Caregiving Journal 4

She goes up, she goes down.  Yesterday was down a little.  After my Aunt Billie's memorial we went to see Mom at Northwoods.  She was in her new private room, but she wasn't liking it that much.  A big room with just her in it was kind of lonely.  She perked up when we arrived, my brother and I, but was sad to hear where we'd been.  We'd brought her the program and I had made a list of all of her old church friends that asked about her and sent their love.  She was happy that people were thinking of her, but sad about Billie and sad she hadn't been able to be there.  Minutes later she decided she was glad she hadn't had to go.

We found the Turner Classic Movies channel and Gunga Din, with Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. She talked to us, or rather we talked to her and she responded, while the movie played.  About 10 minutes after we got there she asked to go to the bathroom.  We found her "magic button" and she pushed it to signal an aide.  The aide came in and got Mom up to her walker and she charged to the bathroom--literally--she can walk fast and always has walked faster than me.  After she was done in there I saw the aide walking out of the room with a specimen container that had yellow liquid in it.  "Did she pee?" I called.  "Yes, she did!" was the reply.  It was a time for celebration rather than mourning.  It's amazing that a jar full of pee can be so exciting.  I don't know if it was the very first time but it was the first we knew about it since she'd gone to the hospital on April 4th.

We watch Mom like hawks if we are there for a meal, to see what she chooses, for future reference, and how much she eats.  That night for dinner she was having the Ground Meat of the Day again, with gravy, those pumped up potatoes, also with gravy, chopped up green beans, too.  This time there was a bowl of cream soup and that's what she concentrated on, eating 3/4 of the bowl.  I think it's the most I've seen her eat in a long time.  So, if and when she goes home, cream soups will be a staple.  Friday the OT told me that they found out Mom liked butter, so they put it on her eggs and they were adding cream to her cocoa along with some Ensure.  They are adding calories in creative ways.  They probably put cream in her soup, too.  No wonder she liked it.

After dinner it was back to her room to sit up for 15 minutes before being allowed to lie down again on the bed she has come to love.  Gunga Din was still on, Cary and Doug, Jr. swashbuckling, socking, getting lashed by pseudo East Indians in heavy dark make-up but giving it away with blue eyes. Finally, Romeo came in (Romeo!!!) to help Mom into bed.  A deep sigh of relief and a comment about Romeo being cute.  We left her to her nap then, in her big room, with her stuffed bunny, Pinkie, and Gunga Din.

Caregiving Journal3

Yesterday was better.  I got to Northwoods about 11:00 and on the way in spied an adorable stuffed bunny with a light green bow around one ear and a light green, chenille dress with pink flowers embroidered on it.  I bought it and took it in to Mom.  She loved it on sight.  I wasn't sure she would take to a stuffed animal but she petted and hugged it.  It will have to be a substitute for her cat, Diana, for awhile.

Mom was awake when I came in and she hasn't been quite this awake in weeks, so that was better.  She has lost her roommate, Clara.  Clara's hip replacement convalescence was done and I was so sad I missed saying goodbye to her.  She had been a good source of information about how Mom had slept.  Clara told us that she often called for my brother during the night.  Mom told me immediately that she had taken a walk with a different physical therapist that morning--a man.  She said they had a good conversation and it was nice to talk to a man.  She described him as tall and dark haired--good looking, of course.  I saw on the "therapist list" for the day that his name was Jeff.  I asked around and identified him as one of the therapists I'd seen in the gym, the one who looked like Tom Selleck looks now, though not quite as handsome as Tom.  He has short dark hair and a mustache.  No matter where Mom is she finds handsome men to pique her interest.

My brother came about 45 minutes after I got there and we both accompanied Mom to lunch.  I was able to talk to the speech therapist and to the occupational therapist who are working hard to make Mom's food palatable to her and easier to swallow.  The lunch was Ground Meat of the Day in Gravy (looked better than it sounded), Fortified Mashed Potatoes (huh?), cut up string beans and Lemon Merengue Pie.  Before Mom saw the pie, she dug in to her gravied ground chicken and mashed potatoes.  But when she spotted the pie, that's all she wanted.  I asked the OT why elderly people (and I mean people 20 years older than me) like sweets so much.  She explained that the taste buds for "sweet" are the last to go, especially in people with dementia.  Why dementia has anything to do with taste buds, I don't know.  I might have to Google it.

I had lunch with an alumni friend after visiting Mom and it was an enjoyable, refreshing break from all the medical issues.  I thought I might dump all my stresses on my friend, but I didn't, only a few of them. We talked about lots of things and that's what was so nice about it.  My spirits were already better, but talking with a friend is a good way to feel normal again.

And the day was beautiful, too.  Sunny and warm.  It felt so good to feel the sun on my face and to get to open the windows of my car because the car was so warm and the air was so fresh.  I went to Target and got a birthday card for my son and got accosted by two make-up sales people.  I think the Mary Kay woman was probably not supposed to be giving out samples from her purse in a Target Store, but she hooked me by complimenting my on my "cute earrings".  She gave me a plastic Easter egg with a chocolate egg in it, her address and a sample of blush.  When she asked for my contact information I refused her and ran like the Easter Bunny.  Not 5 minutes later another, heavily made-up woman (it must take her a half hour to get it all off and an hour to put it all back on) approached me asking if I was looking for a particular make-up (because I'd made the mistake of stopping at the aisle) and then she proceeded to lay on the compliments as heavy as her make-up, about my "great glasses".  Aha!!! Another one!  I fled!  It's a wonder I got out of there without encountering someone else who "just loved my pink shirt".  Does Target know how irritating this is?  If this happens in Target again I will complain, because it will make me not want to shop there again.

Later, at home, I picked up two messages about Mom changing rooms.  Northwoods needed a two-bed room for two men coming in and could they move Mom to a private room?  I called back and said it was okay with me, except that her roommate had helped her numerous times to find her call button, so they needed to make sure it was where she could see it.  They told me when they couldn't reach me they asked Mom if a private room was okay.  She said yes.  I'd bet that when she heard of "two men coming in" she was thrilled, wondering if either or both of them might be good-looking.

Caregiving Journal 2

Yesterday when I arrived at Northwoods Mom had just been returned to her room after lunch in the dining room.  She was lying on her bed, looking very tired.  I asked about her lunch.  She said it was "delicious" but that she hadn't eaten all of it, that they always gave her too much.  I didn't check with the speech pathologist, who has now included Mom at a table of patients with eating difficulty, but I would bet that she ate no more than a few bites of whatever the delicious food was.  Mom nodded off soon after I arrived.  Since her roommate, Clara, was gone to a doctor's appointment, it was quiet, except for the noise in the hallway.  I was going to go with Mom to her doctor's appointment at 2:15, so I had brought a magazine to read and that's what I did while Mom slept.  I knew she was going to need sleep if she was going to have the stamina required to go see the doctor.  I watched her face as she dropped into REM sleep, twitching, grimacing, making tiny noises and then relaxing again.  I remembered watching my babies sleep, wondering what their dreams were.  It was the same feeling.

At 2:05 the day's aide came in to get Mom ready for her ride in the Northwood's van.  She woke up pretty quickly and was helped up and into a wheelchair.  I helped Mom adjust her wig (she wanted her wig on if she was going out into public) and helped her put on a sweater.  The van driver came on the dot of 2:15 and I grabbed my purse and we were off, Mom to the van, me to my car to meet them at the clinic.  The traffic in Silverdale was heavy--must have been because Easter is this weekend.

The van driver delivered Mom to the second floor of the clinic, handed her paperwork to the receptionist, and parked Mom in the waiting room.  Mom leaned against her right hand, looking exhausted.  The last time I was in a waiting room with her was her last appointment with the heart rhythm specialist, several weeks before she went to the hospital.  I realized she had been much more alert then.  That's when the doctor had said he couldn't really do anything for her, her heart was regular, though fast, and there didn't appear to be any other problems with her heart.  He said, "Your weight loss and fast heart beat are symptoms of some underlying problem we haven't found yet.  Now we have to wait until the problem manifests itself."  My theory, as uninformed as it is, is that her face neuralgia (numbness in her chin) is at the bottom of all of it--the problem that was dismissed nearly a year ago by a neurologist as a "pinched nerve".

Mom had her meeting with her doctor, pretty much an overview of what had been going on with her since her admission to the hospital.  The doctor checked her swelling feet which looked like pink sausages and decided she wanted an ultrasound to make sure there was no blood clot.  The doctor had her concerned face on, and she probably was concerned, she has known Mom a long time, but I wish she had been more concerned last year.  To be fair, Mom has always downplayed any problems she's had and, indeed, often forgot she had any problems at all.

The nurse came in to announce that she had made an appointment over at Salmon Center for the ultrasound and that we could go over there right now.  She read the look on my face correctly because she amended that with, "Oh, you can't do that?"  It wasn't that I couldn't do it, it was that I didn't want Mom to have to go to another appointment.  She is 89, she weighs 91 pounds, she hasn't walked more than 100 feet without a walker in weeks.  I couldn't make her endure it.  I told her Mom had arrived in a Northwood's van and she understood then.  Northwoods had to make the appointment and arrange for van service.  She gave us our freedom then.

We didn't have to wait for the van--a different driver was there delivering someone else to his doctor.  When Mom got a look at him she perked up, because he was a very handsome fellow, black curly hair, sultry eyes, beautiful skin.  I had seen him around Northwoods but Mom hadn't and she zeroed in on him, smiling with delight.  I left her to her fantasies and her ride back to Northwoods with her easy-on-the-eyes van driver.  I arrived at the same time they did and followed them into Mom's room.  When he asked me if I thought Mom would like to be put into her bed, I nodded yes.  I knew that she would be very happy to have a fellow as fine looking as this one help her.  When he had gotten her into bed she piped, "Thanks, Goodlookin'!"  Even through his caramel-colored skin we could see the blush.

Caregiving Journal 1

Since I have little time to email, get on Facebook, talk to people in person or on the phone, I have decided I will try communicating through my blog.  At least I will be able to keep writing and those who read this will know what's going on.

What is going on is "caregiving".  My poor little Mom, 89 years old, currently is at Northwoods Lodge, a nursing facility North of Silverdale.  Mom would call it a "nursing home", but it's a lot more than that.  She was in the hospital for 9 days, from April 4th to April12th.  She was bleeding from a place I'm not going to mention here, but a hint is that she had two colonoscopies while she was there.  I think most people who know me are aware that she had lost 40 pounds since last Spring.  She was down to 86 pounds at the last doctor's appointment.  Nobody could figure out why she was losing so much weight so fast and why she had such a poor appetite.  Her heart was also beating super fast, her pulse was 130.  One doctor mused that it was like jogging all day long.  The lack of nutrition, lack of hydration and weakness, ended up with her in the emergency room and then in a bed on the third floor of Harrison Hospital in Bremerton.

Her time there was dismaying to her--her short term memory loss didn't allow her to remember why she was there or when she would get to "go home".  My brother and I visited every day, watching while she had to drink "a gallon of Puget Sound" to prep for the first colonoscopy.  She wasn't able to drink it all, but the doctor did the test anyway.  Of course, it failed.  So she had to be on liquids and a new prep for another full day.  A good test was taken and only one polyp found, apparently a benign one.  For 9 days nutrition and hydration was dripping into her veins.  She had a catheter the entire time.  The days blurred for me, as I called Floor Three West every morning to find out how she was and watched her go in and out of sleep while I visited her for a couple of hours each day.  I did crosswords and Sudoku to pass the time, and wished that I could knit, so that I could really accomplish something during all those hours.  Mom's attitude was good--she likes almost everyone she meets, including all the aides and nurses, who change every day.  She even found a "good looking" man, Dr. Seyhal, a Pakistani doctor who checked her over several times.  She said he looked like a fellow out of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

The day finally came, April 11th, that she was cleared for discharge.  There was just one thing she had to do before she could be released:  empty her bladder by herself.  All day long we waited.  I  called and called again.  Finally I went to the hospital.  I had all of her clothes ready--I had the shoes and coat she hadn't worn in 8 days.  She was dreaming aloud about her bed, the kitty and my brother, Stanley waiting for her at home.  But each time I checked the nurse said, "Not yet."  Finally, late in the afternoon, the decision was made to keep her overnight with hopes of success the next day.  That night I made one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make.  If her bladder was still uncooperative on the 12th I would have to ask that she be moved to a rehabilitation facility (nursing home to Mom).  The nurse on duty in the afternoon of the 12th looked deeply into my eyes, which were filling with tears, and said, "You are doing the right thing.  They will take good care of her."  But I still had to tell Mom.

I sat on the side of her bed, leaned in very close so that she could hear me and said, "Mom, your bladder isn't working properly yet.  Stanley and I can't help you with this at home.  We've decided you will need to be transferred to a nursing facility."  Her mouth flew open and her body tensed underneath my hands and her reply was, "What the hell?!"  I continued to tell her why we had made the decision, but she didn't want to talk anymore.  She closed her eyes.  I talked to the social worker and asked for a bed at Northwoods Lodge, not really believing we could get her in, since it is the premier place in the Bremerton/Silverdale area.  Then I got in my car and drove home, tears streaming down my face.  I felt so horrible, so sad, my stomach was knotted, there was an apple-sized lump in my throat. I got home at about 5:00.  My husband was waiting with hugs and sympathy.  He knew how hard the decision was.  He knew Mom would be afraid of ghastly smells, ugly surroundings, all the images she harbored of "nursing homes", from countless horror stories she'd heard.  Her biggest fear as she got older and older was that she "would be put in an old folk's home".

It was only 20 minutes after I got home that the hospital called to tell me that a bed had been secured at Northwoods and that Mom would be transported there shortly.  I had never been to Northwoods, but they had that great reputation, so I was hopeful and as happy as I could be under the circumstances.  By the time we got up there, only a 20 minutes drive from our home, she was in her own pajamas, had been given some dinner and was in her bed. She has a roommate, Clara, who had arrived just before Mom, to recuperate and get physical therapy after a hip replacement.

Mom has now been at NWs for 9 days.  They didn't get orders from her doctor to take her catheter out until Monday, April 18th, and didn't take it out until Tuesday of this week.  Every day she gets physical and occupational therapy.  This week a speech therapist was added, because despite the really good food they serve there, she is eating less than 20% of it.  She is now having trouble swallowing, apparently a result of the "face neuralgia" diagnosed a year ago.  And she still has to relearn how to feel the signals from her bladder. The good news is that she is now 91 pounds and she is philosophical about being there.  It's not smelly, it's carpeted, decorated with cottage-type decor, flower wreaths, wooden ducks, lots of big windows, a room for visiting with a fireplace that is always lit, coffee and cookies for visitors.

My brother has learned the route to drive to NWs and so I don't have to pick him up anymore and I can begin to resume my life, but it is a "new normal".  We had both been going up everyday, but it occurred to me yesterday, while we were in the dining room watching Mom eat 4 or 5 bites of her lunch and talking about how the staff there probably work 5-day weeks and get time off, that my brother and I probably need time off, too.  We are going to split the days of the week, allowing ourselves time to regroup.  I need time for my husband and myself.  I need a haircut, I need to work in my garden, I need to exercise and meditate and calm my body and mind so that I can sleep at night.  It helps me to have read the "Playing God" chapter in Passages for Caregiving (Gail Sheehy) last night.  I have had it in my mind that I must be there every day, that I must pay close attention to what the aides are doing to make sure that they don't hurt my mother in some way.  Underneath it all is my desire to control the entire situation.  I am a first child.  I am the responsible one.  I always think I can do it, I can make it work.  If something goes wrong it will be my fault for not being vigilant enough.  On a conscious level I know that's not true, but down deep inside I still cling to the belief that I can save her.

Today is the first time Mom will be out in the world since she was moved to NWs.  She will be transported to the Doctor's Clinic to see her doctor.  I will visit her first and then follow the van and be with her during her appointment.

I know my love and devotion makes a difference.  Mom has never said, "I love you" more than she has since being in this unhealthy, weak state.  And I have said it more than ever, too.  I love my little Mama. But I have to get out of the way a little bit, let the experts do their jobs.  I don't need to micro-manage her care.  Her time is running out and I have to accept it, let my love flow to her, hope for some level of healing and quality for what will be her final years.

I Like Casinos

I like casinos.  I would have expected, having led a healthy, non-smoking, thrifty, intellectual life, to be disdainful of the whole idea of a place full of smoke where people spend incredible amounts of time and money sitting in front of  noisy machines, pressing buttons and hoping to “hit it big”. 

My casino adventures started with my first trip to Las Vegas in 1994.  My husband’s Mom and Dad invited us to meet in Vegas and to stay with them at Circus Circus.  They drove from Ventura, California and we flew in from Seattle.  Michael’s Dad, Lou, met us at the airport, which was surprisingly filled with slot machines and advertisements for Vegas shows, including the long-legged showgirls in red, scanty, sequined outfits, showing maximum amounts of probably enhanced boobage.  I realized right then I was in a bizarre land. 

My husband’s Mom and Dad had been going to Vegas for many years, even taking their kids in the early days.  They had been staying at Circus Circus for decades. It was inexpensive, and right on The Strip.  As we road in Lou’s boat of a car, a Monte Carlo with wide, cushy bench seats, he told us about how things had changed over the years.  “Mike, this used to be a vacant lot, and now they’ve put up another casino! You used to be able to drive in this town, not any more.”

Circus Circus was new and shiny once, but by the time we saw it, it was getting dusty and shabby and the smoke smell was heavy.  The rooms were papered in garish pink, with clown paintings on the walls.  Thank goodness it was before the bedbug scare of the 21^st century or I would have developed a psychosomatic itch.  The rooms looked overused and abused; cleaning couldn’t take the ancient stains out of the carpets anymore. 

Lou had brought coffee, a coffee pot, mugs, sugar. Michael’s Mom, Anta, had brought a cooler full of lunchmeats, tomatoes, mustard, lettuce and bread for sandwiches. Their trip was all about saving money wherever they could so that Anta could spend more money at her gambling.   Even though they were better off than they had been when they brought their kids to Vegas, the habits of those years still persisted.  Aside from the breakfast coffee and lunch, we spent very little time in our rooms.  Anta is Greek and her time schedule is the same as it was when she lived in Athens.  She goes to bed at 2:00 in the morning and doesn’t get up until 11:00 a.m.  Lou never adjusted to her habits and so he was up at 7:00, ready to take us to Ethel’s Chocolates or the discount mall, complaining, “Your mother isn’t up yet. Let’s go!”

Later we would come back to the hotel room, have the improvised lunch and then take Anta out to find a machine she liked, while Michael and I would find other things to do.  We’d meet for dinner and try a new buffet every day.  In the 90s the buffets were a bargain, but as hotels in Vegas became more extravagant the prices of the buffets rose from $10 a person to $20.  We still tried them; Paris, The Venetian, The Bellagio.  They were fancier than the less expensive buffets, with Ahi and shark along side the more common prime rib and turkey.  Lou particularly liked the desserts and would load his plate up with cheesecake, brownies, cookies, apple pie, while Anta scolded him for taking too many.  She, on the other hand, filled her plate with beef, turkey and lamb.

Michael and I explored the newest casinos, went to Hoover Dam, visited the dolphin habitat behind The Mirage, watched the Treasure Island pirate show, the Bellagio fountain show and watched people.  There is no better place to see a huge variety of people than Las Vegas, from the oldest, most poignant looking to prosperously decked out young business people and everything in between.  It was shocking to see men and women in wheelchairs in front of slot machines, or very elderly people with oxygen tanks in tow, inside the smoky casinos.  At the more posh places, like Paris or The Venetian we’d see designer dressed and artfully coifed women in extremely high-end stores like Prada or Christian Dior.  Minorities, mostly Latino, worked the buffets and were the maids who cleaned the rooms.  Young men on the street passed out fliers for sex shows or call girls.  We once followed a tall, beautiful blond young woman, carrying a red rose, as she met with what looked like a businessman in the lobby of a hotel.  We were convinced he was meeting with his paid escort.  Most of the people we saw, though, were like us—from small towns, dressed in ordinary clothes from Penney’s or Target, awed by the glitz, glitter and glamour of the bright neon Strip. 

We’d eventually meet with his parents who would end up at New York, New York or The Alladin, where Anta would have found a “good” machine she didn’t want to leave.  Good meant it was giving her back more than she was putting in.  She always played the 25-cent video poker machines, because she felt her skill at poker would help her win and it usually did.  She would bring $200 to gamble and always took home more than she’d brought.  Lou spent his time fetching coffee for her or watching high rollers at the Craps table.  Sometimes he would play, but not often.  When it was time to meet for dinner it was hard to pry her away from a machine that she was having luck with.  “How can I leave now?” she’d entreat.  “It’s geeving!”  We learned to approach her long before we were really ready to eat.

These early days were when I developed my fondness for finding an interesting slot machine to play.  I would look for good graphics or a whiz-bang twist—a machine that started spinning wildly when certain symbols lined up.  These were still the days when you put real coins in the machine and you pulled the “arm” of the “bandit”.  The excitement of actual coins falling, clang, clang, clang into the tray was hard to beat, even if they were only pennies or nickels.  I didn’t gamble any more than $20.  I didn’t have that much extra money to throw around and in those days, playing nickel machines, $20 lasted for days.  Every now and then I’d win.  The first time it happened was in Treasure Island.  I was putting in nickels.  The machine started to make all kinds of ringing and clanging noises and the light on top of it started to flash.  I didn’t know what was going on.  I thought the machine was broken until an attendant came by with a chit to receive $45 from the cashier. This was after only the second nickel so I really did get a windfall.  I bought a Cirque de Soliel sweatshirt with my winnings and still had money left over.  Most of the time, though, I’d end up gambling and losing my $20 and that was alright, too, because I was entertained.  $20 wasn’t that much to pay for a couple of days of being amused. 

We have gone to Vegas many times since that first time in 1994.  Until the last couple of times it was always with Michael’s parents.  Lou died in 2005, so now it’s his Mother and us.  She longs to be there and it’s always a popular suggestion.  “Want to go to Vegas, Mom?”  She’s almost packed by the time we get off the phone.  The same routine follows:  my husband and I go around to all the new places, visit some of our favorite old ones, do a little shopping and check in with Anta at “her machine”.  Michael is the one who brings her coffee now and cashes in her credits.  She doesn’t bring the lunch fixings or the coffee service anymore.  I guess she must feel a little more prosperous now or maybe all that was Lou’s idea.

 For several months before she came to visit us last Fall, we scouted casinos in the  Puget Sound area.  We tried out Snoqualmie, Little Creek, Muckleshoot, Suquamish and 7 Cedars casinos.  We checked to see if they had her video poker machines, which they all did.  We took her to all of them when she was here and she found a good machine in all but the 7 Cedars.  The video poker machines were not “giving” up to her standards but she found a Black and White slot machine that gave her jackpot after jackpot.

Now the machines are automated and it has taken me a few years to get used to the new, cartoonish graphics.  There is one based on “I Love Lucy”, another has lots of weapons and explosions, there was a Lucky Charms game with shamrocks and leprechauns for a while, but I think that one has gone out of favor.  Every year there is a new crop, but all are based on the same old theme—get symbols lined up in a row and you win something.  Get lots of symbols lined up, or a special symbol lined up and you win something better.  I look for machines that have classic illustrations, like Neptune’s Kingdom or Rembrandt’s Riches or Secrets of the Forest, so that the game is pretty to look at while it’s eating my paper credit, which is what you get now in place of real money.  The machine tries to make sounds like the pennies or nickels clang, clanging into the tray, but it’s all illusion.  They play music now and have screens that come up to give you bonuses. If you get three treasure chests in the Neptune game a screen appears that allows the player to pick several chests that will give you free spins or multiply your winnings.  That always gives me a surge of happy adrenalin.  But the old clicking, clanging machines are a thing of the past.  And so are the dirty fingers from handling the coins.

My husband and I have now started to go to local casinos by ourselves.  We up the ante a little by making our visits overnight trips, giving us a getaway along with the slim chance of going home with more money than we came with.  Most casino hotels in the area have hot tubs and pools, though they lack the lions and dolphins and lavish stage shows of Las Vegas.  Tulalip Resort Casino has outlet stores within walking distance, not as much fun as the Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden behind the Mirage, but still a draw for a bargain hunter.  True to tradition, I do the gambling and my husband makes sure I am hydrated with water and coffee.  He can’t make himself gamble.  He’s much too frugal.  Like his father he observes and enjoys watching me hopping from one machine to another while I look for a good machine, one that will give.

Goodbye, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Taylor died.  I have to keep repeating it in order to believe it.  She has been part of my life for so long, on my mind now and then for as long as I can remember.  She was certainly on my mind in the 50s, when I was a kid and my Mom read movie magazines Photoplay, Modern Screen and Motion Picture.  I was so interested in her glamorous life that when the magazines began reporting that she and her husband, Michael Wilding, were going to divorce, I sent Elizabeth a letter saying that I didn’t believe the gossip.  It was the only time I ever wrote to a celebrity.  I received a postcard in response, with an obviously canned statement like, “Thank you for your support”, or something like that, copied in whatever way copies were made in those days.  The pictures of Elizabeth, Wilding and their two small boys were so sweet, romantic, homey, that I couldn’t believe there could be a divorce—divorce didn’t happen in my world.  I didn’t know anybody who had ever divorced.  It was the fifties, after all.

Over the years, though, we all got used to the way Elizabeth lived her life.  Divorce was part of it, but so were love, passion, incredible beauty, opulence, indulgence, gigantic jewels, drinking, husband stealing, fighting, tragedy, illness, and always DRAMA.  She lived her life so large, so much bigger than anyone else’s, how could anyone not be eager to know what would come next?  What would she do after Mike Todd died? How could she marry such a small time actor/singer as Eddie Fisher?  How long would the passionate marriage to Richard Burton last?  Was he her true love?  Marry Senator John Warner?  Why?  Larry Fortensky?  Huh?  But I always cared; I always wanted to know what she was doing.  I saw all the movies even when they were bad ones like “Divorced His/Divorced Hers”.  When she got fat during her marriage to Warner I knew she was unhappy and was sad for her.  When she got thin again, I was glad.

She had unworldly beauty, but she ate whatever she wanted and she battled her weight because of it, just like a normal person.  She followed her heart, like we all wanted to do.  She flaunted her jewels.  She showed off her fantastic bosom.  She nearly died, many times.  She was reported to be bawdy and in television interviews we heard her raucous, boisterous laugh.  After the 5-year marriage to Larry Fortensky, there were long periods of time I didn’t hear much about Elizabeth.  Occasionally there would be something about her Aids charitable work, a photo taken at a speaking engagement.  In the past ten years there hasn’t been much at all.  Last year I searched the web for a picture and found that she was photographed in a wheelchair.  She was wearing a red dress, her hair died back to it’s dark color, lavish jewels at her throat and on her fingers, red lipstick, still glamorous at 78.  I printed out a picture to show my Mom, who has always been a fan, too, and is exactly 10 years older.  I was glad Elizabeth still looked pretty good even if she couldn’t get around very well anymore.  Not long ago there was an article about her in Vogue, with quotes from the newest book about her and a picture of her from the 50s on the cover.  My best friend called to tell me it was on the newsstand and the next day I bought a copy.  It was a treat to be reading about her once again.  It was like the best ice cream.

I think what I, and many people, loved about Elizabeth Taylor was that she lived her life exactly the way she wanted to, without apology.  She truly was the Last Movie Star.  What actor or actress is left that was as famous as she was?  She allowed us to see her, in all her glory and with all her faults.  She didn’t hide from us. She didn’t destroy herself with drugs like Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe or go into hiding as she got older, like Greta Garbo.  She showed us who she was and said “take it or leave it”.

I’m going to miss having her in the world, but the silver lining in her passing is all the old interviews I’ve been seeing on television, the thousands of pictures that were taken of her over the years, showing up in magazines, on the web and during the news.  On April 10^th American Movie Classics is going to have a 24-hour marathon of her movies and I’ll have it on all day.  Elizabeth Taylor is dead.  I still can’t believe it.

The Meaning of Life?

My husband is always asking me, sometimes seriously, sometimes jokingly, "What is the meaning of life?"  I never have an answer for him, but this quote, that was on my grandson's Facebook page recently, might be the answer.

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"  


George Eliot

Thinking about Japan

It's hard to think about anything but Japan and the struggle that is taking place there.  I keep trying to imagine what it's like to be living out in the cold, in front of your destroyed house, scrounging for water, building fires to cook your food, wondering what the future will bring.  The Japanese are known to be resilient but what must it be like to not know what has happened to your relatives and neighbors, to ponder how many people are beneath the wreckage?

As we were coming into Seattle on the Winslow ferry the other day, to take my granddaughters and daughter-in-law to the airport, I noticed the boats along the waterfront.  If a tsunami as large as the one that hit Japan had hit the Seattle waterfront, those boats would have been resting on top of the Alaskan Way viaduct.  All of the tourists on Alaskan Way would have been picked up by the water, carried inland or back out to sea.  I can't shake the vision of the hundreds of small, white cars being carried by the power of that huge wave, the houses being swept along--were there people in the houses?  Did they survive?

And now there is all the speculation about the radiation from the nuclear plants, there was even a run on iodine pills here.  Can you trust what is being said about no danger to us on the West Coast or do you believe those that are saying otherwise?  All through the 50s we were taught to duck and cover, we were so afraid a bomb would be dropped on or near us.  Who would have predicted nuclear power and earthquakes as a scenario for a new radiation fear?

My heart is heavy for the people of Japan.  I will be contributing money through World Vision as my very small way of helping but it won't seem like enough.

http://www.worldvision.org/#/home/main/quake-tsunami-devastate-japan-1-1360

 

Oh, joy!

This was sent by one of the people who actually read my blog:




"Recent studies have also found that the typical off the shelf coffee, like Folgers, Hill's, MJB, etc. have two benefits for the liver. The first is that the typical store bought packaged pre-ground coffee can actually help clean the liver. The second is that this same coffee can aid in the rebuilding or regeneration of the liver. The liver is one of the few organs in the body that can rebuild itself. There have been successful transplants of part of a liver, which after transplant, grew to a normal size adult liver in the patient. People that drink significant quantities of alcohol tend to have far less liver problems if they also drink coffee. The studies indicate that up to 4 cups per day is beneficial. More than four cups does not seem to create liver problems but more than 4 cups also does not show any added benefit. Just another good reason to enjoy your coffee." 

I knew it!!!!

Coffee Reduces Stroke Risk in Women

Posted by Amy Sue Andrews on March 12th, 2011

The research journal Stroke reports that women who drink a cup or more a day of coffee have a reduced risk for stroke.  Greater consumption did not reduce the risk further.

The study followed 34,670 women aged 49 to 83 and found a 23% to 25% reduction in incidence of stroke compared to those who drink little or no coffee.  During the 10 year follow up there were 1,680 strokes among the sample population.

So far, the mechanism in coffee consumption that effects strokes is not known.

 “It is quite clear that coffee consumption at moderate to even high levels does not increase risk of stroke,” says Eric Rimm, ScD, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Roger Bonomo, MD, director of stroke care at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, says that giving up coffee to protect your health is not a good idea.

“Eliminating coffee isn’t good for your health,” Roger Bonomo, MD.says, “Keep your coffee
 habits at a steady state.”  He is the director of stroke care at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York 
City.


This is the best permission to drink coffee I've ever had!  Hallelujah!  

Anybody Out There?

I wonder if there is anybody that actually reads this blog, besides Mail Guy.  I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, because I am so inconsistent about posting things here lately.  I have all these lofty goals of writing at least once a week, and STUFF always intervenes to keep me from it.  Stuff like doctor appointments for my Mom, shopping for groceries, mopping the kitchen floor, making dinner, going to the movies, watching TV and most importantly, writing for my writer's group.  So when someone comes here looking for something new, there's hardly ever anything they haven't already read.

I apologize, I'll try to do better, I'll strive to make time.  I know how it is--I have a friend or two who have blogs and who don't write in them on a regular basis and it is always sad to go to one of their sites and not see anything new.  It's like calling a friend and getting a message machine.  Not even that good, really.  At least you can leave a message on the machine and hope to get a call back.

Did you realize?

I'm terrible about listening to verses of songs and usually only remember the choruses, so I didn't realize how much was in this Billy Joel song from the 80s.  You'll be blown away, too.

http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html

Goodbye, Jack

I’m really sorry that Jack LaLanne died.  I guess I knew all along that he would, but I thought he’d live to see his hundreds.  I’ve always felt a special bond with Jack.  Jack is the one who got me started on exercise, way back in my twenties, when I was a young Mom and trying to get back into shape after my daughters were born.  I had been a failure at gym class in school, I didn’t like softball or dodge ball or tumbling.  My Mom and Dad didn’t do anything other than the normal strenuous activities of raising kids and maintaining a house and yard, so I didn’t know a thing about calisthenics.  Jack taught me.

He ran onto his tiny set, with his two big, white dogs, with so much enthusiasm a viewer couldn’t help but be inspired to move with him.  He didn’t have any fancy weights or pulleys or machines or music or pretty girls behind him—all he had was a jumpsuit, his muscles and his enthusiasm.  He told us to pull out a straight back chair, hang on to it and do leg extensions.  He asked us to get a towel to do overhead stretches.  He modeled getting down on the floor to do sit-ups.   He even had us get vegetable cans out of the cupboard to use as weights for bicep curls.  He didn’t let you have an excuse for not exercising with him because the equipment he wanted you to use was right there in your house.   Not only was it easy to do the exercises, Jack’s vigor was inspiring.

I exercised with Jack for years until Jane Fonda came along with her record—yes, I said record.  We didn’t have videos yet, and so I’d put on Jane’s record, and with her telling me to “feel the burn”, I got on the floor, arched my back and did my buttocks tucks to the music of the Eagles.  I still can’t hear, “There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, a heartache tonight I know” without the urge to get down on the floor and flex my butt muscles!  I jogged in place with Jane for years, finally with her video, until I discovered the 20-Minute Workout, which came on television regularly at 6:30 every morning.  I’d put on my royal blue leotard and sweat with four perky girls for the 20 minutes they promised.  Then I’d get my kids off to school.

Over the years I’ve done aerobics in classes, dance aerobics, yoga classes, Thai Chi, exercised along with buff air force guys on the military channel, did some running while I worked in Kingston, bicycled, belonged to a couple of gyms, worked out in my own home with weights and an exercycle. I even ran around the inside of a house we lived in for a year where each room opened to the next. I broke my little toe doing that, but I haven’t stopped exercising since the early sixties and it’s all because of Jack LaLane.  Thanks, Jack.  If there’s a heaven, I know it won’t be long before you’ll have everybody in shape.

Telephone

Brrrrrringggggg!!!!!  BRRRRRINGGGGG!!!!!!! I jump at the first ring.  I cringe at the second one. I pretend not to hear it.  If I was alone in the house I might let it go to voice mail but my husband can’t stand an unanswered phone, so reluctantly I answer it.

What has happened to make me react so negatively to a ringing phone?  Years ago,  a phone ringing used to be a welcome interruption no matter when it came.  It rang two longs and a short to signal it was for us and not somebody else on the party line. When I was a kid the ringing black phone on the table could mean that my parents were being invited to an evening of cards at the Potter’s, my parents best friends.  The Potters had kids our age and so it was a treat to go there.  We’d be put to bed late, in the Potter’s bed, my brother and I tormenting each other for an hour until we finally dropped off.  Later we’d be carried to the car and then carried to bed when we got home.  The drowsy memories are sweet.

As a teenager the phone became a fabulous instrument.  The ringing telephone could mean a date, or a sleepover with friends, a flirty conversation or gossip.  I was thrilled with anticipation when the phone rang and sorely disappointed when it was not for me.  We only had one phone so I had time limits but my parents weren’t overly strict about enforcing them.  I’d talk for hours if I could.

When I was a young mother, isolated at home, no license to drive yet and my husband at work all day, the olive green Princess phone, hanging on the wall in the kitchen, was a lifeline.  I could call friends with their own small children to ask what to do about a fever or a diaper rash or how to handle a husband who didn’t have time to teach me to drive.   I could arrange a shopping date with my girlfriend or call a taxi to get to the doctor if my daughter fell on the sidewalk and put a gash in her forehead.  I could call a friend to talk to another adult for a while.

Eventually I went to work in an office and the telephone changed to one with multiple lines.  “Call for Christine on line 4” would sound through the building and I would have to field questions, go over schedules, plan meetings.  When I got home after being on calls all day I didn’t want to talk on the phone, but the calls that came were innocuous except for the increasing number of telemarketers who had our number.  I became adept at saying, “I’m not interested” without feeling guilty.  A new job in education resulted in a different relationship with my new multiline phone, which also had an answering machine.  I would come into work each morning with 12 to 25 messages on my phone each day.  I had to listen to them all first thing in the morning and answer each one while taking live calls and tending to customers who came through the door.  It was then that the telephone became a noisy little monster with numbers on it.

The people on the other end of this phone were not always friendly.  They had to complete forms that they didn’t like and didn’t understand and I was the person making them do it.  There were deadlines involved, teaching jobs on the line.  I was the enemy to a lot of them and they treated me that way, accusing and angry.   After I left that phone in the evening I didn’t want to see another one until I came into work the next day.

After I retired I thought that my feelings about phones might mellow.  The “no call” list had cut the unwanted telemarketing calls, even though there were still calls from the fire department and local law enforcement asking for money to send a needy child to the rodeo or the circus.  A long chat with my daughter-in-law or a friend was a bright spot in the day, though emails had taken over most communication.  Our phones were multiple and portable allowing me to roam the house or even go out into my garden when talking to someone rather than be stuck on the couch or the kitchen stool.  Our cell phones were used for emergencies rather than daily calling so we weren’t as accessible as some. 

What has kept my feelings about the telephone from being happy and content is my elderly mother.  My father died in 2001 and since that time I have gradually taken more of a caretaking role.  At first it was her finances, then legal issues, then home maintenance problems and now it is her health.  Now when the phone rings it is less likely to be a friend calling with a tempting invitation and more likely to be a call from my brother saying something like, “Chris, Mom feels weird”, a call which ended up with our spending 5 hours in the emergency room.  It would be easier if my brother had the capacity to assess a situation and decide whether it was serious or benign but he is not capable of that, so I have become The Decider in matters concerning Mom’s health.

Phone calls now make me jump, think immediately about difficulties, emergencies, life and death situations.  I send up a silent prayer.  The intake of air, holding my breath, getting ready, can only be released when I hear on the other end of the line, “Is this Christine Dosa?  May I take a few minutes of your time to answer some survey questions?”  Who would have thought that I’d rather receive a call from a stranger than someone I know?  My heart stops pounding and I calm down and answer, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested” and hang up.

This Year's Christmas Reverie

Today I am alone for a little while, my newly retired husband off to run errands and meet with old co-workers for a lunch.  I have time to reflect on the holiday, what is the same this year and what is different.

Things change, evolve—the shape of Christmas transforms.  It used to be child-based and now my grandchildren are in three different states and half of them are over 20. There is a new element this year—my second-oldest grandson is in Afghanistan.  I have made sugar cookies with sprinkles on them and there is a box set aside of cookies that Patrick will get in his Christmas package.  Today I will make Brandy Balls, something a 22-year-old will like and an item that will pack well.  He probably won’t get his package before Christmas, but what does it matter to a soldier in the dessert?  Any package on any day will be welcome.  I’ll wrap up a Calvin and Hobbes collection for him to go along with the sweets.  I was going to make some chocolate candy for him, too, but was reminded that they would probably melt in the heat of the desert, so that’s out.

The tree is decorated; most of the gifts are wrapped. My Santa collection is still boxed—there hasn’t been time to get all those different Santas unwrapped and placed around the house yet. Hopefully, I can get them out before my daughter and her husband arrive from Virginia on the 22nd. This will be the second time they have come for Christmas and it is the best gift I could ask for. Their presence will make four of us in the house rather than the sort of lonely two we have become. It makes such a difference to have other people to share the warmth of the season with.

I’ve always made cookies at Christmas, even before I had my own house to make them in.  I started baking at an early age and have never stopped.  Some of my favorite cookies were the shortbread cookies I used to make with my daughters.  They were easy, just butter, sugar and flour, and they could be shaped or rolled and sprinkled or frosted—the possibilities were endless.  Long ago, when I had small children I made rolled sugar cookies with complicated shapes and frostings.  My daughter-in-law makes gingerbread men every year, with frosting and various chips and candies on them. We work hard to make pretty cookies for our children.  Now it seems too much work for just my husband and me.  When I had lots of kids around I made a favorite we called “bubble bread”, a pull-apart bread made in a tube pan with lots of butter and cinnamon.  I don’t make that anymore, either—too many calories for us oldies.

No matter how old we get we’ll still enjoy Christmas music.  It’s not fattening!  The first CD we bring out is the Carpenter’s Christmas Portrait.  It’s 26 years old, but remains the warmest and best set of Christmas music ever put together—in our opinions, at least.  When one of the 20 Christmas CDs isn’t playing, radio station 106.9 is playing a huge variety of seasonal music.  Right now I’m listening to jazzy Diana Krall interpret some old favorites.

I love the smell of evergreens but we have an artificial tree now. When I was a kid my Dad would choose a tree from a lot, but it always had to be modified to fit into the living room.  He often had to take a limb off of one side and add it to the other.  Trees weren't as perfectly groomed as they are now.  When I was a Mom we'd go to the tree farm, choose a tree, cut it down, tie it to the car, fit it to the tree stand.  Some years we even popped corn and strung it for a garland.  I think I may institute that tradition again with my daughter.  I can’t imagine anything more cozy than stringing popcorn while drinking a hot buttered rum, toddy, cocoa, or a coffee nudge and listening to Karen Carpenter singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. 

I think it’s obvious that I love Christmas in all its variations.  I know people who don’t and I feel sad for them and wonder what happened to take the magic out of it for them.  I was in a lower income bracket most of my life, but always had a happy Christmas.  There was never opulence, except for maybe that two-year period my Dad owned a store and I got a hair dryer and a radio for Christmas.  My Dad and Mom loved Christmas too, so maybe my memories are better because of that. 

Some years I haven’t felt the “spirit”, the soft, giving, loving feeling that I wait for.  There have been sad years, years we’ve lost a family member, Christmases following a divorce, but they have been brief periods of time.  The magical spirit usually reaches me before Christmas comes and this year it’s been around for nearly a month. 

I’ll be excited on Christmas Eve because the next morning I’ll get to see my husband, my daughter and her husband open the gifts I’ve found for them, I’ll get to watch my husband trying to control the paper clutter afterwards, we’ll get phone calls from across the U.S. from my kids, I’ll make calls to thank others, we’ll make a special dinner and play games or watch a movie.  It will be another in the long string of happy Christmases, special in it’s own way.

Cranky Old Lady

Have you noticed, as you’ve gotten older, that you seem to be a little more impatient, less apt to stand calmly in line, more apt to be irritated by a slow down.  Have you raised your voice in protest, just a little, when a sales clerk insists you can fit into a size 8 when you know darn well that you’ve never worn a size 8 and never will?  Have you felt like walking out with your hair half cut when a hair dresser says: you  “need a wax” on your eyebrows and how about a pedicure and wouldn’t you like a manicure, too?   Have you snapped at the person at the end of the phone line at dinnertime who wants you to buy tickets for “the underprivileged to attend the rodeo” or to vote for the wonderful, better-than-the-last one candidate of the moment?

Has there been a barista who is young enough to hear you, and surely has better ears than you do, who gives you a soy latte when what you’ve said is, “Oh,boy, I need a latte this morning!”  Have you lost patience in a line because the person three in front of you has decided this is the day she needs to catch up with the check-out person, who is an old friend, and they can’t possibly talk on the phone, because who does that anymore?  And have you actually yelled at the driver in front of you because the light has turned green and the driver’s attention is on the text he’s reading?

I think I used to be lots more forgiving and patient.  I used to do buttocks tucks when I stood in line, not caring how long it took to get my groceries.  I used to accept the soy latte and not complain.  I used to say “okay” to the eyebrow wax.  But nowadays I’m not as nice.  I want good service.  I want courtesy and competence.  I want the hairdresser to cut my hair, charge me for it and let me go without the menu of what else she would like me to buy from her.  I want all drivers to pay attention.  I want friends to chat on their own time, not on mine. 

Ick!  I’ve become a cranky old lady!  When did that happen?  It’s funny—I wasn’t like this when I was working.  I must not have cared.  If I was standing in line, at least I wasn’t behind a desk, answering phones or emails or talking to grouchy customers who were just like I have become.   Was my time not as valuable to me?  Now I want to get out of that line, away from that hair salon and get on my way, because I have good things to do and I don’t want to waste a minute.  Time.  It’s more important now.  It’s finite, it won’t last, there is an end to these days and years.  I have too much I want to do and now that I have the time to do it, I don’t want others using it up.

Time hasn’t changed, but my attitude toward it, my perception of it, certainly has.  No day is long enough to check off everything on the list of things I have set out to accomplish.  Most of what’s on that list is pretty fun—the ratio of fun to not fun (chore) is about 3 to 1—three creative projects to one clean the floor.  Let’s see, how do I decide?  Shall I make a greeting card using one of the photographs I’ve taken, or shall I dust?  Duh!  Not going to pick dusting unless someone is coming to see me.  Then I’ll relent.  Hmmmmm….shall I write a piece about being a cranky old lady or should I wash the dishes?  Eventually I’ll wash the dishes but for now I’ll just put a few paragraphs down—the dishes can wait.  Shall I plan a lunch with my aging mother, my even more aging aunt and my long lost cousin or shall I spend that day in the garden?  Lunch wins every time.  Having to stand in line when young, seemingly untrained, clerks try to solve the problems of their customers, who either want to make trouble or chat, is not on my agenda of fun things to do.  It comes under the heading of CHORE.  For me being retired is not about chores.  It is about making the very most of the time I have left on this earth, in the way I find most satisfying.  There may be some who find it wonderful to have more time to do what I consider to be chores: waxing furniture, making their toilet bowls sparkle, shining their floors, passing a white glove test.  I know some women like that, but I’m not one of them.  I have to admit to thinking it’s nice to have more time to spend on housework because I don’t like a dirty house.  Since retiring I do give more time to cleaning, but I draw the line when it gets in the way of creativity, because cleaning has never given me the satisfaction of creating something, a garden, a photo, a piece of writing, a lunch for friends or family, a gift.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not an angry driver, I’m not someone who is impatient with old people (older than me) who are having trouble getting the coins out of their pockets to pay for their bread and milk.  I’m not a person who wants to deprive a small businesswoman of her fees.  I don’t get cranky out loud or push my way to the front—but I do find myself wanting to get on with things, get my business done and on to the fun parts of life.  It’s a new, raring-to-go me—excited to get to the next enjoyable part of the day.

Let There Be Light

Just Monday afternoon I was rhapsodizing about the loveliness of snow, the cozy cocoa and warm blanket and good book.  All of that romantic winter feeling lasted until 5:00 pm when the lights went out.

It is now 11:00 am on Wednesday.  It's 46 degrees in the house, even with a blazing fire in the wood stove.  There are two warm places in the house--one foot in front of the wood stove or in bed with the flannel sheets and two quilts on top of the fleece blanket pulled up over our heads.  It also feels good to wash dishes.  Thank heavens for a gas-powered water heater.

No television, no radio, lanterns after 4:30 and the fancy generator is refusing to generate.  We've been entertaining ourselves listening to police and fire calls on the battery operated scanner.  My husband keeps asking, "How could the pioneers STAND it??? What did they do when it got DARK???"  He's not buying it but we are so much better off than the "pioneers"--we have flashlights and 4-wheel drive vehicles to take us to a lighted place if we really want to go get warm.

It's Thanksgiving tomorrow.  I was supposed to make a pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce.  I was able to grate and squeeze the oranges and cook up the cranberries on the top of the gas stove, but the pie may or may not happen, depending on when the power is returned to us.  I put some Gran Marnier in the cranberries and admit to tippling a little as I cooked.  I figure the more alcohol, the better.  I know our hostess is also still without power and probably most of her guests will have tales of snow, cold and wind.  Our hostess is a psychologist who says the jollity factor will be higher because of the tension during the last few days.  I don't know about that--I just want my hands, feet and nose to warm up!

Let It Snow

I know there are probably a whole bunch of people out there gnashing their teeth today because it's snowing and they have to get somewhere.  They likely are not snow lovers.  But I am.  I love it.  Even when I worked I loved it, but I didn't love driving in it.  I was one of those wimps that called in "stuck" in my driveway when it snowed like this.  I was stuck alright, with fear of sliding off the road.


But now that I'm retired I can love snow as much as I want to.  Snow always makes me want steaming hot cocoa, a crackling fire in the wood stove, an exciting book, a warm fleece blanket....and a buttery cookie wouldn't hurt.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing out in the snow, building a snowman, sledding, throwing snowballs and your hands would get so cold they hurt and your nose was dripping and your pants were wet and there was snow down inside your boots?  Remember how your hands ached when you tried to warm them in hot water?  Remember how good it felt to warm up at the kitchen table with a mug of sweet cocoa and graham crackers to dunk in it?  And remember how you wanted to go right back outside no matter how cold you were going to get?  Remember not caring?  Remember wet socks and coats and pants and mittens and knit hats hanging all over the kitchen making puddles of melted snow on the floor?  Remember the smell of wet wool?  I bet you do and I bet those are wonderful memories for you like they are for me.

I hope you can let yourself love the snow just a little bit because we're going to have lots of it this year and it would be a shame if it just make you unhappy.

Writing Essays

I've been writing since I was a teenager, in diaries, journals, letters, for publication and then in 2005, in this blog.  I went to a Writer's Retreat at Pilgrim Firs the weekend of November 5 and finally found out what I've been doing all these years.  I've been writing personal essays.  I was at our retreat teacher's website (Sheila Bender) just now and found this quote.

"At the core of the personal essay," Philip Lopate writes, "is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience." As essayists, in talking about ourselves, we are in some way talking about everyone. It is our experience that matters and our interest in sharing it that moves others. Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, put it this way in his acceptance speech, "All true literature rises form this childish, hopeful certainty that we resemble one another".

I guess that's been my impulse--to write about my experience and/or thoughts and hope you can relate, or that something rings a bell with you, makes you remember or think.  According to some of the comments I've gotten through this blog, it appears to work sometimes.  

Queen of the Mountain

It’s called Afton Apple Orchard but my granddaughter, Ali, and I  are focused on the mountain made of tires. Ali has been here before with her kindergarten class, but it’s the first time for me.

The tire mountain seems to get bigger as we approach it, sand packed and monstrous. Ali scrambles over the old tractor tires to the top and thrusts her arms to the sky, grinning wildly. I think, “Queen of the Mountain”. Suddenly she disappears. I am startled, staring at where she was just a moment ago, a little afraid. Then I hear her calling me and I see her half-way down a giant black PVC pipe slide, on her way back to me.

As she emerges the fall sunlight shines in her long hair and the eager cries of dozens of kids running towards us almost drowns out her small but excited voice, “Did you see me, Grandma?” In the next moments the others ascend the tire mountain and she is no longer the Queen.