all the news that’s fit to sing

Last night I wrote a blog which is now in cyberspace somewhere….evidently I have two blogs, unbeknown to me until I tried to find this one and ended up on the other one.  So the post I made about the wonders of an on-line social network and the person who contacted me is out there somewhere…you can only guess at what it said. Me, too. I can only guess because today I cannot find it.

Two things:  I am making awesome soup today, which can not rival the soup of my firstborn, but is going to be awesome nonetheless.

And next Sunday I am meeting up with a friend from yesteryear. It has been four years since I have seen him, and so I have been trying to sort out the many things that have happened in those four years.

Firstborn, you were not in NC then, or if you were, it was very new.

Thirdborn had not returned home, boyfriend in tow, only to marry, give birth, and make a home of their own.

Cousin still lived here, with his son.

Dad was still alive. So was my aunt.

Half the fruit trees in my yard were not planted, and my son was not around to help mow the yard as he faithfully does each week.

I did not go to church. (THAT is another story.)

So I am looking forward to catching up with my friend and being a person unto myself. Not grandma, not mom, not daughter. Just me. Wish me luck.

Vacation

I have been on vacation for six weeks. Tomorrow I return to work and structure, and overload. That almost makes it sound like I have not been overloaded while I was off, and that is far from the case. It’s different, though. Just being able to sleep in until six-thirty or seven, or even eight, has made it less stressful than it is going to be.

The alternative is to be unemployed, so I think I had better resign myself to the 5:30 get-out-of-bed time and be thankful.

The past six weeks have been bitter-sweet. Lots of good things have happened, and some very sad things have happened. I sat in the waiting room for three surgeries, underwent one procedure of my own, visited with the physical therapist (and found that things were actually much better than I had feared), attended one funeral and countless masses in my aunt’s  honor, spent irreplaceable time with my girls (no, not the dogs, the real girls), held my grandson and watched him smile, saw my son come around for holidays, and found that my good friend has a tumor the size of a 16-week-old baby in her uterus.

I think I should be ready for life to calm down and become routine. I hope going back to work can do that for me. Maybe I can even work blogging into a routine. I’m supposed to be practicing the guitar 10 minutes each day, and I haven’t even picked it up to tune it yet.

Time to get back in the saddle.

Westward Ho!

I typed that title twice…it just doesn’t come out right.  That is what they used to say, isn’t it?

Well, I’d be doing handstands if I knew how to do handstands…and cartwheels if I knew how to do those, too.

First born is coming home for the holidays and that means the decorations can go up! Including the phony tree that is not as “green” as a cut real tree after all.  [Seems a lot of good intentions didn't pan out (get that, westward ho, pan out? )] And I’ll have someone to go through the 27 boxes of Christmas decorations with, and someone to be in this house with me instead of it being my first Christmas alone….

I hope first born’s best friend is going home for the holidays, too….cause I want to know everyone is toasty warm and surrounded by loved ones this year.

And there will be pizzelles to be made and Anne Murray singing “Silver Bells”.  It’s going to be all right.

Yippee! And I really mean that.  I’m even looking forward to going to the airport at 11:30 PM!

Dad’s Birthday

Today is my dad’s birthday. Well, it is if you are on the west coast, but it’s yesterday for the other side of the country.  I only bring this up because some pretty important people live on the other side of the country, so they need to know that I haven’t forgotten what day my dad was born.

He lived a long and full life, and he got to stare over the table at my mom, which to him meant it was a good day. He loved the little things. He loved me. I felt it; he said it; I knew it.  I’m one of the lucky ones.  It could have gone differently if circumstances were different. It’s all because of a dog.

Pogo was an American bull terrier. He scared the wits out of me as a two year old. But he is the reason my mom met my dad.

We lived in Falls Church, Virginia.  The “we” was my mom and two sisters and myself.  We lived in an apartment and that apartment allowed dogs.  So when my future dad was hunting for a place to stay with his two boys and his dog, he landed in the apartment upstairs from us.  He had sworn off women, newly divorced from the mother of his children.  Then he saw mom sitting on the steps of the apartment. He wanted to take care of her because she looked so tired.

He spent the next fifty-some years taking care of her, and if he were here today, he would be doing it still.

Wait, hold on, he is doing it still. I found another hand written note just last week, explaining to her what their standing was on H/HH bonds and how to deal with them in 2012.  He tried to take care of everything.

I love my dad. I love him for loving my mom, for loving me, and for the way he loved his life.

I couldn’t ask for a better example of love between two people. I wanted that for myself. I even married someone with a big age difference, seeing that it worked for my mom and dad. It didn’t work for me.  But in a way, I could feel his love for my mom so much that, though I’ll never have that, just being on the sidelines of it makes me believe it can happen for other people.  And that makes the world a better place.

Happy birthday, Dad. I miss you so much.

Nothing’s Happening Here

I’m just going to pretend like my world is going on an even keel right now, and that, as I am one week away from being back in school full-time, with all the time constraints that will hold,  things are great.  “Nothing’s happening here….”

This afternoon I am headed for a concert at the state college, free because my mother holds a membership with the local art gallery.  I used to suffer through them, but now, I actually enjoy going, sitting, and doing nothing but listening.  The venue goes from Opera, to light Broadway, with Classical and Modern thrown in for good measure. We hear groups and soloists. One of the best was the harpsichord concert.  I don’t know what today’s program will be, but it will be a happy and cool break from the digging I am doing in my back yard.

I have dreams of a landscaped back yard.  I know I have the space for a truly amazing area back there.  Instead, I have Dallas grass, Bermuda grass (very invasive), and a bathroom for the dogs.  I am trying to make a sidewalk around the back, without having to spend any money.  I have been on weed patrol for a long time now, trying to find an eco-friendly way to KILL THE WEEDS.  I’ve tried vinegar and salt, but I’m ready to move on to just salt, and then to the hard stuff if I have to. My hands and hips are aching with the physical effort.

Not that I’m complaining. I could be in a place with no yard, no frogs, no fruit trees…

Time to get ready to go.

a little bummed

The last time I got into a car accident, well, the time before last now, I was so devastated when the insurance companies and the CHP report blamed me.  It was unjust then, and I have an overwhelming feeling that somehow the same thing is going to happen this time.  I feel it coming.

I got a call from the insurance company tonight.  They wanted to tell me I wasn’t supposed to leave my car in the repair shop and get an insurance-paid-for rental until the shop was ready to work on the car, had all the parts, was actually repairing it.  Somehow that was lost in translation.  I guess I was supposed to take the estimate to the shop and they would order the parts from that.  Then, when they had them all, I was supposed to take the car in.  That got a little muddled and I guess I jumped the gun.

It’s not like I wasn’t already confused, and passed around from one person to the next, and then ending up with a totally independent claims adjuster who told me they wouldn’t know if they needed other things til they had the bumper off in the shop.

Oh well, I am supposed to call the shop and urge them to get it done so that I can take the car back.  I just know that on top of all this, they are going to find me at fault for getting hit in the rear on the freeway.

I want to curl up in a ball and cry.  When things go wrong, I start to take it personally.  I feel like all those thoughts of my inadequacies are indeed justified after all.

I could have done without this!

Mouse Brains and Cow Skin

I don’t want to write about human vaccines and their controversial nature, but that is what is on my mind.

I am not an expert about them.   I do know I am skittish about getting the flu shots that come out yearly.  I think coming to a decision about giving them to your own precious newborn is about as hard as they come.

Mouse brains and cow skin?  Those are ingredients in those vaccines.

I read a book called THE MICROBE HUNTERS for one of my science classes (microbiology? biology?).  That’s where I learned about Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine, which I was given on a sugar cube.  And now, there is a vaccine for the German measles, the disease I will always credit with having robbed me of my perfect vision, leaving me with a lifetime of stumbling when I need to get up in the middle of the night and my contacts are in their container by the bathroom sink.   I did gain one thing from that 10-day episode of a high fever and excruciating eye pain: a lifetime of remembering the words to the song KING OF THE ROAD.  (“Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let: 50 cents. No phone, no pool, no pets. I ain’t got no cigarettes…”)

I vaccinated my children.  I was always worried. They got fevers. They slept. They were cranky and unhappy. But I could say, with the best of my knowledge, that I was protecting them from things that were worse than what they experienced.

Now there is a lot more research out there.   There are many more voices added to the mix.  To whom do you listen?  I think you find someone you trust and you do a lot of praying, and you realize that you can’t possibly predict the outcome.  Your stomach will churn, and this will be one of the first of many choices you make wherein you do what is, to the best of your knowledge, best for your child.

ole paint

I know first born is going to have issues with my choice of paint color in what used to be third born’s bedroom.

I love the color I chose  (even though, while drying, I can’t really tell what color it is going to be).  I didn’t choose a shade of yellow, because I heard on NPR that babies in yellow rooms are fussier than those in other colored rooms.  Yes, they did a study on this, and it turns out that cheery yellow does not bring good cheer after all.  And since baby grandson will also sleep in there someday,  I chose my favorite color, a shade of green.

Green is the color of living things. It is the color of trees and plants, and meadows, and other soothing places. (I hear you: “It’s the color of pond scum, frogs,  and goo, too!” but I’ll ignore you….).

My mom came over and we put the first coat on the walls. The trim and closet, and doors will be a contrasting off-white, and the curtains third born chose for her room will still go on the windows.  But I WILL put a rug in there.  Hardwood floors are so cold in the winter!

I can’t wait to see what color it is in the morning!

a hero among us

Some of those sirens last night were two fire engines, chalk full of firemen, in the half-block behind my neighbor.

After a long internal debate, I changed back into clothes and walked over there, despite the fact that it was ten at night.  That’s when I found out that my neighbor, the fire inspector, had saved the life of an elderly man across the street from him.

The granddaughter had called on him, thinking he was the paramedic type of fire fighter.   Despite not being that kind, he rushed right over, found the man with no pulse, did the Heimlich maneuver on him, and got the food out that he had choked on. I assume he did CPR, too, but I don’t know for sure.

By the time I arrived, they were closing up the trucks, and the ambulance had departed, taking the man off, now with a pulse.

It just figures that our local fire inspector is a hero.  He’s a really nice neighbor, too.

helicopters

OK, there is one thing I am not too fond of where I live. The helicopters fly above day and night. No, I don’t live close to a hospital with the heliopad for emergency personnel.  At this time of night, it’s not the traffic copter that checks hwy 99 behind the park, either.  No, this is the copter that flies around, sometimes saying garbled messages through megaphones, sometimes sending a beam of bright white light earthward.  Then suddenly, it will start to fade. Only tonight, it’s not doing that.  Tonight, it is going round and round and round.  What unseemly senario is taking place, and how do I find out?  What does happen in this neighborhood after dark?