Thursday, December 31, 2020

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!       

Sunday, December 27, 2020

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!             

Saturday, December 26, 2020

'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!


Friday, December 25, 2020

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!


Sunday, December 20, 2020

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!  

Thursday, December 17, 2020

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...      

Monday, December 14, 2020

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.         

    

Friday, December 11, 2020

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.

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

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.  

                 

Thursday, December 3, 2020

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!  

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

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!    

Monday, November 30, 2020

Giving Credit Where It's Due

My mother rarely complained about her aches and pains, but when she did, all she would say was, "It's hell to get old."  I'm six years older than she was when she passed and can confirm her sentiments as accurate.  I have some spinal degeneration that makes it difficult to stand for more than a minute without leaning forward on something.  Walking very far also requires something to lean on, like a grocery cart.  I have learned to combine trips to create the least walking possible.  I even subscribe to Shipt, which is a grocery shopping service that buys the foods you request and delivers it to your door.  Anything to save steps.  Unfortunately, Shipt can't do everything for me, so I do venture out maybe once a week.  I can still drive with no problem because I can sit really well!  Sitting on my ample derriere, watching my feet swell, is my forte' !

With a 3"-6" snowfall expected early in the week, I decided that I needed to go to our Meijer store to stock up on some things I thought I might need in case I got snowed in for a couple of days, plus get some cash from the ATM at my branch bank inside Meijer.  I'd been bereft of cash for a few days, a condition that won't do in situations if I need to take advantage of people who ask if I need anything.  At first, I was going to go Friday, but talked myself out of that.  Then Saturday, I actually had my coat on to leave when my neighbor pulled his car behind mine in my driveway, unannounced.  He was taking a delivery of fireplace wood and needed to get his car out of the way.  (I didn't mind.  He helps me out in a lot of ways.  I figure I can put up with a little inconvenience for him.  It did, however, cause me to give up the shopping trip.  

So yesterday, it was do or die.  I figured I'd go to Meijer (like a Walmart Superstore) for the cash, then come home and have Shipt do my shopping for me...but Shipt shops at Meijer, too.  It seemed a little silly to pay the extra expense when I was already going to be in the store.  The things that I needed were going to take me to both sides of the store...the home side and the grocery side...and I was already shaky on my legs; thus, I did something I've never done before: I used one of the little motorized scooters to get around.  

Naturally, there is a learning curve to using those scooters.  Until I got used to the power lever, I was the queen of jerky starts and stops, and I beeped when I backed up.  Sometimes, I was going too fast.  I felt like A.J. Foyt!  I found that I still had to get out of the cart to reach some things and determined that I was often going the wrong way down aisles to get things from the opposite side.  I'm glad the store wasn't particularly busy.  I didn't run anyone down!

Goodness!  What a disturbingly long lead-in to the actual subject of this post!                                          As I was leaving the store after checking out, there was a young male Meijer employee doing cart duty in the entrance/exit area.  I stopped and asked him if I were allowed to take the scooter out into the parking lot to my car, parked just outside the doors.  He said I was, then followed me out to retrieve the scooter when I unloaded it.  He asked if I needed help unloading.  I said I wouldn't mind that, so he handed me the bags while I stashed them in the back seat.  At one point, I quipped, "What a team we are!"  His response was, "We are all better together."  It was such a simple statement, yet profound.  I doubt that the young man was even out of his late teens, but his attention to me and understanding words caused me to puddle up.  And I didn't even have the cash to tip him--not that he would have taken it.  (The ATM had only given me $20 bills.)  I thanked him profusely and asked his name.  He showed me his name tag:  Tyler G.  

When I got home, I called Meijer's Customer Service number.  They transferred me to the store manager.  I introduced myself and told him about Tyler G., and what a good ambassador he had been for Meijer to me.  The man honestly sounded a little shocked to hear a commendation instead of a complaint.  He assured me that Tyler G. would receive some sort of reward through a system that they use in the store.  I hope he does.  It meant so much to me, especially during these times when there is so much negativity around us.

I learned that little trick from my Salvation Army friend, Patrick, a number of years ago.  We had met halfway between Chicago (where he lived) and Indianapolis (where I live) in order to hand off some radio gear.  We'd stopped at a KFC, where we were waited on by a young, smiling, almost-bubbly young woman (who was also cute.  Patrick loved cute.)  After she had taken our order, Patrick asked to speak to the manager.  Suddenly, her smile took on a look of concern, as if she were saying to herself, "What did I do wrong??"  The manager arrived at the counter, and Pat--right in front of the young lady--started commending her for her wonderful, friendly attitude and efficiency.  The gal absolutely beamed!  I'm pretty sure it made her day.

I don't know why I never thought of that before.  When we receive exemplary service from people in the course of doing their jobs, we really do need to make sure their employers know it.  It costs nothing to put a note on a website or make a phone call--or even speak to a manager on the spot.  

One time, I came home from the drive-thru with my Subway sandwich.  The bag had my sandwich in it, plus a chocolate chip cookie that I had not ordered, wrapped in a napkin with a hand-written note on it:  "Have a wonderful day!"  Signed with a smiley face.  It brightened my day, so I wrote a commendation on the Subway Facebook page, noting the store location and the time of my purchase.  I hope the young fellow that waited on me at the drive-thru got some recognition for spreading some joy.  

Since then, I have made it a point to give credit where it is due, publicly.  Sometimes, thank you isn't enough.  Maybe--just maybe--the employees who go the extra mile for customers who didn't even request it, can go home at the end of the day feeling as good about themselves as they made their customers feel by doing what they did.  

We really ARE better together.  We can make it happen.    

   


Sunday, November 29, 2020

Curb Merchandise

 I ventured out to the grocery store this afternoon in an effort to stock up on some things before our first snowstorm hits late tomorrow.  I don't get out much, so I try to soak up what I see when I do.  On the way home, I saw a tall four-door wooden cabinet out at the curb of one home.  From the street, it looked like it was in great shape, so I wondered what would prompt someone to discard something that nice instead of making an effort to sell it.  

In communities that aren't under Home Owner's Association rules (like most of Plainfield, IN, where I live), stuff on the curb is an invitation that screams, "FREE for the taking".  If it's on the curb, and you take it, it isn't theft.  It's a gift to both the homeowner and the scavenger.  Americans are all about getting something for free!

Back in 2008 or 2009, I had my garage converted into a bedroom, with a MAJOR financial contribution from my daughter.  When it was done, we moved me and my radios into the garage room, and transformed what once was my "radio shack" into a bedroom for my young grandson, a second bedroom my young granddaughter, and my old bedroom with a half-bath attached for my daughter's room.  The three of them had moved in with me without warning, and for many, many months, we were cramming four people into two beds.  The new situation helped us quite a bit.    

In the garage conversion process, there was a dumpster in my driveway.  At one point, a young man knocked on my door and asked if he could go through the dumpster to pick up scrap metal to sell.  (At the time, scrap metal had premium prices.)  I was reluctant because I was afraid he'd get hurt, but I appreciated that he asked rather than just dive in after dark and scare us to death, so I let him have at it.  He did come up with some stuff and, fortunately, didn't get hurt. 

Cleaning out the garage for the conversion remodeling left many, many things with no place to be.  Some got stashed back on my covered patio.  Some I gave away through freecycle.com.  Some, I just put out on the curb.  Among the latter was a pair of clunky-but-sturdy lawn chairs that my ex had given my daughter.  I put them out on the curb.  VERY shortly thereafter, a man in a truck appeared and took interest.  I happened to be outside.  He said he and his family camped quite a bit and thought they could use the chairs.  POOF!  Gone!  

Later (2017??), I managed to tear the meniscus in my left knee by just walking to the bathroom early in the morning.  I could swear I didn't twist the knee!  What followed was a long story not worthy to tell right now; however, my friend and co-grandma Judy (who is a retired nurse) took good care of me.  Among MANY other things, she borrowed a bedside commode from a local church for me to use, if needed--you know, the seat with a receptacle bucket?  I think I only used it once, and when I was done with it, I cleaned and bleached the bucket, then returned it to Judy to return to the church from which it was borrowed.  I really didn't want to give that up since it is one of those I-Might-Need-This-Again-Someday things, but it wasn't mine.

I swear on all that is holy, just a day later, I was driving down the street and saw one of those commodes at a curb!  I passed, thought about it, then went around the block and came back to pick it up.  It needed to be cleaned up.  Needed new rubber tips for the legs and a new receptacle bucket because the old one was nasty...so it wasn't FREE free, but I brought it home and fixed it up.  Now I have to store it, all the while hoping that I never have to use it!

But my favorite curb merchandise story happened just a year or so ago.  A long time past, I had purchased a steel chimenea for my backyard patio, on sale for $89.  Over the years, we burned trash in it, both to get rid of it and for warmth.  In time, the ash tray rusted out.  (Someone needs to explain to me why outdoor things are often made of materials that rust!!!)  I no longer felt confident to use it, so it was time to trash the thing.  My housekeeper suggested that we put it on the curb for metal scavengers.  I thought she was nuts.  It was full of ashes, soot, and rust.  If anyone took it, they'd have to have a truck and help to pick it up.  (It wasn't light.)  We did put it on the curb.  I just knew I would eventually have to pay to cart it to the dump.       

Obviously, I misjudged human beings.  Within a few hours, as I watched through my front window, a woman in a nice-looking sedan stopped to look that the burner.  She hailed a passing student on his way home from school to ask for help to put the thing in her car, then drove away.  Here is the amazing part to me:  she didn't put it in her trunk.  She and the student crammed that filthy thing into the back seat of her lovely car!  I was shocked, but who am I to question someone who was ridding me of something I didn't want anymore?

One person's trash is another person's treasure.  It starts at the curb!   

Thursday, November 26, 2020

All of the Firsts

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, a day that is traditionally celebrated with family gatherings and a turkey feast.  My last post talked about many of the Thanksgivings of my past.  Next year, if I am still living, I can add today's experience to the list.  

Thanksgiving 2020 is the first one I have ever spent alone in my entire life.  Many people feel bad about others that are alone on the holiday, but I want everyone to know that I'm okay.  I've lived alone for many years.  I do get lonely, sometimes, but never feel abandoned.  My immediate family is in self-imposed isolation in the Seattle area due to the most recent resurgence of the COVID-19 coronavirus.  I'm in my little bungalow in Indiana, also in self-imposed isolation, for the same reason.  My sister, almost six years older than I, is in the St. Louis area with her husband, also isolated.  Same reason.  My friends across town with whom I usually spend holidays that aren't otherwise spoken for, are also isolated because of the virus.  I would feel sad and alone were there not so many of my loved ones all in the same boat!  None of us wants to invite contagion into our homes.  (Reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Masque of the Red Death.)  

My mother died, unexpectedly, on the day after Thanksgiving in 1986, at age 67.  It's a circumstance I really don't want to go into here, except to say that it threw our entire family into a year of "firsts".  The first Christmas without our mom.  The first birthday without our mom.  The first Easter, Fourth of July, Mother's Day, etc., without our mom.  And then the first anniversary of her death.  All the while, the rest of us were trying to keep our grieving father propped up.  We had to create new traditions in her absence.  New places to be for the holiday.  Keeping what we liked about the old traditions, but changing venues and circumstances.  And you know what?  We got through it.  It wasn't smooth at first because Mom was the glue that kept us all grounded, the same as her mother was before her, but it happened.  Just before my mother's funeral service, my brother asked HER brother, a military man who had already lost his first wife to cancer, "What do we do now that Mom is gone?"  My uncle said, "Close ranks".  And that's exactly what we did.

Self-pity is crippling.  Yes, I am on my own for Thanksgiving this year, but I have traded traditional foods with my "family" across town.  We are all alone because we choose to be, for self-preservation.  I don't like it very much, but I don't feel any worse than I do any other time.  After all, Thanksgiving is just another day in the scheme of things.  

I pray that next Thanksgiving will be better and that I will live to see it.  Count your blessings!  

   

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Thanksgivings, Past and Present

Thanksgiving is an American tradition.  It celebrates the survival of the European pilgrims who came to the New World in 1620, who planned a feast to thank God for that survival after a tough year.  The stories are all over the Internet.  I don't need to tell the story here.

The actual holiday, which hasn't been around all that long, has translated into family gatherings with traditional foods:  turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, candied sweet potatoes, other lovely side-dishes, and the piece-de-resistance, pumpkin pie.  Hopefully, the true reason for the day hasn't been missed: thankfulness.  People are so busy trying to provide the traditional foods for the disenfranchised that they sometimes forget the reason.

I have lived through many Thanksgivings in my lifetime:

*There was the one when it snowed relentlessly, and I followed a salt truck down the interstate, praying the entire distance that I would get to the farm for our family gathering in one piece.  I did.

*There was the one when my mother had made a snifter of martinis for a before-dinner drinkie-poo.  She had three on an empty stomach, and was so inebriated by dinner time that we weren't sure the meal would make it to the table.

*There was the one when my grandfather had TWO "libations" rather than his normal ONE prior to the meal.  He ate heartily, then fell asleep in his recliner.  When he woke up, he asked when we would eat the "boid".  He apparently didn't remember eating Thanksgiving dinner!

*There was the one when my father went hunting for rabbits on the farm after dinner.  He winged one, which ran toward the granary.  Dad tried to outrun it, fell on his shotgun, and totally shattered his pinkie finger in the process.  (It's a wonder his shotgun didn't go off and blow his brains out!)  He came in, showed me the poor finger that he couldn't even hold up straight, broke a clamp-type clothespin to splint his finger...and disappeared.  Mom asked, "Where's your dad?"  I had no clue.  He had driven himself, unannounced, to the ER in town.  Mom was furious that he had gone alone without warning.  Came home bandaged with the advice to see an orthopedist when they got home to the west suburbs of Chicago a day or two later.  He did.  The finger required surgery with pins.  They kept him overnight.  For a pinkie finger!  The pins were removed after some healing, but I don't think that finger ever worked properly again.  A Thanksgiving to remember!    

*There were the ones for which I bought the foods for another family.  They were grateful.

*There was the one or two that I shared with friends who had no other place to be.  One didn't show up until LONG after the meal was over.  I fed him anyway, and was happy to.

*There were the ones that I hosted, desperately trying to get everything done and still warm at the same time.  I don't know how my mother did it!

And now, there is this year.  I will be eating alone for the first time in my life, but not forgotten.  My friend Judy and I are trading foods.  We have to celebrate in isolation, due to the pandemic.  I will have all of the traditional foods and have plenty of thanks to give to God for my blessings.  I know my family is safe, so far.  That's all that matters to me, at this point.  It makes me sad to have to endure a traditional holiday alone, but I am aware that it is for ALL of us that I do it.  May God grant that next Thanksgiving will be a different world, and that I live long enough to see it!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  Appreciate all you have!  

  


Sunday, November 22, 2020

We Are Family!

 Years ago, when I was still doing volunteer work for The Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Services through amateur radio connections, I was introduced to a man in TSA's employ with the same last name as mine.  The minister introducing us said, "Peg McNary, meet Steve McNary."  We shook hands, and Steve McNary said, "We're family!"  There's nothing unusual or funny about that, except that Steve was very black, and I am very white.  We both chuckled, but the irony wasn't lost on us.  Our color and our name didn't matter.  In the course of generations, we are ALL family.

I have friends who live just a mile from me here in Plainfield, IN.  We go to the same church.  Over time, we might have run into each other, but my real connection with Judy and Phil came through our children.  Their son and my daughter were married and produced our two common grandchildren.  Our kids divorced, but Judy and Phil and I never did.  Their son now lives with his second wife north of Chicago, close to the Wisconsin border.  My daughter lives with her second husband and the children in the Seattle area, 2,000 miles away.  Judy, Phil, and I have remained close, not just because we have grandchildren together, but because we genuinely care about each other.  We're family, sort of.  Not related by blood but rather by love.

But not so fast!  All is not always as it appears!

Over the years since our children's divorce, we have looked after each other.  Thanksgiving has always been a shared meal.  Either they come to my house or I go to theirs.  This year, with the COVID virus running rampant, we have had to change plans.  We won't be together, but we will be trading food.  Today, I was talking to Judy to finalize our food trade items.  We are both talkers and can get side-tracked.  We are both into genealogy, so she happened to mention that a cousin had called her, and we started talking about ancestors.  She mentioned that the cousin had traced their ancestry back to the Mayflower.  I threw in that I had just recently--like last week--found out that I had Mayflower ancestors, too.  Judy said a name that rang a bell with me.  If our information is correct, her Mayflower ancestor and my Mayflower ancestor were brother and sister, and we share common grandparents from 10 or 11 generations ago!  What are the odds that two people in a small town in Indiana, who became close friends by marriage, would actually be related by blood to people who came to this country on the Mayflower??  My mind is blown! 

There is no lesson to this story.  I mean, if we could go back far enough in our ancestry, we all come from a common source.  I'm just still in shock about this particular family connection.  Who knew?  What a strangely small world we live in!  We are all family, indeed!  

         

Saturday, November 21, 2020

What I Wish COVID-Deniers Would Understand

Before determining the title for this post, I spent quite a while considering my target audience.  I'm not directing my comments only to anti-maskers and COVID-deniers, but to anyone who might be thinking that they aren't going to live in fear just because of the Coronavirus and won't let their good times be thwarted by government restrictions/recommendations.  

Washington State, where some of the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in the U.S., is a state that is being run by a liberal government (much to the irritation of right-leaning people/politicians).  They struggled through the first round of the virus, losing many citizens as have all of the other states, but they are known to be an eco-friendly state with liberal policies.  Thus, now that the virus has come back again with avengence, the Governor returned to earlier restrictions.  My daughter and family live near Seattle.  I was comparing their restrictions to ours in Indiana and commented that so few people here would observe them.  Megan told me, "Here in Washington, they are more likely to."  Then I read a news article from their main newspaper, announcing that the Governor was asking people to cancel their family gatherings for the holidays.  The VERY FIRST public comment, printed at the end of the article said, in so many words, "No government is going to tell my family how to celebrate Thanksgiving...and no, we won't be serving fear at our table."  So much for social compliance for the greater good.

In the beginning of the pandemic, no one really knew how the disease was transmitted, what the lasting effects were, what drugs would help, or whether or not patients who recovered would then be immune.  It was a new entity.  Recommendations were made based on the science of prophylaxis:  wear masks; keep distance between others; limit exposure to crowds and circumstances that puts people in close proximity; keep hands clean; sanitize surfaces; and keep hands away from the face.  Some of the information coming out was confusing to some Americans.  And then the President, wanting to avoid a panic on the stock market--his biggest claim to fame--downplayed the whole virus thing every step of the way.  He maintained that the Democrats and media were talking it up just to derail his re-election possibilities, and his supporters believed him.  All the while, Americans were dying by the thousands every day.  Thus, the coronavirus was politicized.  The President refused to wear a mask and refused to limit attendance at his rallies and meetings.  His supporters followed his lead.  Then HE got the disease and was hospitalized.  When he emerged several days later, having been pumped full of steroids (which cause euphoria) and experimental drugs, he felt invincible.  "Don't be afraid of COVID," he said.  "You will recover.  I did, and I've never felt better."  

So now, here we are, nine months later, with new COVID cases hitting record levels daily.  Worse than before.  It isn't done with us yet.  We've lost all these months when we could have been slowing the spread of the disease which would allow us all to be free of restrictions sooner.  Obviously, some people did everything right and still got the virus.  Many died.  And some did everything wrong but never came down with it, proving to themselves that the whole virus risk had been overblown in the first place.  

What does all this have to do with me?                                                                                                      Back in March, near the beginning of the pandemic in the U.S., I had plans to go to Seattle where I would house/cat/grandson-sit while the rest of the family went on a planned camping vacation to Canada.  (My grandson didn't want to go.  He wasn't being excluded for any other reason.)  My plane tickets had already been purchased.  I was actually packing to go when the "what ifs" got to me.              *What if I picked up the virus at the airports or on the plane and took it home to my family?                    *What if the family left for Canada before I came down with symptoms, then had to come back to take care of me?                                                                                                                                                    *What if I got sick while the family was gone?  I would have a car but had no clue how to get anywhere.  Worse, my grandson didn't have a driver's license, so even he wouldn't be able to help me get to the places I might need to go in the meantime.  

My daughter pumped me every day about whether or not I wanted to chance it.  She sent me face masks and rubber gloves, just in case.  I knew that if I opted out, SHE would be the one to eat the airfare and the whole Canada trip.  There was no pressure for me to come.  The decision was up to me, and I knew it.  I didn't want to let anyone down; but then, I considered the realities.  The public message was, if you are elderly, stay home.  (I'm 73.)  If you have underlying conditions, stay home.  (I have COPD and heart disease.)  With mere days to spare before my flight, it hit me that if I went ahead with our plans, full speed ahead, I would be going against every single medical warning, and if I got sick (or worse, caused my family to be sick because of me), people would declare "What were you thinking?"  I would have deserved whatever happened due to bad decisions.  I canceled.  My family also, then, had to cancel their vacation.  (In all fairness, it wasn't just because of me.) 

The dominoes began to fall.  Schools were closed, so students did "e-learning" from home.  Adults who could work from home did.  Those who couldn't, either lost their jobs or worked with less income.  Restaurants were closed, many of them for good.  Government help got weird.  Businesses that were still open metered the number of people that could enter their stores and required masks...and then things really got strange.  (Still are.)  My granddaughter's high school graduation was canceled.  Parents and grandparents from three states all over the country had to bail out on their flights and motel reservations.  It hurt.  Robin started her college courses online in the fall.  Her choice.  A wise one, I think, even though she is missing out on the social aspects of being on her own, she is also missing out on potential contagion.  Since the virus has now taken a huge uptick all over the U.S., people are being advised about how to reintroduce their college students back into the home for the holidays.  Robin and family won't have to worry about that.

But I digress.  There is no magic bullet to guess or second guess the COVID virus.  The bottom line, for me at least, is that the younger folks who will get the virus and survive, or the other folks who get the virus and suffer for months from it may have time to recover and move on with their lives.  Perhaps they have people to come home to.  I don't. I live alone, and that's what I wish people would understand.

In order to protect myself from the virus, I wear masks.  I keep hand sanitizer with me everywhere.  I wash my hands.  I rarely leave the house, but when I do, I go home to a house in which no one else is allowed.  I've been in a semi-patient solitude, hoping the day will come that I will be able to see my beloved family, so far away, again before I die.  While people demand their rights to go maskless, to gather in groups without distance between them, to be free to live their lives as they want, I am hunkered down in my little bungalow hoping to be free again, too.  It is THEY who have kept the virus going, rising up again like an angry Godzilla.  We could have had this disease under control over the past nine months of its presence in our midst, but those who politicized it made it their quest to prove that they are better than a microscopic bug, all the while that the bug was killing people by the hundreds and thousands every day.  And every day of my self-preserving solitude ticks off 24 more hours of the hours I have left in life, with or without the disease.  Yes, I could get hit by a bus crossing the street, but since I don't go anywhere, that isn't likely.  I can tolerate being alone for Thanksgiving.  Odds are that I will also be alone for Christmas for the first time in my life.  All I want is to see my daughter and family again.  Is that too much to ask?  

Those who are white-knuckling the holidays on the notion that all can be normal again next year are likely young enough to bank that there will be a next year for them.  I don't have that luxury.  As of December 27th, it will have been a year since I was able to be with my only daughter and her fantastic husband, and my only grandchildren.  That has never happened before.  They are as locked down as I am, but they are a band of four.  I have never disliked my singleness, but I do now.  My nightmare is, right in this moment as I type in this blog, is that I will get sick from whatever and die alone, with no one allowed to be with me.  

This isn't selfishness; this is reality.  Everyone who has refused to wear masks, have gone to "super-spreader" events, called people like me "snowflake" or "sheeple" have no clue how hard I have worked all my life to raise my child, sustain myself, and to give back to society.  Those people keep the virus going when it would have been so easy to comply with recommendations to help slow it down.  And now, I have "lost" nine months of my life that I can never get back, just trying to survive long enough to see my family again.

I am angry, hurt, resigned, and otherwise depressed about what is going on.  I hope it's worth it for those who want to pound on the Constitution about their rights.  The rest of us will lick our wounds and hope for the best.                              


Saturday, November 14, 2020

Song "Learning"

 Today's little venture into how my mind works takes us to the little games we play to remember how to spell things. Or at least I do.  Let it be known that I have always been an excellent speller.  I was the one who always won classroom spelling bees.  (Yeah...I was THAT kid.)  Generally, I could see a word and remember it.  As I matured, I began to see common threads in spellings, through root words, etc., and that also helped.  Now, as I have hit old age, I sometimes can't even think of a word I'm trying to say, much less be able to spell it.  Often, I will look at a word I've spelled correctly all my life and suddenly decide it doesn't look right.  I can't begin to tell you how many common words I've had to look up just in the last few years.  I'm still a formidable speller.  

Just last week, I had occasion to correct the spelling of "license" to a former student of mine in a Facebook post.  I try not to be a Spelling Nazi, unless someone has misspelled a word while feigning superiority in an online meme or in a personal main post.  The young man (now pushing 40) was one of the latter posters.  He was showing off something he was proud of  and used the word "lisensce".  It seems that everyone knows the actual spelling has a "c" and an "s" in it--both pronounced with the "s" sound, but where do they go in the word?  When I was young, I tripped over it, too...until I noticed that "lice" were the first four letters.  The spelling of "license" is as pesky as head lice are in real life, so I remembered it that way.  Never had a problem since.  (And now, neither will David, or so he said.  I just hope I didn't embarrass him.)

I have heard it said dozens of times that the way to remember spellings and lists is to make a song out of them.  This does work.  In fact, many songs have already been done for us.  I heard the character of Sheldon on the TV show Big Bang Theory sing the Table of the Elements in one of the show's episodes.  In elementary school, we were expected to memorize the US Presidents in order, and the US states and their capitals.  Somewhere on the Internet, I'm quite sure songs of these lists already exist.  

How many American kids learned the alphabet by singing the ABC song?  (And, along with that, how many American adults have to run the song through their heads before being able to put things in alphabetical order?)   Here's a link to the song I'm talking about, although I'm quite sure the reference is not needed:         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75p-N9YKqNo

Know how I learned to spell "encyclopedia"?  Jiminy Cricket from the old Disney Mickey Mouse Club shows on TV.  Jiminy was featured in many little vignettes about how to find the answers to questions by looking in the encyclopedia--which, at that time, was a set of books.  (Now, of course, we have Google!)  I can still sing Jiminy Cricket's little encyclopedia jingle in my brain every time I go to spell the word--which isn't often these days.  Here is Jiminy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy2jWJtO3lE

Oh!  And how many Bible scripture passages do I know simply from singing the choral pieces of Handel's The Messiah over the course of my life??  I can't cite chapter and verse, but I sure know the text of so many.  "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain and hath redeemed us to God by His blood, etc."  "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, etc."  "Come unto Him, all ye that labor, and He shall give you rest, etc."   "And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, etc."  I could go on and on...

Just last month, my sister and bro-in-law came to visit for a weekend.  At dinner on Sunday, we were passing the food and filling our plates when I simply said, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow".  My BIL followed with, "Praise Him all creatures here below".  I said, "Praise Him above ye heavenly host".  And he finished with "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost".  How did we know that little ditty without communicating with each other?  A song!  The Doxology.

One more little comment about spelling.  I figured out many years ago that German words that are full of "ie" or "ei" combinations can be spelled if the pronunciation is correct.  Ein (one) is pronounced "ine".  The second letter in the "ei" or "ie" combination is sounded.  Happens over and over again.  Albert Einstein's name is pronounced "INE stine".  Everybody knows that, right?  Leonard Bernstein has been incorrectly called "BERN-steen" for years by people who don't get it.  Likewise with Oscar Hammerstein.  If you just know this little trick, and people are pronouncing the words correctly, you too can spell German words.  The hot dog you just ate is spelled "wiener".  Get it?

No need to evict me.  I'll let myself out.       


Sunday, November 8, 2020

Supporting--Or Enabling?

 So many questions; so little time!

For several decades now, I've been having internal struggles about what comprises being supportive of others through tough times versus enabling them to continue to make the decisions that put them in those tough times initially.  Where is the dividing line between supporting and enabling?  This can happen in families as well as churches and national politics, and I still don't have a definitive answer.

As an example of this, I have a dear friend who is the chief cook at my church's Homeless Feeding Mission--not for the homeless of Plainfield, IN, where we all live, but for the homeless in Indianapolis.  This man is a political conservative, but he is also a Christian.  Understand that some homeless folk are simply down on their luck, but many also have untreated mental illness or alcohol/drug addictions.  Church members who go to the streets to serve them food know this but feed them anyway, against the wishes of government authorities.  The authorities think of the homeless as they think of stray dogs: if you feed them, they will stick around.  Bad for business.  Hard to deal with.  They hope that if they aren't helped with food from churches, they will seek out homeless shelters, etc.  What they fail to understand is that many shelters are faith-based.  They may require the homeless to attend church services in order to stay there.  Still others won't allow the homeless to bring their "stuff" in the shelter with them, leaving every little thing they own to be at risk for theft while they sleep on a cot for the night.  (Also, they have to be out of the shelter by 10:00 AM.  They can return the next night IF there is a bed available.  Shelters are not a home!)  Robbed of dignity or permanent help, many of the homeless prefer to stay on the streets.  This is totally against Conservative values...yet my friend considers it his Christian duty to help feed these people the one meal a week that my church provides.  So...is he supporting the homeless or enabling them to stay homeless?

I am a devoted student of Dr. Phil.  I watch every show faithfully and have learned much in the process.  He often has people on his show that are at war with their children whom they have enabled to be moochers.  They believe their adult kids would be living on the streets were it not for their support, and what kind of parents would they be to let their own bairn suffer??   Ninety-nine percent of the time, Dr. Phil is able to show the parents that they've been parenting out of guilt, compensating for some perceived failures on their part, and thus giving and giving and giving in order to make themselves feel better, without even thinking of the lessons they are teaching the kids.  He often quotes Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, when he says, "Necessity is the mother of invention."  In other words, when adults are faced with few acceptable choices, they will find a way to be in the world.  Giving them money or a place to live won't stop their problems.  They need to figure things out for themselves.

I'm not a rich person, and that is probably merciful.  If I were, I would be enabling people all over the place.  Can't do what I can't afford, but I still struggle with the idea of helping vs. enabling.  In my family, in my church, and in the nation.  

While it kills me to only be able to "help" one person at a time, I am reminded of an interview that Oprah Winfrey had with Melinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates, with millions to give to make better lives, worldwide.  When an African mother begged Melinda to take her child so the child could have a life, Melinda said she had to turn the mother's attention to other sources for help.  Oprah asked, "How do you handle that kind of pressure?"  Mrs. Gates said, after much heartfelt reflection, "First, you have to let your heart break."

I have had to get tough with my heart to realize that I can't save the world, although I really wish I could.  I'm having to determine what is supportive and what is enabling.  I wish there were easy answers!  

    

     

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Gracious Losing

 The Andy Griffith Show, one of my all-time favorites, had an episode in which Andy was lecturing his young son Opie about sportsmanship-like behavior.  Opie had lost a race that he had dearly wanted to win and was visibly angry about it.  Some other kid was wearing the medal that, in his mind, should rightfully have been his.  He refused to admit that someone else had beaten him, fair and square.  Andy had to get tough with Opie.  "Winning is no problem.  Winning is easy.  You don't have to do anything special to be a good winner, but not everyone can win.  Someone will have to lose, and if you are that person, you have to be gracious about it.  You don't have to be happy to lose, but you need to learn how to lose."  (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the message.)  

My own family had a lesson in winning and losing back in the late 1980s.  My then-husband lost his principalship in a small school district of three schools in a Trumpish political move by the Superintendent who endeavored to save his own skin by convincing the Board of Education that two of the three school principals needed to go.  (He didn't outlive us by much.)  We had been in that community for eight years, and my husband had been principal in one of the elementaries, then moved to the junior high, over the course of his employment there.  

Losing his position was a major blow to us as a family.  We were internally bitter but never spoke of it outside our home.  Still, we didn't want the public to see the reality of what had been done because...well...the School Board had made its decision, and it was final.  There should be no hint of sour grapes from us.  

With my husband's permission, I prepared an exit statement and took it to the local newspaper to print (or not) as they saw fit.  (Thankfully, no one in the local press had stuck a microphone in Joe's face asking for a reaction, as they do now.)  The statement was short and sweet.  It said something about moving on, and about how the students who had just graduated from the junior high had been kindergarteners when we came to the district...and what a joy it was to be there to watch them grow up.  

The newspaper did print the statement.  One of the members of the School Board was also a mover-and-shaker in our church, also related to a local judge.  I heard through the grapevine that the mother of that family showed the exit statement to her teenage children who had been through the school district with my husband as their principal and me as the church Youth Director and told them:  "THIS is how to lose gracefully.  THIS is how to leave with honor."  

I wish to God that the President of the United States had received this lesson.  The votes are still being counted...again...and Joe Biden is clearly the winner (although it is close).  Donald Trump is pulling out all the stops to try to change the election results--law suits, unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud--anything to hang on to an election he believes he deserves and is being stolen from him.  No matter the results, he will not leave with grace.  America prides itself on the smooth transition of power from one election to the next.  It AIN'T gonna happen this time.  Our great nation is still going to suffer from the wrath of a narcissistic man who can't/won't believe that the American vote--even with the awful Electoral College deal that put him in power in 2016--applies to him.  

I'm still too worried to be assured.  Donald Trump is and has been a dangerous person to have at the helm of a strong nation.  It's going to take every bit of strength to get through this.  At least I am a little bit hopeful that our long Trump Nightmare will soon be over, but it won't be pretty.

Stay tuned.


   

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Halloween, 2020

Perhaps it was due to the mild weather on October 31st, or perhaps families were just weary of the pandemic restrictions, but there were quite a few more trick-or-treaters at my door this Halloween over last.   One other thing was different this year over all the others: I had company.  My sister and brother-in-law came for the weekend; thus, I had help for the candy distribution!

Everything else was the same.  I put the bat wreath on the door--the one with the motion sensor that laughs maniacally and flashes its red eyes every time something moves.  I put out my "Boo!" garden flag .  Plunked my court jester's hat on my head to hide my undone hair.  Put the big bowl of candy on the mantel by the door.  Turned out the outside light, and waited for the ghoulies and ghosties and three-leggedy beasties to darken my stoop.  And they did!

Plainfield, IN, where I live, sets t-or-t hours for 5:30-8:30.  Of course, it's not carved in stone, but I have found that families generally abide by those hours.  We get the youngest goblins during the earlier hours, when it's still daylight, and the older ones after dark.  This year, I don't think we had any door knockers after 8:00, and we didn't have any marauders that I would consider to be too old to be out working the neighborhoods.  (I give candy to everyone.  Even the parents if they appear at the door.)  

Because my "guests" and I were tag-teaming door duty, I didn't have as many opportunities to interact with the kids as I usually do.  (Trust me: I'm not complaining!)  Both my sister (Shari) and my bro-in-law (Jim) probably took more turns than I did.  I think Jim secretly enjoyed it.  As he was handing out candy, he was calling the children "honey" in a soft voice.  "There you go, Honey.  Are you having fun?  Be careful...etc."  What a natural grandpa he must be!  

When I took my turns at the door, I tried to guess costumes as I usually do.  This year, nothing struck me as too unusual except:

    *One pair of kids came to the door together.  I guessed that they were Harry Potter characters, and I was right...but they informed me that they were BOTH the same character: Hermione.  Ooookay.

    *Another child was wearing a red union-suit with black dots all over it.  I had to ask.  She informed me that she was a lady bug.  Okay.  Maybe a lady bug worm??

    *One little princess arrived at the door with no bag or bucket to put candy in.  I handed her two pieces of candy, one at a time...and she grabbed my hand to get it.  Ack!  I had to sanitize my hand...but she ran right out to her dad to put the candy in his backpack.  To each his own!

    *One of the older kids was wearing a set of black wings on her back that I didn't notice until she turned to leave.  Have no idea what her costume was, but I asked, "Are those real feathers?"  She didn't know.  I felt them.  They were black feathers glued to cardboard, but they were real.  Somewhere, there are a bunch of black birds missing their plumage! 

*One mom came to the door with a group of six kids or so.  Not sure they were all with her.  I gave candy to the first three, and she was okay with that, but when I went to give candy to her group of younger ones, she took the candy and said, "I'd like to distribute it, if it's okay."  Yeah...it's okay.  Better to give your kids things they can eat rather than have others give them things that they can't.  Kids don't get it.  You go, Mom! 

At 8:30, we turned off the porch light and slowly returned to normal, with candy left over (hence the reason that I always buy candy that I like).  We "seen our duty and we done it".  Another Halloween in the books.  

God bless the children.  God bless my guests. And may Heaven protect us all!