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 |  I've maxed out. Closed this blog. |
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This is a way of making myself write something coherent and grammatically correct almost every day. I'm opinionated and need an outlet. I'm also prone to flights of fancy. Thanks for stopping by. |
| Last Sunday we had a new arrangement of an old hymn. The pianist is a professional musician who plays in area bands and does many instruments. We also had a flute and oboe accompaniment. We had not practiced with the flute and oboe until just before the service. In an instrumental passage, the director lost track and didn't bring in the choir. It's amazing that no one started without him. We were all counting, but watching for his direction. He missed it. He laughed and whispered something. We nodded on the front row. He stopped, turned to the audience, apologized, and told the musicians where to start. The pianist didn't hear him correctly, so they didn't start at the same place. They had to stop and the director yelled out the pick up at measure number, and they started again. He still missed bringing us in. He stopped many measures of background only later, turned, red-faced, and apologized again. This time he counted, and he signaled us appropriately. We continued on, ending with a beautiful instrumental finale. They were very talented. The audience politely applauded, whether for the professional class instrumentalists, or forgiving of the troubled spot, It proves how vital the director is, no matter how good the musicians. They can't do it without a leader. It also proves that everyone is human. Fortunately, it was only church where everyone is very forgiving. At rehearsal this week, we all had a good laugh. |
| Maybe one of the best gifts I ever got was on my 16th birthday from my mother's mother. She didn't have a lot of money. My grandfather had been very ill and unable to work when the kids were young. As he became able to work for longer periods of time, too many years had gone by, leaving them barely making ends meet. My grandparents lived near the downtown area by the time I was a teenager. I remember we walked down to Main Street and looked into the jeweler's window. We liked the birthstone display. She said that it wouldn't hurt to go in and take a look. They were 10 karat gold with a simple stone. Mine was amethyst by some charts, but this jewelry line said alexandrite. The rings were $10 a piece. No big deal by today's standards, but it was a significant amount back then. (I remember thinking that a Villager summer blouse for $7 was a lot when I was a high school sophomore). She bought the ring. Later when I was showing my mother, she admired it, but pointed out, for her mother ten dollars was a sacrifice. I should appreciate what it meant to her to give me such a gift. So I did appreciate it. I still have the ring. In fact, I still wear it on my left hand, where my wedding ring used to be. It still looks pretty good. I know that jewelers don't waste their time with rings like this now. You'd probably find them at a department store. No matter. When I look at it, I see my Grandmother's smile. I remember that I was her first grandchild and am reminded that she loved me. |
| I see children playing with a ton of toys and demolishing them. The girls in my family get dolls for a birthday and a month later, "it's head broke off". When my grown nieces were little, they must have had 300 Barbies. They had baskets of Barbies, some without various limbs. My brother said that he needed another house just for toys. Things were different when I was growing up. There was plenty of advertising, but kids didn't have the same intense longing to have what everybody else had. Or at least their parents didn't have that longing. I remember Barbie was just getting famous, and I wanted one so badly. Year after year I didn't get one. I'd go to sleep at night thinking about one, and having various outfits I had seen. Finally, when I was too old to play with dolls, my mother got me a Barbie. I still have it. In fact, I have almost all my dolls. When I mentioned this one day at a job, a man who had raised three daughters, asked, "Weren't you ever allowed to play with them?" It hit me like a ton of bricks. No, I wasn't. Except for one or two baby dolls that I had before school, all my dolls were kept like treasures. My mother had been very poor and didn't have a lot of toys, probably never a decent doll. So she made me preserve my dolls for my own daughters some day. I could set them up and look at them or lay them in the toy crib, but all I really was allowed to do was dust them off and tidy up. I never had any daughters, but I still have the dolls. They are old fashioned, so today's girls wouldn't like them. To be honest, if I had had daughters, I probably would let them only look at my old dolls. They would have to play with new ones. I would let them play with their own things. They could break off the arms, by accident, without fear. But the conditioning is too deep. My old dolls are just keepsakes, not toys. No one can play with them. If I saw a child playing with one of these, I would have a nervous breakdown. I have no one to inherit them, so I guess I should try to sell them as antiques. I am old enough, and the dolls with me, to qualify. The money would do me more good when I retire than a doll to dust. But I can't part with them yet. I'm not letting go of the past just yet. |
| Holy moley! What four kids age 2 to 6 can do! They dumped out all the toys that Great Grandpa keeps for them. They played with my computer, my musical keyboard, and my I-pod without permission, but their parents never stopped them. Magazines and crushed crayons are everywhere. After they left, I found inside toys on the back porch by accident. During dinner, there were toy cars on the dinner table, and plastic Easter eggs under foot when you stood. (I knew I should have thrown those out instead of putting in the toy box.) With two adults standing nearby after everyone ate and played outside, someone knocked over the floor lamp, breaking four light bulbs and sending sparks everywhere. It looked like a fire was about to start, but it stopped when someone unplugged the lamp. That was cleaned up, but we went downstairs to get away from possible glass on the floor. Three girls and one boy, with their three mothers, were downstairs with me. The men stayed upstairs. These children made such loud cacophony and wrestled together like wild animals. I was on the floor to play a card game with the six year old, so they did tumble over me a time or two. When they were so tired, they had gotten cranky (yes, they got worse), they were packed up to go home. Parting is a long drawn out process. They're trying to teach the children to say good-bye and thank you. One or two did well, but two were definitely rebelling. Clearly, I was exhausted when they left. I still had to run the dishwasher, and scrub some pots, mop the floor, and try to tidy up a bit. I fell asleep for 10 minutes in a chair. The vacuuming can wait until tomorrow. Here's the thing. They are not my grandchildren. They are my father's grandchild and great grandchildren. I can't correct any of them or their parents. I can't complain about the adults not carrying their dirty glasses to the kitchen or dumping their trash or putting their chairs back in place. I don't want to offend them because they are family. I want them to come again. The children will grow up. I will be old and they won't be interested in visiting an aunt or great-aunt, once my dad is gone. So I try to enjoy my time with them while I have them. Despite everything, I am quite fond of them. |
| If there is one thing we can do at our house, it is growing weeds. We have chickweed everywhere. The soil my dad mixes with vermiculite yields chickweed and some weed I can't name, which grows consistently in the sterile pots I use for herbs and begonias. Weeding the pots on the deck is a daily chore. Last weekend I weeded the vegetable garden again, and the outer perimeter, since it's a raised bed. The iris patch needs it again, but it's in back, too, so I haven't gotten it yet. Today, I did the mailbox out on the street, picked up broken branches from the shrubs and the yard, and weeded the area around the front patio. It's a large area to crawl around on your hands and knees. Now the flower pots are bad enough. But the yard also has vines and tree seedlings coming up where you don't want them. So you need gloves and a variety of tools to carry with you. I have to use sun screen and a hat to keep from looking like a lobster. There are also a number of things in the yard to surprise you. My dad is an elderly gentleman who won't give up, and forgets where he puts things. Or he plans to come back to it, but falls asleep, so it stays outside for a few days. You can find tools of all sizes, scrap metal, flower pots blown by the wind, buckets, hoses, and chemicals where you don't expect them. You just have to walk around. Sometimes he hangs things in the trees like pulleys or bungee straps. We must have a hundred screw drivers here: in the garage, the kitchen, the laundry room, his bedroom, the foyer, the covered entrance out front, the patio, the cars, the wheelbarrow, the back deck. I found one in the grass today and one in a flower pot. I've complained about pointing the lawn mowers away from the patio and walkways to avoid grass seed being thrown that way OR buying grass catchers to attach. But that's too much discipline. So pulling weeds by hand will continue to be a challenge. So will gathering up the tools and paraphernalia of the yard man. I'm calling it exercise. |
| I know a lot of people just wish they could have a busy, party life like me. Tonight after almost completely ruining dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and put away everything and retired to watch Jeopardy. Wow, can you stand that excitement? I found nothing else on TV that I wanted to see. So I settled on a 1949 movie, The Third Man with Orson Welles. It was black and white. Much of the dialog was in German. Joseph Cotton was the lead actor. Orson doesn't appear until the last half. When he does appear, it is only briefly, and he stays mainly in the shadows. Welles plays a criminal who has faked his death. Amazingly, he portrays the guy as a like-able character.He's very low key and subtle. The only time he appears on camera in the light for very long is on a carnival ride with Joseph Cotton. They ride in a private box in a Ferris wheel type thing. For the top half, they have the door open, and it appears that one or the other or both will fall f out to the dots of people on the ground. Then on the last quarter down, they close the door and sit, conceding that they are friends, and neither can hurt the other.In the end he is running through the German sewers from what looks like hundreds of police, so you only catch an outline in the light or see him struggling up the exit ladder. He had very little face time with the camera. It was artfully and tastefully done. Maybe it's Welles rich voice: you always feel like you've witnessed something great when he acts. This is a wonderful film, highly recommended when you want to live it up. |
| My grandmother Dixie was number 13 of 14 children. Basically her older sisters raised her. Her mother, the original Dixie, died when she was 12. I don't know when they gave her the same nickname, or maybe she had been "Little Dixie" prior to her mother's death. When I researched the family tree, I found another Dixie among her cousins. They lived on a farm and had a small apple orchard. They had a vegetable garden, but raised tobacco to sell. The apples were for eating, cooking, and making apple butter. Her father developed asthma that prevented him from working in the fields by the 1930's. By then Dixie was married and raising children. The only ones left on the farm were her invalid father, her brother who came back from the first Great War with a desire to drink instead of work, whenever possible, her oldest sister, and a brother who was kicked in the head by a mule in his youth. One sister married the dairy farmer next door. He died young and left her with the care of one child and 500 acres and a herd of cattle. Various members of the family would come at harvest time to help. They'd make apple butter in a big copper kettle on an outdoor fire. A mule was used to help stir a big wooden mechanism to prevent scorching. They'd can it, and split it among themselves. Between jobs, various ones would live on the dairy farm and make it run until a job presented itself somewhere else. Grandpa John couldn't walk the fields, but he could do crafts. He took up caning. He caned chair bottoms and made baskets. These sold very well and made some money for them. There was no welfare back then.With all those kids, he needed extra chairs, so he made stools from trees they had cut, and stretched leather or rubber across the tops.He was handy even before he got so sick. The married daughters always went home to visit whenever they could. They'd help each other out. My dad went to one of these aunts every summer after school was out. That's how he fell in love with three of them in particular, and stayed close to them and the drinking uncle. He'd go out to visit them and would find Uncle Hubert by following the beer cans left in the woods. He learned how to separate cream, how to hitch a mule, and many other things. He had a lot of freedom running through the country and playing with his cousins.Every August, he'd cry when it was time to go back to the city before school started again. Dad, like a lot of country folk, loves to tell stories. My brothers and I have heard his stories over and over. Somehow we still love them and love to hear them again. |
| My dad's life has been about food. When he was 12, he went to work in a grocery store as a box boy. He'd carry groceries for people 2 or 3 blocks, and maybe he'd get a nickel tip. The store was downtown on Main Street. You had to be 13 to work, so Grandma told them he was 13. His father worked on the railroad and would be gone from Monday to Friday. Grandpa was tight with money and sometimes didn't give his wife enough to last all week. She'd take young Harry's tip money without asking and buy bread for the family. In high school, he still worked at the store, but more hours. He did a little of everything. He ended up in the butcher shop and stayed there after he finished school. When we were kids, he had gone to a food distributor, fresh meat, frozen foods, and other packaged foods. He was a manger there and did everything. Eventually, he worked part-time at another grocery to make extra money for a growing family. When the distributor went out of business--the owner was elderly and ready to quit--, he went to a small upscale grocer in the butcher shop. When they were sold out, he went to yet another upscale grocer, with a nice clientele. He left there at age 78, and within a few weeks, he was back at work in a small butcher shop in an exclusive little market. There's a gourmet chocolate shop, two restaurants, a spice store, a bakery, a seafood store, a cheese and wine store, a florist who does not deliver, and this little organic butcher shop. He's almost 90 and still working. He's not a chef, but he knows meat recipes. He can tell you how to cook a piece of meat, what kind to buy for what you're preparing. He can cook soup the way they did in the store. (You play it by ear, or whatever you happen to have on hand.) But he prefers vegetables cooked the old-fashioned, country way. We get him to try modern things though. I try to get him to have healthier versions than what he learned to love as a boy with his country cooking aunts. No one has ever left his house hungry. If strangers came to our house, they were fed. A hobo going down the street asked for a sandwich when I was in grade school. He got two and a glass of water. We have foreigners in the house for holidays.Dad couldn't stand for someone to be alone on a holiday. A coworker of his had grown children and his wife was a nurse who volunteered to work Christmas, so he came to our house to celebrate with us and eat breakfast after he took his wife to work. We learned from Dad, and so did the grandchildren. Feed people. He grows a garden, still, not as big as in the old days, when he was steadier on his feet, and his back didn't hurt so much.He loves fruit and fresh vegetables. He loves to talk about labeling, and organics, and honesty in advertising. I think if we were to celebrate his life (he's told me absolutely no retirement party) it would have to be an abundance of food. Serve everyone until they were satisfied with such a variety, that no one would be left out. |
| I grew up when afternoon teas were still acceptable. Women wore pretty dresses, hats, and white gloves and would show up for tea. There's a lot of formality involved. It does feel a little like children playing make believe, but maybe that's why it fascinated me so much. I've always wanted to have a tea party, but it takes more than one person present who knows how such a party works. Tea is the first ingredient. These days we like choices, so having more than one variety is essential. Bags are convenient; no strainers are necessary. You don't need silver service. There are pretty little ceramic pots. Cups and saucers instead of mugs are a must. Your best spoons, stainless or silver, will do, but no plastic. In addition to sugar, lumps or loose, you need artificial sweetener. Lemon wedges on a pretty little plate, and milk in a cream pot, complete the tea part. Real linens are required. A cloth tablecloth with no plastic cover must cover the table. If it's a large group, you can get away with paper cocktail napkins, but cloth is better. The American version of the menu will allow any small or dainty finger foods, nothing messy or dripping. Little sandwiches without crusts, for example, are satisfactory. No chips and dip. The menu can be simple and short, preferably homemade or from the bakery. In movies or on TV, I've always seen the hostess "pour" or serve. But the etiquette books (yes, some of us still defer to the experts) suggest that a friend actually pour the tea for each guest, once the hostess has brought it to the table. By the way, the tea pot should be rinsed with boiling water just before putting in the tea bags with hot water. Or if you're serving tea bags, cups should be warmed the same way. The tea bag soaks only long enough to make it the desired strength and is then placed in a bowl or other holder. Do not use it a second time if you like good tea. An RN friend of mine, when I lived in another county, and I talked about staging a big tea party for a women's community meeting and discussion group, but we never got our guest speakers lined up. We were both busy and let it drop. I could also see doing it as a fund raiser. A little nostalgia, and an air of make believe. On the other hand, our world may be just a little too casual, too paper cup and plastic spoon oriented to pull it off. We'd show up in jeans and boots and would look for the taco dip. Who cares if you blow on your coffee or put your napkin in your lap? Those traditions will pass with our memories. |
| Back to normal tomorrow. I'll be in the dentist office about the time I usually get up. For some reason I picked all my doctors close to home, but the eye doctor and dentist are on the opposite outskirts of town. Oh, well. My teeth always feel better after. And going early means I go right after cleaning my teeth, before drinking coffee. I'm sure the hygienist appreciates that. We all overate at my house, except the two year old. He successfully destroyed the new elephant ears planted on the patio. We didn't have as many guests as expected. They're coming next weekend. Only family could get away with changing the invitation date to suit themselves. So, it's back to life as usual, whether it's work or the doctors, or gardening or errand running. Set the alarm and lay out tomorrow's clothes. The holiday weekend was nice, but all nice things come to an end. Maybe the mundane duties keep us going. Another holiday is around the corner. |
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