birth order then and now

It used to be that when we stood the grandkids up with one exception the oldest was the tallest and the youngest the shortest. Not any more!
Left to right: David, Ben, Alan, Josh, Andrew, Jessica, Emily, Brianna, Matt, Griffy and Amy. Josh at 6' 2" the tallest? We don't know yet.

Top picture 2003, Only 5 years ago.
Love them all.

travel day

Yesterday was travel day.

Two of my sons in law were going to a Men’s Retreat. I had gone with them a few years ago, but being alone in a group of 400 men who all seemed to know each other and I did not, was not a happy weekend.

We introverts (OK I am half in and half ex), don't relish that kind of a setting. So this year when they invited me to with them again. I said I’d rather eat barbed wire. But. . . . I had a plan.

So Thursday evening, I got Miriam to pack her case. I put each of our sleeping bag and a pillow separate bags, and she went to bed. I woke got up at 6 am, took a shower and got started making a breakfast lunch. I woke Miriam at 7 and we got out the door by 8:30, which is very fast, for us.

She complained on every move, but it was done, and I did not loose my humor.

So today I left her with Lora (daughter 2) and drove 45 miles to Arline’s (daughter 1). Miriam thinks I am going with the guys, but my plan was to hang out with Arline for a couple of day, and take a break.

I love Miriam a lot and don’t mind being with her, but a bit of time apart is not bad either.

We will go home Monday or Tuesday. There is not big hurry. Juan my hispanic neighbor, and a super guy, will look after the mail and see that nothing goes wrong (if it should he has my cell phone number).

A good friend who is in his mid 80’s told me that we should travel when we can because we all know the time is coming when we cannot.

Even I need to get away sometimes.

simplicity

I have camping on the brain!
A few years ago we had to drive a ways to look at a potential job for a friend. I loaded the trunk of the car with sleeping pads and bags, food and cooking, a tent and the basics. Once we had looked and measured the job, we drove up a creek by a state campground.
"Miriam, why don't we camp here for the night??
"I don't have my nighty."
"Yes you do."
"We don't have a tent or sleeping bags."
"Yes we do" and so on.
Had I put gear in the back seat I could have brought the big tent, but she would have asked about it.
We stayed overnight, drove to the next town and ate breakfast in a restaurant.
Some how camping out of a little car in a little tent has a lot going for it.
It was a good trip.
Ahh, simplicity.

here's to now

Yesterday I mentioned Philip Simmons.

Philip was a young English teacher in a midwest university when he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. As the disease progressed, he moved back to his parents place, in rural New England.

The book is a testimony to the strength of an individual. Even though he was dying when he wrote the book, and did die not too long afterward, he never feels sorry for himself, and only mentions the disease a few times, and that as an explanation not as an alibi.

His strength and his observations and conclusions inspired me as I was facing the Miriam’s Alzheimer’s.

My third daughter found the book, looked it over and bought it for me.

In the flyleaf she wrote: “To Papa, this book fell into my hands, I opened the pages and thought of you. His humor, his love of words, and Emerson and philosophies and philosophers. Here’s to now.”

That may well be the underlying theme of the book; “here’s to now.”

our back yard with jenny

Jenny belonged to Emily's father before he met Emily's Mother, but we ended up with her for the last dozen years of her life. She died last year at the age of 17.
It seemed for a long time that any picture I took outside had Jenny in it some where.
This is the yard when Miriam was able to care for it. I am afraid it does not look so good under my care.

ramblings

Or -- String too short to save

In his book “Learning to Fall -- the blessings of an imperfect life ” Philip Simons tells about his childhood memories of life in New England. This is one of my favorite books, I'll talk about it later.


In his boy eyes, the town dump was the epicenter of the village. It was a small town and every one knew every one at least a bit and when they made their weekly trip to the dump (there was no “garbage collection”), they met friends, visited about the world and exchanged throw away stuff.

I went to our “Solid Waste Site” yesterday, we are way too sophisticated to have a "dump". Ours is a huge affair where trash is piled and compressed by monster machines and covered with more trash. I have seen city disposal trucks from 150 miles away adding to the “collection.”

But it is the people there nowadays that are amazing. The lady at the scale was pleasant, even touching on friendly. Her predecessor was not friendly and not always pleasant, but she got the job done.

At the place you leave your trash: Steel appliances here, refrigerators there, a place for motor oil, old tires, computer parts, wood and so on, there are two grumpy guys who drive around all day in pickups.

Someone important died and left them in charge, and they take their job of being tin gods very seriously. As you offload (an interesting term) they watch.

Often there are guys from the county prison to help you unload. They have a little shelter where they can get out of the weather if they like. They don’t talk much, but they can be very helpful.

Yesterday I was left with the metallic gods.


I took over cooking in our house a while ago. I think it has been about a year, but I did not keep track exactly.

In that time between Miriam and I we have lost about 30 pounds.

If I ever put in an application for a job as a cook, I’ll not put that on my resume.


I am not one for ritual, though I appreciate a lot of ritual in others.

But when I get up in the morning I go through this series of actions, in the exact same order.

First: I put water in the electric tea kettle to heat water for my morning tea.

I start a fire in the stove, taking the old fashioned tea kettle off the stove and filling it with tap water. I try to load the stove with lots of small wood to make a lot of heat to take the night chill away.

Then I get dressed. Clean socks, handkerchief, undershorts, and sometimes a clean shirt, and some denim jeans (Wranglers if the brand matters).

In the middle of all of that, the tea water has come to a boil, and is converted to tea.

Then I can sit down, open my computer and begin to write.

Ahh routine.

potato patch

I haven't been growing potatoes. We live in Idaho after all, and they are cheap, but last year I decided to grow a patch. I planted three varieties, red, yellow and white! The reds were great, but don't keep too long, the yellows were superb and kept better. The whites keep the longest, but I grew russets, the kind that the potato growers grow, and they require better care than I gave them and many of the tubers were hopelessly knobby.
Ahh "next year" as we gardeners always say.

my mint

I have a scrawny little mint patch in my garden.

Mint goes good with green tea and I drink a pint of green tea each morning, and a bit of mint adds a nice touch
.

Mint can spread to places you do not wish. Mine is in the corner, right past the foot bridge and next to the last real original desert plant left on the place.

The patch is not much bigger than a kitchen table, and it just does not look like much. Not very thick, kinda scrawny. But each fall I get a bunch or two of mint stems, which I tie into a bundle or two and hang on a hook behind the wood stove.

When dry I the leaves come off and into one of those peanut butter jars. the stems go to the compost pile.

As scrawny as my patch is, I get enough mint to last me a full year and still have enough to share. It does not take much to enhance a pint of tea

Every morning when I take the jar of mint off the shelf and put a bit in my tea, I am reminded that enough is enough. I sometimes think I need more or better or newer, but this humble little patch provides enough.

I love Garrison Kealor’s parting line: “Be good, do good work and keep in touch.” I will quote another writer: “I wish you enough.”

Not more than you need, not less, but enough.

my little redhead

When I first saw Miriam as a teen (she was 14), I noticed her beautiful red hair. It was a auburn and I was struck by it's beauty (still am!).
She has worn her hair very long and she has it pretty short right now. This picture goes back a dozen years or more when her hair was long and wonderful.
In a way I wish her hair was still this long.

understand

When I grouted my last piece of tile and put my tools away, I added up all of the plusses and minuses on my financial balance sheet, the number was positive, a bit.

One of my friends said something about how they (and she was being honest) ended up with a bit more after their work careers than we did. Sometimes that bothers me, especially when I go to class reunions and I see all of the people who really did well. Mostly I live with it with a great degree of comfort.

Today I spent some time with Sam. Sam is a few years older than me. He is of mixed indian and mexican ancestry, and is a super guy. We have been good friends for some time now.

Today he called and asked me if I would go help him move a sofa. I never turn Sam down, so I went over to the retirement home where he lives (we have several of those in my small town, this one is for those who really do not have much money.)

The couch was upstairs, we had to wheel it out into the narrow halls, and then down the to the elevator. The couch had to go in then stand on its end in the elevator (it was not really a large couch either). We did it, and then downstairs, wheeled it out the front door and we loaded it in my pickup.

He had me follow him to another subsidized housing building. These are not retired people, but mostly disabled for one reason or other. Some have been in prison, some are mentally challenged, some are sex offenders and some are just down on their luck. We took the couch upstairs (slid it up the banisters) and got it into the living room of this little apartment. The furniture consisted of an old recliner, and a really ancient TV on a box, that was all.

We put the couch where the 50 something guy told us. I have no idea what his story is. I have no idea of why he has so little. Probably I do not want to know.

And it is so easy to say: “Thank God I am not like that.” There was a high official a long time ago. Jesus told the story, and The Man did not like what he saw and heard. But still I have to have some thoughts.

There is a lot of misery in this world. I have always been fairly broke, so being on a tight budget is not unusual. What is unusual is that I know how much I will receive and what day it will get here. Contracting was not so lush!

I mentioned the couple and daughter who were at the AD support group I attended last week. What I did not tell them, and I should, is that in the decade since Miriam was diagnosed we have had some of the best years of our long marriage. There may be this subtle almost incoherent message that we have a limited time together, and we should enjoy it, and we are.

So I am not glad I am better than some one else, because that is a thin plank, but I am oh so thankful for the really good parts of my life: Miriam; daughters; sons-in-law; grandkids; grandkid-in-law and a fist full of good friends.

Right now Miriam is putting a jig saw puzzle together. It is a thousand piece job and it is hard and it will take her a good week or two to do it, but she will work on that like it was her job. It will get finished, and she will be so glad to finish. She will squeal with delight and eagerly show me the whole thing.

I may not have a lot of zeros in my bank statement (on the left of the decimal point, that is!), but I have so much to be happy about. When I say the prayer before we eat our meals, I always thank the Big Guy for my wonderful Miriam. I want her to hear it. I want her to know how much I love her.

Some day she won’t understand.

ahh

This time of year I get a bit compulsive in my thinking of summer activities. i am tied or winter already. Each year I promise myself that I will go camping once every month from April to October. That depends on the weather. I like to camp but I am not really into misery and cold camping in a teardrop or a tent is a bit severe for my old body.
I used to climb mountains, long ago, but even then the cold was not wonderful.
Given a bit more money I might have been a snowbird.

routine

We artists are not terribly good at routine projects.

We tend to invent rather than follow rules and outlines. (That is my story, do not interrupt!)

I get up in the morning about 5, though as you would assume, there is not any really hard set time I get up. I have slept as late as 7 and have gotten up as early as 3:30. No routine there.

When I was in high school I worked in a bakery. I remember some nights the head baker went to work at 12:30 and I was expected to be at work before 5, so I guess this is old habit.

But, when I get up I have a definite ritual. I put water in the electric tea kettle for tea. I build a fire (our little house has a little stove that burns little wood). When the fire is going good, and the tea water is hot I pour water into the tea (always the same green tea with an added pinch of home grown mint) and then I get dressed.

Clean socks, under shorts, handkerchief always. Other wise clean as I think the day will demand.

By then my tea is finished steeping, so I strain out the mint leaves and tea bag, rinse out the cup (a 16 ounce travel mug) pour the tea back in the mug and add milk (don’t faint or scream at me please).

Then I can sit in my chair, open my MacBook and begin the day. That might start with a letter or two or a post for my blog, but ends up reading the NYTimes, the two of the local papers before wondering off to other sites. (I am a news junkie I fear).

That begins my day.

Today I am not sure exactly what the day will involve. I finished my plumbing project last week, I might get some trim painted for the Utility room, so I can paint that room soon. Or I might put the shop back together and put the pile of plastic laminate back in the racks. Or I might work on making books. Hmm.

This time of year there are options. When summer is here, I will go out early and do some garden work. But now I really want to enjoy the leisure of that early morning routine.

Harley Chick

Once I was a Harley dude, and this was my chick! No wonder I hung on so hard.