sad christmas

Christmas is a happy time,

For some. It is a horribly depressing time for others.

I suppose those times of opposites are the most depressing for some of us. To be unhappy around happy people is a sentence of pain.

Those of us who feel reasonably peaceful often find it difficult to understand those who do not, I fear. And, those who are having trouble know the rest of us are clueless.

I just took my first nap today, and I feel a bit better, but it is cold, snowy and depressing.

We sleep in the living room, on the hide-a-bed. So, we are the last to get to bed and often the first to be awakened.

There are 22 or 25 of us, and even in a good sized house, that is a lot of people, and even if it is a happy time it can be noisy.

In my old age, I find noise particularly disturbing. I worked for years in noisy places without much of anything in hearing protectors, but now almost all noise bothers me. Still I am so glad to have my family all here, and to be able to hear them.

Some are skiing today (three grandkids and one friend), some are getting up late and I just did my first nap (hoping for 3 for the day).

In some ways I am ready to go home, but it will be a good day after all.

Christmas already?

Enough already.

Ok it is christmas, and you can be as merry as you like.

There was a foot of snow on the ground and it snowed another 4 or 5 inches lasts night.

If you don’t have tire chains on your rig you don’t go far, unless you use daughter’s Jeep. In fact, yesterday we helped the "paper boy" get out of a snow bank and he had chains on his front wheel drive import.

I don’t mind a bit of snow, but this is over the top. I always carry chains in the winter, but this time I forgot to put them in, so I am one of the unchained, which right now means don’t get off the plowed roads.

And, since it does not consistently snow here, there is little snow removal equipment in use and all of the side streets are treacherous.

But I bellyache here.

It was a good evening last night: 3 daughters; 2 sons in law, 5 grandsons, two granddaughters and one granddaughter in law! We had a simple meal and a whole evening of talking and play.

Some played in the snow until it was quite dark, others hunkered around computer screens. I lost count, but there was about 5 or 6 lap tops in use at different times, plus the house desktop.

We enjoyed each others company.

And, one of my daughters works for Willie Wanka in the chocolate factory (she is the creative one), so there was a good amount of chocolate, not just any chocolate, mind you, but really really good stuff.

The christmas tree has a LOT of presents under it, but Matt was reminded that there will be a LOT of people here when presents are opened. I think it is twenty two or twenty three.

Grandson David and his wife Mandy are here from northern California. They have suggested that they will likely add to the population some time fairly soon, so our family will be back in the new baby area again.

It is had been along time on that one.

Did I forget to say Merry Christmas to each and all? I am sorry.

I throughly like my family, but there are times when I wish I had my hearing protectors from the cabinet shop. All of this fun can produce a lot of decibels.

go?

i have an old farmer friend (he is in mid 80's and I have known him as long as I can remember, so yes, he is an old friend) who hung on to a few bucks along the way, and travels a fair bit, because his wife and daughters "force" him to.

He tells me that the best part of any trip is the drive from his mail box to his front door. He lives in a self planted forest, and has a long drive way, so he has a few seconds for reverie.

I am about to agree, and, like him, I adore my kids and grandkids

No new snow last night, but some is predicted today.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE everyone.

Oh well.

walla walla

We are at our daughters house in Walla Wallal, safe and sound.

The highway was dry almost all of the way, but a major winter storm is due yet tonight and the advisory lasts 2 days.

In terms of weather we made it right at the best time.

There is about a foot of snow here, which is some what unusual, to put it mildly.

more snow

Today is travel day.

It snowed 4” here last night, but the road cams show black road most of the way. One lane at least. That is good.

Dea has already left San Francisco heading north. When she gets to where the shorter road cuts across the center of Oregon and the freeway goes on north to Portland (a longer route), she will inquire about the best route.

Portland has a lot of snow and I would guess that the town is pretty well shut down. Grandson David came from north california (which is actually in the center of the state), drove to Portland where his wife’s parents family life, got within a hundred yards of their house and got stuck in the snow.

But when I check around a bit,there is a LOT of snow in a LOT of places this year. Since I am not a snow buff, I will not trudge on, and not complain.

I was listening to Bing Crosby yesterday sing; "There is no place like home for the holiday." Hmm. He might have been onto something

I’ll post again this evening.

snow and travel

We live in a pretty dedicated desert, so there is not a lot of moisture any time.

That is not all bad, we avoid a lot of rainy days, and even when it is cold, we often do not get much if any snow.

But that is not true down the road a bit.

Tomorrow we are driving 250 miles up through the corner of Oregon to Washington State. Our daughter lives about a mile and a half into Washington State, so we won’t drive there a whole lot.

And they have snow big time. She told me they had a foot a few days ago and it has been snowing almost every day since. Even Linda in Portland reports 6 to 12 inches of snow. Portland is a hilly town and snow brings the whole town to it’s knees.

A storm passed through our area over the weekend and another one is not due until Wednesday, giving us a one day window to travel.

I suggested calling the trip off, or at least offered that for thought, but Deanna who lives the furtherest away was not impressed with my idea! Grandson David drove from Sacramento to Portland yesterday and said it was ok, but a little slower. Deanna will drive from San Francisco to Portland on Tuesday.

Linda in portland has a Jeep jeep with nice new snow tires and she is getting around pretty well. We were there once when there was 5 or 6 inches of snow. It was fun to drive along with Linda and watch Mercedes and Jags and more, stuck in the snow.

We have traveled this road between here and Walla Walla literally hundreds of times, and know the road well. What I don’t know is which driver who has never on snow before gets between me and a safe trip.

Once we were traveling along on compact snow base. I bought half a cord of firewood to put in the pickup for ballast, it worked well. We were going along at a fair speed and a SUV passed me going a good bit faster than us. I told Miriam that they were out of control but did not know it.

We had not driven 5 miles and saw them on the side of the road having slapped the guard rail enough to put out a SUV light, but enough to cause serious injury.

Funny I did not see them again that day.

We are taking our ancient (1992) Chevy Cavalier, but it is in good mechanical condition, has new tires that have been sipped. You can look that one up!

To all of us that will be traveling this week: be careful and slow down.

my music

I have been moving music!
For the last long time, most of the music I listened to came over the radio, public radio in this case.

Some years ago my daughter and her computer programer husband put their music collection on their computer, so they could easily listen to music as they choose.

I put “some” of my favorite music on my MacBook, and listen to it via ear buds. OK I had almost 800 “songs” on my “book”.

Then I got an iPod and began putting more play lists together. It was fun and it was not to difficult. When I got a semi ancient Mac desktop computer (in computers a 2 year old machine is old and a 4 year old one is very ancient). It had a smallish HD, but all I wanted it to do was be a backup, and to allow me to organize my music.

We don’t have a large CD collection. But a hundred CD’s is hard to manage on any kind of a big CD player that I could afford. We have a player that has room for 50 CD’s, but the options are listening to everything in order, or jumping from cut to cut, and that has limitations.

Enter the computer. Right now I have about 6 GB of music on desktop and I can pick a tune at a time, or an album at a time and put it on a play list. I can create a bunch of them.

The downside is that it takes a while to transfer a lot of CD’s to the computer, and then back it all up. But with winter and time I am doing it this week. I have a thing about proper use of copyright material, so all of the CD’s I have are ones I have purchased. O, there are a few tunes that granddaughters have sent me, but that is not a significant portion (with luck my jail time should be minimal).

And at will I can copy from that collection to my iPod, allowing me listening wherever I might go.

Tomorrow we are gong to travel 250 miles. I will fill the iPod with music we will enjoy, and then hook up two sets of ear buds, so Miriam and I can both listen as we drive. (My iPod does not allow it to be tied in with the car music system, that one was over budget!)

Along with the books I download from the internet and listen to, this whole thing has added a lot of listening pleasure to my life.

It is cool, as my granddaughers might say.

slowly

If your life needs a bit of slow down time, I have a plan.

My town once was 8,000 when I first remember. Now it is about 30,000. There were maybe 50,000 people in the “valley.” Now that number is ten times more at least.

Some things have changed. I remember going downtown and it was all bustling with business: Wards, Sears, JCPenny’s, Woolworth, Idaho Department Store, Alexanders (named after the first Jewish governor in the United States: Moses Alexander), Safeway, Albertsons, Model Market and so on.

None of those are in the down town any longer, several are no longer any where.

But our post office goes on and on. The building is the same size, and I swear they have the same number of clerks.

Of late, there seems to always be a line 10 or 12 patient patrons deep. Once you step in the sandstone framed doors, time stops. You can use your credit card to buy stamps, and there are posters of the latest stamped hero.

But there is the same number of clerks, I am sure. They are in no hurry. They take their time. Not always friendly time, but slow time. Suddenly one clerk may put an “out to lunch” sign up and disappear.

One has always intrigued me (and not positively). He has worked there for a couple of decades. His answers to everything were remote, like the were uttered by a machine. I have driven 10 miles to a nearby town to another post office to avoid him, but in his middle age he is becoming a bit more human.

Oh well.

This time they had a sheet of Alzheimer’s stamps, at least there was one under the glass. I was going to get one, and I do support any kind of research, obviously, but then I remembered how much Miriam fights the idea that she has the disease.

The only things that have changed is the size of the line, and the cost of postage.

Oh, and postage goes up in May the clerk told me.

I bought "forever" stamps, just in case.

brand

There seems to be a new branding phenomenon in my town.

Maybe it is more than here, I don’t know.

I was in a restaurant a while back and at the table next to us was a largish family. There was a young woman, maybe mid 20’s, there were kids, grandparents and what i took to be her husband.

But what struck me was that when the woman turned I could see that she had a man’s name tattooed on her neck. Not in small letters, but block letters, maybe ¾ of an inch tall. It began right under her ear and went down under her collar.

Does that mean she really belongs to him?

Then yesterday when I was at the post office, a teen girl was looking at pictures of her friends (I guess). She was on the other side of the counter, waiting her turn. Her top was quite low and revealed about an acre of skin.

But what got me was there was a Spanish word with letters a good inch long, running across her chest! It was high enough that she would be dutiful to cover it with clothes, but she did not seem to care, in fact she seemed to be bragging about the whole thing.

And a while ago we were in Target getting food for Leo the dog. The clerk was a young woman who had gotten a tattoo on her breast. It was quite low, actually, and she was determined that we should all appreciate her bit of body art.

I wonder what part of my body would get bruised if I suggested to Miriam that she should have “DAVID” tattooed across some intimate part of her body?

I won’t ask.


Another thought: some one recently was quoted as saying that if you want to invest in a new industry that has a bright future, invest in technology that REMOVES tattoos!

Ben

Ben called this morning.

I have a brother named Ben and a grandson Ben as well, but this was friend Ben. This Ben had a knee replaced a week and a half ago, and he is doing pretty well. He said that his freezer has worn out and they were going to buy a new one.


Would it be possible for me to help his wife get one and get it place. I said he was in luck the pickup was ready to go and was empty, a good combination. I agreed to meet his wife Jan at Home Depot in about an hour.

Modern freezers are pretty light. Part of that is better insulation, and some of us fear it is also because they are poorly made. I am afraid that the first conclusion may easily out weigh the latter.

I bought some straps (I don’t have enough of them) and we loaded the freezer. It says right on the box that it is legal to carry one lying down as long as it lays on its back. Wow that made it pretty easy.

The rest was routine. I moved the old freezer out of the way, offering to take it to the disposal site after Christmas, installed the new freezer, leveled it up and got it all going.

They thanked us and we left. It was one of those things you would do for almost any one, but would be eager to help a good friend.

We drove away about 3 minutes and my cell phone rang. It was Ben. When a customer calls right after I have done a job, I am sure I left a tool, or that something ha gone really wrong, or something equally dark.

It was none of those.

They knew we were planning on going to visit our kids for christmas. Our pickup is quite new, but the trailer is 24 years old, and while it is in pretty good shape, it has not been pulled for a while, and tires wear out faster from not being used than being used. Besides, it needs a few repairs that are off budget, as they say.

They have a newer trailer that they have used to travel a LOT. They work on church building projects as volunteers the trailer is their home away from home. It is a good one, and Ben assured me the furnace works fine. (Ben spent his career as a crack carpenter. We all value his knowledge and expertise).

I told Ben I would have to think about it a bit, but that right now my inclination is to take up his offer.

I have been listening to a book about christian grace. Cathleen Falsani’s “Sin Boldly” which is a quote from Martin Luther that is easy to take out of context. But I thought of grace and how Ben had just offered me a big bucket of the stuff.

Thanks, my friend, not just for the loan of your trailer, but for the lesson in Grace that you and Cathleen have shown me.

up front

A while back I was visiting with my friend Dorothy.

(This story has nothing to do with anything important, but is a cute story and it popped into my head today.)

We were working on church business together.

Some how we got to talking about being up front of the church. I said that even though I am seriously introverted at times, I don’t mind being up front and speaking or doing music.

Dorothy grimaced. She is a quiet person -- big time. Then she said something I will never forget: “I don’t mind being up front, as long as no one is there.”

Bless you, Dorothy.

Jean

I heard the rumor a couple weeks ago.

I was sure the name was wrong. How could it be?

Today I talked with Jean and she confirmed that she has cancer in her lungs and kidneys and another place or two. I sat by her and we visited and I was close to tears.

Jean has been my assistant head deacon for several years. (It sounds crazy, but we had both men and women “deacons”). She would see what needed to be done and do it. If she had a problem it was in doing too much.

Jean is the same age as my daughters, and they went to high school together. Her father was the business manager at the school. Her mother had MS. Jean is an only child. Dad, now retired is a lonely somewhat bitter old man, mom is gone, and now Jean has cancer.

There is nothing more to say right now, but I am so sorry.

Best to you my friend. I hope the chemicals and the therapy all help.

who?

Self portrait into the mirror that is above my in the house work space, the light is from my work light.
I was not feeling quite that grim.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at his crankiest could not top that look!

Sandy

Some years ago I was playing a table game with Miriam and Emily.

I leaned back in my chair, so it balanced on the two back legs (I know, mom said to do that) and I lost my balance and fell backwards.

The proper thing to do is to tuck your head in, fold your arms and fall. The worse thing would be a bump on the head. But I did not think. I stuck out my right arm to catch myself and tore my rotator cuff, a part of my anatomy that until that moment I did know I even owned.

It is one of those injuries that hurts like crazy for a while, but once it is healed a bit, only hurts when I do certain movements, like reach out to the side table and pick up a cup of tea.

So, I was at church one day soon after I fell and about the time it was starting to heal a bit and I mentioned it to Sandy, who is a physical therapist . “Ahh, you will need to have surgery on it, Dave.” I argued that I would not. She grinned and said in a voice of motherly authority: “Yea, you will have surgery.”

I am sure she forgot all about that comment, it has been several years, but it has been in my head every time I re-injure that shoulder, which is quite often.

I don’t like the idea of surgery. I had foot surgery a few years ago, and it was not awful, but I would skip that part if I can. I have two friends who have had knee re placement surgery in the last year. Once they have healed and done a ton of physical therapy, they are quite happy with the results. I should not be afraid of a knife, but I still would skip it if possible.

But when I reach for that cup of tea, I am reminded of Sandy’s words.

happy birthday

Today is the birthday of a special lady.

Brianna May is 14 today.

We have three granddaughters less than a year apart, Bri is the youngest.

We are so glad to have her as our granddaughter. She is growing up to be a wonderful lady, and I for one am very proud of her.


Happy birthday Bri.

the book

One of my brilliant daughters (I have four who could qualify) made up a very nice cook book a while back.

I don’t remember it being verbally described as such, but I think it was an effort to keep dad, now the cook at home, from burning the house down, getting obese from a diet of ice cream and cookies, or getting skinny from not eating decent food.

Any way this daughter made this very fine cookbook. It was full of things I would like and that were reasonably within my skill level. We are vegetarians, daughter and I, so she filled in suitable recipes laced heavy with food items she knew I liked.

But, it got put away. I looked high and I looked low and it (like the part for the grain mill) had disappeared. That was about a year ago. I was sure it would show up some day, and today was some day!

Miriam was looking through a stack of old magazines, and suddenly she said: “Here is a cook book one of our daughters put together.”

Ooh.

I thanked her for finding it and then I put it in among my books.

Now if I can just get that same daughter, who makes to die for “steaks” from the gluten found in wheat flour, to share her recipe! My mom used to make them, and Griffy my next to youngest grandson asked if he could have gluten steaks to go with his turkey for Thanksgiving.


Atta boy Griff!

winter

Did I tell you how much I hate winter?

Ok, it is no secret for sure, but not working has the advantage of not having to fight the weather each day. Construction in the winter does not really slow down much, but gets a lot more complex.

And that opening line is one I have used a lot.

So why don’t I move to Arizona or Spain?

Truth is that like a good american, I like to complain. I complain if it is cold, but cold is a new challenge. I complain if it is warm, but warm is very nice. On the other hand, my complaints are more like comments than real dislike ranging to hate.

I do think that spring is sweeter after a cold winter. Winter gives us a reason to prepare.

The plan is to spend today in my studio. Not doing work so much as organizing it, clearing out unused and unusable items, putting books in another area, and generally getting ready for winter’s cold days.

I figured I could run the heater in the studio for 3 hours a day for about $6 a month. That is acceptable for sure.

In the evening, I have been doing my art/craft work in the house on the kitchen table. It has worked out pretty well. I have to come in and fix dinner about 4 or 4:30 and it is dark by the time we finish, so going back to the studio seems a bit like abandoning my beloved.

But I have so enjoyed the hours I have spent in my various studios. I remember in graduate school, where I had an old dorm room for a private studio. I fondly remember going in that room, locking the door, turning on the music and being absorbed by the process of the work I was doing.

Being an artist can be about the art work produced, or it can be about the process. I think I enjoy them both, but maybe the process the most.

In fact, while in graduate school my professor asked me why i was a sculptor, why not a painter, and I told him I liked working with the materials and tools. He grinned and did not ask again.

Today is Alzheimer's support group day. Once a month I meet with a group of caregivers. It is good to go.

i remember

December 7 reminds me of world war two.

I was born the year that Guernica was bombed in Spain and Picasso produce his huge painting in response to that event.

http://arts.anu.edu.au/polsci/courses/pols1005/2007/Images/Picasso.Guernica2.jpg

Look at the anguish in the people and the animals at that attack.

I remember very little except the fear that some one would be looking in my window from one of those countries. Now we do not even use the words we used to describe them then.

I had two uncles who served in the military. The others were the wrong age. One was a machinist mate on a submarine, the other a medic in the army. I was not told much about either one’s service, though a few pictures survive of the medic uncle.

He was in the Philippines during the heaviest fighting, as I remember the story. As a medic he choose to be unarmed and carried out his life saving work. The pictures show him with some of his buddies near a wrecked airplane. They were smiling, but I am sure it terrible. He never talked about any of it.

Both my father and my step father were born the same year and were “too old” to be drafted. However by 1945, near the end of the war, every one who was remotely able was called up and my step father was drafted.

He went to boot camp and then to cooks and bakers school (Interestingly his family had been bakers and had run a family bakery), but the armistice was signed about the time he finished his training and he was discharged early.

I remember rationing. We did not have a car, and neither did my grandparents who lived in the same town. We walked or hitched rides. I remember mom putting Joyce and I to bed and she sat, in the dark, listening to the radio.

The whole country was superbly paranoid (for good reason, by the way), about attacks from all sides, and there were frequent and total black outs. That is my early memory of the war.

I remember the day it was over and the joy we all felt. Even for a 7 year old, it had been a very traumatic time.

All of this comes into my mind early in December, each year.

december 7

December 7, but a couple days late

My sister Joyce was born in early May.

I turned 4 in late May.

Our father was killed in late August.

Pearl Harbor was December 7.

All in 1941, The events are permanently tied into my head. So when 1941 is mentioned, I think of all 4 events at the same time.

Father (I always called my step-father Dad -- usually) was the important man in my life that I knew so little, and my sister did not know at all. He was 28, in the prime of his early life, and whish he was gone.

Once I was talking to my aunt (my father’s sister, who at 93 is still kicking, though not as hard as she used to). She laughed and said: “David, you did not even know your father and you are just like him..”

I’ll leave it that way.

my story?

“Here dad, write the story of your life.”

One of my daughters once gave me a big blank book with that message (or one something like it) on the fly leaf.

My mother had done the same thing with my grandfather. He was in his early 60’s, had just had a heart attack, and was bored. From that came his autobiography, a smallish but intriguing volume. Interestingly grandpa lived to be 98 a long long time after his heart attack.

I began writing in the book with great vigor, not knowing where to start, and blundered on -- in quick, hard to read cursive. It was not too long before I flamed out. Right now I am not sure where that book is. Sorry Arline.

This blog began as a record of my involvement with Miriam and her Alzheimer’s. It was a place I could vent and scream if I choose, and tell stories about her and us otherwise.

It began at the suggestion of my young friend Stefanie, who helped set it up and taught me how to enter pictures and text. (I still have not figured out all of the details, and it will likely stay that way).

But Miriam’s brand of AD is a boring one (at least for now). In the 9 years since she was diagnosed she has digressed to somewhere in the middle stages of this disease. She can still do a lot of things and tasks, but the list slowly is decreasing.

As she reminds me once in a while (often with the wrong details), there is no real proof that she has Alzheimer’s disease. I read that there are around 80 variations of dementia, the umbrella name for this class of diseases. Which one Miriam has is not of much concern to me. Something is not right, and it really matters little what title you put on it, and Alzheimer’s is as good as anything.

But this has morphed into the story of my life, and my head, with emphasis on our life with AD. It is becoming the story of my life and our life. I go back in my memory sometimes and talk about other chapters in our story. Ours has not been an exciting life, as some count it. It has been full of love and caring and abundant good food and mostly fun times together.

December 7 has a lot of meaning to me. I’ll write on that day about what it means, and I’ll meander wherever my thoughts go. It will be mostly the musings of an old man, and should be given equal amounts of humor and long suffering!

Don’t bother with the seat belt, it will probably be a boring ride!

my stuff

Simplify Simplify Simplify.

That is my old friend Henry* talking.

I remember my mom telling about she and my dad moving and doing it in some one else’s car and they had other riders. That was before I was born, obviously. The first move is the easiest one it seems, from there on out it adds up.

Good friend came back from some years in Africa, brought little with him, but now he is moving after almost 20 years in the same place. He has accululated a good bit of stuff.

Then I look at our place.

We had an auction once. We brought the auctioneer in, set up camp and had a “farm” auction. Sold most everything. We were 48 and it was wonderful to have reduced our collection so drastically. Then we went off to Texas and graduate art studies.

Artists not only collect junk, we manufacture it. Sculptors, especially “multi-media” sculptors like me, collect a lot of stuff that might be usable, and we know from experience that as soon as we throw someting out we will need it next week.

Some one said that if you really do not like your kids, keep everything you can and fill your house with stuff that they are going to have to deal with when you are gone.

Old Hank must have been like my mom and dad in their early marriage days. I envy him and them.

Our personal stuff has not returned to the old days, but Miriam was such a talented artist in so many media and it is very painful to throw away, or absorb the tools and materials. She was so good with an air brush. We have a good one sitting here.

I have too many tools. But mostly I have too much stuff that I “might” use “some day”. I have lots of cabinet wood, Oak, Alder, Maple, Walnut, who knows what else. And hardware. Boxes and drawers and trays full of the stuff. I will never use 90% of it, so it is destined to go away.

I did give away a whole pickup load of photography darkroom equipment, including a 5 by 7 enlarger. But we will have the camera I used in the old studio: a 4 by 5 Super D Gaphlex, for the curious!!

We have not even begun to talk about books. How can I throw out a book (even if boring) that belonged to my dear grandfather and has his signature and date on the fly leaf.

But, if I don’t, some one else will have to.

* Henry David Thoreau

tupperware and pyrex

I am impressed with my daughter Linda’s kitchen.

It is not that she has a huge pantry, or the largest refrigerator.

Look in her cooking pan shelf and there is one set of pans that nicely nestle together. The lids for each are in a space on the right. Her mixing bowls are a series of nesting stainless steel bowls. Her kitchen hardware drawer has just what she needs, no duplicates (except for wooden spoons).

Her dish cabinets are a bit more complicated since she has two different sets that she uses from.

Today I decided (I was looking for a “lost” part to our flour mill) to take mixing bowl / small appliance cupboard apart. I got Miriam busy doing something else.

We have at least two dozen bowls that might be used as mixing bowls. I cut that back to the number we use regularly. We have every Tupperware thing ever made, and I set them aside.

I know I cannot go getting rid of stuff as long as she is here, so the stuff I want to go away I stacked I the back of the bottom shelf. I put the two crock pots, the waffle maker and the popcorn popper up front to hide the stacks of plastic behind.

The top shelf nicely holds all the storage and mixing containers we ever use. We do have two huge Tupperware bowls (maybe 15” across). I use those a lot for all sorts of things, but jello moulds, cake pans for heart, diamond shape cakes went to the back, along with pans for angle food cake and cheese cake.

I found a half dozen nice 9” pie pans, and a dozen or more of those throw away aluminum foil kinds. They were designed to be thrown away, but not in this kitchen. And Pyrex. We have several of every size ever made, I am sure. I stacked them back in the top cupboard.

Yogurt cups, sorta nesting freezer containers, storage stuff of every Tupperware vintage all went out of in the back of the cupboard. I replaced them with recent transparent plastic containers.

In Miriam's defense I have to say that we have the accumulation of my parents, my grandparents and Miriam's parents stuff. No wonder our collection is so broad. And there is something not quite right throwing out perfectly good kitchen goodies.

When no one is looking the back of the cupboard will slowly get less and less crowded.

go?

She was 19, I was 39.

It was her wedding day. I was her father.

Just before the actual service began we stood together and visited. She and I were very close, some said we had grown up together, then they would qualify that with a question about whether I would ever grow up.

The wedding was outside in the back yard of a dear friend. It was very a casual service. She had made her own dress, shirts and ties for the men. There were a hundred people there, I would guess. Friends and family. My old grandfather who was 90 was there. Miriam's dad was there, both of my parents.

It was a joyous time at the end of a hot summer day. The shade was refreshing. The refreshments after the wedding were fresh sliced peaches and ice cream.

As current weddings go, it was very inexpensive, but it was attended by people who knew and loved. Me, the former wedding photographer, walked the bride down the isle with my trusted Leica in my other hand. Went through the ceremony of giving her away (not very good thought if you think about it), and then raised my camera and took a picture of it all. The pastor was an old friend.

But back to that moment before we went down the grassy aisle, between those borrowed chairs.

I turned to her, and said: “Arline, I have a lot of mixed feelings today. I really do hate to see you go. I have loved you all of your life, but on the other hand . . . I am glad to see you on your way.” I hesitated really expecting a smiling rebuke.

“You know Dad, I have the exact same feelings.” We laughed together.

This week we had company, daughter 2 and her family. We throughly enjoyed every minute they were here, but in a way that almost makes me feel guilty for saying so, I was glad to send them on their way too.

Maybe that is the reality of all visits -- both ways!!

Footnote: That wedding was 32 years ago, they are still married (to each other);.

dinner

I have never made a thanksgiving dinner before.

My mom, grandma, or Miriam always took care of that detail.

The day was spent working on a door into our down bedroom. It did not go terribly well, but we have company tomorrow, so I got it so it would work, and let it go.

I cleaned up a bit while Miriam finished working on a batch of cookies she was making.

Being vegetarian it is quite impossible for me to worry about fixing a “regular” dinner.

So I made potato soup. I got the recipe from Cooks.com. The recipe called for “heavy cream” so I used the poor people’s version: evaporated milk. When it was all finished, I put it in the bowls and sprinkled some selantro on top.

I also made some biscuits. Miriam made a salad, and in my fiew no thanksgiving or christmas dinner is complete without cranberry sauce, so I opened a can.

Of course there was grape juice to wash it all down. Shucks I even lit a candle.

It was a good meal with enough soup left over that will go in the freezer for another day.

It is not my goal to have a lot of thanksgivings with jsut the two ofus, but we can if we have to.

As long as I am not expected to do that proper dinner we can make it.

and

Today is the special day set aside to be thankful, in the USA any way.

Even on a bad day we should be thankful, mom always said.

We rarely spend Thanksgiving alone, but that is how it will be this year. That was my choice, daughters offered fine invitations.

We will have company tomorrow, but today is just my beloved Miriam and I.

And so far, I am in a dark mood.

I have never been this age before.

I am not sure I like it.

Once I had a friend who, at 85 complained that he just was not the man he once was. He said he used to carry two bags of cement (100 pounds each), one in each arm, and now, he said, he could only carry one, and that with some difficulty.

This week a couple of times I have felt that twinge, or more.

There was a british comedy (those brits have a way with comedy that mixes silliness with biting reality) about two old coots who were living in a retirement center. They got into a lot of mischief, either brought to them or created by them, but at the end of the series the mood became quite dark and hopeless.

I sense that. Last night I was watching tv and reading and Miriam was sitting in her chair sleeping, and I got this feeling of impending doom. One of the things I read was by Thomas Friedman from the New York Times:

For the next few years we’re all going to be working harder for less money and fewer government services — if we’re lucky.

Right now I can still do pretty much what I want, physically. I just do not want as much, maybe. I just finished a project here at our house, and I could start another soon, but I there are other constraints.

And it is winter, my most unfavorite time of year. We took up cross country skiing once to give me something to look forward to in winter. Still have the skis, but the fear of falling reduces the potential joy of that activity.

This morning I got up at 5, emptied the ashes from the wood stove, and built a fire. It did not sound right, so I looked again, and the rope sealer that keeps the fire box tight and controls the burning is falling lose. I don’t know how to repair it yet, but it is to hot to try now. I will have to wait for it to cool.

Sort of like life itself.

The British comedy was called: “Waiting for heaven.”

Hmm.

paul

I have been buying glass at the same store for a long time.

It has been long enough that the owner and I are on first name basis as well as the assistant: Paul.

Paul and I have become friend in a limited way. He is not married now, but may have been in the past. That was never a matter of conversation. I do that he was the caretaker for his father who was in his mid 80’s.

Paul was very fond of his father. IT was easy to tell as we visited.

Full time job and being solo caretaker is a heavy load and Paul has carried it for a long time.

Today I went to the glass shop to pick up a hunk of glass.

HE was busy and frazzled, but we visited a few minutes.

I asked him how his father is doing, as I often do. “Dad died in August.”

Obviously I had not asked in a long while.

“You were very fond of your father,” I offered lamely.

Indeed he was and he said he did ok until he started thinking about it then he got real sad real fast. I apologized for bringing the subject up and patted him on the shoulder.

We will still be friends, though I won’t go into the glass shop too often, though now that I am retired and am finished with the church job I won’t be in there often.

I know he was sort of glad the pain was over, but he also misses his father terribly.

There is no end of grief in this world.

formula

How to make granola -- or not.

Ok, what do I know about making granola. I am good reading recipes, but not too good at following them. Mostly.

Daughter Arline makes wonderful granola, and one day I got her recipe. (when I worked in a bakery when I was in high school, products were made from a “formula” and not a “recipe”. I still follow that warped view).

10 cups of quick cooking oats. That one I never mess with.

1 cup of shredded Cocoanut. (OK, if 1 is good 1 ½ would probably be even better, so I use 2)

1 cup of nuts/seeds. (Now hang on: big hand full of roasted peanuts; another hand full of almonds, chopped; the same of walnuts; any other handy nuts, hand full or more; then a whole bunch of sun flower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and even sesame seeds.

We have had a jar of cake decorating sprinkles in the cupboard for decades (plus or minus), so I put a fist full of those in.

½ c of oil. I used olive oil and did not cheat

½ c of honey. Often add some molasses, but did not this time.

1 ½ t of salt

2 t vanilla.

I use our largest stainless bowl to mix it all in, and I get in there with my hands. Sticky, yes.

Put it all in a big pan of some sort, and put in the oven at 170 degrees. Every hour turn it over for about 4 hours or until it tastes “cooked.”

Cool totally.

Add another really big hand full of chocolate chips (or two), any dried fruit you can locate (chopped), and a fair bit of cinnamon.

With that chocolate and dried fruit and nuts you can hardly taste those "healthy" oats.

When Arline comes to visit, I will hide the tupperware container, lest she think that was HER formula!

Next time should I try some Worcester sauce?

the three of us

I've run this picture before, but it is the only one I can find of Pepper.

In 1992 the Chevy pickup was new, Alan was 2, and Pepper “belonged” to Arline and Sid.

I drove the pickup 230.000 miles and sold it to a friend. Then it was wrecked. Pepper lived with us until we put him down at about 17. Alan is a college freshman, planning on being an Engineer.

At this point I was 55. Wow.

Pepper

I dreamed about Pepper last night.

Pepper wondered into Arline and Sid’s summer job site once day. He was obviously a well bred dog and they did their best to find his owner, but it was not to be.

A year or so later they moved to Walla Walla, where we were living and Pepper and I were guarded friends. Then they moved into a house that required a hefty deposit if they had a dog, so they offered him to me.

Now I know that the idea was that he would be with me on a temporary basis, but he and I bonded so throughly and so wonderfully that I had him the rest of his life. I did not know remember the temporary idea until I was reminded recently.

I never wanted a Dalmatian for a pet. They are beautiful, a bit high strung when young, but make very fine pets once they reach adulthood.

I would drop the tail gate on the pickup and he would jump in. The pickup had a back window that opened and he would put his nose inside, delighted to go any where. We hiked a lot of trails, we drove a lot of miles.

We made winter trips with him in the back, covered with a canvas, but with his head sticking inside the warm cab. He loved it.

In time he arthritis got him down. He got so he could not jump into the pickup. I would have to lift him. He would cry from the pain. Then he got so he could not keep up with us when we went on hikes in the desert.

Finally we had to put him down.

It was a sad day. He was a good pet.

Thanks for being part of my life my friend.

my pickup

When I need to haul or pull this works great, and as pickups go it gets fairly decent mileage.

happiness!

Happiness is a full tank of gas!

Yesterday, I bought a full tank of gas for my pickup. For the last year or so I have been buying $30 a month (about 7 gallons) and driving that rig 120 miles or so a month. It has worked pretty well.

But soon I have to move a travel trailer 250 miles to 2Walla, which will take more than a tank. So, this drop in fuel prices is a help budget wise.

I am one of those strange people who think gas should have been $5 a gallon for a long time, but this has some advantages. Curiously, it is putting a crimp in some oil exporters budgets.

NY Times story this morning: Putin Vows to Fight Economic Collapse in Russia. Part of that is because of the current low price of oil.

I will let Putin take are of putin. But today that tank of gas feels very luxurious.

For me.

frank

On average I live among wealthy people. On average.

My neighbor Frank is 99 years old this year. His father began a seed corn business about a hundred years ago. Frank and George his brother, ran the company until they passed management on to other family members.

In fact, no matter where you might live, if you ate fresh sweet corn last year, the seed probably came from the Frank and George company!

I am told that Frank is very wealthy, and as I think of it I am sure he is. I commented on the fact that, while he does not drive any longer, he always has a newer Chevrolet in his driveway, and was told that the car belongs to the company!

I think the fun part of this story is that I live in a very humble neighborhood. Some houses are a bit larger, with more space and dirt and grass, but Frank’s is very modest. His house was built in the early 70’s, a bit before mine, and Frank and his wife moved in. He was about 60 then. He could afford anything he might want. He could life in a Mac-Mansion, but he chooses to live very humbly.

Frank and I are not fast friends, though we wave when we pass. But he impresses me big time.

Next year Frank will turn 100, and one of the vp’s of Frank’s company (another neighbor) tells me that a big party is being planned.

My guess is that he will be embarrassed by it all, but will “allow” all of us to celebrate his birthday.

He is a good guy. We need more like him.

tool box

when i replaced my tools, wonderfully, the Kennedy tool box was as good as the original.
I am still amazed.

tools

Once upon a time (A lot of good stores began that way). . .

I apprenticed to two of the nicest guys ever. Miles and Otto were partners in a floor covering store named “Modern Floors”. I'll write more about them later.

Plastic Laminate had just been invented, and they did a lot of it. Ceramic tile (5/32 thick) was being imported from England of all places and we were doing a LOT of tub wraps. They did not do hard wood -- that was not “modern.”

They did not do carpet, that was done by furniture stores, at least I our market at that time.

We did a lot of floor tile, battleship linoleum (long extinct( and wonderful thick filled vinyls. It was a busy store and they were great teachers/mentors.

Before I had been working too long, the parters decided I needed some tools (obvious). So they put together a “kit” of tools for me. Memory is that they were a gift from them, and as such represented a large expense.

The tools came in a 21” Kennedy cantilever box. The contents included the specialized tools that we used in the trade at that point.

Some years later, two guys got into my shop and each took something in each hand and left me without my Kennedy box.

I made the rounds of the wholesalers in my trade and replaced the tools as well as I could. Some were no longer made, some were made by not the same.

What shook me so badly was that the price was so high, and the quality of the finish was so low. My original Crane scribes were cast and machined to a level that just plain felt good in my hands. The replacement was cast ok, but very little machine work. The surface was rough and not pleasant to hold.

And so it went.

You forget what tools are in your box, until you reach for an old favorite and it is not there and no one knows what you are talking about when you search for a replacement.

So I want to join Terry in his complaint of quality. Whether you like it or not you have to buy Chinese made tools. They may be great craftsmen, but every electric tool I have that said Made in China on them have been junk.

Any more a Japanese brand that is made in Japan is highly prized, and I scorn the Chinese version (maybe of the same well known brand.)

This may indeed be one of the reasons the car companies in america are on the ropes. They never quite got the hang of making really good cars.

I complain as I drive my Chevrolet coupe and my Dodge pickup. Imagine those brands being orphans.

home

We are home, safely.
Good trip good to see the grandkids.
But, as humble as it might be, there still is no place like home.
Thanks for the hospitality!

grandparents day

We are in Washington state tonight, right down in the lower right corner.

Almost. Go left from the Idaho/Washington/Oregon corner about 100 miles by road and that is where we are: Walla Walla. The town they liked so well they named it twice, as my grandpa said years ago (he was born here in 1886).

Today was grandparents day at the school that Matt and Jessica attend. Every year about this time they have this day to honor grandparents and we have made it every time since they have been attending this school.

A while back I sent out the message that we would not make it this year, citing the price of gas as the reason. But last night about 9, I got to thinking. Grandkids are small only a little while, gas is $2.09 a gallon here now and I have some cash that I did not expect to get, and why not?

So I emailed Arline (daughter 1) and asked about the program and in 10 minutes made up my mind and made arrangements. When Matt was told we were coming, he pumped the air: “YES.” They are good kids.

We got up at 6 this morning and were on the road by 7:30. Not bad for old folks! The drive is almost 4 hours, but it was a pleasant day to drive.

We visited with Matt and Jessica, talked to their teachers, had a decent school lunch!

I gave Matt’s new teacher my usual line: “Matt is bright, capable and a tad lazy. Do not let him get away with sloppy work. And, if you need to quote me, you can.” I think he actually likes it that I care.

We will stay over night and go home tomorrow, so we can flush that new toilet!

toilets

A toilet is a pretty simple device, really.

You put something in the bowl, push the handle and a swish of water takes everything out of sight in one big push.

That is how it supposed to work, at least.

The old ones worked pretty well, but a while back the gov said we should use less water (what was wrong with using 5 gallons of drinking water to wash down 5 ounces of other stuff?).

So the engineers got going and a whole new generations of porcelain was cast. Problem was that like any thing in its first batch did not work so well. Well, we had one of those in our house and it did not work right ever. So today I pulled it out to see if there might be something blocking the trap.

Nothing was blocking, just bad design.

So a trip to the plumbing store and we came back with two boxes of porcelain. I was expecting it to be made in China, but instead it said Columbia on it!!

I am not a plumber, but I know how to do that, though a LOT slower than a good journeyman plumber would do.

But, wonder of wonder, it works wonderfully.

Swish and all is gone.

Ain’t good design beautiful?

church windows

In the 7 or 8 years I was head deacon we had three of these windows broken out. They were one piece of plate glass: 5 by 8 feet and cost more than $500 each.
The last time it happened I was determined to find a way to use smaller pieces of glass.
I milled the wood and installed it with the help of a good friend.

church front

Before Miriam did the window, the whole front was white plaster with one opening at the bottom of the stained glass window. There is a painting there, done by Miriam and my art teacher from way back. That painting was the only decoration. It is still there.

This is Miriam's stained glass window. It was done about 1983. It is hard to photograph back lit glass, but this is close to how it really is. I find the dove to be very sophisticated, and this was before Miriam went to art school.

vintage '75

Strange isn't it!!
The panels on the front were transparent and opened into the greenhouse. Windows in the bedrooms, down bath and utility delivered light inside the house.
The OSB on the side is to be replaced this spring with stucco and the entire front will be replaced, though plans are to keep it looking pretty much like it is now.
Even when you know all about it, it is still strange isn't it!!

our nutty house

I live in a pretty dingy house.

No question about that one. But, believe it or not, there were reasons! And, of course, I designed and built it so it is no one’s fault but mine.

There were several criteria when I designed the house:

Privacy. We once lived in a “conventional” house with a big window in the front facing living room. I would stand in front of the window looking out and discover my neighbor standing in his window looking back. Embarrassing for both of us.

All of our windows face the back, which is our property. From these windows very few other houses are visible.

It was during the 70’s that some began thinking that there would be an end to cheap energy. My house sits down inside the ground and is very well insulated. Result: no air conditioning, even when the temps are high, and minimal heating.

I like and liked small houses. For one they are affordable! Given the zero state of the budget small was mandatory.

We had 4 daughters, three were still at home. Few houses the size of this one had more than one bathroom. I decided it would have two, even if I had to cut back on other things. Even with just the two of us, two baths is about right!

The idea of solar heating was new and very exciting. My brother built a very workable solar house in Utah about that time. I read all I could find and built according to the best information I could find.

Alas, it was not always right and we have abandoned the solar part. Those big flat panels in the front might hold photovoltaics some day, but the original design was for a greenhouse to collect heat and transfer it to the house.

That worked out really well in July, but not so good in January, when we tend to have a lot of cloud cover. Oh well.

So a few years ago I converted the “greenhouse” into closets on two floors!

Crazy it is. Easy to live in it is, but traditional it is not.

In the last few years I have been going through the house, a section at a time, redoing all the trim and paint, replacing windows with new vinyl windows and making it more livable.

I see the time coming when the up stairs bedrooms will not be a good idea, so one of the next projects is to include part of the greenhouse into a closet for the down bedroom and then putting in a murphy bed.

That room has a triple door (six feet wide total) between the bedroom and the living room. The idea was that it could be opened up when extra space is needed and yet closed for privacy. Light came through the greenhouse, and a closet took one entire wall. The bed was on wheels and rolled into the closet making a “day bed”.

Now, the closet is gone and a window is on that wall. I’ll take out the window that let light from the greenhouse and replace it with a door. There is room for a very nice little bedroom and the down bath is right next to that space.

But that is a future project.

ahh

Ahh, the paint is all on and on budget, sorta, mostly, i guess!

I cleaned out the roller socks and the brushes, put the paint back in the buckets and that is all for tonight.

Now to take the paint OFF of the ceramic tile floor and clean up. Back near normal for weekend.

Plenty of details to go yet, but the messy part is done.

Hooray.

entry, loft is above

Early picture, before mirrors in the doors.

feeling

Yesterday I felt my age.

Most of the time I get by thinking I am younger than I am. My back is strong, my knees function. I feel pretty good. OK, I am a bit slower, not quite so strong, and don’t have any where near the endurance I once had, but oh well.

Our house (I told you it was weird) does not have a “front door”, but you enter on the side. The entry has a low ceiling, with mirrored cabinets on the right side (our pantry) and the door into the utility on the left. It works better than it sounds, mostly

Above that low ceiling is the loft -- this is a 70’s house, after all. The loft goes over the hall, the pantry and the cabinets in the kitchen, about 7 feet and is about 9’ long. But since this is a cathedral ceiling, that ceiling is about a foot and a half over one edge of the loft and maybe 3 ½ feet on the other side.

Any way, I was painting that ceiling yesterday.

Lying on my back, Michelangelo style, painting away. It was a bit strenuous, pushing that roller up and into the texture of the ceiling. I began to feel a bit claustrophobic, a bit dizzy and even nauseated.

There was no choice but to keep working on it, so I did. And I felt all of my 71 years. When I had it done (ok, today I go back to touch up my work) I took a shower and then collapsed into my chair.

I’ll be glad when this is project is complete. We are at the stage where it seems like it has been going on always, and it will never be truly finished. I have learned that it is discipline that gets the job done. It sure is not fun any more (if it ever was), and right now it the whole project seems like a bad idea. If there is a good feeling of having it done, that is some where in the foggy future, if it ever gets done.

Today I feel good again. But I look at that ceiling that has not been painted in decades, and see places that need more paint and more work.

I used to tell my college students that degrees do not go to the bright but to those who persevere. That is my task now, keeping at it

It will be finished, it wlil, maybe even by this weekend!!

close

This paint project is nearing completion.

The first color coat went on the new woodwork yesterday and it looks good. No complaints at all.

The day before she dressed and came downstairs I could tell she was very angry. When I asked, she would not tell me the subject of her anger: “If I told you, you would get mad at me.”

I figured that was a good place to leave it, so I did.

But as time, and the project, goes on, she is gets less aggravated about it all. I am glad. Yesterday she asked me again if we were going to move, and when I assured her that we would stay living here a very long time, she was visibly relieved.

This is not a fun disease for sure, and I think it has as many horrors for her as for the rest of us. I hear her frustration.


She does not want any change right now. This is a big disruption, messing with our main living space. Other projects will not be so invasive.

We will be fine. It will be done.

Today I paint the ceiling. That is never a fun job, but this one is cathedral style. That means it is seven and a half feet on one side and over eleven feet on the other. That difference is enough to make it a challenge.

And, this is the last room with “popcorn” ceiling. I have scraped off the rest of it in the house, but this room is going to stay like it is, popcorn ceiling and all.

There are changes that even I do not want to deal with!

may I change my mind?

Skip the building trades?

Having said what I did about not working the trades, a post or two ago, Lori reminds me that it is pretty handy to know how to do things.

I learned one trade (floor installation) and watched others. I never hired on as a carpenter, but I can hold my own, mostly.

So, when I need to do a project, I mostly know what to do. There are times when my knowledge is that I do not have enough knowledge. Then I look for friends who do.

I want to do some stucco outside on my house, not a lot, but some. Stucco is a labor intensive product, with fairly inexpensive raw materials. So it is a natural for those who are time rich and cash poor.
But I do not know enough about stucco, I am sure. My friend Art, was an accomplished stucco man, but we lost him a while back. Fortunately his brother Dewey is alive and well. I asked him the other day and he said he could help me. I told him I did not need help just some instructions and guidance. He grinned.

Dewey is 83, and he would have helped I know, but his advice will be invaluable.

And that is how it works.

I am not a plumber, but when I built our house, I could not find a plumber to barter with, so I plumbed it myself. The state plumbing inspector was a prince of a guy who guided me when I got in trouble (he gave me his home phone number, in case).

At one point I had used an illegal fitting (the plumbing rules are a bit complex). He said that he knew it would never cause a problem, but it was not legal. He told me how to make it legal, but said he would sign me off, and would not come back to check if I had made the change.

With an attitude like that I hurried out, bought the right fittings and made it “legal.”

Now it is my turn, and often I guide friends in their projects.

David needed a new shower, the old one was really nasty, and it leaked besides. He didn’t want to pay me $2000 for a new one (and I really did not want to do it), so I loaned him tools, taught him a bit, and he built a very nice looking shower.

We are both proud of it!

ooh progress

For the last week there has been trouble.

Every time the subject of my plans for the trim came up, it was met with strong disagreement. I bought the wood, milled it to size and had it ready. I was not sure it was going to work. At one point I just thought I'd stack it and go on to something else, less controversial.

But I started Wednesday in the kitchen with the toe kicks. Then I installed the entry door and base trim; and on around the room. Base, door, base, window, base, door.

This time everything I did was met with approval and acceptance without a hint of the anger or disagreement. By Friday evening the trim is all in place, most of the nail holes are filled and the first coat of primer is in place.

This agreement and acceptance made the job a LOT easier.

Normally I would not be so insistent, but we made this decision years ago before AD messed her up. I was continuing on a design we started.

Thank you Miriam.

our house

We built our house on the tightest budget imaginable.

I had inherited the bare land, but when I went to the bank to borrow money to build, I was told that for me to borrow the money I needed I would have to have an equal amount of cash in hand.

Some how the banker never figured that one out. If I had it I sure would not be talking to him!

So we went ahead and bartered and did the work ourselves and cut corners. During those days a lot of houses were built with very narrow dark colored trim around the doors. The windows were usual wrapped with “sheetrock.” The rock was finished to the floor so often there was no floor base at all.

So, a few years ago I decided that I could pick up some design details from the “craftsman” design era. They used a lot of high labor details, using lots of wood I the process. I decided to go with wide trim on the doors and windows and a wide base board on the floor.

I could buy the base material in 4 by 8 foot sheets and cut, plane and mill it to the size and design I wished. I did the upstairs bed and bath a few years ago, then the new kitchen cabinets and now the common room.

My preferred system is to install the wood (MDF) without any finish and then finish in place. Often I would spray lacquer, but I did not want the overspray in the house, so I hand brushed enamel -- about 4 or 5 coats!

When finished the surface is smooth and durable, but it is time intensive.

Still, this is nothing in terms of disruption. When I redid the cabinets a few years ago, I built them all, and stacked them in the cabinet shop. Then I tore out the old kitchen, did the necessary changes to the structure and put it all back together. That left us without a kitchen for a couple of weeks.

That was a project. I am so glad that was then!

This one just involves wood work and a lot of paint. The joyful part is that it will be comfortable and quite elegant when finished.

would you?

I was with a friend the other day who asked: If you could do it again, would you choose the same line of work?

Emphatically I said that I would not!

On a good day I am a B or B minus in innate craftsmanship, which is what the trades require to be really good. (Being a perfectionist is the shortest way to bankruptcy however!)

When I was in high school we were all given an IQ test. Up to that time I had studied little and passed. If I had a class or a teacher I liked, I would do better, but I got by. I was pretty sure that was as good as I could get.

They didn’t tell any of us the results of that test, lest we become “proud.”

It was not until I was in my 40’s did I discover that I should have been an honor student, and that my teachers failed me by letting me get by with shoddy work. Maybe that is why I talk to my grandkids teachers when I can and tell the teachers to not let Emily or Matt or Jess get away with sloppy work. They can do good work, and I give the teachers this grandpas permission to push them.


When I was 18, I began college. I was two weeks late getting there, then was stuck with a night job to pay for it all. I stayed up all night working then went to class. Not many could pull that off, and I didn’t.

But back to that question. No. I would avoid the trades with earnestness. If I knew at 18 what I found out at 40, I would have gone a totally different direction.

I am a good idea person, a great mind stirrer, and as such I would have loved a life as a college professor. Some of my happiest years were when I was in the classroom as a teacher.

But that is not the way it turned out.

I would have married Miriam at the same time, but otherwise I would have made a lot of different decisions.

Even with that confession, I have to admit that my life right now is very happy. I have found contentment and I have found as much peace as any restless mind can.

But you asked, and I told you.

changes

We saw history tuesday.

No, it is not the end of civilization as we know it, and it is doubtful that nirvana is here. Change is good for some and painful for others, but change is what we will do.

While my world view is reasonably wide, my personal view is narrower. It is about making my life work better for those I know and those I love. It is about being content on one level, and wildly discontent on another. It is about trying to become a better husband, grandfather, gardner and chef.

No one person is smart enough to know how all of our ills can be fixed, but I am smart enough to know that the way we have been doing things for a long time simply has not worked very well.

Yea I am pretty green. I see us destroying our land, of defecating in our bed, of poisoning our air, water and our own bodies. As a Christian, I find the destruction of our beautiful world I the name of “progress” as suicide, long term. There is a bible text that comments negatively on people who destroy the earth.

Some day our grandchildren (or their children) will curse us for the way we handled their legacy, but for now we must soldier on and do our best.

While I have strong political feelings, that is not the point of this post. It is not a time for copious quantities of elation and much less a time for fear and fear mongering. In ways we may only begin to understand, our lives will change, not just because of the election, but because of the variety of crisis that have pervaded our world of late. We are too few on this planet and we use a disproportionate amount of the resources of the world.

It is time to roll up our sleeves.

John Kennedy said that we should ask what can we do to help our country. That still makes sense today.

How can I make my neighborhood, my garden, my home a better, safer and enjoyable place. It cannot be me first and to the dogs with you, we really have to play nice. We really have to get along.

So much to do, and I am so old.

unfinished

Thursday, after the water system was working, David took Ray and I out to look at other cabins.

He had been involved with this area long enough he knew the stories about most of them. Interesting, at least.

There was the three story factory turned log structure, well put together by professionals, obviously. It had a bank of $600 batteries and a generator that would seamlessly go from battery to generator without any interruption.

We decided we did not want to know how much it cost.

There were more modest cabins that were well used, a few that were a bit short of glory but were loved and some that were misused.

But the ones that talked to me the most were the unfinished ones.

One in particular. Solid concrete footings, straight and strong block foundation. Log walls with large logs, maybe 15 to 18” on the small end. Absolutely meticulous craftsmanship in each detail. The logs fit tight enough you could not put a knife blade between them. The arches where logs intersect were wonderfully done.

But in the middle there were trees 15 or 20 feet high, testifying that the job was stopped for some reason. The floor joists, large logs, carefully mortised into the lowest row, had rotted enough they had fallen into the crawl space. The top layer of logs on the walls were rotting.

I know the owner. His workmanship is truly impressive, but I was saddened by the amount of time, and money that went into what was done, and was largely wasted.

The job was too big, the cabin too large, the time and money too short, I would guess.

There were others that were not finished. Across the road from Ray’s cabin there is a cabin that was started, No foundation on this one, the logs sit on logs standing on end. The logs are smaller, maybe 6” at the small end.

The story is that the owner had intended to make this a year around home, but had a heart attack and died before he could finish his dream.

And I wondered if the busy work I am doing, really would be the way I would like to spend the last part of my life, if I knew how it was to be.

All around us are broken promises and broken dreams. These were not unique, and I have a few of them in my life.

I find nothing but sadness in all of these unfinished projects.

Will I be able to finish my own? I cannot know.

paddy flats

I have no idea of how that name came about.

My first memory of the name was a few years ago when a rather horrible crime involved that name and place.

But that was then.

The cabin is 12 miles from the paved road, and often that is where they leave their cars and start riding the snowmobiles. In the winter the roads are smoother, easier and much faster with snow machines. The legend is that some have done that 12 miles in as little as 10 minutes by that method. On dirt, that trip takes three times as long.

I did not really understand the reason for the trip -- until we arrived. The water system, which has to be fairly complex to be run by a few car batteries, and be able to some how withstand minus 40º, was not working at all.

David the engineer designed and built the system when he built the cabin 12 or 15 years ago. Ray, the current owner, has a great mechanical mind, but a few years ago he had bypass surgery followed by a stroke, and Ray has not been the same since. The complexities of the system sometimes baffle him.

So the trip was for David to fix the system and to explain the intricacies of it all to Ray again. I am not particularly mechanical, know nothing about that system, so I helped by staying out of their way.

It came down to a broken dollar part and a few valves that were opened/closed incorrectly.

A trip to town, about 30 miles each way, got the part and the water system was up and running. Water in the kitchen sink, water to flush the toilet and wash hands. It was very good.

So the three couples (with two smallish dogs) spent the time together. There was a jig saw puzzle, and time for visiting and story telling. There was good food and conversation. It was good.

At night it was 20 degrees and close to 70 during the day. Very pleasant.

It was good to get away for a couple of days.

Tomorrow more reflections on the trip.

trip to paddy flats

Tomorrow we are going to a friends mountain cabin.

We will go with the original owner and his new wife, to meet the current owners. We are all good friends. The current owners are Ray and Betty who we have known for 35 years or so. And the first owner is the David I have been working with on the church remodel.

The cabin is located up on the edge of the big roadless center of Idaho 2 ½ hours from where we live. There is no electricity, no phone and no cell coverage. But it is otherwise a very comfortable place. It is well insulated and easily heated with a big wood stove downstairs. There is running water, a flush toilet and a shower, all 12 volt. The kitchen has a propane refrigerator, a propane stove and a wood cooking stove, along with some nice cabinets.

The electrical system is powered mostly by photovoltaic cells. If more power is needed, they have a noisy generator. All of this was designed by David, who is an engineer by education.

He built the cabin some years ago for his wife who had MS. Cool weather suited her, so he built this cabin so they could spend time there where she was more comfortable. Even when she was quite sick he would take her there, and in the winter he sometimes took her in on a snowmobile (the road is plowed about ten miles back, so snowmobile are the winter transportation).

David took very good care of her right to the end of her way too short life. I have known his new wife since she was a college student I the 60’s. Her husband, also a friend, died a few years ago of cancer.

It is a bit hard for David to go back to the cabin. He is filled with memories of the time he and his wife spent there.

We will take a duffel full of coats and hats and mittens and such. There is not any snow up there yet, but this is late October and snow can happen any time. And to save our hosts laundry, we will take our sleeping bags and pillows.

We are going along just for fun! We have plenty of work to do at home, in the garden and in the shop, but when David insisted we go, I decided that it would be a good trip.

Maybe we will have a late winter this year!

laura

We met Laura when we were in Texas.

She was about 6, her brother was a couple of years younger. It did not take too long until we were adopted. Laura was the first non blood relative to call me “grandpa dave.” At that point we had just one grand child.

That was a long time ago, but we have kept in touch occasionally! Laura’s parents now live in upstate New York and each year on my birthday I sent Laura a happy birthday message. Her birthday is a couple of days different from mine, so it is easy to remember.

Usually I get a short answer from Laura or mom or dad (another David in my life). This year I sent the email out in May on our birthdays. I heard nothing. Then one day I thought that Laura’s dad had sent me a change of email notice.

So, I searched and found it I resent the birthday message last week, even if it is almost half a year off schedule.

This time Laura’s mom sent me a nice note telling me that Laura had graduated from College a few years ago, had married and was due to have a baby in a few weeks. She also sent me Laura’s email address.

So I wrote a note, congratulating her on her marriage and on her almost born baby.

We went to texas in 1986. Laura’s family moved there a not too much later. As I think of Laura and her family a lot of memories come up. Most are in bits and pieces, some are more complete.

David, Laura’s father, is a dietitian who was then working for a good sized hospital chain. They had sent him to this town in Texas to work for a few years, before they transfered him again.

It was interesting when we had a dinner or a potluck. David would be in the kitchen working with the women on the food and some times mom would be out talking with us guys.

One year we went on a trip to mexico together. The trip was for a couple of weeks, we were putting up the walls on a small church in a small village. David was the chief cook (and a good one he was) and Laura and family went along.

We had a good time. It seems to me that Laura and I spent some time reading stories and doing grandpa / granddaughter stuff.

It has been a long time. We left Texas in 1990, almost 20 years ago. Laura is a social worker with a husband who is working on an advanced degree (in Michigan) before they move to Florida where he will be a pastor.

Brother is in Australia finishing his college degree. The last time I saw him he was just staring to school. I did not ask how mom and dad are adjusting to being empty nesters.

Truth is that our paths will likely not meet again, in the here and now. We will keep in touch once a year at least, but Laura and David and the family will always be pleasant memories. It would be good to see them all again and remember out texas years, but Florida is a budget busting distance from idaho.

Good to be in touch with you again, Laura. Love that baby -- it already has a name -- as I know you will. New York is a long way from Michigan and Florida, but I’ll bet that Grandpa and Grandma will make the trip often.

May God be with all of you.

There is a new line in very modern marriage ceremonies that commits the couple to stay together “as long as love shall last.” Maybe that is how it works in the AD world, I will love you as long as memory lasts, as long as I can remember you. Maybe that is how some friendships are destined.

upside?

There are some upsides to this AD thing -- maybe.

For some time I have been planning on changing the door and window trim in our living/dining/kitchen area, and then repainting the walls and ceiling. This fall seems to be the perfect time.

Originally our strange little hobbit house had narrow mahogany trim on the doors and windows that was stained dark -- that was the look of the 70’s. Some time ago I decided that to strengthen the “craftsman” style of the house, I would go to wide painted trim, but keep the hand made dark mahogany doors. Our daughter Linda helped us on the color scheme. I designed and did the mill work in my shop, and all of the house is done except for the great room.

So last night I mentioned that I was going to do some tile repair next week in the kitchen, followed by trim and paint in the weeks to come. The idea of the trim color has a sticking point for some time. Some days she thinks it is a brilliant idea, other times she thinks it is the worst idea ever.

In the rest of the house it is painted “reliable white” and on the days she thinks it is the worst idea ever she is sure it will not go well with our white leather furniture.

It is the swiftness of her changes and the lack of memory of what we decided earlier that makes the whole thing tricky.

I will go ahead with my plans, but have her help pick a color that she can like all the time. I would prefer a consistent color through the house, but it is not worth a fight for sure.

(And wasn’t it our esteemed former vice president and philosopher Spiro Agnew who said that “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” -- hmm).

As the disease goes on I am learning how to cope. I think I am getting wiser -- most of the time. This loss of consistency, based on memory of yesterday’s decisions, is a major problem, if there are any proposed changes in the routine of life.

Each day is a new day. What we decided or talked about yesterday is gone and we start over.

And that is the hidden upside to this disease, if there is one. Yesterday she was very angry with me, but with breath taking speed, her mood changes and her viewpoints along with it.

So, I will work on being a bit wiser, or I could just forget the whole project.

fall bounty

This was a good year for our kind of grapes.

I hear that the mild summer was not so good to the wine grapes, but mine were good.

It was the biggest crop we have had. Right now there are 80 quarts of new juice on the shelves. When I realize that is 20 gallons, it seems more! Add that to last years juice which we haven’t started to drink yet! We are still drinking 2006 juice.
Whatever we do this winter we will drink grape juice.

Maybe I will make some grape jelly. I have done jam, but not jelly.

While I was juicing the grapes, Miriam was shelling corn. I bought seed that was sold as an old indian variety of corn for flour. The stalks were 9 feet high, the ears were long, the colors are many: red, yellow, white, black, blue and shades every way.

Neighbor Terry took it to his place of work (he works at a large corn seed producing company) and got them properly dried, which is important if you are going to keep them in storage.

It was not easy shelling the corn, so as I have come to do I looked on line for a “corn sheller”. There was an old article from Mother Earth News about a guy who made his own corn sheller.

He used a hunk of 2 by 6, made holes with a chisel and put nails in to the center to shuck the kernels when the cob was twisted.

It seemed to me that a hunk of ABS pipe would work just as well. The ears were quite uniform in size, so I found a hunk of 2” pipe, drilled 4 holes and put in screws.

Wow what a difference, and the kernels, for the most part, slid down the pipe into the bucket.

We ended up with about 5 gallons of corn kernels. But since it is multi colored, I am wondering what color the flour will be! Next week I will find out.

I like corn bread and corn dodgers and I put a good bit of corn flour in our pancakes and waffles. Now I can have corn flour from my own place, to go with my grape juice!

My tiny farm amazed me this year.

I talked to the Doctor’s nurse. Who consulted with doctor and who ordered 2 150 mg pills a day. So, she will have a bit more powerful medication. Today was a bit testy, we will hope the added dosage helps.

pills

It is always amazing what a little pill can do (or can’t do!)

I asked the doctor, about a year ago, if we could put miriam on an anti depressant to control her anger a bit.

Miriam has always been the most easy going woman imaginable, but with AD, that sometimes changes.

So Doc gave us a prescription.

It was “dad’s blood pressure medicine, that mom takes,” as my daughters said.

Miriam took them for about a year and it made her a lot easier to live with. But there were some wild side affects.

So when I saw the Doc a month ago I asked about changing her to the same version of anti depressant that I take. I said that since I take one pill twice a day, I sometimes forgot the 2nd pill, so I had some extras.

That was fine, so we did just that. The side affect that bothered me went away away and we were doing pretty well.
So last week I called to get her a new prescription.

I asked the nurse to raise the dosage from 100 to 150 whatever. The nurse was really skeptical that I would dare make such a request, but I assured her that I had talked about it with the doc and we were on the same page.

So, I went to get the new pills. But there was a difference. I take 100 twice a day, and they gave her 150 to take once.

Miriam does not know what she is taking. I tell her it is a blood pressure medicine, but it is like the one I take, and she knows I take an anti depressant.

But right away I noticed a lot more anger. I would say something and very uncharacteristic she would shout back.

Then I decided to give her another 100 at night, making her osage 250 for the day. I called the Doc again and talked to her skeptical nurse, who had to ask the doc of 200 a day was ok. I told her we had miriam on 200 for the last month and it worked fine, and that a change upwards in dosage was from my conversation with the doctor.

It will be straightened out, but I am still in awe of how little it takes to change our attitudes. I was feeling really down and blue a while back, so I checked and I had missed several times of taking my pill. So I took it and feel good again.

Miriam does not know what she is taking, I tell her it is part of her blood pressure medicine.

Still the whole thing of a tiny pill changing us so much amazes and frightens me a bit.

I am so thankful for a good doctor and some pills that do what needs to be does.

sleep

Sleep is an interesting thing.

I read that as you age you need less sleep.

I have also read that as you get older you should get more sleep. Hmm.

My sleep patterns are enough to irritate my bed mate, but that is how it is.

I sleep about 5 or 6 hours at a stretch. It has been that way for a long time. If I go to bed early, I just wake up early. If I go to bed late I wake up at the same time.

What irritates my mate is that I sometimes wake up at 3 or 3:30 and get up for a hour or two and then go back to bed. When I do that, I do sleep later.

Miriam is a good sleeper. She can go to sleep early and sleep late. If the dog gets uncovered (he is virtually hairless and sleeps under a blanket), it is Miriam who goes and covers the dog.

If I go, I will be awake by the time I get back and will stay up.

At this stage when I sleep is not a huge issue for me. I take a nap or two during the day if I am short on sleep. Miriam occasionally does.

So, for all of you out there who sleep soundly and sleep hours and hours at a time, I envy you, sorta.

To those of us who have weird sleep patterns, we are part of a hidden community, I guess.

As for me, I am going to take a nap later today!

winter part 2

Winter is not my favorite season.

I struggle with depression and it deepens in winter. When I mentioned this to my doctor, she said that we might want to up the dosage on my anti depressant this winter. That might be a good idea.

Years ago, before Texas, we took up cross country skiing just so there would be something to look forward to each winter. Since Texas the skis sit an taunt.

When I was working I hated winter. Mud, cold houses, freezing supplies. Years ago PolySeamSeal first came out and it was in a tube. We used to carry a tube of it in our coat pocket, so it would not freeze in the tool box.

While we are healthy now (Miriam is fine except for her memory), but how long can I do all of this? No one knows, of course, but this year I can and I fully expect to keep it going next year.

This year I got behind on my garden and the weeds overshadowed some of my plants. I apologized to my neighbor who has the finest looking lawn in town. He laughed: “That show you were doing things that were more important.”

I liked his take.

Mom said that if I kept the garden in good shape until the hot part of summer, then let it go, that I might have trouble finding the produce but it would be there. I know that is not the best way to do it, but sometimes that is how it works.

This year I plated two hills of Pumpkins on the edge of the corn. It was too close and the corn was spaced too close and the pumpkin did not do well, I thought. But as we were digging potatoes we found a very fine 10” pumpkin. The only one for the year!

But as I look over my acre I can see an endless list of things that need to be done, or things that would make it nicer some way. But there are budget limitations and there are time limitations. I think I like both of those.

Miriam was good help this week. She can work with me, but she cannot do a task alone.

One thing she is good at is telling me what needs to be done. Our mail box post was driven into a few years ago and it is way off of straight now.

We hardly ever go by that she does not remind me that it needs to be fixed.

“When it falls I will fix it.”

She is not amused.

winter preparation

Grandma would be proud

Yesterday we dug potatoes, enough for the winter. Reds, yellows and whites. Good spuds.

Last week I harvested the flour corn. My neighbor, a vp in a corn seed company, took my corn, still on the cob, in burlap bags to their drying sheds to get it properly dried. I do have good neighbors.

This is supposed to be a very old strain of Indian corn (Anasazi, Flour Corn from Seeds of Change in Santa Fe). The kernels have lots of wild wonderful colors, I suppose the flour will be a shade or grey! I will save seed from the nicest and most colorful for next year.

Today we get started putting firewood into the shed. We have enough there now to get by if we were very careful, but I like to go into winter with the wood shed full (about 4 cords). That is a bit over a two year supply. I collect firewood all year and my wood lot is bulging.

Yesterday we picked up a big trailer load of oversized pallets made with good thick lumber, that will heat us for a few months.

Then I will blow out the water lines on the garden side of our property, coil the hoses and put them away with the sprinklers and get ready for winter. There is no end of things to do.

With all of this activity, I only put in a few studio hours this week. I guess that is how it works, there will be lots more time this winter.

Garrison Keillor once said that if you want to enjoy a Minnesota summer, you have to put in a Minnesota winter. In a nutty way I agree with Garrison.

I know a lot of life is being content with what you have, but I am one who thinks summer is sweeter because of winter, and that putting food and firewood up for winter is a good thing.

a "wedding"

We went to a wedding Sunday.

There was a bride and groom, attendants and bridesmaids, two or three flower girls, a little boy doing something, candles, an in your face photographer or two and a sit down dinner at the end of it all.

Not unusual I guess.

Except that the attendants were the sons and sons in law of the bride and groom, and the girls were daughters and sons wives, plus the bride’s sister.

The whole thing had all of the trappings of a wedding, but it was actually a 50th wedding anniversary celebration, along with a repeating of the marriage vows. The family are hispanic, and old friends of ours. Our kids grew up together.

The preacher spoke in spanish and another translated into english. The groom sang to his bride, the sons sang a duet to their parents (all did very well with it too).

Our kids grew up and went to school together. The groom told me that he and I were very good friends (we are) but that we do not see each other too often, (true).

I think some of the best friendships fit into that category.

As a photographer I went to more weddings than I care to think about, but this is the first like this.

I told granddaughter Emily about the ceremony. She thought I should do something like that with “grandma”. I said: “No.” She said: “even for grandma?” “No, even for grandma.”

Her suggestion was cute and not offensive at all, but I promise you I can and will love Miriam without going through a wedding again.

We are throughly married, and I like it.