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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| This is a fascinating 18 minute video about the working of the brain by a doctor who recounted what it was like to have a stroke. Sounds grim, I know, but it was really interesting to hear the way the two hemispheres of the brain work, what they do differently, and how she experienced all of it. The speaker is easy to listen to, animated and funny even. http://vsl.veryshortlist.com/ct/2955167:3229895434:m:3:226900516:4B0734476D81370... |
| Next week will be the last week of our grief group. It's gone well. We had one man drop out, for which we were thankful. He wasn't ready to listen to anything but his own sad tale, and however sad it truly is, group members have to be able to support each other, or at least listen attentively. A woman came the following week and took his place, so we came out okay in numbers. Five is a small group, but a workable size, and people became close and talked easily. The group is held, I may have mentioned, in the apartment building we moved my mother into when we first brought her over here from her home in Kennewick. Tonight, since I was early even to set up, I let myself feel what it was like, putting in the pass code and going through those doors every night. I was always there with a mixture of feelings. If I came for lunch, I had to hurry back to work. Usually I came after work and fixed supper for her. My most intense feeling was sadness. The apartment was brand new, a decent size for her I thought. Her furniture was a tight fit because she couldn't decide to leave anything else out. She really couldn't decide much of anything. She hardly knew where she was, and where she had lived before. Her house, where she and Daddy had moved to from Atlanta fifteen years before, was just a hole in her mind. Pictures of it looked familiar if one of us was in the picture too, but she couldn't quite place the location. She missed out on the joy of seeing her mother's red Oriental rug look perfect in her new living room. She missed out on having a patio with a view of the fountain below and the mountains in the distance. She didn't really notice any of it. For years she had been making us a perfect Sunday dinner, week after week, only the entree changing from pot roast to salmon to maybe meatloaf. I forget. Suddenly I was cooking the meals in her apartment, and Bill would come and eat with us. This was the same mother who barely let me in the kitchen except to dish up the salad, set the table, fill the glasses with ice water. Suddenly she had trouble remembering how to work her microwave, and ate a lot of cereal and toast when I wasn't there. It still makes me incredibly sad to remember how lost she was in a new place, and I wonder again and again if it was really the best thing to do. But what else could I have done, you ask? That's what we all say, except the ones who choose to do something else. Like the three sisters who are giving full time care to their brother with Kreutzfeld-Jacob disease. They have jobs and families too, but they're managing. And the daughter who came all the way across the country to tell her mother she forgave her so that the mother could die in peace, and stayed for a month expecting it to happen. I'm not at all convinced I couldn't have done better by her, somehow helping her stay in the familiar territory of her own home. But, as I think of it, she didn't have a terminal diagnosis then. She just had Parkinsons and was becoming demented, little by little. So, although I might have stayed with her and gotten some live-in help, I probably wouldn't have thought to do it so early. Still, she lived another four years. Sigh. I guess I couldn't have done it differently after all. But maybe, live-in help.... For our final week we are all supposed to bring a food the person who died really liked, and eat together. I'm thinking. I don't think salmon would be a good choice. Probably salad. We had a green salad every Sunday, with peeled tomatoes and oil and vinegar dressing. That would be okay for the Adventists in our group. I'll close this off before the hour turns, then maybe come back and add a video that I thought was really good. Serious, but good. If I can find it in time. |
| Bill has spent Memorial Day weekend in his customary and endearing way, thinking of the family members who have died. He always gets out the buckets of water, patrols the yard cutting all the best flowers, loads them along with scrub brush and Windex, me and the dog, and goes to the cemetery to take care of the graves. Actually that only takes a couple of hours, max. But this year he decided to load his Family Tree program, which was on my old, deceased computer, and to hunt for more branches. Must be because he has a new bud for it, little Zach, that he got interested again. Plus, after since we visited Howard Castle he's been trying to find a legitimate connection between that family and his.  Well, sure, there are a lot of Williams, Elizabeths, Charleses and Johns in both branches of the Howards, but what family with an English surname can't say that?And what did I think we'd get done this weekend beside geneology? Well, there's the basement to work on, the other half of the fish pond to empty and re-line, and the living room to be painted. I thought maybe we'd get at one of those. But since that wasn't happening, I washed and photographed clothes and put ads on eBay. Those are the old ones I spent my time with. I didn't have as much fun as he did, and I'm still not done, but it's a start. Is it worth it? I'm not sure about that one. I need to buy some more silver polish, I guess, since I can't find mine. How in the world can you lose silver polish? But I thought if anybody ever buys silver any more, June brides and 25th anniversaries ought to be the best time to sell. There are a lot of Bill's too big pants that were hardly worn. They're tricky to photograph though, too wide to hang neatly on a hanger and I don't have very good light on my wood floor to lay them down on. A friend suggested I make a cardboard insert to hold them upright and stuff them! And she was serious! Oh, another old one-- Bill got out most of the stump and root of the big pine tree that fell in January. That's progress, and it didn't take him long either. |
| Bill is currently on the phone to a surveyor of some sort, maybe cars, from the sound of it. They've evidently asked him about servicing his cars, because he's talking about tires. We always take them to Les Schwab for everything. They're fast, accommodating and do a good job. Bill is now having a good time talking though. He's going on and on about the mileage on his Prius, the touring package, and hybrids in general. He also told her about Phil Wick, a former chairman of Les Schwab who used to be his neighbor. Bill told her they'd had him stuffed and displayed in the home office when he died. (He admitted later that he didnt' know if Phil was still alive or not. If you are, sorry Phil!) In between his funny stories he's answering a question or two. I hope she's enjoying this interview as much as he is! She's evidently from Las Vegas, because he's now telling her about visiting area 51. He equated Prineville, the home of Les Schwab, with Elko, a town in the middle of nowhere. He says she didn't even know how to pronounce Prius when they began talking, and now he has her convinced she should be ashamed not to be getting 47 mph! He really ought to be a salesman! |
| Bill was a little late getting home tonight, and I began cooking as soon as he got here. Now he's out in the shop doing the Thursday night radio check, a system to alert both sides of the state in case of an incident, like Mt. St. Helens, that might prevent the news traveling through the regular methods, like telephone. Seems less likely now in the cell phone age, but nevertheless.... I was thinking about dinnertime when I was growing up. Unless it was a night when the store was open till 9, (which was Thursdays at first, and then Fridays too, and on and on, but not before I left home for college,) my family ate together. On those nights when Daddy was working, Mother and I would go to Emory University cafeteria, or we'd have tuna salad or canned stroganoff at home. On regular nights we'd have meat (or fish, if someone had been fishing,) a salad, a vegetable, and a starch-- potatoes or bread usually, sometimes rice or pasta. Daddy always had a slice of bread and butter anyway. Sometimes we'd have dessert, most often fruit or jello. The vegetables were usually frozen, unless it was summer. Then we had green beans or corn on the cob, and always fresh tomatoes. A few hours after dinner, Daddy would fix himself a peanut butter, mayo and onion sandwich. Mother quit fussing about it and being insulted after a few years, just shook her head and rolled her eyes. I didn't have a lot of regular chores, but setting the table and fixing the vegetable were mine. When I was little, we had Fiesta plates, and I spent a lot of time deciding who got cobalt blue, or orange, or yellow or green. All the food was in serving dishes on the table, and we passed them and served ourselves. (If we had company, Daddy always served the plates from the head of the table.) We usually ate at the dining room table until we moved to Atlanta and had a kitchen table in the kitchen/family room. Whichever place it was, we always set it with place mats and full place settings of silverware. Butter was served on a plate with a knife, and bread on a plate as well. If there was milk, like for cereal or berries, it was always poured into a pitcher. We did use paper napkins, and only went to cloth napkins with napkin holders later on. (Not that this is particularly noteworthy, but I almost lost the blog. Found it by using the back arrow!) I can't remember what Mother used as a centerpiece, but I'm pretty sure she had a fruit bowl or epergne as a permanent fixture. Later, when I saw a friend who did this, she stacked the place mats in the center, with her pewter candlesticks and salt and pepper on top when she cleaned the table after dinner. I forgot to say we often used candles. We always talked at dinner, although I mostly remember Daddy telling stories of his work day and me of my school day. We usually began dinner with Mother saying grace. She wanted Daddy to do it, but she usually was the one who thought about it and made it happen. Only after we moved to Atlanta and ate most dinners at the kitchen table did we watch TV while we ate, and then not very often. Mother was strict about that, but she didn't always win. Daddy could trump her if he really wanted to. We never took dinner into the den or the living room and ate off TV trays or in our laps. That was a long time ago, and things have changed. Bill and I usually eat in the kitchen, not watching TV, but talking and reading. I dish up the plates straight from the kitchen, and we don't use placemats. The round wooden table is always crowded with the mail, magazines and other things to read. Occasionally we eat in the living room, despite the Oriental rug that was my mother's on the floor. She'd be livid! What was dinnertime like when you were growing up, and how has it changed? |
| Riley is an adorable little Westie. (He'd probably choke me for calling him adorable.) He has his own blog: http://rileyfactorfiction.blogspot.com/ Seamus decided today to write to him, so I'm printing his letter here, along with the photos you've seen before. Dear Riley, You probably don't remember me, but I believe we met last year at the Blessing of the Animals. I'm one of the old dogs who come every year. We try to stay away from the cute young pups like you who are all chatter and sniff-no offense. Now that you're two, you may have an inkling of what I mean. First of all, I want to congratulate you. You're the first dog I ever met who had his own blog, and now you've gone and won a poetry contest. I am so impressed! My human knows I'm too old a dog to learn to write poetry, but at least I thought I'd write you this letter. I want to make her proud. I'm sending you two pictures, one where I'm lying on the new rug, back when life was pretty good.   That was before my humans got a cat. Can you believe it? A cat! My humans feel sorry for the cat. They think she is scared of me, even though I hardly noticed her at all at first. But then I saw her, dashing ahead of me and spying on my every move. She never even tried to be friendly, or rub up against me like my old cat did. My humans never hear her say, "Fttt" or "Hsss" at me, (pardon my language,) so they can't figure out why I won't come in the house any more. She has the evil eye,that one, and she says quite clearly in Cat that I'd better not step my foot across that door sill if I know what's good for me. No respect, no respect at all.  Now, if that isn't bad enough, I had to go get a haircut the other day. I can hardly stand still for that long any more, but I make the best of it. It did feel better to be cool again. But then the heat went away, and I got so cold I shook. My human took pity on me and wrapped me in her old pink shawl. I'm sending you the picture because, actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was cozy, and sort of dashing, and I knew she loved me.  All the same, Riley, I may not make it to the blessing this year. It's getting too hard on me to get in and out of the car, and I took a fall today. I was so happy to see my human come outside with my leash in her hand to take me for a walk that I forgot I wasn't a young pup like you any more. I gamboled and pranced pranced around, waiting for her to open the gate, and I slipped on the porch and fell on my head. It took me a few minutes before I felt like getting up, but I finally made it with her help. Let me tell you buddy, you may think those harnesses are really jerky looking, but they make a pretty good emergency handle when you need one. After a while, we made our walk around the orchard, I'm happy to say. I'm not feeling too good now though. Anyway, buddy, just wanted to drop you a line and tell you how proud I am to know you. Happy tails to you! Your friend, Seamus |
| We're having another short dose of summer, three or four days in the 90's, and then it will be back to the 60's by Wednesday. It sure made the grass grow! Fortunately, (I say that as if it was just good luck instead of Bill's hard work) the sprinklers are now working. We knew one line had been pulled up by the root of the tree that fell, but didn't know what else might have happened. Not much, as it turns out. So, we're back in the grow and mow and grow some more business. Does that seem like good sense? I'm never sure. My little turnip greens are sprouted out in two nice rows. I've never tried them young and fresh in salad, but that was a suggestion on the seed package. They're full of vitamin K, and I need to keep a regular dose of that in my daily diet, so we'll see how they taste like that. I like them cooked, southern style, but that means bacon-- not exactly health food. The green beans are coming up, the little arches of their stems sticking out with the fan of leaves just showing through the hole in the dirt. I love to watch them every day. I planted some corn tonight, but the seeds aren't new, and it probably won't grow. Didn't work too well last time either, but what the heck. There's a lot of space in the garden. Two cucumber looking plants have volunteered, but they might be melons. I planted some of each last year, and they were shaded out by the sunflowers which I'm pulling up by the handfuls this season. I planted some more cuke seeds nearby, hope they aren't one of those cross-pollinating veggies. One year I put something too near something with disastrous results, but it was so many years ago now that I can't remember. Squash and gourds? Cukes and loofahs? Something like that. Last year I had yellow and green striped crook neck zucchinis, but they tasted about the same as always, just fancier. ![Merit Badge in Community
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| There are a lot of different ways to be poor. Mabel told me about one of them today. Mabel has had a stroke and can talk, but doesn't talk much. Maybe she never has talked much-- that's possible. She has a quiet voice and a way of smiling with her head down, looking over the corner of her glasses at you that makes me think she's a little shy. She does like to be visited though, and is content to watch her shows on the TV along with her visitors. The program she was watching today, until her favorite quiz show came on, was America's Top Models. We talked about the clothes they wore and which dresses we liked best, and she said she'd love to wear the filmy yellow one if she had it. I asked her if she remembered any favorite dress she'd ever had, and she thought a minute. "I remember one my aunt sent me from California. I think it was yellow too." She didn't look like she had a clear picture of it, and she went on to say, "My aunt had a girl who was older than I was and she sent me all her clothes. Otherwise I just wore striped overalls." "You probably didn't have a lot of places to wear fancy dresses," I said, knowing she grew up in the country. "And you probably had plenty of work to do around the farm," I said. "It wasn't exactly a farm," she said. "We didn't grow anything. And I didn't have any chores to do or any thing like that." She looked very sad. "There were just us kids, and our mama, and she had to work. " Suddenly I pictured an old house with a dirt yard and no parents around, and I felt sad too. Then she remembered, "There was a blue dress I had, that Mama bought me herself." She didn't have anything else to say about it, but she was proud. The house she lives in now belongs to her granddaughter. It is in a run-down part of town, but her family has done a wonderful job of remodeling. It has a big, airy kitchen with pots and pans on hooks and a big butcher block in the center. The walls between bedrooms no longer go all the way to the high ceilings, and there are ceiling fans to increase the air flow. Mabel has her TV in her bedroom, and a comfortable chair next to the window. She watched a magpie pick on a neighborhood cat and enjoyed their little drama in her driveway. Another woman, Stella, in another town is dying, inch by inch, and will probably still be giving orders with her last breath. Her house is authentically old and far from tidy. They heat with a wood stove, and the living room where she holds court from her hospital bed is always cozily warm and smells of wood smoke. When I knock on her door, I am always greeted by no fewer than three small, noisy dogs who do what they can to protect Stella. As does everyone. Family members and neighbors are constantly in and out, and the respite between peals of barking is short. The most ferocious of the dogs, a Chihuahua, retreats to Stella's bed, walking all over her bony frame beneath the blankets. The bed has been moved recently to make room for a slot machine with bells and flashing lights. Stella likes to watch people play. She has a glass candy dish next to her bed that someone gave her, and it's filled with what looks like sayings from fortune cookies. They are scripture citations, and she asks each person who comes in to "pull" one, look it up in the Bible and read it out loud. The social worker and I do the reading, because few of her family members are able to, for various reasons including illiteracy. The Bible was a gift also, along with the scriptures, and is a book that Stella is not very familiar with but loves. On the wall are framed photos of family members from several generations, and Stella loves to tell about them. She was married to one husband twice, and shouldn't have married him the second time because he beat her; but she did so to keep him from leaving the state with their young son. The son is in his forties now, and looks as if he's had a serious head injury at some time; but he remains positive and works hard in a local restaurant, hopes to run one of his own some day. Stella's significant other has been taking care of her for years now, and he is devoted. He is kind and generous of spirit, and works hard to understand how to deliver her medicines and treatments. He is a dandy. If poverty meant just a lack of money, this family is one of the poorest I've ever met, but their lives are rich with love. |
 The nave of St. Paul's is adorned in flaming colors for Pentecost. Assistant Rector Paula Whitmore, whose forte is liturgical art, had a team working hard last night and early this morning, due to a wedding on Saturday that prevented them from putting the decorations in place earlier. We had two celebrations today: the birthday of the church, and the announcement that a new rector has been called, the Rev. Birch Rambo. He and his wife Kate and their two children are not expected until this summer when school is out and their responsibilities at their own diocesan camp are finished. We will certainly be looking forward to their arrival. On an entirely different theme, Sunrise Sister tagged me to play the six word memoir game. I commented on her post with new patients, books, gardening, anticipation, contentment. Then I read the link she left to the person who tagged her, and I discovered the six words are supposed to be the title to my memoir. So, after some revisions, this hospice chaplain, with many new patients coming and going quickly, would title her memoir, "Living, Loving, Dying-- with Good Humor." That may sound a little shallow, but it's important to me to keep some balance in my life. Continually watching people you've come to like die can get heavy. What keeps me going is discovering the beauty in people's lives, celebrating the love I see in families, and laughing as often as possible. Now I'm supposed to tag four other people, list their names, and link their websites. That part will take me a while, and maybe this will happen tomorrow. Peace. P.S. Here's a picture of my white tree peony in bloom. They don't last very long-- too bad.  |
| I've been thinking a bit more about being offended and being offensive, and the old line, "Pardon me, but your slip shows," came to mind. (Does anybody wear slips any more? Does anybody care if anyone's underwear shows? Or is that offensive to some people too? Probably.) (Second paragraph, same digression: I've seen strapless outfits in church with bra straps clearly showing-- along with a lot of skin. That is a mite offensive, but I don't feel offended by it. I just chalk it up to bad taste and bad judgment.) The thing about being offended, to me at least, is that the action or remark has to be somehow personal, and directed at me to offend me. Here's where I was headed for with this post script topic. Our underlying attitude about a person or situation may well show without our even knowing it. Like when I told the priest I used to work with that I blogged. His response was, "Whatever for?" accompanied by a look of complete scorn. Now, I'm fairly sure he didn't mean to be offensive, but he was. He had a track record of making similar statements, either to me or in front of me, (but not to, or in front of, everybody.) The fact that I heard him be just as tactless with other people, just as disparaging, did point to a character flaw that he managed to conceal from the people he wanted to impress. I didn't take his remarks as personally after that, but have always been sorry he didn't care if he impressed me. Funny thing is, he now has a blog of his own! |
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