New Year's Eve, Russian Style!

 Since the first of every new year comes a mere week after Christmas in most countries, sometimes the lines between the two become blurred.  Families tend to leave their Christmas decorations up until after New Year's Eve (NYE) and hope for decent weather in which to take them down as soon as possible thereafter.  Still, NYE doesn't have the same family togetherness and twinkle that Christmas does because it has taken on the more adult feature of imbibing in alcoholic drinks to celebrate.  It's more of a couples thing, with children included....sometimes.

Every year, when I was much younger, I sought to find the glorious NYE experiences that were always shown on television.  Oh yes...the Times Square crowd standing out in the cold, waiting for the ball to drop.  What fun!  Or so I thought.  Of course, it is cold.  Of course, it is outside.  Of course, if you do anything different INSIDE, it is expensive...and then you have to go home.  Who's going to drive?  In all of my 73 years, I have never once had a NYE that equalled the hype of the celebrations that I imagined in my brain.  The older I got, the more I realized that the best place to be on NYE was at home.  It's not the kind of holiday that generates traditions.

And then, my son-in-law (SIL) came into my life.  He is a naturalized citizen, born in Russia, in America since 2008.  Along with him came Russian New Year's (NY) traditions.  Why would Russia have NY traditions?  Well...it seems that all those years when Russia was part of the Communist Soviet Union, religion was discouraged and sent underground.  Thus, Christmas was devalued (at least publicly), while NY was roundly celebrated.  It wasn't acceptable to celebrate Christmas, but NY was, complete with all kinds of Russian traditions, with family and community.  The Russian public then saved their gift-giving and family celebrations for NYE.  

There is no Russian Santa Claus.  There is, however, Father Frost, a figure in Russian folk tales.  

Russians generally don't have private Christmas trees, but do gather around a communal decorated fir tree outside on NYE to celebrate with neighbors.

Unbeknownst to me and most of the Western World, much of the pre-Bolshevik influence in Russia was French.  Thus came a Russian tradition of serving Salade Olivier for NY.  Olivier salad is the American equivalent of glorified potato salad--glorified because it contains non-brined pickles, peas, and some form of meat, all combined with mayonnaise.  It's delicious.  

Another traditional food, at least in my SIL's family, is garlic deviled eggs.  This is traditional deviled eggs infused with so much garlic that it will make your eyes water.  Oh...and caviar!  NYE is the one time that Denis's Russian beginnings are enabled and encouraged.  He's worth it.  He's worth every single crumb of traditional foods.  This man is American, through and through, and has been a kick-ass provider for my daughter and grandchildren, so if NYE provides a time for him to celebrate his Russian origins, we are all the richer for it. 

Sadly, I haven't learned how to say Happy New Year in Russian, but it is my wish for everyone in any language, no matter your customs.  May 2021 provide all that you need!       

Brain Density; The Struggle Is Real

 Oprah Winfrey calls it an "Aha Moment"--the instant a cartoonish light bulb goes on in the brain, shedding light on something in a different way.  Sometimes Dr. Phil will speak a truth to someone in trouble on his show, and he/she will reply, "I never thought of it that way before."  That light bulb comes on, and the audience can tell that what might have been obvious to everyone else has only just now come to the front of that person's consciousness.  It's all about perception, I guess, and it takes a "friend at the factory" to help us see reality when we've been hiding in the forest of trees.  DUH!

I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person and a good judge of character, and yet I have Aha Moments virtually every day of my aging life.  When they hit, I am shocked at myself for not having seen with clarity sooner.  What does that mean about my previous knowledge?  Confirmation Bias?  Head in the sand?  A brain so dense with fantasy that reality can't get through?  What's up with that?  In those moments, I come to understand the significance of what I don't know.  It's as if the Universe is saying, "Oh, so you think you've figured everything out, do you, human?  Well, how about THIS one?!"  And then the bottom falls out of everything I ever believed to be right and true.

I wish I had my life to live over again, knowing what little I do know now.  I would have listened more and talked less.  I would have connected the dots of clues that were clearly telling me I was going the wrong way but didn't want to admit that the commitment I had already invested in relationships was going to fail.  I would have made better decisions along the way.  I wouldn't have taken anything or anyone for granted, but would not have made excuses for the bad behavior of the people in my life.  I would have given no thought to what others thought of me so I could cut to the heart of what I thought was best for me and my family.  I would have asked for a little more for myself without giving away all that I am.  I would have disengaged from life's trolls before they took my self-respect.  But--as always--hindsight is 20/20, while life in 2020 has pulled the slats out of civilization.  I don't get that chance to relive my life.  The best I can do is warn others about what is ahead, if they choose to listen.

I have learned to open myself up to new ideas that are foreign to my generation; yet some things must stay the same.  Truth is still sacred, as is integrity.  Lie to me, and you're done.  I might still love you, but I won't trust you anymore.  My dense brain still can't accept hypocrisy, although I'm fairly certain that I am guilty of it here and there.  The struggles are real.  When I die, no one can say that I didn't try!             

'Twas the Day After Christmas...

 Boxing Day to the rest of the civilized world.  In America, it's more like Recovery Day.  O Holy Night turns into O Chaos Morning.  Trash cans are filled to overflowing with wrapping paper and discarded boxes.  And trash collection normally scheduled for Friday doesn't happen until Saturday.  All is calm; all is bright.  Sort of.

I can say that I survived Christmas all alone.  There is an actual disconnect from all of the emotion of Christmas Eve to the reality of Christmas morning.  The eve of "our dear Saviour's birth" gives way to Santa Claus.  The whole dynamic changes, and I changed with it.  I was a bundle of tears on Christmas Eve but managed to get through Christmas Day with only minor issues.  My family called.  My friends and neighbors checked on me.  I talked to my daughter online throughout the day on Google Hangouts.  I called my sister to check up on their news.  I drank a little wine, ate some outrageously caloric foods rather than balanced meals, watched some mindless television, and surfed the internet.  It was all good.  Then, too, I have an Australian friend who told me that I was surrounded by angels and loved and precious.  At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I'm not sure the Lord himself could have sent a better message at the exact moment that I needed to hear it.  He uses us to carry His message!

So, what did I learn?  I learned that I could survive.  I learned that others were in my same boat and needed as much love as I did.  I learned that today's troubles are enough for today but should not carry over to tomorrow's.  Finally, I learned, as did the Grinch, that Christmas was going to happen whether I was surrounded or alone.

And now, I am ready to kiss 2020 good-bye without looking back.  Bring it on, 2021.  I'm ready for you!

Thank You, Charles Dickens!

 So very many of our our Christmas thoughts, expressions, even traditions, come from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.  Thanks to that book, we all know about ghosts and happy people vs. miserly ones, especially at Christmas.  The very name of Scrooge has taken on its own meaning, as well as the expression, "Bah!  Humbug!  (What is a humbug, anyway?  Is that anything like a poppycock, or a fiddle-faddle? Or perhaps the more Shakespearean "zounds"?  Is it an exclamation or a profanity?  Inquiring minds want to know!)  

For the first time of my life, I am avoiding anything sentimental about Christmas.  Call me a Scrooge, if you wish, but it is just self-defense.  I am so weary of weeping over Christmases past, present, and future that I just want to get Christmas over with this year.

It's part of my profile...of who I am.  Every time I have been faced with problems in life, I approach with the thought that I just want to get through it.  "Let's just get this over with."  Whether going to the dentist, attending a funeral, facing something unthinkable, or trying to deal with personal failures that I caused, I do what I must in order to get it in my rear view mirror with as much dignity as I can.  (I even did it the night my daughter was born.  She wasn't due for a month, but when I went into hard labor with no lead-up, I decided I'd just get a good night's sleep and deal with it in the morning.  Yeah...didn't happen that way but is a glimpse into my brain.)   It's a kind of grit-your-teeth-and-move-on mentality that I got from my mother and my grandmother--both very strong women who endured tragedies that would have put other women helplessly on their knees.  Learning from them how to move on and never look back was both a blessing and a curse.  It has made me seem hard on the outside when my inside is total mush. 

So here I am on Christmas of 2020, alone for the first time in my life.  Alone by choice, in order to save myself and my loved ones from the virus.  Alone in the hope of being alive for NEXT Christmas.  In order to prevent meltdowns, I am avoiding anything--particularly music--that brings on tears.  Lord knows, I've wept enough!  Tired, ya know?  I just want to get Christmas over with so I can move on to moments less difficult to endure.  I miss my family.  As of December 27th, it will be a year since I have seen them.  Too long, Lord.  Too long.  

I haven't forgotten the meaning of Christmas.  I went to my church's service remotely this evening.  I don't say "Bah!  Humbug!" because I am Scrooge who hates Christmas, but rather because of self-preservation.  Let's just do this thing and to hope to be around next year under different circumstances.  

So, in the words of Tiny Tim, another Christmas Carol character:  "God bless us, every one!"  We sure need it!

Cinematic Influence?

 A private Facebook community out of Washington that I belong to asked today for people to submit the titles of the first and last movies they had watched in a theater.  I'm older than most so considered not contributing, but after a bit, asked why not?

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater was a "sneak preview" offered at a theater near us.  A sneak preview meant that the audience had no clue what they would be seeing, and this was in the early 1950s, long before movie ratings were even around.  My brother hadn't been born yet, so I think I was 5-years-old or maybe less.  Mom and Dad took my sister and me to see the movie.  It had Rock Hudson in it and was titled Something of Value.  It was a horrible movie, about a Mau Mau uprising somewhere in Africa, where the natives were attacking "innocent" white people.  The movie was black-and-white, which was probably a blessing because one frightening scene of a Mau Mau attack showed a living person whose tongue had been cut out.  The blood was black, not red, but I was horrified.  I didn't know what was going on.  I asked my mother.  She told me...and then we had to leave the theater because I immediately felt like I was going to throw up.  (My guess is that we would have left anyway.  It was no movie for children!  Had my parents known, we would not have gone to it in the first place.)

All things considered, I was a fairly unflappable kid.  It took a lot to frighten me.  Still, this movie haunted me.  It was my first introduction to man's inhumanity to man, and I was too trusting to believe that it could happen in the real world; plus, I was somewhat protected.  My parents were of the Old School that believed that children had the rest of their lives to worry about adult things but should not be challenged by them until it was their time.  The folks didn't consult with us about family decisions that we couldn't affect anyway.  I do remember at the same age being sent to a movie with my older sister after seeing the Mau Mau movie.  We lived in Coronado, CA, at the time, and within walking distance of the movie theater.  It was a Red Skelton movie--can't remember the title--but didn't want to go because I thought it would have skeletons in it.  I'd had enough of things to frighten me, thankyouverymuch.  My mother assured me that it would be okay because Red Skelton was a funny guy.  I went, and she was right, but I've been suspicious ever since.

I've never heard of the Mau Mau movie before or since.  (It can be found on Google, however, so I know it was real.)  When I was 10, the Navy sent our family to Japan, 1957...12 years after the end of the war with that country.  Our ship docked in Yokohama on the island of Honshu; we were booked on a train that would eventually take us under the ocean to the island of Kyushu, in at least a 20-hour trek, to the city of Sasebo; were boarded at a guarded building known as the Bachelor Officers' Quarters (BOQ), while Dad sought private lodging for us.  Base housing wasn't available.  Can't remember, exactly, how long we were at the BOQ before we landed in a little settlement of somewhat modernized homes on Yamata-Cho.  What I do remember was lying in bed in the BOQ, fearful that the Japanese could rise up against us and we would be the "innocent" victims of the same hatred from the Mau Mau movie.  I prayed a lot in those days.  Prayer was like casting a spell on all of the evil in the world.  I never saw a moment's evil in Japan, but that first movie had scared me, lasting many years.

The last movie I saw in the theater happened maybe a year ago, with my co-grandparent friends.  The movie was 1917, and had received some critical acclaim.  It was every bit as dark, depressing, and violent as the very first theater movie I had seen.  The main difference was that I was older, and the movie showed some redemption for the characters.  Honestly?  I wouldn't pay to see it again.

For most of my life, I have maintained that violent movies, video games, and television shows don't influence children--that it's the family that has the most power.  I still think I'm right, but looking back to post on that Washington Facebook site has caused me to doubt myself.  I choose musicals, comedies, and chick-flicks for my own viewing pleasure.  Am I hard-wired for that?  Or did that very first movie scare me too much?  

My next question, of course, is "Who cares?"  I think I'd rather be too frightened than too accepting of the violent themes.  To each his/her own!  

What Do the Simple Folk Do?

 Taking a line from a song from the musical Camelot, in this our Christmas season, my old brain began to wonder, as did King Arthur and Queen Guinevere did about what people do to find happiness when they already have everything. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSgxA-i_amk

Here I am, a scant eight days before Christmas with no clue how things will go on my meager budget.  I didn't plan far enough ahead.  Or rather, I didn't stir up my gift recipients soon enough.  Whatever.  But I do wonder what people who already have everything get for Christmas.  What represents love to them?  Diamonds?  Yachts?  Experiences?  

Think about that for a minute.  If you had enough money to buy yourself anything you wanted, from gold toilets to private planes, what would be on your Christmas list?  Thank GOD, I am not one of those people!  I mean, what's a heaven for?  Some of the loneliest people in the world are rich.  Which is why the likes of Arthur and Guinevere are seeking answers about happiness in their song.  The greatest gifts come from the heart and not the pocketbook.  Being with family is the best we can hope for.  That won't happen this year, so I have to make lemonade out of lemons.  

I guess I'm about as simple a "folk" as anyone you will ever know.  I've never been a diva.  Don't need much and usually make do without whatever society thinks I need that I don't already have.  Still, I'm not ungrateful for gifts that come from the heart.  And that is the secret to Christmas.  It's the thought that counts.  Every single gift deserves gratitude, even if the giver didn't spend a cent.  

What do the simple folk do?  They love.  So they say...      

Gotta Keep Laughing

 The simplest things make me laugh to myself these days.  It's a blessing because the simplest things also make me cry on a daily basis, and I never was a weeper before.  I am now!  Still, I am thankful for the little glitches that bring a smile to my face, even if they aren't FUNNY funny.  Maybe just IRONICALLY funny is enough to keep my personal mirth going.

I have written before about my helper named Debbie.  Technically, she's my "cleaning lady".  (I prefer "housekeeper".)  She cleans my house twice a month and takes care of my yard work, as needed.  But she is actually more than just a housekeeper.  She has become caretaker.  If I raise a red flag, she's right there, with the added bonus that her son, a plumber by trade but handyman by function, has also helped me out in soooo many ways.  But I digress.

One of Debbie's tasks has been to change the burned-out light bulbs under my kitchen ceiling fan.  I don't use the fan much, so the burned bulbs can't be blamed on vibration, but they burn out on a more-than-regular basis.  I try to keep plenty of extra bulbs on hand.  She's just a little slip of a thing who can still stand on a chair to reach the lights.  (Obviously, I can't.)  Wish I had kept records to prove how many times she's had to do that over the last two years!  

This last time, it was a bulb in the light bar over the bathroom medicine cabinet that burned out.  The bulbs are spherical and need to be only 20-25 watts.  (Cheap light bar that I put in years ago.)  I went to Meijer to find replacements but couldn't find any, so I messaged Deb to stop somewhere else and get some for me the next time she came.  She found a four-pack for $4-something at Menard's, then found a four-pack for $2-something at Walmart.  Penny-watcher that she is, she returned the first pack to Menard's for a refund and brought the Walmart pack to me.  That is a lot of effort just to find light bulbs!  But here's the rub:  when she touched the burned out bulb to replace it, it came on.  Apparently, it had been merely loose.  (Someone needs to explain to me how a lightbulb that is never touched can become loose after years of just being there.)  Anyway, we both sort of chuckled about that, but at least I had replacement bulbs now.

The biggest laugh came the next day when that very same bulb burned out for real.  The god of light bulbs had spoken!  "Thou wilt be burned out, whether you or the bulb like it or not!"  That's what I get for thinking I can be in control of anything in life!

Know what else I don't seem to be able to control?  Muh pills.  (There is an old Andy Griffith Show episode in which poor, long-suffering Emma Watson went to the drug store and plunked a dime down on the counter to get a refill of "muh pills".  The new lady druggist--niece of the regular pharmacist--hadn't been in town long enough to know the dynamics of the customers and so refused to refill the pills without a prescription.  Of course, poor Emma languished near death's door, claiming "I will die without muh pills", for a couple of days without them, and everyone in town rallied around her--all against that heartless lady druggist.  Then Ellie [the druggist] miraculously appeared with a refill, explaining to Sheriff Andy that Emma's pills were merely a placebo--sugar pill--something Ellie hadn't known before speaking to her pharmacist uncle.  Emma's psychosomatic life was saved, and Ellie's reputation in town improved greatly.)  And thereafter, I have come to call my daily medications, "muh pills".

Up until I had my heart attack in 2009, considered "mild to moderate", I had always prided myself on not requiring medications.  Yeah...well...life had other plans.  Since then, I take five pills in the morning, and one at night.  Only three of those are prescription drugs.  The other three are supplements recommended by my doctors:  vitamin B12, vitamin D, and a baby aspirin.  I take them faithfully, if not begrudgingly.  

What gripes me more than having to take muh pills is how fast a week goes by.  I did invest in one of those weekly medicine sorter things for AM and PM.  I fill it one week, and the next thing I know, I have to fill it again.  I had a brainstorm.  I'll just put TWO weeks' worth in each little daily compartment, and will know if I did/didn't take that day's meds by whether there are one of each or two of each in the compartment.  Brilliant!  So what is the source of my amusement with this system?

The doggone pills are hard to hold with fingernails.  To get one week's dosage out of the compartments, I have to dig in to bring out one pill of each kind.  Most of the time, I come out with more than one of each, which then have to be returned to the sorter, if I haven't already dropped them out of the palm of my hand.  Before I throw all five in my mouth, I check to make sure that I really do have five pills in my hand and that each one is different.  It is only then that I can knock them back from my palm to my throat and swallow them down.

But not so fast!  I was sitting on the toilet the other day when I noticed what looked like one of muh pills on the floor by the door.  Huh??  Sure enough, it was one of the prescribed ones.  I fill my pill dispenser in the kitchen.  How did this pill make it to the bathroom??  How did this escapee manage to migrate from one room to another...and why?  (The larger question is: did I pick it up to take on another day?  Guess!)  My best conjecture is that the one pill somehow missed my mouth that morning when I knocked them all into my throat to swallow, fell onto my bathrobe unnoticed, and then fell off my robe onto the bathroom floor when I went in that direction.  Why not fall off somewhere else in the house?  Why?  How?  What?

Do I think it's funny?  No...it's hilarious, especially if you take the whole pill situation into consideration.  I've dropped pills before but always knew it when I did.  This time, all I could do was laugh.  Yeah...okay...pills have lives of their own, and I can't fix it!  HAHAHAHA1

If I couldn't find these little amusing things, I would go crazy.  I'm sure there are more to write about, but I get a bit wordy and tend to ramble.  Just please, if you can find anything in life to help lighten your load, rejoice in it.  Gotta keep laughing.  The alternative just isn't much fun.         

    

The Last Gasp?

 This is going to be tough to write from the standpoint of expressing what I am actually feeling. Bear with me, if you will.

From before Trump's election, up to this very day, I have made no apologies for how much I dislike the man. I find no redeemable traits in him, as a private citizen or as a political leader, and I just knew the American Voter was too smart to elect him as President. When it happened, I was in shock. Seriously. It threw me into a four-year depression that caused me to doubt everything I had ever believed about my country. We have our problems, of course, but I have never felt so devoid of faith in our system of government or in some of my friends and neighbors as in these last four years.

When I was still teaching, I didn't talk politics with my students except to encourage them to think for themselves and make informed decisions about every issue in life. Know what you stand for, and why. Dig deeper into the facts. Do your part to make a difference in the world. I live by that, myself. Or try to.

Donald Trump took all that away from me as I stood helplessly by and watched him make a mockery of everything I believed in --while people cheered him on. I lost longtime friends because of him, merely because I simply could not reconcile their rabid, cult -like support of a narcissistic madman with my naive belief that God would somehow make it all come out okay. **I** wasn't okay, so surely I was off base, right? I felt angry, betrayed, incredulous, and frustrated. I could no longer even watch the nightly news on TV. It was that bad. My overgrown Fairness Gene was working overtime as I was forced to watch the abundant hypocrisy and political manipulations of one man, abetted by a cadre of other politicians in his party attached to his coattails, playing games with the lives of American citizens and our international allies for his personal aggrandizement. We all watched after he pulled rank, over and over again, to get away with breaking ethics laws and creating constitutional challenges daily. We had been warned, but apparently no one was listening.

So here's the thing: the only voice that American citizens have that is considered sacred is through the ballot box. It is the very basis of our system of government. We all watched as Trump spent months laying the foundation to be able to call the 2020 Presidential Election "rigged" if he didn't win. Of course, I had very little faith in the system, based on the 2016 election --especially considering that Trump made his intentions known way ahead of time. (Again, we were warned.) I expected he would behave just as he has, post-election, since he really DID lose. He didn't disappoint in that regard!

Then came the legal challenges. More than 50 of them, all in an effort to disenfranchise millions of ballots submitted in good faith by millions of American voters. Even the Supreme Court, which has three Trump appointees among the 6-3 ratio of Republican to Democrat justices, turned him down flat. Twice. The lesser courts have done the same. No evidence of fraud presented. Even after three recounts in one state. Even (and especially) courts of law are wary of siding with a power-grabbing sore loser at the risk of opening a Pandora's Box of challenges to the Constitution of the United States, and our republic.

Having exhausted most attempts to overthrow the election, Mr. Trump has now caused 16 or 17 Republican states to launch what he calls "the big one" in one last gasp to try to overturn the election results. It is led by an Attorney General from Texas who is already under indictment for crimes. There are assumptions that the man, Paxton, is showing Trump loyalty in hopes that he will be pardoned for his crimes by Mr. Trump. (I don't know or care, but it certainly does show motive.) I just "discovered" yesterday that Indiana is among the states that are joining in the lawsuit, hoping to overthrow the election results. (To be honest, it infuriates me.) The logic of the suit, presented to the Supreme Court of the US, is that the election results in the "swing" states (where Trump lost) affect the rest of the states (where Trump won). Um...yes. That's how elections work! They are claiming, without reliable evidence as shown by well over 50 previous lawsuits in lesser courts that have been dismissed, that the election results in the swing states are unconstitutional. This is what Americans call a Hail Mary--last desperate effort--to change a system that has been unchallenged in well over 200 years. It's the very same system that gave Donald Trump the presidency, even though he lost the popular vote by three million votes. (Yes, the Electoral College system needs to change!!) What is being attempted here can only be described as a coup. Every legal eagle whose opinions I have read (from both sides of the political aisle) say that this lawsuit is a joke that has no hope of succeeding. The Supreme Court doesn't even have to hear the case. Having been burned before, I have no confidence, so I wait, holding my breath. Even if the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is upheld, it will take decades to undo what Trump has done...most of which was to undo what Obama had done. See how that works?

Folks, this is the first glimmer of hope that I have had in four years! It's the first time since Donald Trump that I have dared to think that maybe--just maybe--that ballot actually DOES mean something sacred! I hope to God that this is a political last gasp for Donald Trump. I have been notoriously naive about politics, to my detriment. It was just so much easier to deal with life with my head in the sand. Whatever the outcome of the latest attempt to wrest the power of the American vote from the hands of the voters, I will remain cautiously optimistic that this, too, shall pass.

The Jewish Doctor

Yesterday, I was reading a couple of articles about a Jewish doctor in the San Francisco Bay area, treating COVID-19 patients, one of whom was covered in Nazi swastika tattoos.  (It was reported in several news sources.  You can Google it.)  The patient was in very serious condition, needing to be intubated to allow a machine to help him breathe.  He told his doctor team--Dr. Nichols (the Jewish one), a black nurse, and a respiratory therapist of Asian descent,--"Don't let me die, Doc."   And the doctor admitted that, for the first time in his career, he figured out he wasn't okay because he paused to wonder how different things would be had the situation been reversed.  How much would the patient have cared about the lives of the people who were charged with treating him if the shoe had been on the other foot?  Of course, because Dr. Nichols is a professional who is working full tilt to save people who've been critically hit by COVID, he and his team worked tirelessly for this patient, regardless of the man's personal beliefs, but he wondered why he was burning himself out for people who would otherwise persecute him or act as though the whole virus isn't important.  I feel the doctor's pain.  Deeply.

I'm not a doctor, although I think I would have been a good one.  Instead, I was a teacher in America's public schools.  In a sense, I was similar to a doctor in that some students' educational fate was somewhat up to me.  In the days before grading software that requires objective grading, there were a few times when I felt that I needed to make a judgment call with students who were just below the passing line.  (There weren't many.)  English was/is a required course.  The pressure is real, especially for seniors who might not be able to graduate without that last English credit.

Which students did I give a subjective break to?  Those who tried.  Those who didn't give me problems in class.  Those who didn't make excuses about why they were failing.  If a kid was on the line to pass or fail, I really did have a choice to make.  I was never vindictive, but my decision wasn't a matter of life and death, either.  Given the choice, I always gave the benefit of the doubt to the students who actually seemed to care.  I was not as generous with those who were just in school to please their parents, get their diploma, and leave the world of education.  I didn't blame them, of course, but wish they had chosen another way to be in the world so their disinterest wouldn't affect those who really wanted to learn.  

Dr. Nichols had every right to be concerned about his swastika-tattooed patient.  How much is one expected to give with no returns?  The lines get blurred when one is talking about life or death situations, but why should a Jewish doctor be expected to treat a Nazi wannabe when Christian business owners all over the country feel free not to serve same sex couples with something as simple as a wedding cake?  Save the life of a person who vows to hate you?  Why bother?  It is to Dr. Nichols's credit that he took the professional high road, because that is what he does.  

I just don't know what more to say about this.  I'm just blown away by what has now become the American experience in my lifetime.  It simply doesn't match what I have always believed was right and good.  Just like Dr. Nichols, I think I'm not okay.  

                 

Things I Had to Learn the Hard Way

 Some things we are taught in school.  Others, we learn from our parents.  Still others, we learn through trial and error.  Mostly error.  Those are the best lessons of all!  Here are some that I learned the hard way:

1.  Self-rising flour has salt in it.  When I was a young bride, I bought some flour with which to make homemade shortcakes for strawberry shortcake, from scratch.  I was so proud of myself!  The actual result, however, was too salty to eat.  Ruined a bunch of fresh strawberries and gave me pause to wonder what I had done wrong.  I had followed the recipe exactly.  I called my mom.  Her first question was, "What kind of flour did you use?"  Wait...what?  There are different kinds of flour?  I checked the flour bag.  I had purchased self-rising flour.  Mom told me it had salt in it.  Wow.  I thought all flours were equal.  How wrong I was!

2.  Failing to get rid of leaves raked into a pile will kill the grass underneath.  When I was younger and still did the lawn work on my own, I had to rake leaves to the curb where the town's vacuum trucks came alone and sucked them up.  One year, I raked the leaves into piles on the lawn, thinking I would transport them to the curb later.  That didn't happen.  In the spring, when I got around to cleaning up the yard, the grass was dead under each pile.  Little did I know that the rotting leaves create heat that kills the grass.  Who knew?   

3.  Boiling oysters ruins the stew.  I'm not an oyster fan, but my former husband was.  He brought home some raw oysters once and asked me to fix oyster stew.  Actually, HE fixed it. All I had to do was heat it "just until the ears curl".  In the process, I turned on the wrong stove burner and burned the stew.  He wasn't happy, and I felt bad because I had essentially ruined expensive oysters.  Even worse, the next time he fixed it, I messed it up again!  He never trusted me with heating oyster stew again!     

4.  The old banana that you are saving with which to make banana bread will go bad before you get around to baking.  I wish I had a dollar for every banana I saved because, even though it was too mushy to eat, I saved for banana bread that never happened.  Ended up in the trash.  Oh well!  I had good intentions every time.

5.  Buy it NOW.  See an unusual item for a great price?  Get it now because it may not be there when you've thought about it and decide you can't live without it.  I have at least five treasured items that I purchased at flea markets/craft fairs as soon as I saw them because they were unique and useful, but how many others did I go home to think about that were GONE when I went back to get them?  You snooze; you lose!

6.  Learn to control coughs or sneezes if your bladder is full.  No explanation needed.

7.  Pay attention to your body.  Human bodies tend to compensate for things that go wrong.  Sometimes we don't even notice until someone else points it out.  Enlightening, for sure...

8.  Don't try out new recipes on company.  (See #1, #3, and #4 above.)  Call it the Perfect Storm or Murphy's Law (when all of the forces in the universe align to make a disaster out of something seemingly simple), it's always best to serve guests recipes that are tried-and-true for the cook.  Every Kitchen Creationist that I know is his/her own worst critic.  We can get away with a failed dish with family--noting what changes we would make next time, if we deem the dish worth making again--but serving it to guests is a no-no, just in case.  

Had I made that shortcake in #1 as a dessert for company, it would have been humiliating because it was too salty to eat.  And the oyster stew in #3 shouldn't be served to company at all because MANY people wouldn't touch an oyster.  (I'm one of them.)

Then, too, even with simple recipes, the cook has to consider the "what if's".  For a couple of years, I was one of the volunteer bakers for my church's free meal offered to the whole community on the last Saturday of each month.  The church budget supplied the funds for most of the meal, but the desserts always came from the volunteers who donated a cake here, a pie there, cookies, etc.  I confess that I can cook a mean casserole, but I'm not a great baker.  I don't do pies, at all; thus, I am usually offering cakes--some from a mix and some from family recipes.  In order to prepare for my once-a-month contributions, I stocked up on disposable aluminum pans from Dollar Tree so the church ladies wouldn't have to wash the pans, and I wouldn't have to go to church to retrieve mine.  Here are the reasons I don't bake for Last Saturday Lunch anymore:

*One time, I forgot that we were approaching Saturday.  I stayed up late on Friday evening, baking my little heart out, then had to wait for the cake to cool so I could frost it.  Desserts were to be delivered to the church by 9:00 AM on Saturday.  Got the baking and frosting done, then went to bed.  Whew!  Glad I didn't forget!  Saturday morning, I was up by 8:00, had some breakfast, took my pills, threw on some clothes, and headed for church with the cake.  Of course, it was raining, but my cake had a lid.  When I pulled up to the kitchen door at 9:00, there were no cars back there.  The church was locked up, so I waited for someone to come along and unlock the door.  I knocked.  Waited.  Waited.  Waited.  No one came.  Then came the dawn:  it wasn't the last Saturday of the month.  I was a week too early!  I tucked my senile tail between my legs and drove home with the cake.  I had to eat it all by myself, then go through all of this again the next week!

*Another time, I prepared a cake batter and was ready to put it in the oven to bake when the sides of the foil pan kind of collapsed, spilling at least 30% of the batter all over the oven door.  I baked it anyway, then took the pathetic offering to the church the next day.  No amount of apologizing for the ugly cake would salve my shame.  Then I had to figure out how to clean up my own stove!  What I didn't know was that the batter had also dripped down into the broiler pan under the oven.  It was a big mess!  My sister and one of her grandsons came for a visit.  He was looking for something to do, so I put him on the oven detail.  He did a good job, but it didn't clean easily!  (I should note that my stove DOES have a self-cleaning oven, but I wasn't sure using the self-clean function was appropriate for my spill.)  Thereafter, I decided to leave the baking up to the younger gals.  I'm just not wired for it!

9.  Liking a product will guarantee that it will disappear from the marketplace.  I do have a certain amount of product loyalty, some of them apparently just off the popularity grid because they go away.  Also, things I can find in Indiana are just not offered in Washington when I go to visit.  It gets frustrating.  Among the products that I have lost are:  

    *Cover Girl Moisture Wear foundation.  Gone.  Substitutes just don't work as well with my skin.            *A certain style of Grasshopper shoes.  When I wore out one pair, I just went to Shoe Carnival and bought another pair without having to try them on.  This went on for at least 12 years until I suddenly couldn't find them anymore.  My daughter found ONE pair on Amazon and bought them for me, but they were never to be found again.  Discontinued.  Ugh!                                                                                *Fat free American cheese singles.  Can't find it anywhere, anymore.  I know it's not a big seller but helped me so much in my diet efforts.  The best I can do now is American singles made with 2% milk.      *Holland House Cocktail Sauce.  I keep shrimp in my freezer at all times.  Shrimp needs cocktail sauce with a little zing.  I've tried many.  Most have failed...except for Holland House...oh, and what once was an Aldi brand: Tate's.  Aldi has since switched to Burnham's (or something like that) and only offers cocktail sauce as a seasonal item.  Huh??  Burnham's just doesn't cut it like Tate's did.  And Holland House seems to be gone from the marketplace.  (Believe me, I've looked.)  I am forced to find a substitute and doctor it up.  So frustrating!                                                                                                      *Aunt Millie's 35-calorie white potato bread.  I can thank the Covid virus for this one.  One of my Facebook friends' husband works for Aunt Millie's.  When the first round of Covid shutdowns happened and people were hoarding more, companies had to stop producing their specialty products in order to fulfill demand for basics.  No 35-cal bread could be found, white or otherwise.  I prefer white, but at least I can now find 35-cal whole grain.  I'm just grateful to be able to find a diet bread at all!  (Aunt Millie's Bakeries are not found in the Pacific Northwest.  When I go to visit my kids, we find other lower calorie options.  Apparently Pepperidge Farm has a 45-calorie whole grain option.  I adjust!)

10.  Kids change.  How dare my grandchildren decide that they no longer like something they always liked before??  Since I live at a distance and can't see the changes as they happen, I mostly have to guess.  When they come for a visit, which hasn't happened for a couple of years now, I stock up on foods I'm sure they like--or at least did the last time they visited--only to find out that what I bought is only passe' now.  Even their mother has trouble keeping up with their culinary tastes.  I adore them both, but at ages 18 and 17, they are their own people.  Can't keep them my "babies" forever!

Sooo many things I've had to learn about myself and others through trial and error.  I can only hope that they care enough about me to want to know more.  Learning things the hard way is never easy, but those are the very best lessons.  Please God, make it so!  

Behind the Christmas Eight-Ball

Every year, I swear I will begin my Christmas shopping in August.  It never happens.  Christmas shopping is easy IF you know what you want to purchase for people.  My problem, among others, is that I rarely even get inspiration until a few days before Christmas.  Some of the best (most successful) gifts I ever gave to others came to me while last-minute browsing in stores.

When my daughter and grandchildren were younger, they were easy to buy for.  I rarely had to ask what they wanted or needed.  Now that the grandkids are older, their needs/desires are much more expensive, and their tastes have changed.  (How DARE they have opinions of their own!)  So, too, my son-in-law is a wonderful provider for the family, so they largely buy what they want for themselves, leaving me high and dry in the Christmas Suggestion Department.  

In the past, I was in attendance for most of their Christmases, so if I needed to get something for them that I hadn't planned, I had opportunity to get it before the actual holiday.  Then came COVID-19.  This year, unless the heavens open and the hand of God reaches down to take away the virus, it ain't gonna happen.  I will be in Indiana, and my family will be 2,000 miles away in Washington State.  And I have no hints or requests for what anyone would like for Christmas!

I have always spent a ton on stocking stuffers--usually underwear and socks, because those are things that wear out--and candy or trinkets.  I have always tried to have something under the tree for each to open.  Then always cash for each.  (Cash is always appreciated but it doesn't show any imagination, plus the giver never gets to know how the cash was used.  Yuck!)  Anything I give will have no impact.  I'm not rich.  Anything besides cash that I buy will have to be shipped, and shipping is both expensive and slow, even if Porch Pirates don't steal delivered shipments.  Whatever I send will have to be purchased, packed, and shipped at least two weeks before Christmas. 

So, here it is, December 1st, and I still have no idea what to send to my loved ones that will express how much I love them.  Am I trying to buy love?  I don't think so.  They know I'm not a rich person.  I just want them to know that I'm still part of their lives from so many miles away.  Yeah...okay...send money.  What fun is that???  I'm just hoping for inspiration before it's too late for the magic to happen.  Pray for me!