have a ring given to me by my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were little girls. The ring was hers and when she tired of it she gave it to me to sell at a garage sale, but I kept it. Her strength, of which she has a lot, flows through me when I wear it. I have the engagement/wedding ring my father gave my step-mother forty years ago. When she remarried following my father’s death she tearfully pressed it into my hand. It is beautiful. I love the fact that she wore it for over thirty years and that my father picked it out. They both travel with me when I wear that ring. I have my great-grandmother’s engagement ring. It is little and delicate with filigree. I wear it when I want a connection to the strong women of my family’s past. Amanda Austin lost a son to diphtheria, traveled from the Mid West to the Olympic Peninsula where she, depending on which family version you subscribe to, either had another baby in her mid 40s during the 19th Century or adopted a Native American baby and raised her as her own. Either way, I figure she was tough as nails. She looks pretty no nonsense in her pictures.

I won’t even begin to list the things of my dad and his family that I have. I have shared some with my children, but pretty much if my Dad owned it I have trouble turning loose of it. Recently our household inherited some furniture that belonged to my ex-in-laws. I loved them and I love those pieces. Always have. They are not mine per se, but I get the use of them for the time being and I could not be happier. The best of the bunch is the table. I was eighteen the first time my ex-husband took me home to his parents’ house for dinner. They had a big family and a big round table which I found enchanting. Later we married and had babies who ate at that table as well. Mom and Dad were kind and loving from day one and I learned more from my mother-in-law than nearly any other woman. The table has three leaves to accommodated spouses and grandchildren and now it sits in my dining room. I’m keeping it for my ex-sister-in-law who lives on the other side of the country. I am hoping that distance and age will make her less likely to come fetch it, but in the meantime I think of Mom and Dad every time we sit down to eat. If no one comes to get it, I hope that someday it will belong to one of my grandchildren and that more generations will eat off it after I have no more need for it.

I do believe in the power of objects. You may choose to think that it is psychological. Real or imagined, those objects have the power to soothe my heart.

Caring for Spirit

2010-05-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

At the risk of repeating comments from previous blogs, and to no one’s surprise, our 21st century lives are far too stressful, even for “Type A” personalities. Those people may think they are happy being wound up like 30 day clocks and multi-tasking 90 miles per hour, but it is only a veneer of fulfillment and unhealthful. It is easy to get caught up in the daily grind of work and family and to wonder what the point is. Look at how we talk about it—“daily grind.” Life is not supposed to be a grind. Caring for our spirits is as important or perhaps more so than our physical heath since the two are intimately tied.

I was reminded of this recently when I read an article online about the need for recharging our batteries—Winding the Clock—the Importance of Daily Spiritual Practice by Hafizullah. He encourages people without a spiritual practice to investigate various practices to find one that fits and then to allow for as large a portion of time possible for reflection and “winding the clock” before beginning one’s day. This article is a must read. Regardless of the tradition an individual feels comfortable with, the need for daily meditation or reflection is significant.

Based in Seattle, Hafizullah has been a practicing Sufi since 1976 after having traveled a path of so many who came of age in the early 1970s. In his own words, he has “walked, stumbled, crawled, and danced the Way of the Sufi”. The ‘70s were a time of social and political change when Americans began to look beyond Western traditions for spiritual solace and meaning. Hafizullah is a senior teacher of the Sufi Order International and teaches “the Turn” of the Dervishes nation-wide and has a “special interest in the interface between psychology and spirituality, and believes that establishing a spiritual basis for one’s life is the most pragmatic approach to living with authenticity, inner freedom, and dignity in today’s world.” He says his passion is sharing in sacred space and spiritual practice with those who are awakening.

Sydney of Oysterville

2010-05-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Although out of the scope of our South Sound Neighborhood and since I’ve never demurred from sharing neighbors in our larger electronic world, I’m sharing a smooth coastal gem I found on the beach on the Washington coast. Most readers know of my love for and the large portion of time I spend at the Long Beach Peninsula. I lived there fulltime for only three years, but my family’s love of the place goes back generations and my own childhood summers were spent there.

During the time my children and I lived on the Long Beach Peninsula I was fortunate enough to meet and work in the same school as Sydney Stevens. At the time Sydney taught a first, second, third split class at Ocean Park Elementary School, but it was obvious that Sydney was more than a wonderful teacher who organized things like “Mother Goose Week” whereby the rhymes we all grew up with, but were falling out of children’s common knowledge, were taught and culminated in everyone dressing up as their favorite character and parading around the little school—she was passionate about the Peninsula.

Sydney’s family went back generations on the Peninsula and she was passionate about preserving and teaching the children about the rich history that was all around them. Although she’d lived elsewhere during her adult years eventually the soft salty breezes and even the wild storms called Sydney home. A teacher by trade and a historian by heart she combined the two and published little children’s books about the history and culture of the area.

Once Sydney retired from teaching she got serious about writing. I wrote a blog about her collection of letters from an aunt who grew up in Oysterville, Sydney’s family home, in a much simpler time a couple of years ago. What I didn’t know was that she also began writing a blog. So I am here today to introduce you to Sydney Steven’s. Check out her blog http://sydneyofoysterville.com/

PS The little church you see in the background of the picture of Sydney is where Dave and I married 20 years ago.

What Were They Thinking

2010-04-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

I don’t like the politics, the homophobia or the pedophilia of the Boy Scout Organizaiton. Those aspects of the organization are jingoistic, intolerant and immoral. Now they have proven the organization to be down right ludicrous. Boys can earn merit badges for things such as archery, carpentry and canoeing and the many things of that ilk that we associate with Scouting, but now, dum ta, ta dumb, they can earn one for PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.

What were the executives of the organization thinking when they decided to give out a merit badge for sitting on the couch playing video games? I thought Scouting was about being out doors and science and helping old ladies across the street, not being a couch potato. Actually I thought it was about everything that couch potatoes are not.

I guess I’m just getting old. My children constantly tell me that childrearing isn’t want it used to be. I’ll say not!

I'm Boycotting AZ

2010-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

I am so thankful that my husband chose to retire rather than to transfer to AZ! What is up with those people? First they did not want to observe Martin Luther King Day and now they want to lead us down the road to a national identity card. If you think such a card would not have a computer chip in it, think again. When I think of people having to produce identification randomly I think of Nazi Germany—and by the way Homeland Security sounds a lot like the Fatherland and always has.

We are a nation of immigrants and if we need reforms on immigration instead of harassing people who may well have been born right here and therefore will have to prove they are Americans. That’s not acceptable. I know that other countries have identity cards, but we aren’t other countries. We are a nation of immigrants where people have historically come to make a fresh start. Why not make it easier for them to come here legally?

No, Mexicans are not going to take jobs that Americans could have. Americans are too spoiled to be picking fruit and vegetables, cleaning motel rooms and mowing lawns. Yes, we do need immigration reform, but passing laws designed to target aliens and intimidate voters is not the way to go. I have a son whose father came here from Iran as a teenager. He went to college, applied for a green card, and became a naturalized citizen. My son was born in Castro Valley, CA, but he has a Persian name and dark hair and eyes. After 9-1-1 I truly worried that Bush would round up all the Arabs and Persians and put them in concentration camps ala Roosevelt and the Japanese-Americans. South Carolina’s Congressman Barrett (R) attempted to have all Iranians deported earlier this year.

It is typical during an economic depression/recession for Americans to become more jingoistic and look for scapegoats for their distress. Sending all the illegal Mexicans back to Mexico will not improve our economy. Quite the reverse. And I have no wish to be forced to prove that I was born in Kansas. I will not be buying anything from or visiting AZ anytime soon.

Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?

2010-04-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

Since the beginnings of civilization society has had those individuals who for one reason or another find it necessary to ask—beg—for help from those more capable of making their way in life. They have always been with us. During hard economic times even more so. They make us uncomfortable and we’d rather they be invisible so we don’t have to think about them. We pass laws against panhandling as though we can outlaw homelessness and poverty. Tacoma has tried it with the result that the beggars came to Gig Harbor. Gig Harbor prefers to keep those things invisible or on the other side of the Narrows Bridge.

Up until recently there have been three or four individuals (never more than two at one time) standing at the intersection of Pt. Fosdick and Olympic Drives holding signs asking for help. Since the appearance of an article on the phenomenon in the Peninsula Gateway, Gig Harbor’s weekly newspaper, they have disappeared. Did they all get jobs? Were they all run out of town on a rail? Are they in the bushes behind Safeway where homeless people, some of them Tacoma ex-gang members, have lived for several years?

I don’t have a problem with panhandlers or beggars. It reminds me that we are not doing enough to care for each other. If I’m not the one driving and we are stopped at the intersection I will give them a $5 bill. No one need feel obliged to give money to these people, but our family firmly believes that there are people for whom it is just impossible to hold a job. Most of us would not even want to attempt to employ them. Does this mean that they just deserve to starve or die from the elements? I don’t think so. The fact that people are in a position where begging has become their only option speaks to our failure as a society to care for our own. The way we outlaw poverty is to provide support for these people not pass laws that attempt to make them invisible.

Embroidery and Life

2010-03-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing homey sorts of things lately. Actually, I’m a homey sort of gal. Although I like to see new things I like coming home and although housework is not my favorite sport it feels good to be doing Spring Cleaning. I’ve even been participating in the lost art of ironing.

Ironing is a four letter word as far as I’m concerned. Had I a place to leave the ironing board up I might be more inclined to do it oftener, but half the time I don’t even know where the board is because there’s nowhere convenient to keep it. But starting Saturday I hauled out my old wooden ironing board and have been ironing the curtains and dresser scarves we have washed as we clean up for Spring. Ironing gives me a chance to ruminate.

Another thing I like is hand embroidered linens. I inherited pillowcases that my mother had done for her Hope Chest—do girls still have such a thing? No, they just register a Bed, Bath and Beyond and instead of things made by their mothers, aunties or their own hands, they have things sewn in China (and don’t attempt to get things properly monogrammed—I did and Latin letters and the order they should be in are beyond their understanding over there). The linens my mother decorated seventy years ago have been worn out for some time. When I was a stay at home mom in the 1970s I embroidered myself, but never as well as my mother. Now I rely on others, scavenging thrift stores, bazaars’, crafters’ malls and senior centers. I love embroidered pillowcases, tea towels, and dresser scarves even though I didn’t do the work myself and don’t know who did.

I don’t mean to stereotype, but I do believe that in general women seem to be better equipped to make a pleasant home. I would not go back to the bad old days when women could not vote or work and I know that they still are not paid on a parity with men, but I think we’ve lost something having so many women out of the home and I eagerly await the time when I can afford to do more around the house on a daily basis instead of throwing all of my energy into tasks on the weekends only.

As I’ve been ironing linens that someone used their talent and time to decorate with flowers and birds and crochet edging for I wonder about the life of each woman who did the work—her likes and dislikes, her hopes and dreams. As they worked they embroidered their lives and that of their families. It is sad that their work was cared for so little by those around her that it was relegated to a thrift store, but good for me. I am in the process of paring down my pile of books because I know very well that my children will not care two straws about them regardless of how much I do, but the linens I intend to wash and iron and love until like me, they wear out.

Battle of the Bulge

2010-03-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

I scored a little victory in my battle of the bulge yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale and discovered that I've lost 12 pounds since my birthday last month. That puts me at 215 which is two pounds less than my previous high in 1987.

I know that oatmeal is supposed to lower cholesterol, but I don't like oatmeal unless it is in an oatmeal cookie. For a quick breakfast I decided on oatmeal muffins. After trying out several recipes I have landed on a combination of them and now consider it my own.

Healthy Oatmeal-Raisin Muffins
· 2 egg whites—can substitute 2 tsp cornstarch, but use honey in place of brown sugar.
· ¾ cup of milk
· ½ cup vegetable oil
· ¼ cup wheat germ
· ¾ cup oatmeal—soak in milk for a while first, if old fashioned oats are used, soak longer.
· 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
· ¼ cup unbleached white flour
· 2 tsp. baking powder
· 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
· 1 tsp. salt
· 1 tsp. Cinnamon
· 1 tsp vanilla
· ¼ tsp. Nutmeg
· Two handfuls of raisins, dried cranberries or a combination

Heat oven to 400°. Grease bottoms of muffin cups or use muffin papers. Put dried fruit to soak in warm water while you measure dry ingredients. Drain dried fruit and stir into dry ingredients to coat. This will keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin. Beat egg, stir in milk, oil, and vanilla. Fold egg mixture into dry until moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Fill muffin cups about ¾ full. Bake until golden brown approx. 20 min. Remove from pan immediately.

Life in the Fat Land

2010-03-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

Obesity is the last characteristic that it is politically okay to make fun of. Writer and teacher Irene McPherson has stated in her blog In the Shadow of Fat that as she looks forward to her wedding this fall the nasty little childhood ditty of “Here comes the bride, big, fat, and wide” sticks in her head. She should be planning more romantic music for her wedding, but what bride doesn’t want to be ravishing on her wedding day? The good news is that the lovely man who proposed to her loves her just as she is, to borrow from the movie “Bridget Jones’ Diary.” And yet, our society is so obsessed with thinness that girls end up anorexic and models are airbrushed to impossible dimensions.

It’s okay to discriminate against fat people. I have a hard working, tender hearted, large girlfriend who was discriminated against when she applied for a secretarial job. She had the seniority and skills to do the job, but didn’t fit the image the boss had for his front office. I asked her to grieve the action with her union since the department had flagrantly ignored the fact that she was senior to the woman who got the job. “Why would I want to be somewhere where I’m not wanted?” she asked me. Ultimately it worked out for the best because eventually she landed in a department where her skills and character count for more than her size. She is treasured just the way she is. The man who didn’t hire her ended up with difficulties of his own from higher above and left the organization altogether.

Those of us who have yo-yo-ed over the years have wound up with crappy metabolisms that only exercise will get going again. I don't eat that much and while I admit to being addicted to carbs I do not consume copious amounts of them. My body, because of my near anorexic experience in the '90s doesn't want to turn loose of anything for fear of another famine. As the kdis would say, it sucks.

I am fortunate because my own husband, who has seen me yo-yo from overweight to borderline anorexic and back again, also loves me just as I am. I’m not looking to get a job as anyone’s office decoration, but I know that I would be discriminated against if I did. My reasons for wanting to lose weight is mostly about health and sticking around to see my grandchildren all get born and grow and take care of my own Special Needs child. As my mother would say, I don’t expect to be in the front row of the follies, but if I could buy a new dress for Irene’s wedding (which will be recycled for our niece’s wedding in December as well) it would be a nice fringe benefit.

Remodeling Me

2010-03-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

Our bathroom is remodeled and our grandson installed in his new bedroom after he and his mama spent Winter in Brazil. The seasons are turning and it’s time to remodel me. Like most people I can know intellectually what I need to do, but can live on the rive Denial and in the land of Procrastination. Since I became a mother I’ve had issues with my weight. Each baby added more to the scale and no amount of nursing got me anywhere near where I’d been when I got pregnant with that baby much less the first one at age 19. Although I’m not looking to weigh 115 again, I’ve known for some time that I need to lose weight. A lot of it. Right after the holidays, right after my birthday, as soon as school is out, tomorrow. Tomorrow’s come.

My blog buddy Lorrene LeMaster of “Pet Peeves and Other Ramblings” has written about how much she hates blood draws. She and I suffer from the same malady. Our veins take one look at the needle and roll over and dive so when my doctor ordered a couple of blood tests about a year and a half ago I thought it a matter of some importance and about a month ago I decided to take care of it while at Group Health for a check of my blood pressure. It was an early morning appointment and not hard to fast before showing up for my 8:30 appointment with PA Gross. This was just before my 59th birthday when we had reservations at a B&B in Snohomish with my best friend who was also having a birthday. I got the bad news (results) the day we were to leave. Although my HBP is under control, my cholesterol is through the roof and I’m staring down the barrel of Type II Diabetes. Aside from that I have two bad knees and was sitting at my highest weight ever—227. Tomorrow had come or at least it was going to come as soon as we returned from our three day vacation.

I’m motivated to share my struggle publically because my soon-to-be-sister-in-law is fighting her own battle with the scale and has taken her struggle to her own blog. It seemed like a good idea. Maybe if I have to be publically accountable my progress won’t turn to regress so if you don’t mind I will share my successes and failures here for whatever it is worth as I struggle toward a class reunion and my brother-in-law’s wedding.

So here I am, the day after my third baby’s 34th birthday. I am down seven pounds. Not amazing for almost a month, but, hey, it didn’t go on all at once so I can’t expect it to disappear all at once either. I'll let you know how I'm doing.

Rennovations Continue

2010-02-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

It would be tempting to whine about having only one bathroom and having to trudge downstairs in the middle of night while our renovation is going on, but with the reality of what much of the world has to live with coming into focus with the daily pictures of Haiti I realize how much I have to be grateful for. The fact that I have a bathroom at all is blessing indeed and that perhaps by the end of the week it will be freshly remodeled with a new larger shower, new vanity and medicine chest, fresh paint and new flooring is wonderful. And when judged with my other contractor experience this one has been a breeze.

There’s no getting around the upheaval of remodeling unless are working on an empty house. Our clothes, medicines (we’re old and have lots) and cleaning supplies as well as linens are in tubs and piles in our bedroom which adds to the nightmare of middle of the night trips to the bathroom. Personally, I’ve been living out of what’s in the laundry basket which means that my coworkers are being treated to repeated viewings of my wardrobe. Since it is mostly purple they probably have quit noticing what exactly I’m wearing.

The work on the bathroom went much faster than that which we had done to the kitchen several years ago. All but the shower door is done and we await the flooring man to do the floor in Gabriel’s bedroom with the expectation that it will be done before his return from Brazil.

Remodeling the Bathroom

2010-01-14T13:31:00.000-08:00

I hate home repairs/remodeling. For those readers of the In Your Neighborhood blog spot might have seen my posts about getting the south side of our house in Ilwaco, WA resided. It turned into a disaster. The contractor, who will remain nameless, bought and installed the wrong windows, promised to change them and then disappeared. Over last winter the shingles began coming off the side of the house and my husband had to make repairs last summer because the contractor was nowhere to be found.

In the past we’ve had trouble with a shady character my husband hired to finish reroofing our house in Gig Harbor when the sun and height began to take a toll on him. Had I been home at the time Dave struck a deal with this man I would have put a stop to it, but I was in Ilwaco. That mess had to be corrected by a professional roofing company and it would have been cheaper to hire them in the first place.

There was the Gig Harbor kitchen remodel. Following a little kitchen fire the insurance company recommended a particular outfit to do the repairs. It took them three months to do it while I washed dishes in the old sink set on saw horses on the patio and cooked on a barbecue. Thank goodness it was summer. We ate out quite a lot, but that gets old pretty fast and rounding up four people to go out three times a day is a pain in the youknowwhat.

Now the time has come to do some more remodeling. We’ve drug our feet and cannot any longer. For a while we’ve had a little leak from the upstairs bathroom into the downstairs little bedroom which has served as my son’s “art room.” What was a little spot of mold on the ceiling has become two spots the size of tennis balls. Because the house was built in 1972 and remodeled in 1980 the fixtures, etc. are dated and ugly. We knew that if we ever want to sell the place that having updated bathrooms would be important. Our daughter-in-law and grandson’s departure for two months in Brazil seemed a good time to get the work done since the art room is going to become a bedroom for grandson so before Christmas I began to look around for a contractor.

Although the disappeared contractor had been a recommendation, I asked some coworkers who they would recommend and came upon someone who seems honest. The work will begin on Monday, Dave's second day of "retirement," and I will let you know how it goes. If things go well I will tell you who we got. If they don't...

“What fun,” my mother exclaimed. Yes, packing up all our vitamins, medicines, cleaning products and supplies along with the linens and our entire closet is sure fun.

Does Technology Connect or Isolate Us?

2010-01-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

A coworker and friend on Facebook and I chatted a few weeks ago about the love/hate relationship we have with technology. While we love the feeling of connection that the Internet and Facebook provides, we commented that we spend more time fertilizing each other’s crops on FB’s Farmville than we do having “face time.” Technology connects and isolates us all at once.
I use “texting” a lot. My husband cannot receive calls at work except to call his supervisor and ask to have Dave call me. Although they are not supposed to have their cell phones turned on while on the floor at Seattle Flight Service, per Lockheed Martin’s regulation, Dave leaves his on vibrate and responds to text messages. Until he began working day shifts those messages were the only connection that we had so I’m pretty familiar with texting.

My kids text me. When I am at work my situation is similar. I’m not supposed to be answering personal phone calls and the concrete school I work in is a bunker for cell signals so I understand them wanting to send me a text message if they have a question. Never-the-less I find myself getting irritated when they text me at times that they know I am off work. I know why they do it. It is easier to text a person with a brief question and get an answer without having to perform the “hi, how are you?” ritual that makes us civil human beings. They are too busy to actually talk to me. They don’t really want to know how I am just then. They don’t really want to share how they are either. I find that sad and wonder if I am the only mom/person who suffers from the technological disconnect? I am grateful for what snippets of information I receive about friends and family via email and texting, but what are we losing? Are we not losing the warmth of human contact, of looking into the eyes of a loved one or hearing their voice on the other end of a phone line?

In times gone by children climbed into a car or wagon and moved miles and miles away from family with only letters to connect them to parents and sometimes they never laid eyes on one another again so I guess that I’m grateful that Thomas Edison figured out the telephone, but sometimes I believe that technology as done as much to hurt as to help us. We must be wise in its use. That’s why one of my New Year’s resolutions is to spend more time actually talking to the people who mean a lot to me. I do not have to be too busy to do that. There has to be a way to simplify my life.

New Year Resolutions

2009-12-30T10:20:00.000-08:00

I like New Year’s. It’s like absolution in the Church. You get to start over and try again. I don’t mind resolutions even if I believe that I will probably break them. Mine are always the same: lose weight, get organized, and be more frugal with my money. It’s good to be reminded of what we need to do to improve ourselves for no one is above improvement and last year my resolution for keeping better track of my money means that I now have more than $1,700 in savings that I did not have at this time last year. That’s being saved for a 40th birthday trip for my daughter.

Orthodox Jews get organized and clean for their New Year’s and it is probably a good thing. To that end I am excavating our refrigerator. It’s a fairly new one and appears quite large on the outside, but inside is another story. It is only with creativity that we are able to get leftovers in there. Unfortunately, it is our fault, not that of the refrigerator. Things get shoved to the back and forgotten and I’ve a pretty good idea that I’d have more money if I ventured back there more often. I’ve spent the last two days pulling and pitching and washing. I’ve doubled our space and plastic ware. I am hoping that getting the kitchen organized will gradually spread beyond its borders to the rest of the house. Unfortunately, I’ve got my middle son working against me. He’s cleaning his “art room” which means dragging everything out to the living room to organize it. Moreover, the New Year’s plan is to turn that room into a bedroom for our grandson.

My New Year’s Resolutions include:
1.) Eliminating as much chaos as possible from the house. This means working on the clutter.
2.) Bringing as much peace into my life as possible which includes the house.
3.) Finding new ways to stretch our money farther since my husband’s job ends the end of January.

New Year’s 2010 is coming in on a Blue Moon. That has to be fortuitous. May 2010 bring health and happiness to everyone.

Holiday Letter

2009-12-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

December 2009

It is hard to know where to begin this year which marks the end of the first decade of the century. We’ve seen Josh & Jamie’s wedding back in 2000 and our fiftieth birthdays in 2001. In 2002 we lost my father and over the course of the decade most of our aunts and uncles. In August of this year the children lost their paternal grandmother. In 2003 Frank & Ana lost most of their possessions in a fire and we were thankful to have them alive and healthy. This decade has brought the births of three grandchildren and all the “firsts” that entails. Of course I would be remiss were I to not comment on the big first back in January when the first African American was sworn into office. We still have our fingers crossed that this will not be simply Bush 2.0.

New Year’s will not only mark the end of a decade, but the end of an era for us. After 30 years as an air traffic controller on February 1st Dave will leave that part of his life behind when Lockheed shuts down Seattle Flight Service. This prospect brings with it a host of hopes, emotions and memories. I do not think it is easy for Dave to leave behind something that has been such a big part of his life for…well, such a big part of his life. Had this happened a couple of years ago or a couple of years hence we might have felt a little less tenuous now. I will continue to work for at least two more years as last year we made a commitment to Frank & Ana to stay in Gig Harbor another three years and have two left on that promise.

We will be together for Christmas as Nadir has arrived from CA for the holidaze and we are all celebrated together with my mother at our house in Ilwaco on the 19th. Christmas Day will be at home with our household and the 26th we go to Dave’s folks place in Bothell. Nadir is returning to school when he returns to CA and will be attending Foothill College in Los Altos which I am told is an excellent institution.

Josh and Jamie continue to work from home. The recession hasn’t been kind to graphic designers, but Josh has managed to pick up some work with Tacoma Metro Parks and his poster for First Night lat year won an award this Spring. In September Linda started Kindergarten and in November Lydia took her first steps. She was already a climber so they are in trouble now! For the Day of the Dead Josh had a painting of his was included on an altar of another artist. We all went to see the exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum and had fun painting skulls and making paper flowers. Check out my blog about it.

Frank is in his fourth year of teaching and third teaching art at Clover Park High School. Ana home schools Gabriel, who also takes violin, gymnastics, and home-school PE. The day after Christmas Ana and Gabriel are flying to Brazil for two months with Ana’s family. These separations are always hard, but it is lovely for them to get to spend time with Ana’s mother and improve Gabriel’s Portuguese. Ana will not be sorry to miss the cold months of Winter.

Besides working fulltime at Gig Harbor High School as a Resource para educator, I continue to write two of three blogs, the “In Your Neighborhood’ blog for the Tacoma News Tribune and my personal blog, “The View From My Broom.”

For the first (and possibly last) time in this century there was a Frieze Family reunion. I got to be with all of my first cousins for the first time since 1976 at least and many of our children were able to come. I missed all the faces that were not there, but it was sweet to see my cousins and very gracious of my aunt and uncle to host the party in Shelton. It meant missing our forty year high school reunion, but I’ve seen the pictures. They were a bunch of old people!

The next ten years will doubtless be filled with great changes for us, some good; some bad. Come what may, it will be an adventure. We hope your holidays will be filled with blessings and abundance that continue on through the New Decade.

Fondly,
Stephanie

Christmas is a State of Mind

2009-12-21T08:19:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a state of mind not a particular day. Anyone who believes that Jesus is the reason for the season or that he was even born in December is living under a rock or in the Bible Belt which is pretty much the same thing. The Winter Solstice is the reason for the season, hijacked like so many other things by the Church. That’s cool, but we shouldn’t lose sight of what actually makes the season special and it’s not the number 25.

I think we convinced my mother this year. In the past she has accused us of spoiling her “high holy day” by engaging in activities that didn’t fit her Christmas ideal. That right there is a big problem with the season. Everyone has high expectations of recreating the magic they felt at Christmas when they were children. The problem is that a lot of us are not children anymore and when the expectations are too high we end up disappointed. Ninety percent of the success of the celebration of the Yuletide is the mindset.

We live 150 miles from my mother. My children are grown with families of their own. They have a lot of people they want to spend time with at Christmas. In-laws and outlaws (my ex-husband) and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone vies for a celebration on the 24th or 25th creating a marathon of driving and eating, eating and driving.

Sometimes things like weather prevent us from being with my mother at Christmas. Last year it was the snow. I was supposed to go and get her and bring her to Gig Harbor, but Mother Nature had a different idea. Last year Christmas Day went down in my book as worst day ever. It started out with opening Santa gifts at home which wasn’t too bad, but then having to rush around and dress so we could go to brunch at my Tacoma son’s. That was delicious, but just when I would like to have settled in for a long Winter’s nap or even a nice chat with my ex’s current wife we were off on a terrifying drive to Bothell for my in-laws’ Christmas celebration. I love these people, but I was already tired and scared by the time we got stuck in the snow and had three brothers-in-law with four-wheel come rescue us and ferry us to the party. What a mess! I have, hands down, the best bunch of in-laws on the face of the Earth, but just wanted my own snug home by the time we arrived. This year that celebration will be on the 26the to my great relief and my husband's insistance.

This year it is the fact that my daughter-in-law Ana, a member of our large household, is leaving for Brazil on the 26th to see her own mother and there is always chaos attendant as she prepares to go. Having her sleep on the floor just so my mother can be here didn’t seem the thing to do so I struck on a better plan. We all went to her. Granted it was five days early, but I think I convinced her that what really mattered about Christmas was having everyone together at once and creating the atmosphere of Christmas.

We have a house at the beach six blocks from the apartment building where my mother lives. At Thanksgiving my husband had put up our artificial tree, much to the delight of our grandson who was there. Two weeks ago when I’d gone down to take my mother shopping I got out my glue gun and a collection of big pine cones and glued them to twine which I strung around our kitchen which also serves as our dining room. I put a huge roast from Costco into the fridge and crossed my fingers that the snow wouldn’t spoil our plans.

As soon as my husband and I were home from work we loaded up my Neon with food, gifts, the dog and my daughter Amy and headed for the coast. In the morning, with Christmas music playing, I made Chex Mix which began the smells of holidays for us. I use Cheerios in mine because that’s the original recipe from the 1950s and the way my grandmother made it. Amy wanted chocolate pie and since I can deny her very little we went to Sid’s, the local grocery store, and bought pudding mix and a pie shell. She helped me stir the pudding (instant is grainy) on the stove. Then disaster struck when a bottle of seasoning salt fell out of the cupboard and destroyed the pie shell. With no time to go replace it we layered the pudding with the crumbled shell in a pretty bowl. Amy loved it anyway and I’ve promised to try again for Christmas Eve which will just be her, my husband and my youngest.

We got the roast in the oven just before my youngest arrived, followed soon by my oldest son and his family with a babe just taking her first steps in life. Middle son and his family arrived last as he’d been packing suitcases for the coming trip to Brazil. Dave peeled the potatoes and mashed them while Uncle Nadir (the rock star of the family as far as his nieces and nephew are concerned) kept the little ones entertained. The wine was uncorked and the Christmas tunes kept coming with the babies asking when were we going to open the big pile of gifts under the tree.

After every gift had been unwrapped and jammies were on we watched Amy’s video of Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, which is one of my favorites, before I gathered up my mother’s gifts, bags and walker and set out for her apartment. Then I remembered that I had promised her a return trip to Chinook to look at the lights on a particular house there. She has always loved going for rides in the car, especially to look at Christmas lights. We were not disappointed. For a tiny burg, the citizens of Chinook now take their Christmas lights seriously and we even saw carolers going from house to house. All that was missing was the snow and for that I am thankful.

I think that Christmas came on the 19th there at our house in Ilwaco. It is the only time I will be with all of my children this holiday season. It looked, sounded, tasted and smelled like Christmas and even though it was not on my mother’s “high holy day” will go down in my books as the best Christmas ever. The children were all in a good mood (which might be accounted for by the wine) and not a cross word was spoken and what better gift is there for a mother? Regardless of what the rest of the season holds I’ve had a wonderful Yule. The only down side is I left my camera down there and can’t share a single picture.

Christmas Lists and Gifts

2009-12-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

Our family draws names each year for gift giving. We started the tradition when the children were married and in college and have continued it as they’ve had children of their own. Everyone gets to open something and no one should be too overwhelmed with shopping. One of my daughters-in-law would like to eliminate it altogether—the gift giving that is. Her family doesn’t give gifts except to the children. We all give to the babies, but I think a person can spare a bit of time to find something special. It need not be expensive, just show thought.

I made them draw names in August. All but Ana groaned. She agreed with me that it was good to have several months to find things. She is the consummate bargain and Goodwill shopper. She was smart because I got her name and have been hunting things for her ever since. She will be delighted with the box of “stuff” I’ve amassed. Nothing extravagant, just little things I thought she’d like such as a colorful pair of boots from Fred Meyer, some balsamic vinegar, a book by a Brazilian author (she’s Brazilian), some smelly soap. When you spread the buying out over months you can come up with a pretty sweet box and Ana never did make a wish list.

I started harping on wish lists right away. We email everyone in the family our lists because in theory we don’t know who got our names. We usually figure out who got who by Christmas, but it’s supposed to be a secret. The lists are handy at birthdays, too, so Jamie ought to keep that in mind when she campaigns for the abolishment of Christmas gifts. My husband has been after me about my Christmas list. I emailed it to him once, but he lost it. Besides, when I bought a new Crockpot for the family at Costco Dave said that he would wrap it and that was my gift from him. Somehow I’ve hornswaggled myself into buying my own gift! Just the same I’ve sent him my list again and will report after Christmas how I made out.

My list went something like this:

Time with my children ß I will get some of this Thursday when my own baby comes home from CA.

Peace on Earth

Freedom from chaos ß only my messy children who live with us can provide that.

Something consumable. ß I have enough stuff to dust

Incense

Candles and/or soap smelling of lavender or lilac

Anything on my Amazon wish list

Besides my draw gift I also buy for my Special Needs daughter, my mother, Dave’s parents, and Dave. I’m almost done. Amy still believes in Santa Clause and I’m not about to burst her bubble.

Christian Communism in Oregon

2009-12-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I journeyed to the Willamette Valley of Oregon for a weekend spent in the past. I stayed in Mt. Angel at the home of my lifelong best friend and we spent Friday evening pouring over her collection of elementary school class pictures. Hers have remained remarkably intact compared to mine. She always was more organized than me. Organization is something I struggle with constantly. Between the two of us and the younger brother of a classmate who happened to be on Facebook that night, we identified nearly every student and noted their names for posterity.

The next morning was frigid so we bundled up to go the short distance to downtown Mt. Angel for the Kristkndmarkt, an outdoor market of food, crafts, and fun in honor of the season. After purchasing pastry, bread and some handmade items we dropped our purchases at my friend’s house and headed to Hubbard, another rural Oregon town, and to Old Mother Hubbard’s Bazaar. There we found many Christmas gifts and treats. My favorite was the chocolate covered hazelnuts. I’m not sharing those. They sit on my dresser where I can have three or four each night.

From Hubbard we went a few miles to Aurora, one of the settings for the Jane Kirkpatrick trilogy we read this summer based on a real life Christian utopian community of the nineteenth century. Kirkpatrick’s novels are labeled as Christian literature, but I would beg to differ. Unlike other authors of that genre, Kirkpatrick does not beat you about the head with the Bible, but bases her stories on historical events relevant mostly to the Pacific Northwest. I became intrigued when my friend Nikki told me that the story began in Missouri and journeyed West to the banks of the Willapa, a body of water I know well on the East side of the Long Beach Peninsula which is my other home. I can well imagine how hard life in the wild woods of that part of the world.

Eventually the story moves to Oregon Territory where the Colony of Aurora was founded and where remnant buildings and houses remain today. The Utopian society of Aurora, Oregon was established by Dr. Keil as the site of what was to be his last communal settlement. Keil was a charismatic Prussian tailor and self-styled physician who began preaching soon after his arrival in the United States in 1831. He attracted a following for his fundamental Christian preaching which centered on the Golden Rule and his belief, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Although a Christian, Keil was influenced by the writings of Karl Marx.

Dr. Keil named the town Aurora Mills after his daughter and in recognition that it already possessed a saw and grist mill which Keil had purchased from the previous owners.

Nearly 600 people, almost all German and Swiss emigrants, established and lived in the Aurora Colony, a Christian communal society, from 1856 to 1883. Christian communal living in the Aurora Colony was carried out by individuals who were members of specific family groups, and this was notably unlike other Christian colonies that practiced

We toured the Colony Museum and visited two of the many antique shops that are housed in former colony homes and business before returning to the museum for our candlelight tour. The tour was not exactly what we expected. It was really a tour amidst a melodrama recounting the occasion of one of the rare marriages at the colony. Marriages were rare and some courtships lasted into the tens of years because of Dr. Keil’s stricture on celibacy which appears to have been good for the congregation, but not for him. I suspect that Dr. Keil had issues and as we all know these utopian communities rarely work out long term and those that demand celibacy are doomed to failure. We had hoped to see more of the home our heroine finally got, but had to be statisfied with ending the melodrama in her parlor.

The picture that Kirkpatrick paints of the Keil Community in all its incarnations isn’t romanticized. Emma Wagner Geisy, who was a real woman, grows from a rather silly young woman into a desperate one and ultimately into a very strong and balanced one, despite living in unusual circumstances. That’s why I liked the books. I enjoy reading about strong women.

Nikki bought a map of a walking tour of Aurora which we intend to do someday when the weather is more hospitable.

A Date Which May Not Always Live in Infamy

2009-12-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Today is a hard day for me, one of the special days when I particularly miss my dad. He was nineteen and his brother twenty, fresh off the farm in the Missouri Ozarks and stationed at Kaneohe Naval Air Station on December 7th, 1941.

My father left behind an autobiography in which he describes laying in his grandmother’s yard trying to take a nap in the sun, but bees kept buzzing around and annoying him. He waked up to find himself in his bunk at Kaneohe and that the bees were Japanese Zeroes.

His first thought when he looked out at the flames already rising from the tarmac and hangar area were for his older brother who had been on duty there overnight. He pulled on his dungarees and bolted out the door looking for him. It was chaos with sailors running every which way trying to find a means of shooting back. The wounded were walking around dazed and the scene was surreal to my dad.

After helping pull a PBY from a burning hangar, he finally found his brother and together they mounted a 50 cal. machine gun in the waist hatch of a PBY what was empty of gas and being worked on. While Dad fed the ammo, his brother trained the machine gun on the Zeroes, successfully shooting down one, possibly the first “kill” of WWII, but in the confusion of that morning, nothing is certain.

What is certain is the fact that December 7th 1941 changed the lives of those two boys and a lot of others forever. My father wrote of a disconnect that happened that day as he was catapulted from boyhood to manhood and the sense of loss of innocence. He said that it changed him forever. For one thing, Dad was scheduled to take a test for Annapolis on December 8th, a dream he’d had since childhood. December 7th changed all that and the course of his life.

I have a picture of two baby-faced boys standing in a bomb crater with their 50 cal machine gun (after the first wave they were made to move it to the crater which was less of a target than the PBY), my father with binoculars and my uncle shielding his eyes from the Hawaiian sun, both with their eyes on the sky. I had seen the picture when my father found it in the National Archives, but I didn’t fully appreciate the impact it had to have had on them until I had teenage boys of my own and realized that they had been babies.

Moreover, I had a new appreciation for what my grandmother went through. She had been in Missouri visiting her parents at that time and had lain awake with her cousin listening to the radio reports and wondering if her two oldest children were dead or alive. Back before email, cell phones or even good long distance, it could take days and weeks for people to get letters and telegrams. She immediately returned to her home in Vancouver, Washington by train and reached there before a telegram from my dad and uncle arrived telling the family that they were alive and well. In the meantime it was erroneously reported in the Greenfield, Missouri weekly paper that the boys had been killed. A lot of misinformation came out of the chaos of that day.

Now December 7th goes unnoticed by the general population. The Greatest Generation is disappearing into history and the Baby Boomers are graying. Someday the words “Remember Pearl Harbor” will have about as much meaning as “Remember the Maine.” That only ads to my sadness this day.

The Importance of Being On Time

2009-12-02T13:35:00.001-08:00

Punctuality is seen differently in different cultures. On the Long Beach Peninsula you are lucky if a tradesperson shows up on the appointed day and flabbergasted if they are early. We call that “Beach Time.” Last Friday I called the electrician there who had rewired our house to complain that our living room fixture was dangling by the wires instead of firmly fixed to the ceiling. We were told that everyone was out repairing lines from the storm the previous Saturday. I asked if they could put me on the list just in case someone had time on the way home and imagine my surprise when two guys showed up just as we were sitting down to dinner!

On Whidbey Island they call the lateness phenomenon “Island Time.” On reservations it is called “Indian Time.” In Argentina it is an affront to the host and hostess to show up to a party on time as they likely will still be dressing. But for the vast majority of working Americans showing up on time is expected. In Western society being late tells people who don’t value their time.

Most employers want you to appear at the appointed hour and to get their full measure of work from you. I used to show up early for work, as much as 45 minutes. I liked having time to settle in and get my bearings before the students arrived, but the district does not pay me until the stroke of 7:30 AM when school starts and as my aversion for the job has grown so have I come later and later, but still am there on time.

Which brings me to students and their parents. Out of the approximately 1,600 students at Gig Harbor High School something in the neighborhood of 130 are tardy for the beginning of the day. This does not take into consideration those who are tardy to class the rest of the day, just the ones that come anywhere from a few minutes to an hour late. Maybe it is only because Gig Harbor is an upper middle class community, but the majority of parents excuse their child’s tardiness, even when it is habitual. What are we teaching our children about a work ethic?

When I complained about a student’s habitual tardiness to the school’s “Behavior Interventionist,” he informed me that an employer will be more flexible than I am. I don’t know what alternate universe this guy is operating under (he has been counseled himself for his own tardiness), but in the real world we do students, even Special Education Student—perhaps particularly them, a no favor by not teaching them to be on time or that there are consequences to tardiness. Maybe my student should consider moving to Argentina.

Okay, that’s my rant for the day and the view from my broom.

2009-12-01T13:34:00.001-08:00

No one need be surprised that President Obama is widening the war in Afghanistan. Even before he declared his intention to run for president he never made any secret of his belief that Afghanistan was the war of importance that had largely been forgotten by the Bush Administration’s obsession with Iraq.

So now we are to send 30,000 more Americans to fight for democracy to be instituted in a country with no history of it and purportedly to make the United States safer. It was the Bush Administration’s policy to prosecute war in Iraq and Afghanistan with no inconvenience to the American public. During a recession it is time for Americans to be inconvenienced by the war. I believe that the American government should return to selling war bonds to Americans. If our government feels that keeping the Taliban and Al-Qaida out of Afghanistan will make the United States safer it is time for us to directly support the war with our pocketbooks.

After 9-11 I thought the government would institute rationing of gas and spend real money in overcoming the Middle East’s real stranglehold on the United States—oil. I thought that we’d be called on to sacrifice to protect our country as my parents generation did during WWII, but President Bush didn’t want us looking too closely at the reasons we were going into Iraq or how he ignored Afghanistan. Maybe the time has come for us to step up to the plate.

Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee David Obey is leading an effort to impose a tax to pay for the war. According to The Week, Obey’s “Share the Sacrifice Act” would impose a 1% tax on income between $30,000 and $150,000 with wealthier American’s paying higher rates. The Bush policy of hiding what the war was costing in terms of dollars and lives (by not showing returning coffins) put Americans at a distance from the war. A war tax or campaign to buy war bonds would give the public a real sense of the cost of the war and of participating. Maybe it would meet with opposition, but it is time that Americans became aware, on a daily basis, of the cost of war. Only then will they decide to put their full weight behind the war or demand that the United States withdraw.

Chasing the Storm

2009-11-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

On the night of December 2nd, 2007 the coast of Washington and Oregon was slammed by hurricane force winds that left a wake of destruction reminiscent of the eruption of Mt. St. Helen’s or the atmospheric explosion of a meteorite. The infrastructures of the communities that dot the coastal region were devastated. Roads were rendered impassible, power lines were down everywhere as were telephone lines. Flooding was rampant in communities built near the sea. My mother lives in Ilwaco, Washington at the mouth of the Columbia River and for three days we were out of contact with her. Although phone lines were down we knew that she was sitting in a cold dark apartment. As soon as the roads onto the Long Beach Peninsula were opened we drove down to see what we could do to help her. By the time we arrived her ordeal of no power had just ended so we got her some fresh groceries and promised that should any other such storm that promised so much devastation be headed toward her we would come and fetch her away.

Last week the coast was pummeled by storm after storm. Mother came through the first four with her lights only being out for 2 and a half hours. I became complacent. Friday night I checked the NOAA website and it looked like the storm predicted for Saturday night wasn’t going to be as bad as that which they’d had on Monday. Sunday morning we woke to the news that the coast of Washington had been slammed by a storm that had been much more severe. From a Facebook friend who lives in Ilwaco we learned that not only was the power out (her parents have a generator), but that it was a major BPA line that might take as long as 3-5 days to repair. Although the phone lines were not down this time, we were out of contact with my mother because her corded phone was malfunctioning and her cordless phone had no power. The question became what should we do?

After making phone calls to PUD, the Pacific County Sheriff’s Department, and my cousin who lives down there I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to drive down and rescue my mother from her cold dark apartment. How I was going to get her down the stairs from the second floor I would deal with when I got there. A check of the DOT website indicated that the roads were open so my husband and I hopped in the car and were off. Clearly this storm had not been anywhere as devastating as the 2007 storm. The more inland communities appeared to have power although during the day it is difficult to tell which houses had lights on. When we got to Montesano we stopped for a bathroom and snack break and that is where we were when my aunt called to say that the power had just come back on. She’d spoken to my mother who was fine. At that point we could have turned around and gone back to Gig Harbor, but we decided to complete the trip and take her the telephone. Although we will be going to Ilwaco for Thanksgiving the fact that the coast has had storm after storm the past week my knowing that my mother now has a phone that should work even if the power goes out again.

Life on the Washington/Oregon coast makes being prepared a necessity. It is difficult to care for an aging mother from 150 miles away and the time will come when we will have to move our mode of operations to Ilwaco. We are wrestling with out desire to live their fulltime vs our desire to help our children who live with us. Can’t put a cute grandson to the curb, but don’t like leaving a great-grandmother sitting in the cold for days at a time.

Aunt Bee's Sweet 'Tators

2009-11-21T11:51:00.001-08:00

Today I continued my Thanksgiving preparations by baking yams. When we were living in California my mother cut out an ad (or maybe she saw it on TV) and ordered a copy of Aunt Bee’s Mayberry Cookbook. My mother loves to cook and loves cookbooks. Not only does this particular cookbook contain literally heart-stopping recipes, it also has pictures from Andy Griffith’s Mayberry show. Because the recipes are very down home, but very unhealthy, I don’t use the cookbook much, but at holidays I figure calories and fat don’t count. Several years ago I was fishing around for a sweet potato recipe that did not involve marshmallows because my husband thinks that they are disgusting prepared that way.

To me Thanksgiving is a time when it is okay to eat those old fashioned high calories dishes so I pulled out Aunt Bee’s and discovered “Raleigh’s Budding Executive Sweet ‘Tater Casserole.” This recipe is not exactly sugar free; on the contrary, but there are no marshmallows so I made it. My husband says that it’s still pretty sweet for a side dish, but the children fell in love with it. I use yams only because they are prettier. I also double the recipe because it will generously fill a 9X13 inch pan and maybe leave you some to have with leftover turkey. I’m freezing my yams for transport to Ilwaco next week where I will put the whole thing together, but I have also baked the whole thing ahead and frozen it.

Raleigh’s Budding Executive Sweet ‘Tater Casserole

3 C. cooked, mashed sweet potatoes (my daughter-in-law has taken canned yams in her suitcase to make this recipe in Brazil and it worked fine.)
1 C. white sugar
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla extract (if you use imitation, which you shouldn’t, use twice as much)
1/3 C. milk
½ C. butter
1 C. brown sugar
1/3 C. all-purpose flour
1/3 C. butter
1 C. pecans—chopped

In a mixing bowl combine the sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, and ½ C. butter. Beat until smooth. Turn the mixture into a casserole dish. In a bowl combine brown sugar, flour, and 1/3 C. butter. Crumble the mixture over the potato mixture and sprinkle with pecans. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. You can do this while the turkey is standing.

Thanksgiving Memories

2009-11-20T12:05:00.000-08:00

Next to Halloween, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. What I like about it is that Madison Avenue hasn’t figured out a way to commercialize it. Oh sure, Safeway and Fred Meyer will try to get you to spend a lot of money—$150 this year—to get a free turkey, but for the most part they have had to resort to whipping up the buying frenzy for the day after Thanksgiving in what has become known as Black Friday. We are untraditional in that we don’t participate in Black Friday because that is the day we celebrate Thanksgiving.

We started doing that a number of years ago when the children lived in Tacoma and there was only one bridge across the Narrows. Apparently every grandma with family in Tacoma must live in Gig Harbor or the Olympic Peninsula because it took the children two hours to make a twenty minute trip. Finally, my middle son asked if we couldn’t just have dinner the next day. It seemed highly unorthodox, but we quickly discovered that the turkey and stuff and all of the trimmings tasted the same on Friday as on Thursday and a new tradition was born. Now we have moved our celebration 150 miles to the Long Beach Peninsula where my mother, her sister, and my cousin live. It’s a logistical battle plan to get everything to our old Victorian in Ilwaco, but otherwise my little extended family is alone and resort to Thanksgiving at Denny’s or something equally as sad.

I asked some friends what their favorite Thanksgiving memories are. One said that her brother made a “pie” of marshmallows, peanut butter, candy bars and every other sweet he could get his hands on when he was a child. Another said that her mother let her and her siblings chose their favorite food and prepared everything from tacos to spaghetti for Thanksgiving.

One of my favorite memories is of one of our first years during our stint in California. The holidays made me more homesick than I was on a daily basis, missing the green of Washington and my extended family of uncles, aunts, grandparents and my dad. We had only my husband’s cousin, who being from Iran was a little fuzzy on what Thanksgiving was supposed to be, so we did what we could to make the day seem special. At the time I was working shelving books in a library and had brought home a book of children’s poetry just before this one particular Thanksgiving. My middle son decided to read a poem to entertain us after dinner and I still remember him getting dressed up in his best clothes and putting on a red bow tie. Suddenly the thousand miles between California and home shrank and Thanksgiving came to where we were. It was priceless.

Our first Thanksgiving back in Washington was pretty special. After some help from my cousin we were able to secure a house to rent in Chinook. My uncle in Beaverton, Oregon had sent us a turkey and the Elks in Long Beach gave us one, too along with boxes and boxes of food. Our table groaned that year and my mother’s sister and my cousins and their children all gathered at our house and it was reminiscent of years long ago at my grandparents in Vancouver.

When we began taking Thanksgiving from Gig Harbor to Ilwaco we began another tradition that just happened as a result of the long, usually dark, drive from Gig Harbor to there. Wednesday afternoon after school I would take my daughter and my youngest son, the dog and the turkey and whatever else we needed and we’d head out. After stopping to eat along the way I’d turn on KGO talk radio. That’s a San Francisco station that I got into the habit of listening to during our six years in the Bay Area. Bernie Ward was the late night host and the night before Thanksgiving was always a discussion of cooking turkeys. While Amy slept in the backseat, Nadir and I listened to all the calls and all the ways people were cooking their turkeys. Because KGO has such a big broadcast tower they would get calls from all over the Western and Southwestern United States so there were lots of opinions. We made our trek this way several years in a row until one year Nadir cooked the turkey himself after having soaked it in brine.

Buying our 15.5 pound organic turkey yesterday was bittersweet because now Nadir lives in the Bay Area and won’t be with us this year, but I can already feel the merriment next week will bring as most of the rest of us gather in our old house. We have friends whose only child lives elsewhere and have been adopted by us. They are in charge of the turkey and have been ever since they persuaded us to let them barbeque one. It was and always is the best turkey I’ve ever put in my mouth. They have trucked their Weber all the way from Gig Harbor to give this gift of a succulent bird to us.

As with most other Americans, my weekend will be filled with preparing for next week. One of the beauties of Thanksgiving is that it is something that every American participates in. Since it is not a religious holiday, no one need feel left out. I know as I bake my cornbread for stuffing and make my sweet potato casserole to be frozen and then driven, that there are others baking pies and polishing silver. We are a part of a huge celebration of remembering our blessing.

Getting Twice the Husband at Half the Income.

2009-11-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

For about a year we have been living with the knowledge that my husband’s job was going to end. The only question was when. Dave works at Seattle Flight Service briefing pilots on the weather and filing flight plans. This is a job he’s done since he was in the Army in the 1970s. During the 1980s he went to work for the FAA when Regan fired all the air traffic controllers. He’s been at the Seattle facility since 1989. Three years ago Lockheed Martin won the bid to take over the flight service section of the FAA. The result of this effort to save money has been reduced staff, inferior equipment, and unhappy employees. Fortunately, Dave had enough time in with the FAA to retire from the government before he went to work for Lockheed Martin. We’ve not touched his retirement which has gone into an ING account. We all know how well the economy’s been doing so we are not going to be living in the lap of luxury.

Over the past year the skeleton staff at Seattle Flight Service has been rife with rumors and interpretations of everything Lockheed did, trying to discern which facilities were going to be closed and when. We’ve joked that they’ve done everything to read the minds of the Lockheed executives, but hire a gypsy to read tea leaves. Yesterday, as Dave says, the hammer fell. February 1st has been set for the closure of the Seattle facility. Scheduling the closure just before the Olympic in British Columbia is as mysterious as everything else Lockheed has done since they took over.

Twenty-ten promises to be a very different year for us as I gain twice the husband at half the income. I intend to share our journey with you and the decisions we make. Our first is to not panic. Last year we made a commitment to my son, daughter-in-law and grandson, who live with us, to stay in Gig Harbor for three more years. That is to give them time to develop a little nest egg toward a place of their own when we sell the family home and move to the coast. We’ve two more years on our commitment and intend to make good on it. We just have to pull together. And there's always the Top Ramen. Hee, hee. Just kidding.

A Quilting Blog to Comfy Up With

2009-11-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

Blogonia buddy Lorraine Hart sent me the link to a new blog, An Appalachian Quilter’s Blog. It is managed by a semi-retired councilor and quilter who also has a book blog. According to her profile she lives in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, fifty years in the past, in “Mayberry” and not far from the real Mayberry the show was based on. I am adding her to my list so when you visit here you can see if she’s got something new and click right over to the blog.

Swimming in the Stream of Consciousness

2009-11-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday when I went out to walk Loki in the morning darkness, the wind was singing in the Doug Firs. I love the sound of the wind in Doug Firs and I felt that I could stand outside much longer than I had. It made me think of another storm long ago when I stood outside listening to the wind in other Doug Firs. My reminiscing about that night drew me into the stream of consciousness and I floated back to a very different part of my life.

The Fall of 1987 the children, my mother and I were living on Top Ramen in a drafty old house in Chinook, WA after having run away from my Iranian in-laws in CA. Despite being frightened, desperately poor, and much of the time without a car, there are things from that period that I find myself getting nostalgic over. When you’re living on the edge, small things can take on a heightened sense of importance.

After six years in CA I was very glad to be back in WA. It is not that I hadn’t attempted to love CA. I had, but no matter how hard I told myself that it would be my home for the rest of my life, on some cellular level I don’t think I had ever believed it. I was homesick in every fiber of my being for six years, so even being cold and poor I was happier in a house with no phone or cable two blocks from the Columbia River where the East wind could bring the bitter wind out of the Gorge, racing for the ocean.

So, frequently when Autumn arrives, I think back to that one we spent in Chinook and how different our lives are now. I would not return to those days for the world, but I do long for the simplicity of that time, minus the Top Ramen. This morning the wind in the trees took me back.

Come out into the storm,
You said to me,
And listen to the wind
Singing in the fir trees.

You stretched your arms
Toward the blackened sky
While Doug Firs swayed
In the Autumn storm.

A warrior you were,
Come back with
Wounded spirit
That fed on the energy
Of the tempest.

For a moment then,
Outside in the dark,
The drafty old house on the river
And meals of Top Ramen fell away,
As we danced with the trees.

Virtual Farming

2009-11-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

I play Farmville on Facebook. My husband thinks it’s kind of cool. My son Frank and his wife think I’m nuts, but my youngest plays, too and gives me tips as to how to make the most of my virtual farm.

Saturday morning on NPR Scott Simon interviewed Dean Takahashi, a blogger who writes in the Bay Area about gaming and technology, about the Farmville phenomenon. It turns out that I’m one of nearly 64 million people who have a little virtual patch of earth. Three of my coworkers play, too. They, along with my son, are my virtual neighbors on Farmville. One stopped me in the hall last week and we chatted about the blessing and curse of technology. “We just end up fertilizing each other’s fields,” Pat said. “I know,” I told her, but I really enjoy it!” “I do, too,” Pat laughed. We concluded that we’d each like simpler lives, but would never give up our technology.

I’ve spent the weekend thinking about why I like Farmville. In his interview with Takahashi, Simon theorized that while farms are declining in the United States, people yearn for what appears to be a simpler life. A fanciful simpler life. That’s part of it. Personally, in my early 20s having a farm was my fantasy. It never happened, but I can have a virtual farm on Facebook. Are you ever too old to pretend?

Hard core gamers are not attracted to Farmville. It’s not action packed. It’s like…watching vegetables grow. It’s only as competitive as you want it to be. Mostly you’re competing with yourself to get the most out of your plot to be able to expand and to “buy” things for your farm. The game is free although you can spend real money to get some of those things. I never would do that. I’m shooting to get to level 26 so I can buy the farm house I want. When I have enough “money” I will also expand my farm so there’s more room for crops and animals.

And you get to help your neighbors. You fertilize their gardens so they get more “experience” which translates into virtual money and you also get to send them gifts of animals, trees, and farm equipment. In most games the idea is to obliterate your neighbor. I like the gentleness of Farmville and it helps me to unwind after work. It’s a place where I have some control (the animals will walk around if you don’t make them stay or contain them) and it’s replaced solitaire on the computer for me.

For a long time I resisted signing up for Facebook, but it’s been a wonderful way for me to connect with old friends and new, and play games.

Excuse me. I have to go harvest my blueberries and decide what to plant next. Gotta get that farm house!

A Rambling Rose

2009-11-15T07:03:00.000-08:00

Reader’s who followed the posts I put up for Pat Kurz, Tacoman and Gig Harbor High School teacher, who spent a semester during the 2007-08 school year teaching in China, will be happy to know that Pat has continued to write. I am here to introduce her blog, Roseman’s Ramblings. Among her talents as teacher, writer and gamer, Pat is a gardener, particularly of roses (hence the name). In her blog she examines life as a Baby Boomer in a new century. She’s eclectic and gritty. She tells it like it is.

Remembering Veteran's at Tahoma National Cemetery

2009-11-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

My father was a survivor of Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. He served his country as a civilian aeronautical engineer during Operations Red Wing and Hardtack. The plaque that memorializes him is a thousand miles away in the Missouri Ozarks. I can’t take him flowers for Veteran’s Day, but since both my husband and I have the day off from work and like to do something meaningful to honor those who have served (so did my husband in peace time) we decided we would attend the ceremony at Tahoma National Cemetery in Covington, WA where the father and brother of my best friend are buried. Our families have known each other since we were very little girls and I knew she could not attend herself as she lives and works in Oregon. She did not get the day off.

Gail’s dad was a pilot in the Army Air Corps during WWII, flying a Liberator over Germany. He went on to be a Boeing Test pilot and carried his love of flying into retirement by building his own airplane. Both of his sons became pilots, one for the Air Force and one for the Army. The younger son, Neal, whom we took flowers, did two tours in Vietnam as a chopper pilot. His sudden death this Spring was the latest loss in a string of them for the family. All are buried at Tahoma.

I hate the fact that commercial enterprises turn Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day into sale days meant to line their pockets. I sent Amazon a nasty email at Memorial Day because of that and emailed the History Channel complaining because they turned Memorial Weekend into a Monster Quest marathon. Having said that, I was disappointed to find that Safeway had not made up any very patriotic looking bouquets and had them cobble together a bouquet of red carnations and one of baby’s breath into two, which the floral department clerk tied with red and white ribbon. It would have to do.

My girlfriend had suggested that I wear red, white and blue for the occasion which proved a problem since nearly everything in my closet is purple. I dug out my red jumper, generally reserved for Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and a white blouse. Carefully I pinned the WWII Sweetheart pin my mother wore onto my red sweater. No matter that they divorced when I was 18. For me it symbolizes my love and honor for my father.

Because it had been extremely rainy all week I asked my daughter-in-law to help me find my good umbrella. The sun was out, but I wanted to ensure that it would stay out. It turned out that it was a wonderful day for a drive and to wander around Tahoma National Cemetery. With my girlfriends directions we found first her father’s grave and then her brothers. People are buried in the order they arrive at Tahoma. Spouses can be buried together, but there are no “family plots.” After we had placed our flowers and taken pictures we walked to the flag area where there were formal ceremonies going on. When a cloud obscured the sun and the ceremonies were winding down we moved toward the car.

On our way out of the cemetery we stopped and paid our respects to Dave’s friend from the FAA, Chris Beal. Chris emigrated from England right out of school and joined the U.S. Army. He went to Vietnam because he wanted to really feel like he was giving to his new home country. He became a citizen and stayed in the Army to retirement. After the military he went to work for the FAA from which he also retired before his death in 2007.

Back in Tacoma we went out for a late lunch in Old Towne. The ladies went to the Hawthorn Tearoom and the fellas across the street to the Spar for fish and chips. Our timing was perfect in that we all finished at the same time and the weather was deteriorating by the time we got in the car to head home to Gig Harbor. It was satisfying to have participated in the ritual of taking flowers to soldiers and to remember my father, even if he is buried so far away. I still have some of my father’s ashes that I’d intended to take to Pearl Harbor, but am now thinking of asking the VA if we can put them at Tahoma. Then his family would have someplace closer at hand to go for Veteran’s Days.

The Day of the Dead

2009-11-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

This post is a week late. My excuse is that we’ve all been under the weather to a greater or lesser degree in our house and actually it was a little more than a week ago that I began to feel punk. Better late than never, my mother always says so here goes.

On the 1st of November the children, grandbabies and I attended the Tacoma Art Museum’s “Day of the Dead” exhibit. Left to my own devices I probably would have stayed home and might have been the better for it, but my oldest son Joshua had a painting that was part of one of the altars in the exhibit and it being a sunny Sunday after Halloween I felt that as a mother and someone who truly feels the nearness of the dead at this time of year I met Josh and his family at their home in Tacoma and we drove to the park and ride where we rode the little train to the museum. It would have been easier to park at the museum, but five-year-old granddaughter Linda wanted to ride the train and since it was free we decided to indulge her. Frank & Ana brought five-year-old Gabriel in their own car and parked at the museum. Although they had to pay for parking, the entrance was free that day so it made up for the parking.

In the lobby of the Tacoma Art Museum was a bright sand painting welcoming us and the dead who were being honored. The Day of the Dead is a largely Hispanic practice, but after attending the exhibition daughter-in-law Ana and I have decided that it will become our family practice as well.

Upstairs were the altars. Some were created by individual artists, some by groups including school classes. As we walked around looking at the imaginative things on the altars, most decorated with marigolds, the traditional flow for the Day of the Dead. Each altar was as individual as the person for whom it was created. The artist who had created the one that Josh’s painting of a skull was incorporated into had placed many, many corks on it as well as an empty beer bottle. We concluded that her grandfather was fond of drink, but his picture in uniform from WWII was respectfully displayed in the middle. There was no judgment.

Besides the display of altars there were activities. Granddaughter Linda first wanted to get her face painted while the rest of us waited in line to decorate sugar skulls. Children and adults alike enjoyed creating colorful sugar skulls to take home. Another room was given over to the making of tissue paper flowers which the children enjoyed.

Downstairs in a small performance room dancers and bands performed. Being a small room there was not room for all those who would have liked to see the performances. The babies sat on adult shoulders and got to see some of it, but when the press of the crowd became too much we all wandered off to look at other museum exhibits.

The day was a great success. My high school art teacher son got ideas for next year and his Clover Park students and Ana and I came away with ideas for an altar in our home next year. To have the opportunity to go to the museum for free and to experience the Day of the Dead exhibition was wonderful. I highly recommend that more people take advantage of the gift Tacoma Art Museum give to citizens by making this event (and others) free.

Two tired museum goers ride the train back to the park and ride.

2009-11-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

The massacre at Ft. Hood is tragic and possibly a demonstration of how difficult it is to live up the ideals of our founding fathers as outlined in the Constitution and to which we aspire. There is no possible justification for the actions of Nidal Hasan and one could strongly make a case for people with personality disorders being draw to the psychiatric and psychologically professions, but there is something in American society that disenfranchises citizens who are not of Northern European dissent.

With the exception of the Native American population we are a nation of immigrants. Some families have been here for more than 400 years, some, like Hasan’s, since the 1950s, some since the Vietnam War and many we are “welcoming,” with more or less success, as a result of the wars the United States is currently embroiled in. Unfortunately there is an element in this country that because they descend from that Northern European stock thinks that other immigrants, legal and illegal, is changing the fabric of the United States. That’s true, but it doesn’t follow that the change is bad. If we aspire to be the land of equality and opportunity we surely ought not to be the land of stagnation. Each person who comes here with aspirations of bettering themselves not only are following in the footsteps of those who arrived on the Godspeed or the Mayflower, but bring with them new colors and traditions to enrich what is already here.

There are cries from some quarters to “take back the country” meaning roll back the clock to the 1950s or farther where only certain people enjoyed the freedoms of the Constitution. Instead, it is the liberal minded people who need to rally for taking back the ideals upon which this country was founded and be having tea parties of their own demanding that every citizen be given a fair shake at pursuing happiness in health.

During WWII the United States Government rounded up Americans of Japanese decent and put them in concentration camps for the duration of the war. One of the few tickets out was for men to join the Army as part of the 442nd, the mostly highly decorated unit in American military history, all the while their parents, wives, sisters, nieces and nephews were living through one of the country’s most shameful episodes. Following 9-11 I feared that the hysteria over people of Middle Eastern decent would cause the Bush Administration to do something similar. My own fear was personal since my youngest son is of Persian decent. Fortunately Bush kept his concentration camp small and located on the Island of Cuba.

The American media are not guiltless in perpetuating stereotypes of people who don’t fit the European model. For years Hollywood used Italian Americans to play grunting American Indians or even more ridiculously blue eyed Jeff Chandler who played no only Cochise, but Jesus as well. Even if you suspend your disbelief to swallow the notion that there was a time in this country when whites believed that all the Indians were gone, I have no clue where Hollywood thought the Jews had got to since many of them were heads of studios. Since they were still being excluded from country clubs maybe those movie moguls thought it better not to rock that boat. Now we have a new movie, Prince of Persia, based on the video game of the same name. Who has Hollywood cast as the prince? A Swede. Go figure. Persians have a hard enough time getting Americans to understand that they aren't Arabs. Now they have this whole Swede thing to deal with.

Unfortunately, much of the bleating masses in this country get their history and cultural lessons from movies and television including the faux news on FOX. Those entities have the power to shape American opinion even if they claim only to entertain and can do more to damage the American aspiration to live up to the ideals of freedom, democracy, equality, opportunity and rights.

As the two American holidays of Veteran's Day and Thanksgving draw near, it is up to ever right minded American to do whatever they can to ameliorate injustice where they find it and pray that there is no backlash from this most recent tragedy in Texas.

Working for the Ideals

2009-11-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my husband Dave and I chose to spend part of Halloween standing on a street corner in Tacoma, demonstrating for equal rights for all citizens. Those who put Initiative 71 before the people sought to over-turn the State of Washington’s “everything, but marriage, law” passed last year. Just when it seemed that Washington had struck a blow for fairness and enlightenment, the unenlightened Born Again Hypocrites in the state thought that they’d make and end-run around equality.

What drew us out despite our overwhelming belief that 71 will pass was the experience last weekend of a coworker who had demonstrated in front of Border’s Books on 38th in Tacoma. He was verbally abused by a church group demonstrating to reject the initiative. The story made its way around the local Facebook community and another rally was born. We were all excited when Dave decided to go across the street and stand with the Reject group. He left when they brought out a bull horn, but the Tacoma Police Department made them put it away.

Dave and I fail to see how allowing committed couples to make decisions about end of life issues, inheritance, and benefits impacts their lives. If anything, we see it as strengthening of the entire community of Americans. We also honor every American’s right to an opinion and free speech so we were respectful of the Slavic church group who showed up with their “one man, one woman, protect the children,” but really can’t understand how Initiative 71 is damaging to anyone’s children or marriage, especially since it has nothing to do with marriage. Of course they had the “slippery slope” theory which also doesn’t hold water since the fact that the heterosexual couple down the street gets a divorce or our homosexual friends are allowed to marry, impacts our marriage not in the least.

One of the beauties of American democracy is not only the right to free speech, but freedom of religion which means that no one can force their religious values down the throat of any other citizen. The Declaration of Independence was about the ideals of equality, opportunity, liberty, rights and democracy. We did not begin as a nation adhering to all of these ideals for every citizen, but we are an ever evolving society, seeking to make the dream come true for everyone.

A Poet's Hart

2009-10-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

Drum roll please! It is with a great deal of pleasure that I bring to you dear reader a wonderful new blog The Poet’s Hart featuring the poetry of my dear blognian Lorraine Hart. Lorraine is a poetess, wise woman, photographer, writer, singer/song writer, expat-Brit who lives out on Key Peninsula at Home in Northwest Washington. I would like to add that she is my treasured friend. Check out her stuff!

Pumpkin Caving

2009-10-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

Monday was pumpkin carving night for our family. First we needed pumpkins so GrandDave took Grandson Gabriel and his Aunt Amy to Patterson’s Fruit & Vegetable stand to pick out pumpkins. It would have been cheaper for GrandDave to go to Fred Meyer, but that doesn’t have the cache of something closer to the farmer and Amy loves Patterson’s. She keeps track of the turning of the seasons by the state of this Gig Harbor institution. She knows they will close after Halloween until the day after Thanksgiving when they will open with Christmas trees and a Santa waving from the corner on weekends.

Had either Gabriel’s mother or Amy’s mother been the one taking them to get pumpkins there wouldn’t have been the tonnage that GrandDave took away from the stand, but we were grateful that he was off from work and could be in charge. Amy & Gabriel thought that everyone in the family needed their own personal pumpkin and that bigger was better. After they’d picked out huge ones and GrandDave had loaded them into the trunk of the car they celebrated with sandwiches at Subway and movies from Hollywood Video.

The actual pumpkin carving occurred at Josh & Jamie’s house in Tacoma following Gabriel’s and cousin Linda’s gymnastics classes. There plastic garbage bags were cut open and spread and the carving begun. We only got three carved, one for each grandchild, before we sat down to a wonderful supper of curried chicken and rice and salad. GrandDave escaped actual carving that night by keeping baby Lydia out of the pumpkin goo since everything she comes in contact with goes into her mouth, but he’s been working on getting the rest of the gourds carved. The clock says he’d better hurry!

Last night the elementary school near our home did “trunk or treat.” When my youngest was in elementary school they had a Halloween carnival put on by the students and parents. The Born Again Hypocrites have since pressured the school into ending this tradition so since we are a somewhat rural area where trick or treating can be a dark and dicey proposition some of the parents willing to brave the invocation of Satan came up with the “trunk or treat” that just doesn’t do it for us. Parading around a parking lot isn’t the same as going house to house. It may be less mess than the carnival, but isn’t as much fun. We are opting instead to go to Tacoma to the Proctor District where there are neighborhoods with real sidewalks and where they close a business district street just so the little ones can have a safe, yet fun Halloween experience.

Art Imitating Life

2009-10-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

Since it began in January 2005, my husband and I have been fans of “Medium” starring Patricia Arquette who plays Alison Dubois, a profiler with the Phoenix police department who’s ESP and dreams help solve mostly murder cases. It wasn’t until Dave and I were perusing through Half Price Books that I discovered that Alison Dubois, her husband Joe and their three children are real people.

Being something of a fan of what some folks would call “whoo, whoo,” naturally I had to buy Don’t Kiss Them Goodbye, Dubois’ book about her talent and work helping law enforcement as well as acting as a medium between people and their loved ones who have passed on. Besides, it’s the perfect time of year to be reading about someone who claims the ability to communicate with the dead.

Remembering the Roots of Halloween

2009-10-26T08:42:00.001-07:00

Among the many egregious things the Christian Right has attempted to do is to eliminate the celebration of Halloween from public schools and public life. Chances are that every one of these so-called good Christian folks trick or treated themselves as children. This anti-Halloween movement seems to have begun to get noticed in the late 1990s when the rumors that Halloween was a Satanic holiday began to circulate.

It is true that like most of our holidays, Christian and secular, that Halloween has its roots firmly planted in the pagan past, but the association with Satan or the devil or his minions is entirely a fabricated by the Church to keep the people frightened. Our European pagan ancestors and those who practice paganism today do not even believe in the existence of the devil, much less worship him. That is not to say that there are not some disturbed people who do worship the concept of evil, but they have nothing to do with paganism or Halloween.

The celebration of Halloween in the United States is all about costumes, trick or treating, and sometimes mischief. My father told of boys tipping over outhouses and pranks of the like. What most Americans don’t realize is that Halloween or Samhain marks a sacred Celtic Day marking the end of summer and ushering in the dark half of the year. The eve refers to the day before All Souls day when the souls of those who had crossed over were honored and which the Christian Church co-opted as All Saints Day.

This ending of a season and the chance for introspection is a perfect time for transformation. The Autumn season is ideal for turning inward and examining what we would like the coming Spring and rebirth to be.

Passing By the Woods

2009-10-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

With a tip of my hat to folks like Guy Holliday and Lady Lorraine Hart, I turn my pen to poetry because it's been three long weeks of loss.

Passng By the Woods

This afternoon
I drove past
The woods where
Peter took his life.
Flowers
Left by the sign
A make-shift memorial
To someone
Who wanted
A permanent solution
To a temporary problem.
And my heart aches
For a soul gone
Too soon.

Street Corner Poems on Aloha and 20th

2009-10-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

I am always excited to share blog spot I’ve “discovered” because I love to write and I love to read so here I am again. I would like to introduce to you a retired officer and gentleman who grew up across the street from my husband and eight blocks from me in Bellevue. I was friends with his older brother, but I’m happy to catch up with little brother Guy at an interesting time of his life.

Guy is a retired captain in the U.S. Navy who lives and writes in Seattle on Capitol Hill. Another brother gave me the heads up on what he’s up to all these years later. I am always in awe of poets because I haven’t the gift. If you’d like to see what a Puget Sound neighbor is writing click here.

My Worst Nightmare Continues

2009-10-13T18:39:00.000-07:00

We lost another young person at school last night. That it happens at all if far too often, but it feels like it is becoming too common. I don’t believe that there were any suicides during my 13 years of public school education, but my mother says that there was at her high school when she was a senior. Since I have worked at the high school level there have been five in ten years.

The school community and greater community mourn with the family and all ask ourselves what are we as parents, educators and a society not doing to prepare our children to live this life? The deaths have cut across economic, academic and social groups. The young man we just lost was not part of the disenfranchised. He was well liked, smart—in all AP classes—involved in school activities—wrestling and debate—and seemed funny and outgoing. A bit of the class clown.

But what about the under achievers who frequently self-medicate with alcohol or illegal drugs? What are we neglecting to say or do or see that would prevent any student from slipping into dispair so dark that they believed they could not climb out?

The administration at school has had to walk a knife edge, wanting to acknowledge the students’ and community’s loss without glamorizing the act itself; honoring the genuine grief of students and staff, but not setting the student body into a cycle of despair. There were tears and hugs today as the shock sunk in. What did we miss?

Choked with tears, one teacher told his class that they don’t realize how important each of them is to the staff at school and encouraged anyone dealing with seemingly insurmountable problems to talk to a friend and particularly a teacher or councilor before taking a step that takes those who love them with them.

If burying a child is my greatest nightmare, having the death be at their own hand would be even more devastating. It would be a temptation to give myself the luxury of slipping into madness. My heart aches for the family.

Mystery Aboard the Tippecanoe

2009-10-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

This story was previously published on the Tacoma News Tribune blogspot "In Your Neighborhood." It is my father’s story and I believe it to be true although so far I’ve not been able to verify the incident that occurred on the U.S.S. Tippecanoe when my father sailed on her from San Diego. Although my father liked a good joke as much as the next person and maybe more, I believe that he was deadly serious when he told this story. Deadly. It would have made a good story for the old "Lights Out" radio program so turn off the lights and enjoy a scary story to tell in the dark.

My father was eighteen, in the Navy and stationed in San Diego that January of 1941. He had been ordered to report aboard the USS Tippecanoe for transport with Patrol Wing One. Dad would be joining his 20 year old brother whom he'd followed into the Navy. Life in San Diego had been vastly different from the hills of the Missouri Ozarks for the brothers. My father anticipated his assignment as an adventure. He didn’t realize the trip there would be an adventure in itself.

The young men of Patrol Wing One, fresh from basic, were greeted by a surly coxswain in a motor mac from the U.S.S. Tippecanoe, when they in their spanking whites a contrast to the grubby boat and crew, who snarled, “Airdales,” and an expletive, the Naval Air Corps not being seen as real Navy by sailors stationed aboard a ship.

My father tried to ask the coxswain what sort of ship the Tippecanoe was. “You’ll find out soon enough, Mac. She’s a rusty old bucket and the crew is a bunch of goof-offs! I think they moored her out on Point Loma so she don’t clutter up their nice clean harbor!”

The Tippecanoe was an oiler of pre World War I vintage and the dreariest old bucket in the Navy fleets of auxiliary and support ships. The seamen were disappointed that they would not be sailing with a more stately ship.

Instead of taking my father and his crew mates to the pier where the Tippecanoe was moored, the coxswain laid the whaleboat alongside the platform at the foot of the steep sea accommodation ladder where the motor mac tossed their bags with a bow hook. Not an auspicious beginning. The men had a difficult time negotiating the ladder carrying their heavy sea bags with hammocks lashed around them.

Once they had achieved the main deck and had properly saluted the colors aft and the officer of the deck, a burly CPO identified himself as the boson, Larzenarski who took their orders. He left them sitting on the cofferdams in the hot San Diego sun for more than thirty minutes before a seaman appeared and led them to their quarters.

Just as they were laying out their hammocks and horsehair mattresses on the steel bunk frames, Chief Larzenarski came down the steep entry ladder. His weathered round face was set in a perpetual scowl.

“Listen up, you people,” he growled. “You goddam airdales ain’t in for no pleasure cruise. You are temporary ship’s company of the Tipsoo assigned to the deck division of which I happen to be the chief.

“Your division officer is Lieutenant Williams who is one mean s.o.b. that goes strictly by the book. Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill is posted on the bulletin board aft by the mess compartment. Check it out.

“Uniform of the day is dungarees unless otherwise posted so get out them whites before evening chow. As long as you are aboard, you are in the working Navy.!”

It was 1600 hours, the end of the work day so Dad and his mates changed into dungarees, finished stowing their gear and went topside. At the stern they found the mess compartment and the bulletin board the CPO had mentioned and found the grim coxswain of the motor whaleboat sitting against a bulkhead stropping a wicked looking belt knife on the leather of his shoe. The name stenciled on his blue dungaree shirt was “Sullivan” and there was the badge of a second class petty officer in stencil on his left sleeve. Dad dropped down beside him.

“Hi, Sullivan. Some ship.”

The coxswain eyed Dad piercingly, but some of the antagonism went out of his sour face. “Yeah, some ship! This here old bucket just been reactivated from the reserve fleet. Standard Oil had her. She’s a pile of junk and you’ll find out most of the crew are either the dregs of the Navy or are reserves. Only thing worse than an airdale is a reserve!”

“Chief Larzenarski doesn’t seem very friendly,” Dad observed ignoring the affront.
Sullivan snorted bitterly, “Friendly! Bastard is the meanest sonabitch on the ship. Wasn’t for him, I could make chief and be the boson’s mate myself. I was first class and he got me busted! Ten years I got in this canoe club and he gets me busted for bringing a little booze aboard. I’d like to see the sonabitch go over the side some dark night!”

Sullivan tested the sharp edge of the knife by shaving some hairs from his forearm while Dad said, “Larzenarski says Lt. Williams is a mean s.o.b. How about that?”

The coxswain sheathed the knife.

“He is and he ain’t. Regular Navy ring pounder out of Annapolis, but he must have fouled up somewhere or he wouldn’t be on this old scow. Yeoman says he been passed over once for promotion to lieutenant commander. Hard man and Navy regs is his bible, but he don’t seem to have many friends. He’s the ship’s first lieutenant and division officer of the deck gang. He’ll ride the hell out of you just like Larzenarski and you won’t like him, but you gotta respect him.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the P.A. system. The boson’s pipe shrilled and a bored voice said, “Now hear this. Chow down.”

The next day Patrol Wing One found out that the Tippecanoe would not sail for two more weeks. In the meantime the ship would be subjected to an admiral’s inspection. To make the old ship ready, both Lt. Williams and Chief Larzenarski drove the men unmercifully. Paint parties went over the side to scrape the worst rust spots, coat them with red lead, then apply a fresh coat of navy grey. Everyone scraped and painted the ship from bow to stern except for the brass. “If it moves, salute it. If it don’t move, paint it!” became the rule. And all the brass was polished.

By the time of the admiral’s inspection came the transformation of the old ship was amazing. Decks, bulkheads, and side plates were resplendent in fresh grey paint. Every bit of brass gleamed in the sunlight. Quarters and all other below deck decks spaces had been scrubbed and painted. The ancient brass washbasin in the head gleamed like gold. When the inspection party was piped aboard, the entire crew had been mustered in immaculate white uniforms and shined dress shoes. At that moment Dad was proud of the old Tippecanoe.

Two days after inspection the Tippecanoe’s engines rumbled into life and the P.A. system blared, “Now hear this. All hands, man your special sea details

Dad had been assigned to the first crow’s nest watch on the high foremast so he scrambled up the seventy feet of steel rungs welded to the foremast to the small, waist-high metal can that was the foremast lookout.

Below, the ship’s crew not assigned to sea details manned the rails in non-dress whites. The mooring hawsers splashed into the water and with a “whoop, whoop” of the ship’s horn and a blast from the sire, Tippecanoe backed away from the pier, where a few wives and children waved, and headed to sea.

On February 13th they put in at Long Beach, CA to take aboard a full load of fuel oil. The next day they sailed for San Francisco where they arrived three days later where they got no liberty. Dad had to be content with looking at the lights of the Barbary Coast and gaping upward as the Tippecanoe slipped beneath the main span of the Golden Gate Bridge. They came upon a tug and barge waiting for the ship and the tug transferred the tow line of the barge to the Tippecanoe. Now they had a barge in tow.

Three days out of San Francisco they ran into a wicked gale that they later found out was one of the worst in that area in three or four years.

That third evening out the sky was leaden at sunset and the ocean was dark grey with a froth of whitecaps and spume from a wind that came off the port bow. The horizon was indistinct. The dark grey of the clouds simply merged somewhere into the darker grey of the angry ocean. Neither was there a sunset glow to fit the old saying, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.” Dad figured there must have been a blazing sky that morning as the wind was rising rapidly to gale force. Even with the stabilizing influence of the tow, the ship was rolling and pitching so that they had to sleep with a grip on the bunk rails and their toes hooked on the bottom rail.

Dad had barely gotten to sleep when the watch petty officer woke him. He had the twelve to two watch on the port wing of the bridge. The watch petty officer warned him to wear his peacoat and watch cap as it was cold and wet topside.

When Dad emerged from the foc’sul hatch he found the watch P.P. was right. It was raining and the wind buffeted him as he struggled through the blackness along the catwalk above the main deck over which green water was breaking in the dark. Rain drops and salt spray stung his face in the fifty-knot wind. The whitecaps towered well above Dad’s head from the catwalk level as the heavily laden Tippecanoe slugged her way through the mountainous waves.

Dad reached the bridge at 23:50, ten minutes before eight bells when the watch would change so he ducked into the dimly-lit bridge before relieving his man on the exposed port bridge wing. He looked at the chart spread on the navigator’s table at the rear of the bridge and was impressed by the ferocity of the wind. The line of their course was actually going backward because of the wind. With the drag of the towed barge, they’d lost ground for six or eight hours.

Dad reported to the watch officer and began his watch amidst the wind and rain of the gale.
The two hours of his watch were interminable and miserable. In the wind-whipped blackness Dad was pelted by rain and spray from the waves that broke level with the bridge and the bridge was forty feet above the waterline. Other than the red running light, Dad cold see nothing but blackness abeam and could barely make out the bow of the ship. Every thirty minutes, as required by regulations and custom, he reported to the watch officer, “Nothing in sight. Port running light burning bright, sir.”

Sometime during the first hour of his watch Dad saw a dim figure moving along the catwalk. The individual was wearing the hat of a chief petty officer with the visor strap under his chin against the wind. It was apparently Larzenarski on a round of inspection of the decks, but he did not come to the bridge and Dad could not be sure. The figure went out of sight in the darkness toward the stern. Dad thought for a minute that he saw someone else move back there, but in the driving rain and spray it could well have been an illusion.

The next morning the weather had cleared a bit, but the wind was still at gale force. Green water was still breaking over the main deck and, periodically, over the fantail that was held down by the tow hawser to the heavy barge. The deck division was told to stand by for muster in the mess compartment instead of on deck.

Chief Larzenarski did not show for muster. It was held by Sullivan. Afterward, scuttlebutt was that Larzenarski was missing. A search of the entire pitching, rolling ship was made and no trace of the abrasive CPO could be found. Dad found himself remembering the figure in a chief’s hat that he’d seen on the catwalk during his watch and presumed that he had gone down to the fantail to check the tow cable and was swept overboard.

Dad was still wondering if he should report what he had seen when the stern and very disliked division officer, Lt. Williams, appeared in the mess compartment. The men came to attention and, after he had told them to stand easy, he said, “Men, the tow cable is chafing and needs to be lengthened. I need four volunteers to go to the fantail with me and do the job.”

There was a prolonged silence. The men of the regular ship’s company simply looked down at their hands. Dad noticed that the officer was wearing dungarees and he had said “go down to the fantail with me.” Even though the word was “never volunteer for anything” Dad suddenly blurted out, “I’ll go, sir.”

Another member of Dad’s unit volunteered and not to be outdone by airdales, two of the ship’s company rose. Dad was surprised that one of them was Sullivan. Dad kicked off his shoes and stripped off his socks because he felt that he would have better traction barefoot. The lieutenant led them out onto the wave-washed fantail.

The fantail was clear except that every fifth or sixth wave was large enough to crash green water over the deck. When the big waves came all the men could do was hang on with both hands until the water subsided. Dad found himself next to the officer as they struggled with the heavy wire cable.

When the water subsided Dad realized that the lieutenant was no longer beside him. He had lost his hold on the cable and was hanging half over the scuppers holding the bottom chain of the lifelines with one hand. Dad believed that another wave cold take the lieutenant over the side so he let go of the tow cable and lunged for the lifelines. Dad caught the upper cable with his left hand and held out his right to the officer. Williams seized it with his free hand and, as the ship rolled back to port, dragged himself back aboard. Without a word the lieutenant checked that the cable stopper was secure and led the men back to the shelter of the mess compartment. There he said, “Well done, men.” Then turning to Dad he said, “Get some dry clothes, Frieze, and see me in the wardroom in fifteen minutes.”

When Lt. Williams had gone in a low voice Sullivan said to Dad, “Goddam, airdale, whyn’t you let that bastard go—we’d have been rid of him and Larzenarski both!”

Clearly Sullivan was pleased about Larzenarski’s disappearance and would like to have Williams thrown into the bargain.

Officer’s country was strange to Dad so he rather timorously made his way to the ward room amidships after getting some dry dungarees and a clean white hat. The lieutenant, hair still wet and a towel about his neck, was sitting alone at one of the tables.

“Help yourself to a cup of coffee, sailor,” he told Dad. “You earned it. And sit down a minute.”

Dad thought it sounded more like an order than an offer so he drew coffee into a china cup and sat on the edge of the chair opposite the lieutenant who eyed Dad a minute.

“Just wanted to say thank you, Frieze. There are probably men on this ship that would not have offered me a hand. I am fully aware that many of the men think I’m a mean s.o.b.”

Dad was embarrassed and could feel his ears and face getting red. Remember, he was just a kid.
“Wasn’t anything, Sir. I reckon you could have made it by yourself.”

“Probably so, but you did offer me a hand without waiting to see.”

Dad was at a loss and stammered “Well, uh, I didn’t know how soon the next big wave might come along. Ain’t as if I saved your life or something.”

“Right,” the officer said briskly, “and you’re not going to get a medal or anything but I will see that there is a note of commendation in your service record.”

Lt. Williams looked down at a paper on the table that was the watch list from the previous night and changed the subject, “You had the twelve to two on the wing of the bridge last night.”

“Yes sir.”

“You know that Chief Larzenarski is missing, apparently overboard during the storm. Di you see anything on deck during your watch?”

A sort of montage flashed into Dad’s mind—the dim figure in a chief’s hat on the catwalk going aft, what could have been the shadow of another man back there, and the gleam in Sullivan’s eyes when he told them at muster that the hated CPO was missing. Dad also recalled the way Sullivan had cursed the CPO the first day his crew came aboard, but he knew he should not attest to anything of which he was not totally sure.

“Well, sir, yes. Sometime around 0100 or thereabouts I saw someone who I think was wearing a chief’s hat going along the catwalk from the bridge aft toward the stern. That’s all I saw. It was dang dark out there. I figured it was the chief checking the decks.”

“No one else?” the lieutenant asked.

“Not that I could swear to—too dark and too many shadows. Couldn’t see good through the rain and spray,” Dad told him.

Lt. Williams dismissed Dad and the ship’s log recorded that Chief Boatswains Mate Larzenarski was apparently lost overboard while carrying out his duties on the ship. For the rest of his life Dad wondered about Coxswain Sullivan and his knife. After Larzenarski’s disappearance, Sullivan’s first class rate was restored and, being the ranking petty officer in the deck division, he was made acting CPO for the rest of the voyage. Every time Dad looked at him he wondered if Sullivan had been responsible for it.

On March 2nd they sighted land on the far horizon. By muster at 0700 the next morning a grey Navy tug met them and just after noon on Dad’s 19th birthday. It was March 3rd, 1941 as the Tippecanoe steamed through the anti-submarine net at the entrance to Pearl Harbor, the Territory of Hawaii.

What the Hell Were They Thinking?

2009-10-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Argh! I cannot freaking believe that the Nobel Prize committee chose Barak Obama to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. I thought you actually had to do something to get the prize. What are they thinking? They think he’s changed the tone of foreign relations?? They should have given the prize to the American people for electing someone who professes an interest in creating peace in the world, not to him for what he might do. Lord knows we could use the money.

It could be that in the future President Obama will achieve great things. He’s off to s slow start, but we can hope, but right now he does not deserve to be in the company of previous winners such as the Dahlia Lama, Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore. The Nobel Committee has cheapened their prize in my opinion. I don’t think Obama deserves the prize just for not being George Bush as laudable as that accomplishment is.

Down's Syndrome Dementia

2009-10-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

As if having a friend and neighbor lose her step-son abruptly in a motorbike accident weren’t enough, I’ve had another occasion to feel afraid as a mother. In the life of a parent of an offspring with a disability there are markers that can be painful. The diagnosis, when the gap between them and their peers begins to widen, when the Spring arrives when in another world the child would be graduating and making plans to go off to college.

When I was ten or eleven the mother of a classmate had the last of six children. One day when I’d been to the mailbox with my mother she stopped to talk to a neighbor in the street. They started talking about my classmate’s mother.

“Did you hear about the baby?”

“Yes, a Mongoloid. So sad. They’re hideous creatures you know.” Two things flashed through my mind simultaneously. First, Kevin wasn’t Chinese. Second, how sad for the family to have a hideous baby. That notion couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

About twenty years later I had reason to remember that incident. It happened at in the pediatrician’s office when my daughter was six days old and he told me that he wanted us to take our sweet baby girl to the University of Washington to be tested for Trisomy 21 or Mongolism. Well, I knew he must be crazy because there was nothing hideous about my baby girl. We were both right. She wasn’t hideous and she did have Trisomy 21, also known as Down’s Syndrome.

At the time of our daughter’s birth, her father and I spent a lot of time with my classmate Kevin. Needless-to-say he understood what we were going through and understood our future. He carried messages from his mother to us and we were encouraged by how well his brother Bobby was doing. Bobby had learned to read and write and was learning to work.

When there is a divorce a couple not only splits up the furniture and household goods and makes arrangements for the children, they split the friends as well. It’s not necessarily intentional, but it happens. Amy’s dad got custody of Kevin as a friend and we drifted apart. His family was raised across the street from my current husband and so I’ve had the occasional update on the family, but once my in-laws moved away from the old neighborhood in Bellevue we heard even less. Recently I reconnected with another of Kevin’s brothers on Facebook and last night learned that he is dealing with one of my worst fears. Bobby isn’t doing well. It is widely documented that people with Down’s Syndrome age faster than the rest of the population. When my daughter was born we were told that no one knew why that was. We were also told that this was actually good news because historically they died quite young because of respiratory infections. The advent of antibiotics had greatly increased their life expectancy. When you are hit with life altering news you grab at things to be thankful for. When your daughter is six days old the notion of her living into her thirties is comforting. It sounds llike forever. Until it arrives.

When Amy was in her early thirties her Department of Developmental Disabilities case worker asked if we’d seen any evidence of Down’s Syndrome Dementia. Ah, what? No, I don’t think so. That’s right, we were told she’d age quicker. She doesn’t have any gray hair. Mood swings? Well, she gets teary every month, but I’ve always laid that to hormones.

Now every time Amy has a fit of temper I think, is this it? So when Bobby’s brother sent me a private message on Facebook to say that he’d begun to slid downhill about eighteen months ago it was another punch to the gut. Bobby is 47. Fortunately, although both of his parents are passed he has siblings who care for him. He lives in an adult facility and two of his brothers are his guardians.

I am reminded again to bless every day I have with those I love just as they are. I pray for their health and prosperity and ask that I not have to bury one of them. I also know that we do not always receive the answers we want. The woman who said that having children was agreeing to having a piece of your heart walking around forever certainly nailed it.

Foot Steps At the Door

2009-10-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the season I am dipping my toe in the scary stories river. Blogonia Grandma L. reminded me of this story when she posted her own scary story on Pet Peeves and Other Ramblings.

The essentials of this story I believe to be true. It was told to me in the 1970s by my sweet little grandmother. She was a daughter of the Missouri Ozarks of Dutch and English extraction. That meant that you could eat off her floors if necessary and that she could keep going like so many of those who’d experienced the Great Depression or Hard Times as it was called in the Ozarks. It is possible that when she was telling me this story that she was pulling my leg, but Grandma wasn’t given to disassembly. She did not appear to be kidding and I remember how the hair stood up on the top of my arms and the back of my neck when she told me. Everyone involved in the story save my aunt, who was a child at the time it happened and says she doesn’t remember the incident, is gone. I wish I would have paid more attention to the details my grandmother told, but in the interest of the season and a good story I’ve tried to recreate it as accurately as and entertainingly possible.

The time was WWII. My father and his older brother were in the Navy in the South Pacific. They’d been at Kaneohe Bay on the island of Oahu on December 7th when the Japanese forced the United States into the war. There were no cell phones or email in those days. Communicating with the Hawaiian Islands could take days at least and so for several days my grandmother hadn’t known if her boys were dead or alive before a wire came from them saying that they were alive. The United States had been attacked and that set people on edge. Would the Japanese or Germany attack the U.S. mainland? Americans did what they’d done since Valley Forge. They picked themselves up and began doing what needed to be done to win the war amidst blackout curtains and civil defense exercises, especially on the coasts of the United States. People felt a lot like people felt after 9/11. No one knew what would happen next.

While their older sons were away fighting in the Pacific, my grandparents lived modestly in Vancouver, Washington with their two younger children. Vancouver at that time was a midish sized city across the Columbia River from the larger Portland, Oregon. One night Grandpa worked late at the shipyards on a literally dark and stormy night. It was one of those storms the Pacific Northwest is notorious for when the wind and rain come out of the Southwest dumping rain on that corner of the country, keeping it green. Grandma was home with the children.

During the course of the evening, Grandma and the children heard footsteps on the front porch steps. Probably Grandpa, maybe a neighbor. Who would be out in weather like this? Grandma wondered. They waited for a knock, but none came. Neither did any retreating footsteps. Grandma looked at the children. The children looked at Grandma. Tenuously Grandma cracked the front door to see who was there. She found no one. The electric bulb above the porch cast a yellow light on wet and muddy footprints leading up the steps to the porch, two foot prints squarely before the door within knocking distance, but none led away.

Grandma quickly closed the door. She and the children sat on her and Grandpa’s bed listening to the wind and the rain until he came home from work.

Epilogue: Twenty years after Grandma told me this story and some fifty years after it happened something of a similar nature happened to me. At that time our family had a furry doorbell in the form of a Toy Fox Terrier named Speck for Pee Wee Herman’s dog in Big Adventure. We also had a squeaky front door. Certainly the sound of the door bell was enough to send the dog into a frenzy of barking, but as little as the squeaking of the front door was enough to set him off.

Also at that time we had a friend living with us. Joe. Now Old Joe was charming and funny and a pathological liar, but we didn’t know that last bit when we let him move in temporarily which turned out to be eight years. It was possible that Joe was responsible for what happened, but I don’t believe it. It would have required more time than he ever had of a morning. Joe was the first to leave while I was still making lunches for the rest of the family and getting ready to leave for my job at a middle school. He was always late and always rushed to get to his job at a junk yard in Tacoma.

On this particular morning nothing seemed amiss. Joe had left for work and I was finishing up in the kitchen. The front door opened which sent Speck into a spasm of barking. I assumed that Joe had forgotten something.

“What did you forget?” I called from the kitchen.

When I got no answer I came around the corner from the kitchen to find the dog looking quizzically at the front door. I peered through the faux leaded glass in the door and saw that Joe’s car was not in the driveway. I went down the hall and checked his room. Empty. I cracked my son’s door, but he was asleep. On my way upstairs I locked the front door.

A search of the second floor yielded nothing more than my sleeping husband and daughter. I sat down on the edge of the bed to consider what had happened. I didn’t think I’d imagined the door opening because the dog had heard it, too. There’d been no car in the drive so it wasn’t Joe. Had someone seen him leave and walked up and opened the door, closing it when the dog began to bark? I got dressed and left for work, but not before going around and making sure that all the windows were closed and the doors locked.

2009-10-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

Fellow blogonias, listen up, Michelle Mitchell of the blog Scribbit has organized a writing contest around the seasonal theme of fear. Check it out here.

Keeping Time with Amy

2009-10-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

Even though she doesn’t entirely understand the concept, my daughter Amy has several ways of keeping track of the passage of time. She keeps track of the seasons by the condition of Patterson’s Fruit & Vegetable Stand which we pass by every time we go shopping. After sitting closed for a couple of months she knows they will have flowers for Valentine’s Day, then again for Easter and Mother’s Day. She anticipates summer, watching for the place to open with its fruit and vegetables. She knows that as the pumpkins appear that Halloween is in the offing and that when the stand closes after Halloween they will reopen after Thanksgiving with Christmas trees.

Amy keeps track of the months by family birthdays. She knows when everyone’s birthday is, hers being the most important. Amy looks forward to October as much as I do, but for a different reason. It is the month of her semiannual perm. Amy is stuck in the ‘80s. She loves the music, the movies and the big hair. It’s the decade she grew up in. She began getting her hair permed in about 1982 and has twice per year since then. Like many people with a disability, Amy is routine bound so perms in April and October are a must. Her stepfather’s one request—that she not look like a poodle. We try.

There are no accidents in life. I believe that as long as you are open with the universe and have a need that situations and things will come along to fill that. When we moved to Gig Harbor, WA from the Long Beach Peninsula we needed to find someone to cut the boys and my mother’s hair and to perm Amy’s. We knew no one, but my husband who had lived in Gig Harbor for only a couple of months when we arrived. Quite by chance we wandered into a beauty salon located in Gig Harbor’s main shopping center and met Carrie. That was nineteen years and lots of perms and haircuts ago.

Besides being a good hairdresser and a nice person, it turned out that Carrie had a special needs daughter of her own, younger than Amy. She understood and treated Amy like a princess when it was her day to get her hair done. Over the years and over Amy’s roller festooned head we’ve traded war stories. The girls were alone the day of the Nalley Valley earthquake. Well, Amy wasn’t quite alone, but Dave was on his way out the door to work, pausing just long enough to make sure she was okay. Ginnie really was alone, but had the presence of mind to scoot out the back door on her bottom to the back of the yard to wait for Carrie to come rushing home. I rushed home, too, having borrowed a van from school since my purse was in the school and they wouldn't let me in to get the keys to my car. Dave had locked the house and I had to throw rocks at Amy's window. She was not pleased when she opened the window and asked what the heck I wanted. I finally got her to come downstairs and open the door for me so I could use the bathroom and get a coat (it was February). It seemed that Amy had been asleep and the earthquake had waked her, but the lights were on (ours were not at school) and the heat on so she was more annoyed at the rude awakening than anything else.

Carrie and I had both the girls employed when they exited the school system and both of us discovered that it was more trouble than it was worth to have them working for a few hours per week at a minimum wage job that caused their social security to fluctuate monthly and if a job ended trying to get the full SSI reinstated took something next to an act of Congress.

We’ve commiserated at the exorbitant cost of handicapped seating at performances and the logistics of traveling with them. Although Amy is not in a wheelchair she is short and short of stamina. We arrive early to movies in the hopes of having her sit behind a wheelchair spot and then pray that no one in a wheelchair needs the spot. One night we were outfoxed when a literal busload of wheelchair bound movie goers arrived. Amy ended up in the front row in order to be able to see.

So yesterday was the big day. I sneaked away from work a few minutes early to go home and get her. At Amy’s birthday I take the entire day off from work and we really make a big deal, usually ending with a family dinner at whatever restaurant she fancies that year.

Over the years we’ve followed Carrie from shop to shop since our beginning with her in 1990. One time, when the shopping center burned down and the shop where she worked along with it, she even came to our house to cut my husband’s hair. We were a little early and Carrie had gone home to check on her daughter, but we waited with varying degrees of patience for her to return and get to the business of Amy’s afternoon of beauty.

Part of Amy’s perm routine is fast food. I don’t remember how it began, but the original shop was near to a McDonalds and since the process takes so long we began entertaining her with a chicken sandwich and fries. Now Carrie’s shop is right next door to a Burger King which is very handy so once her hair was wrapped around pink curlers she happily munched a chicken sandwich with a chocolate milkshake which was a first.

I would like it if Amy just gave up the ‘80s look, but then I wouldn’t get to sit and gossip with Carrie so we’ll keep going as long as Carrie keeps dishing out the beauty.

Let the Holidays Begin

2009-09-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

We are a passionate family. Some of our passions are peace and liberality. In December of 2003 my husband put up a huge peace symbol on the side of our house. When New Year’s had come and gone Dave began taking down our outside lights, but I suggested that we leave the peace symbol up until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were over. In the intervening years our house has become known as “the peace house” to children. An elderly man at the hardware store told the husband of a coworker of mine that we are witches and that the peace symbol is a witch symbol. We are also a point of reference when people give driving directions.
Along in the Spring the lights, which are on a timer, begin to give out and when the sign begins to look ridiculous my husband turns it off until he can get more Christmas lights. When it happened this year we could not find any Christmas lights except at Michael’s Arts and Crafts. What they had was intended for weddings and cost more than we were willing to pay so the sign stayed dark all summer. People stopped by when they saw us in the yard or complained when they met us at work or in the store. Last week Dave had a day off and we decided that Target might have Christmas lights. We were rewarded and bought two heavy duty strings. Yesterday the lights went up and on.
We are also passionate about Halloween. Is I posted before, Autumn is my favorite season and Halloween and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays even though we get few or now trick or treaters for Halloween. One year we got only our youngest son and his best friend. They are now past 25 and haven’t rung the door bell in a long time. We decorate to please us and now have a grandson who thinks that every day ought to be Halloween. We used to wait until October first to get out the boxes of Halloween decorations. Now GrandDave’s birthday on the 22nd of September signals the beginning of our All Hallow’s Eve celebration. Grandson Gabriel could hardly wait and had been making his own decorations for weeks and parading around in his Dracula costume.
There was snow up at Crystal Mt. today, just a dusting, and the low tonight is to be 45. I can live without the snow, but I do enjoy the nip in the air and seeing the beginnings of Fall.