Better late than never

 

I finally really get it!

 

I am a crafter, of sorts.  I am making a book out of cards and repurposing them.  There are twenty cards and several steps in decorating them.  I line them up on my side table to dry and count each time to make sure all 20 are there.  On the last step, I counted 19.  I counted and recounted and searched in vain for the lost card.  I HAD to have it.  I couldn’t stop because without it, the book is not going to be complete.

Then I thought of Jesus’s parable of the lost sheep and fireworks went off in my brain!  🎆Without that sheep, the flock was not complete!  The same with the father of the prodigal son.  His family was not complete without both his sons.  (I confess, I have always felt for the other son who did his father’s bidding.  Now I see that the sheep left in the fold were safe.  The other son was safe.  Attention had to be paid to those missing pieces.)

And so it is – our world is not complete when some of our people are lost.  Black lives matter because they have been overlooked.  They are not safe.  Other groups too have not been heard and they also matter.  The white population are the sheep already in the fold.  We need to go get the others now.

 

How did I get this old still being this blind?

 

ps.  I found the missing card.  That, at least, is complete.

Batter up!

This morning I prayed for tonight’s major league baseball game.  Not for the game, per se, but for the atmosphere in Yankee Stadium and the people attending.

I love baseball.  I’ll watch nearly any MLB team, but I’ve been a Yankees fan for nearly 30 years even though I’ve lived my whole life in Texas and don’t see everyone doesn’t.  I joined the fold of the Astros when I first visited Minute Maid park.  For me, it’s the happiest place on earth.  I’ve been fortunate enough to repeat that visit a number of times. 

So, I have two favorite teams.  Big deal.  I have multiple children, multiple dogs and multiple cats.  I love them all.  My Bagwell jersey hangs with my Yankees shirts.  Derek Jeter was my hero.  Alex Bregman is also my hero.  Derek Jeter was his hero.

When the postseason narrowed down to Yankees versus Astros, it was win-win for me.  I thought I’d be happy whoever won, but I did want it to go seven games so I could watch them both.  Until today.  

Until I heard about the despicable behavior of some of the Yankees fans.  Throwing things onto the field is bad.  It is dangerous and unsportsmanlike.  It is stupid.

Taunting someone is unacceptable and unkind.  Taunting someone because of a disorder is beyond comprehension.  And involving his family is totally unconscionable.  True, it was one fan (or at least a small group).  It may also be true of an Astro fan or fans in ballparks around the country.     But it was one too many and it paints the Yankees with his dirty brush.  Indeed, it paints the whole league with it.

Part of me wants the series to return to Minute Maid so we can show them southern hospitality, but part of me is afraid some unkind idiot will try reprisals. 

It is an ugly situation and makes me both mad and sad. 

If you see me out walking, I’ll be the one in the Astros hat and Yankees hoodie.  I’ll be praying for baseball.  I really love the game!

Rocky Mountain High

A collection of unconnected thoughts that may become a story like different colored threads weave a patterned fabric, all the pieces that make memories and weave a life.   Arlington Heights High School, my parents, a hot air balloon ride, faith, family.

Thread 1:  my parents took me on a vacation to Colorado sometime in my youth, Daddy driving us there, non-stop.  They hated Colorado and everything about the trip.

Thread 2:  John Denver.  As John Deutschendorf, his real name, John Denver graduated a few years before me at AHHS.   I loved his folk music in those Peter, Paul and Mary, Three Dog Night, Credence Clearwater Revival years, but it didn’t really connect. 

Thread 3:  my biggest dream and #1 bucket list item has, for a long time, been to ride in a hot air balloon.

Thread 4:  my mother raised me right, to believe and to love God.

Thread 5:  I have the best family in the world, and I love all of them very much.

Now for the weaving.

When Reagan, Diane and Kayla gave me the trip to Colorado for Christmas, I was stunned and excited.  Hot air balloon!  I’d be tickled to ride over Buna, and Colorado, well, okay.  With the travel voucher was a framed photo of the Rocky Mountains, some snow-capped, some green, and a beautiful meadow below.  Cool.  The hot air balloon was all that was on my mind.  When Mother met Jesus, the trip became a reality.  I don’t think she’d mind that.  She loved to travel and didn’t start until she was nearly my age, but she sure didn’t like Colorado. 

And we were off, on a jet plane.  (Thank you, John Denver.  Peter, Paul and Mary sang it, but John wrote it.)   My first glimpse of the mountains was what we surmised to be majestic, snow-capped Pike’s Peak which we later traveled up on a cog railway.  The views were magnificent, trees, mountains, huge rock formations.  Early Thursday morning, the bucket-list dream came true with the balloon ride.  If there are words to describe it, I don’t have them.  Diane said my face told it all.  It was beyond anything I could ever have imagined.  Who needs Paris?  Perfect peace, serenity, soft music playing, looking up and down and all the way around, hanging over the side.  Bliss.  What more could there be?

Then we went to Estes Park on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park.  Friday morning we packed a lunch and set off into the park.  A nice ride through the park, sure.  I had ridden the balloon and was mentally still up in it.  Then a little way into the park, after visiting with the ranger in the Smokey-the-Bear hat, I saw IT, the view from my picture.  It all came together and all came alive.  And as we traveled on, there was more, and more and more, all spectacular and we climbed higher and higher.  Aside here: at Vanguard, Dave had us read and discuss this book which had a whole chapter about God vs. science in creation.  Scientists say that it’s all a matter of coincidence in things coming together.  Believers say that it couldn’t have happened without God’s hand.  I don’t think the scientists saw what I saw in that park.  All I could think of was the poem Ronald Reagan read after the Challenger explosion, “I have slipped the surly bonds of earth . . .  . .put out my hand and touched the face of God."   I felt like I could have. 

We had many adventures in the park, picnicked on a table surrounded by snow, (a ham and cheese sandwich never tasted so good), looked for bears and big horn sheep, saw deer, elk, turkeys, the marmots that Thoreau talked about, Chip and Dale, and a MOOSE!  All the while wrapped in the spectacular scenery of the Rocky Mountains.  My camera ran out of memory. 

Saturday morning the terror set in.  White water rafting.  I was afraid of many things:  not being able to get in the boat, not being able to get out of the boat, not paddling right, not leaning right, mortifying myself or my family.  All those fears were unfounded.  The guides were great, and Reagan hauled me in and out, yet again.  We took two trips, and while we saw “swimmers” (people who fell out) and two boats overturned, ours did not.  I slept well.

Sunday morning, we took a last trip to the park.  When I saw “the view” again, it was church.  I love my church and the community of faith, but God was definitely in this place and evidence of His handiwork wrapped around it.  Genesis 1:  “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good --the sixth day.”  It sure was.  My window kept going up and down, my phone clicking away.  At one point I heard Reagan ask Di what I was taking pictures of, and she replied, “the mountain…she wants to make sure she got it.”

Then it was back to Denver, watching the Rockies recede in the distance, and leaving again on the jet plane.  I told Reagan I don’t want to go to Cypress Glen, I want to go to the mountains.  He said “No.”

All the way home in the car, my head swirled with emotions I didn’t know how to express.  It was amazing, awe-inspiring and, just Too Cool.  Then home:  happy puppies, unhappy Emmy, Daniel, Chris mowed the grass, a tropical storm is coming, the Polaris has a broken part.  There definitely is a Rocky Mountain High, John Denver, and I had to come off of it.  But life is good.  I have shirts that say so. 

Reagan, Diane and Kayla gave me the adventure of a lifetime.  Shannon, James, Daniel and Melly kept the safe haven of home safe.  My family is the greatest treasure.  Who needs Paris?

Mother

My mother met Jesus early Thursday morning.  I wasn’t there.  She did that for me.

My mother had been at less than her best for some time.  She had lived with me for the past year.  She had a stroke on November 30 but recovered from it.  However, she had been declining since then and last Saturday night apparently had another.  We moved her to Harbor Hospice House for those last days.  The caregivers there are truly God’s angels on earth.  In those last days she was agitated and restless although heavily medicated.  She was calmer when I left her Wednesday night, and when I saw her again, it was total peace.  She was beautiful.

I was, of course, very sad all day Thursday, and I know I will be again from time to time.  But now there is nothing but joy.  I can picture her in Heaven.  She has found her precious German shepherds: Thunder, Miss Scarlett, Jezebel and Gypsy, and the little dogs: Muffin and Tiffany.  She has gabbed away with Edith and Wylma and Madeline.  She has questioned God about why He waited so long to bring her home, and now she’s telling Him how best to care for me.  And she’s walking FAST all over Heaven.  Of her ailments, the one that pained her most was her degenerated knees.   At 80 years old, she was outpacing me across Lowe’s, try as I might to keep up.  In these last years, her knees gave out, and she had a fleet of walkers.  They aren’t needed now.   

I know my mother is having a ball in Heaven, and that gives me immense joy.  We took her to her earthly home in Fort Worth for the worn-out body to repose.  But there is no resting in peace for Marjorie Nell Erskine Burks; she is enjoying Heaven for all she’s worth. 

People have been so very kind and sorry for our family’s loss, for which I am very grateful.  But I want them to rejoice with us for her new life.  And I’m glad she is my mother.

Ollie Dachshund and Magic Pip

The times, they are a’changing …the more things change, the more they stay the same…change is inevitable…

There are a myriad of platitudes and quotes about change.  Bottom line…change comes and we don’t like it.

This was a week of loss -- one small, one not so small— but both changes I don’t like.

Ollie was a small, brown stuffed dachshund toy.  Because I love dachshunds.  I had wanted one for years, and would have one someday.  Her name was to be Mrs. Miniver.  Due to a lovely set of odd circumstances, I came home from a vacation trip with an adorable dachshund puppy.  Not Mrs. Miniver, but Clementine, a long name for a long dog.  Clemmie.   I adored Clemmie for 16 years.   Therefore, I also have various dachshund momentos:  a doorstop, Christmas ornaments, a beach towel, the Schlitterbahn dachshund “Schatze” who is wearing an innertube, and Ollie, brown curly fabric with black ribbon around his neck and a paper tag reading “Ollie.”  (I also have Maggie and Gretchen, two breathing, barking, puddling dachshunds, the successors to Clemmie.)

I have also been known through the years as the crazy cat lady.  I had five cats:  George, Maude, Bernice, Fuzzy, Pearl, Violet, Pippi, Spike, Emma, and Emily.  Yes, I know that’s more than five, but they came and went, leaving a different five at a time.  Each had his or her set of stories…the “remember whens.”  For the last two years, there have been only two, Pippi and Emily.  Pippi and Violet were garage cats.  They had been house cats, but for cat reasons moved into the garage.  They were roomies.  Violet was the feline version of Oscar the Grouch; she lived to be 16.    Pippi was my son’s cat.  He moved out.  She didn’t. 

I lost Pippi this week.  She was almost 18 years old, a striped orange tabby with white feet.  There were 18 years of stories.  The time she caught her tail in the candle and we smelled burning fur.  The time she peed on Melly’s head because she was telling us she was sick.  Pippi breaking out of the cardboard cat carrier during the hurricane evacuation and sitting on top of the other cats in their carriers.   Pippi sitting on top of the brick wall, looking down on us all.  Pippi had her own chair in the garage.  I bought it especially for her at Target.  She watched the world and protected the property.  She had grown old and sick this last year.  It didn’t make it any easier.

The next morning, I found Ollie in the backyard – chewed -- nose and ribbons gone.  Manny struck again.  I also mourned Ollie.  Just a stuffed toy, but memories nonetheless. 

People, dogs, cats and things come into our lives for a reason and a season.   Changes happen, but these things leave marks on our hearts forever.   We don’t welcome change, but we must embrace it and let the memories weave the tapestry of our lives.

“Things change.  And friends leave.  Life doesn't stop for anybody.” 
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Pick your own title. . .

• Choose joy.

• Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.

• We’re all going to hell in a hand basket.

• Ignorance is bliss.

• Tomorrow is another day.

Check any of the above.  They will all fit.

I spend far more time collecting truisms, verses and pithy sayings for my art journaling than I do actually making pages.  (I also spend way too much time and money shopping for supplies than actually using them, but that’s another problem.)   I was “supposed” to have a little private time Sunday to work on my art journal.  Turned out I had not prepped the page so while I was waiting for gesso to dry, I wandered around the internet.  Found a quote I have intended to use:  “today I will choose JOY.”  I love it and it was beautifully presented.  The internet being what it is, I soon found myself shopping for jewelry and other objects that featured the saying. 

Then I needed my paint to dry, so I was reading a book.  Then the doorbell rang.  Several kids from the impromptu basketball league around the corner informed me that my bicycle had been stolen from my garage.  Yes, the doors to the garage were open.  I like them open.  Airs it out and lets the sunshine in and just feels nice.  The bicycle was old and rusty with flat tires and behind a bunch of stuff.  I was completely bewildered as to the motive.  Turns out apparently it was for “the reward” they wanted for giving me this information.  No reward. 

The Beaumont police recovered my bicycle and found the juvenile who took it.  The officers were fast, competent and completely understanding that while it was an old, sad bike, it was mine and in my garage.  One officer sternly advised me to keep the doors down.  I will comply.  I don’t like it, but I have to accept that my neighborhood is not the same one I moved into almost 40 years ago.

 

Now I am nervous.  I don’t have much that would be of value on the open market and certainly nothing for the black market.  But I do have stuff that is precious to me.  And it’s on my property.  The one I pay taxes on and utility bills for.  I am not so much afraid of theft as I am of retribution…garbage can turned over (shuddering here), paint or eggs on the garage doors that are now firmly down, broken windows or other acts of unkindness.  I don’t like living this way.

And I won’t.  Today I will choose joy.  Even with the doors down and precautions taken.  Even knowing what may be around the corner, across town, all over the country.  Today I WILL choose joy!

Thanks, God

God spoke to me today, as I was driving to Wal-Mart.  And I didn’t particularly like what He had to say.

Oh, plenty of times in my life, I have felt Him guiding me, nudging me or knew inside what He was telling me, but this time I heard the words as clearly as if there was someone in the car with me.  Which, of course, there was.

Once before I heard God speak.  That time I had my head in the dryer.  That’s another story.  But back to today.

I was entreating guidance for a situation I find myself in.  I was wrestling with a better way to behave.  I was trying to put the blame on someone else.  Then I heard it.  Clearly.  “Jerre, (God calls me Jerre and that’s okay when He does it) no one can make you do anything.”  Strong emphasis on the “make” part.

Yes, I had been trying to blame my feelings and reactive behavior on others who “made” me feel that way, act that way.   A way I am ashamed of but seem powerless to stop.  Until now.  Now, it is crystal clear that it’s up to me to stop it myself.  I was praying for guidance and God delivered in record time on Folsom Drive right past Crow Road.  And I didn’t much like it.  Puts it on me.  But of course, I knew that.  I just didn’t want to admit it.

I’m not saying that I’ll be able to change my attitude right away.  But with that kind of push, you’d better believe I’m going to try.  And I know God will be there to help.

Thanks, God.

Ah, Spring! Ah, Spring Break!!!

The worst reason for doing anything is “that’s the way it’s always been.”  Hold to those memories of the good, old days while you punch the buttons on your microwave and start the dishwasher.

This morning children across the area will bound out of bed earlier than usual, brighter than usual.  (It’s the Saturday syndrome.)  They will rush to their video games, ravage the kitchen, take to their bikes.  Spongebob will blare.   Except the teenagers who will sleep until noon.  It’s Spring Break.

And for the first time in the rememberable past, area school districts have corresponding spring breaks.   If you’re still in town, stay home and off Dowlen Road.  It’s going to be worse than the holiday shopping season.

But some people grumble, “We didn’t have any spring break when I was in school.”  Not for me either.  Not even in college.  But then, teachers wrote on chalkboards that the kids in the back couldn’t see, our keyboarding class was typing with Underwood manual typewriters and yes, we walked to school, two miles, in the snow, uphill both ways!  Girls wore dresses with petticoats and their hair in pigtails.  I really did attend a school with the desks that were attached, the desk part to the seat in front and it had a hole for an inkwell.  Our buildings were “temporary” and were old, converted Army barracks.  They had a cloak room.  Never mind, we didn’t know what a cloak was but we put our jackets and lunches in there.  That was just while the new school was being built.  It lasted three years.  I digress.

Maybe it was a kinder, gentler time.  But there were still playground bullies, who would drill you with the dodge ball, just because you weren’t popular or couldn’t hit a baseball or wore glasses.   And there were tyrannical teachers, one in particular, Mrs. Furr, who would rap your hand with the gold-colored ruler she received for teaching excellence.  And the only school shootings were done with rubber bands.  They still stung.

Now we have computers, all kinds of electronic gadgets and gizmos, different styles of teaching, different styles of learning.  And, blissfully, spring break.  It’s a good thing.  Those folks who analyze things have determined that a person’s attention can’t be held for more than about 50 minutes or something like that.  (They do not observe this rule at in-service.)  Stands to reason that you can’t keep a kid motivated with an endless stretch of school days.  Our school year also started in September and ended in May “back in the good old days” too.

As early in March as it may occur, spring break signifies the downhill slide to the end.  The days are getting longer and warmer.  It’s time for shorts and flip-flops (even though we wear them all year).  It’s baseball season. Everything seems a little brighter.  I used to put kiddie sunglasses on all my bears at West Brook when I left for spring break and tell my students that the bears went on vacation too.  Made them laugh, just part of the silliness of the season.  Thoreau said that every season is best in its turn, but that Spring is like the coming of the Golden Age, Cosmos out of Chaos.  You can’t argue with Henry.

Daniel, and probably Kayla, will be hanging with Hubba on their spring breaks because their parents still have to work.  The work life lasts some 40 plus years.  Let’em have a week now as a deposit on the future.

What's in a name?

I’m not fond of my name.  My mother loves it, but for me it has been a source of confusion, frustration and embarrassment over the years.  A masculine name for a female in the ‘50s led me to boys’ PE and an invitation to join the Army before women in the military were cool. 

The spelling has been a nightmare.  There is no “i” in it anywhere.  People insist there should be.  My mother insists not.  (My middle name is no better, but that’s another story.)  It has been misspelled by nearly everybody, including my father once and the jeweler who engraved my wedding ring.  I wore that ring for 10 years before it was replaced. 

I use the name as little as possible, only when I must be identified.  I much prefer the monikers that associate me with my favorite people…my grandchildren.

My grandmothers were “Grandmother” and “Gammy.”  Gammy lived near so I suspect her nickname came before I could say grandmother properly.  And I do recall that Grandmother was insistent on being Grandmother.  My own mother tried that.  My daughter had other ideas.  So she is “Maury,” the only explanation being “because I love her.”  Good enough.

I started out as Grandma, but Ashley had two grandmas so I am Grandma J.

Then the dog, the huge lab/Rottweiler christened me “Grammy.”  Yes, dogs do talk or at least people talk for them.  I’ve been Grammy ever since.  To everyone.  I love that one.

Then Kayla painted a sign that says “Gramsy.”  Don’t know how that happened, but it also is pretty cool.

She also calls me Grandmother sometimes when she wants to be emphatic or really get my attention. 

Then here comes four-year-old Daniel, an entity all of his own.  He is autistic and until recently has been non-verbal.  He is coming along very well, but he refuses to say grandma.  We have prompted and encouraged, but haven’t gotten much that sounds like grandma.  He did say “banana” one time, but I’m not taking that.  He calls me “Hubba.”  Maybe it’s an amalgamation of banana and grandma, but it’s mine alone.  And I really love that one.

Now, if they’d only put it on my driver’s license!

The Typewriter

I’m an art journaler.  The word “art” is used loosely.  The word “journal” not far behind.  I found art journaling last summer when I stumbled across a video, and I was hooked.  The art part can be quite basic with craft paint, rubber stamps and stencils.  The journal part can also be as simple as quotes, pithy statements or verses.  I love it. 

My supplies started out quite simple.  Stuff I had on hand.  Kayla’s art paints, Sharpies, rubber stamps left from my teaching days.  Then it expanded and grew like topsy.  Now I have a craft corner (soon to take over the room), a die cut machine, drawers of rubber stamps, bottles of paint, stencils, paper.  And now a typewriter.

I blame Jerry Minyard.  A West Brook colleague and Facebook friend, Jerry recently changed the cover photo for his timeline.  A wonderful quote by C.S. Lewis.  The quote was great, but the presentation blew me away.  It was typed, in broken lines, on a sepia background with faint clouds.  I loved it and decided, on the spot, that I had to have a typewriter so I could recreate it.  True, I could probably have done it some other way, but my art journal guru, Julie Fei-Fen Balzer (whose blog comes email every Friday and I read avidly) mentioned her five “must haves” for art journaling and topping the list was a typewriter.

I went on a hunt.  It was harder than I expected. There were no typewriters on Southeasttexas.com.  Nothing in the Yellow Pages.  None lying abandoned at WB.  EBay beckoned.  I did find a couple in my price range.  The shipping was horrendous.  Those things are heavy.  But finally, I found a candidate.  The pretty, and pretty dirty, little blue Smith Corona Coronet – vintage undetermined – arrived yesterday.   It desperately needs a ribbon.  Amazon complied.  It reposes on my kitchen counter for cleaning and inspection.

Kayla arrived for the weekend and was immediately fascinated by the typewriter.  She had to try it out.  She used up all the paper and was downcast.  I told her to go get a piece out of the computer printer and she lit up like Christmas.  “You mean I can use the same paper!”  She typed and typed and typed some more.  “I did pretty good without a backspace,” she said.  “But it has a backspace key,” I said.  “Yes, but it doesn’t correct,” she replied.  She’s used to the delete key fixing all our booboos. 

She typed on.  The pitiful ribbon continued to give up faint letters.  She called her friend to let her hear the typing.  Friend now wants one too.  “I’ll let you hear the ‘ding,’” she bubbled to her friend. 

Kayla has a cell phone, an iPod, a Nook, a Nintendo DS.  But she is enthralled with an “old school” throwback to an earlier age.

Urban Dictionary defines “old school”:  “The term old school is of English origin and dates back to at least the 19th Century and is used to denote something that is considered to be out of date with current trends/ideas and thinking.” 

I don’t care for the phrase.  That’s my school we’re talking about.  I prefer to think of “old school” as things my daddy used to say.  He would approve some activity I was planning by commenting, “At least it will keep you from stealing hubcaps!”

I dropped this pearl on Kayla one morning on the way to school.  In all seriousness, she asked me, “Grammy, what’s a hubcap?”  We started looking for a car with hubcaps and did not find a single one by the time we reached the school.

There is a generation gap, but an aging blue typewriter has bridged it.

Hi, Linda

I’m retired.  That means I don’t go to work.  It doesn't mean I sit around eating bon bons and reading movie magazines (do they even have them anymore?)  It just means I don’t get up at 5 a.m., get decently dressed and go somewhere they pay me for something.  I am often awake at 5 a.m., but rarely decently dressed until absolutely necessary.  And, as other retired people will testify, there is always plenty to do and people who need things done.

In a previous diatribe I suggested that people who feel the need to mind each others’ business do something else, like go to the grocery store.  I go to Kroger every Wednesday.  Count on it. We have family dinner on Wednesday night, and I surely couldn’t go any sooner.  I’d eat the food.   (I usually go as well on Thursday, Friday, Saturday…you get the picture).  Linda is my checker of choice.  She is a delightful lady who rarely gets disgruntled.  They have a variety of nice people at Kroger who I greet every Wednesday, but Linda and I have formed a friendship.  She asks about my family and particularly my grandson, Daniel.  She convinced me to buy the reusable bags.  She waits patiently while I fumble for my Kroger card.  She gets a guy to lift the dog food.  We’re buds, of a sort.

Linda wasn’t there this week.  Another nice lady checked me out and I buggied my bags on out.  I’m sure Linda will be back.  She disappeared on me last year for a while and had me worried.  Turns out she was on vacation.  I’m sure she needed it.  I’ve been a checker before, not in a grocery store.  It can be an extremely stressful job.  But Linda always has a smile, even when it is hard. 

Wherever you were, Linda, I hope it was for good and not some trauma.  I missed you, my friend.

People who live in glass houses. . .

That is ALL of us.  Who among us really wants our lives put on a billboard on the interstate?  Not me, for sure.  I only hope not to be taken unaware because the world will talk forever about my dirty house, my unfolded laundry and my multitudinous animals.  And that's just the innocent stuff.

Who wants to admit to the times I've hurt people, let them down, not come through?  The times I've done stuff that I don't even want God to know, but He does?

So then, why are we constantly thriving on the missteps of others, like it is going to make us look better?  It's not.  The worst criminal or the most depraved acts of meanness and cruelty do not shine my crown.  It's tarnished all on its own.  And until I work to shine it up, it'll stay that way.

There have been many accusations thrown around through this political campaign and not limited to the national offices.  It seems that that mud-slinging has been a springboard for personal nosiness and judgments of our "friends" and neighbors.  Friends is in quotation marks because a friend would not do these kinds of things to others.

It was a sad day last week when Big Tex burned.  It was like the symbol of Texas was gone.  And what is the United States without Texas!  

It is an even sadder day when people can't find any more worthwhile activities than to mess in the business of other people and then spread their judgments like rose petals at a wedding.  There is so much more to life, be it crochet, grandchildren, baseball or craftsy activities.  Go to church.  Go to the grocery store.  Volunteer at something.  Get a life, for Pete's sake, and live it, not someone else's.   

Spitting in the wind

I’m a Libra.  The Scales.  I live for balance.  I like things to be right.  But that’s not always the case.  I don’t like it when things are unfair, even though I know life isn't fair.  I really, really don’t like it when my family is hurt.

I recently heard Christina Perri’s Jar of Hearts. 

And who do you think you are
Running 'round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
Don't come back for me
Don't come back at all
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?
Who do you think you are?

I know someone like this.  Someone whose self-absorption and arrogance destroy everything in her path, every relationship, every hope of a relationship.  Who do you think you are? Puppeting those around you, telling others what to do? You have no right.  Who do you think you are?  But there is no way to show her what she does.  It’s like spitting in the wind. 

I know someone else like this.  (Apparently, this is a more common situation than it should be.)   This time it is one of the hearts in someone’s jar, one of the victims.  Her pain is due to other factors.  And there is little hope of her seeing him in his true light either.  Again, spitting in the wind.

Hearing the song (a beautiful one) and seeing the video brings it all up and frustrates me.  I want justice, I want retribution, I want them to SEE who they are, what they do, and what is happening to them.  I argue in my head and I argue out loud.  But I know there is no avenue to pursue, no way to bring this injustice to light.   I know it's not up to me.  I know it’s spitting in the wind.

So I’ll give it to God.  At least I’ll try.  He will bring justice where there should be justice and retribution where there should be retribution.  And that’s not spitting in the wind.

Jar of Hearts

Tube for one

I’m a big weenie. 

In 1998, I had an abdominal mass.  I told my doctor, no MRI.  I’ll just die of whatever it is before you close the lid on the box.  He didn’t press.  (He didn’t want one either.)  Now they have improved them but I still don’t want one.

But my knee disagrees.  Two weeks ago it decided not to work anymore.  I have suffered with arthritis in my knees for years and years.  At times it is better and then it is worse.  A “big pill” (600 mg. ibuprofen) usually keeps it in line.  But two weeks ago, for no reason that I know of, it just stopped working.  And it was my “good” knee.  Nothing I have done… rest, big pills, pain pills, ice, heat, IcyHot rub, knee brace…has changed it.  I was ready for the MRI if that’s what it takes.  Don’t care.  Close the box. 

Today I saw an orthopedist at Beaumont Bone and Joint.  A very nice man.  Very sympathetic and quite knowledgeable.   I’m getting an MRI on Thursday.  X-ray only shows bones, not whatever else is going on.  And something is.  OK, I’m old and fat.  But no older and fatter than I was two weeks ago.  So what happened?

Beaumont Bone and Joint is another story.  It is a very humbling place.  Everyone I saw was worse off than me, or so it appeared.  I felt very “suck it up, Nancy” but it hurts.  And these people treated me like I was just as hurty as everyone else.  And they handled matters with professional courtesy, compassion and speed. 

Turns out my head can stick out of the tube.  I can do this.  Yes, I can.  But still being a big weenie, I covet all the prayers and good vibes that you can spare.  As my friend, Margaret says, “when it’s you, it’s the only thing that matters.”

Buying the farm...

"I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills..."    So begins Isak Dinesen’s memoir of her life in British East Africa.  That phrase has become a way of remembering things and events that I hold dear. 

In 1972 I had a white Mustang with red interior and a stick shift four-on-the-floor.  I loved it.  In 1972 I also had a baby girl.  Two doors + car seat + baby = Great Frustration.  That lasted about two years.  Now in 2012 I have a red Mustang.  I also have a baby, my grandson Daniel, 3 years old.  The Great Frustration returned amplified by my increased age and decreased agility.  It lasted almost two years.  The Mustang, that is.  The frustration took considerably less time to come to the point of no return.  Enter the Nissan Rogue

I have had several “farms in Africa.”  I still have a heart-tug when I think about the green Nissan Titan truck I traded for the Mustang.  It was a blonde moment.  I am not blonde, but I had several months of a fling with it.   I loved that truck.  It carried me the 1,000+ miles by myself to Florida and back when the aforementioned baby girl was sick with Dengue fever.  It was empowering.  It was big. I couldn’t back it up worth a darn, but I was queen of the road in it.

I’ve had an assortment of modes of transportation that have been “farms”…my Honda scooter, station wagon, minivan, SUVs.  Each has had its place and done its job.  Each has its kaleidoscope of memories.

So now I return to my roots.  My red ginger hair which is mine regardless of whatever is really underneath.  (I don’t even want to know.)  And my new crossover SUV.  It’s who I am.

So, it’s not me in the red Mustang any more. I’m just buying another farm. 

Forever and ever and ever. Amen.

I don’t believe in forever anymore.

 

“Forever and always.”  “Forever and ever and ever.”  Used to, that was the ultimate way to seal the deal.  But things happen.  Circumstances unforeseen come along and slap us down.  Situations change.  And forever isn’t forever anymore.

But is that a bad thing?  I don’t think so.  Because if the good things don’t last forever, neither do the bad.  Yes, the ice cream is sweet and cool and delectable.  But if you don’t lick fast enough, it’s a sticky, melted mess.  It doesn’t last forever.  You enjoy it while you have it and remember it when it’s gone.  (If it’s Better Batter from Maggie Moo’s, you remember it a long, long time.)

It’s the same way with the bad stuff.  It hurts a while. It hurts bad.  It hurts a long while.  But it eases.  And something takes its place.  And there are new ice cream flavors, like Blue Bell’s Kooky Kookie.  (Yum).

I read a book this week which included this passage about waves.  “Bad things are like waves.  They’re going to happen to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.  They’re part of life, like waves are part of the ocean.  If you’re standing on the shoreline, you don’t know when the waves are coming.  But they’ll come. You gotta  make sure you get back to the surface after every wave.”  -- Look Twice by Lisa Scottoline. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it too, a longer time ago.  
"The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands.
And the tide rises, the tide falls."

When things go off the course we’ve planned, we have choices.  We can adjust the sails or we can sink in our misery.  But life does indeed go on.

And I think it’s just all right that forever isn’t forever any more.

Cupcake in a jar. The only way to fly.

Even if they won’t let you on a plane with one.  Thanks to Rebecca Hains who tried to take a Wicked Good cupcake (from Wicked Good Cupcakes, a Boston area cupcake bakery) on a plane and was stopped by the TSA, I am now a part of the this cupcake-in-a-jar craze.  I never knew.

Being the good former newshound, I saw “Cupcakegate” on my Google page and was intrigued.  Didn’t care so much about the TSA’s stand or the ensuing argument, but boy, was I interested in cupcake in a jar.  What was this all about?

It’s all over the internet.  There were ideas and recipes and pictures and blogs and more ideas.  I had to jump in.  So I started to amass materials.  Turns out there’s the Mason jar debate.  What size?  Quilted or plain?  Did I need a dozen?  Who has the best price and do I want to brave the craziness there.  I went to my mother’s cupboard and found several jars of varying sizes.  Perfect since I could try them out and who needs 12 anyway?

My daughter Shannon and I dedicated Sunday afternoon to cupcaking.  (She has this crazy idea that I can make something worth looking at and we should start a cupcake bakery ourselves.)  Anyway, I got cake mix, two kinds of frosting – one for filling and another for frosting.  I wasn’t going for the fully homemade rigmarole until we decided this is a go.   We got out bags, tips, made labels, cut fabric to tie the spoon on.  The whole shebang!  We made cupcakes, red velvet.  We were advised not to use the cupcake papers because they left lines on the sides.  After considering scraping the cupcakes out of the pans, we decided lines add character. 

We made cupcakes, peeled off the papers, sliced them in half.  Dropped one in the smaller jar.  Fit perfectly.  Hooray.  Dropped one in the bigger jar.  Jar too big.  Cupcake rattled around.  Hmm.  Manning the icing bag, Shannon piped in the cream cheese frosting we were using for filling.  I put in another cupcake bottom.  More filling.  A cupcake top.  A buttercream frosting swirl.  We repeated the process until we filled the six jars I had scrounged.  Four were precious.  Two, not so much.  We did the only thing good bakers would do…ate the evidence. 

And was it delicious!  And neat, too.  No cupcake paper to dispose of.  By the way, you eat a cupcake in a jar with a spoon.  And it has a top in case you can’t eat it all.  (No danger of that!)

We’re now fans of cupcakes-in-a-jar.  They’re cute, they’re tidy, they’re fun.  And the only way to go.  Just not on a plane.

Look out! It's me in the red Mustang!

WARNING:  I’m going to rant.  I know.  I’m an English teacher and writing should be cohesive, circular, coherent.  But I’m going to rant.

Some people think they’re all that.  OK.  They can.  But then, some of them think they are all that in a motor vehicle.  That is not so OK.  And they all drive big, white SUVs.  No, not everyone who drives a white SUV falls into this category.  But in my experience the aforementioned “people who think they’re all that” (colloquially referred to as PWTTAT) do.  The big ones…Excursion, Expedition, Suburban, Denali, Tahoe, Yukon, Armada…the list is extensive.

I drive a little red convertible Mustang.  We don’t threaten anybody, except maybe a VW bug.  Even so, I can keep out of the way of these mammoth machines.  But when it comes to one of my grandchildren, all bets are off.  When the driver, invariably in a hat, zooms in and around us in the little cars to get the prime spot, in the parking lot or on the interstate, it starts me off on a tirade.  People who know me fear the tirade.  It doesn’t stop.

My son is a cop.  He was previously a paramedic.  He is used to driving emergency vehicles in the way that such vehicles are driven, aggressively.  He also drives his truck that way.  He knows how.  I used to have a truck.  A big, green Nissan Titan.  I loved it, but I couldn’t back it up worth a darn and had trouble parking it.  This Mustang isn’t great at toting stuff, but it turns on a dime.  I digress.

PWTTAT zooms in the school zone at more than the recommended 20 mph.  PWTTAT backs up like it was the red Mustang.  (There is a black Hummer that also fits this description).  What are these people thinking????  Children are here.  Children dart in and out of cars.  Children are small and sometimes not easily seen.  Children escape from the parent’s grip.  Children are precious, even when they are not my grandchildren.  And what are you doing here, PWTTAT?  You’re picking up your children.   They are precious too. 

So slow down and quit driving your big, white faux cop car/ambulance.  You’re a parent.  You might have places to be, but they are not as important as your children or my grandchild.

And a red Mustang is way cooler anyway.

My favorite people call me grandma!

I’m a grandmother!  Actually, I’ve been a grandmother for two decades since Ashley just turned 20 and is recently married.  Kayla is 12 so I’ve been practicing  grandparenting  for a while.   But since three-year-old Daniel blew into town, my grandmother flower has bloomed!

I had two wonderful grandmothers myself to serve as examples.  Grandmother was the textbook definition of a perfect grandmother.  She was an old-fashioned grandmother who told stories, let me sit in her lap while she sewed, got down on the floor and played Go Fish! with my cousins and me, made clothes for me and my doll, and loved me.  I was the first of her six grandchildren and the only girl, so I was special.  But Grandmother made all of us seem special.  She lived eight tortuous hours from Fort Worth so I only saw her a couple of times a year.

Gammy was very different from Grandmother.  She lived in Fort Worth, also, so I saw her all the time.  I was her only grandchild and she spoiled me.  She took me to her bridge parties where I sat in a corner, ostensibly reading a book, but watching all the ladies.  She picked me up from junior high on those “embarrassing days.”  She drove a white Thunderbird in which I took my driver’s test.  After my grandfather died, I spent Friday nights with her.  We went to movies and ate on trays in front of the television.  She was always there.  As I grew older, it made me tired.  I didn’t know it then, but she was also the perfect grandmother.

I’m somewhat of a mix of the two.  At first I thought only to strive for the example set by Grandmother.   I adored her.  I bake cookies, play games, snuggle in the big chair, knit caps and indulge at the grocery store.    I play checkers and Parcheesi.  However, I drive a red convertible Mustang, sing with the radio and watch the Twilight movies.  I know Justin Bieber.  I show up at parades, ball games, band concerts.  Kayla spends many weekends with me.    I’m always there.  If Kayla spits in a pond, I’m going to be there to see it!

I didn’t think I’d ever get to know Daniel since he lived in Florida.  However, circumstances brought his family back to Beaumont.  Daniel is autistic.  He doesn’t talk, but his non-verbal skills are sharp.  He lets me know what he does and doesn’t want.  He spent a month with me every day before he started school.  At first, it was all “Grandmother” for me.  We played with trucks and blocks and I sat in the little chairs.  (oof).  I served lunch on the Mickey Mouse plate and tried to get him to eat.  (ugh).  I tried to read books and play puzzles.  (aargh).  Then Daniel started school and “Gammy” kicked in.  I pick him up from school every afternoon in the red Mustang.  He knows me and the red car.  He climbs in the car seat himself now.  I sing “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Rawhide”  (rollin’, rollin’, keep them doggies rollin’).  We go home and watch Special Agent Oso and Little Einsteins. I watch him play with trucks and climb on the furniture.  He gives me “high five” for cookies, one for each hand.  He runs around the house and I chase him.  We have a ball.

I’m finding my own place now.  Part “Grandmother,” part “Gammy” and mostly me with a little dash of the comic strip "Lola."  Since I retired, “I have time.”  I spend a large part of it going from one grandchild to another.  Sometimes, I meet myself coming and going, but I’m trying to carry on the mission and keep the memories alive.

I’ve worn many hats in my life thus far.    This one fits the best!