lora and her dad

I have loved Lora since I knew there would be a Lora.

words

You don’t have to be around me long to know how proud I am of my daughters and their families.

A bit ago our nurse daughters wrote this letter to me. I asked her if I could use it I my blog. I wanted to share her words. Lora is an RN who works 12 hour shifts, at night. She has done this for years. She is a very good nurse.

Dear Dad,

I'm up unusually late for my night off. Though I work night shifts, I try to be a “normal person” on my days off. This evening, however, I'm up "spending time" with you on your blog. Also unusual for me. Blogs have not become my routine. (I will say how I LOVED reading everything you’ve written, Dad. Please don’t stop!)
 
Since I’m not a blog person, I’m intrigued that though I've "always been a writer" I do not even journal. I do write, of course, to think, learn and share, but my "think writing" is lists, decisions, processes, work, function, what we got from our last marriage counseling session etc, but not daily musings, ramblings or thoughts. And weeks go between. Why? Why don't I journal? What about a blog?
 
My first thought is about privacy. I think, "Yeah, I have years worth of paper journals that make me cringe and cry when I read them. Why cause that for myself later?" I’m not ready to lay words (my heart?) out for (possibly) no one or anyone to get ahold of – even myself. I do that well enough the old-fashioned talk talk way!
 
My next thought is about lazy. I am a self-proclaimed hard working lazy person. Sometimes that means I am lazy and busy at it. Sometimes it means (like the working women I am related to) I am working hard though my heart cries for lazy!
 
My third thought is priorities. I would rather do pictures and figure out things. Unless it is going to help me process something, than I won't take the time for it - Lord knows I have enough to figure out already! And I don’t have time to write about everything I’m working on, either. Mercy.
 
Actually, I love the idea of writing more, but also love the idea (head thing) of knitting, learning cello, painting, and building a new house - but the get-down-and-do-it (hand thing) is either not appealing enough or simply not happening... Maybe it is the phase of my life!?

I know your mother wrote a maximum of 3 sentences in her daily diaries, and never do you get emotion in those. Well, I'm not that kind of writer, either. But she was a practical woman, laid out her pictures in the books with dates and notes. I pray for the spunk that she had. Maybe I'm like her in many ways, hope, hope.

Interestingly, in the writing arena (as I told my 18-year-old firstborn college freshman son), he has clearly been gifted. He did not get much training from his lifetime homeschool, though he along with 3 other students enjoy their writing teacher (who has a reputation for being very hard). This teacher has told these 4 that he holds them to a higher level of accountability than the others in class - because he knows they can do the work. We hear Alan's report on why he got a B instead of an A on the last paper: one missed spelling word, a theme not well developed... He’s a very good sport about it, and it is not his major.

"See!" we say to the younger three now-much-better-taught-wanna-be-writing-students. "It is important to learn how to spell and write well!" One of the children asks "Do they have spelling classes in college?" To which I say, "No, they just dock you points on your writing if you make mistakes!"
 
Alan loves his writing class, enjoyed speech last quarter, is a communicator in many ways. This makes me smile, and I think, "See, I don't have to be a blogger or journaler right now! I'll just (accidently?) pass on this gift to my kids!” Maybe it is like the pipe organ that I gave up before having kids: now is the time to pass the keyboard/writing torch, and my organ shoes/computer will be there when the children have moved out on their own.

Meanwhile, now that I’ve written all that, I feel just a bit more patient with myself. :o) And maybe I’ll write now and then, just for me.

I love you, Dad!

Lora

Deck chairs. Beautifuly designed.

spring?

We have walked most nights since the rainy walk.

We usually take a couple nights of for the weekends. Usually we leave just about sun down and get home in deep dusk. Miriam walks slower than I would like, so I carry a backpack with about 15# of books. We dress warm and if it were to rain we would be passably comfortable.

O another forum (teardrop) the question was asked about signs of spring. Most answers had something to do with when the robins returned. We often have robins all winter, but I have not seen any big fat ones yet.

We have ferrel cats around here, so t his place, with all of it’s trees and brush which should be a sanctuary for birds, is not, I regret.

One night last week we were just a bit earlier. The temperature was about 40. We walk out our back, across our garden area, down the ditch bank, over the canal on a foot bridge, another block north and almost a mile pretty well straight east.

Half way through that east leg we get onto the high school parking lot and then on to their sports field. As we passed the soccer field (which is next to the high school but is not a part of the high school) There were two sessions going on. These were little guys, maybe 8 or 9, and they were going at it with the coaches doing a lot of arm waving.

A hundred yards further and we were at the baseball complex (4 or 5 diamonds together). There a team, in full uniform, were grooming the field. There aren’t any lights on that field and it was almost dark, but they were going right at it.

Not too many nights later, and not a bit warmer, We met a 30ish guy wearing a baseball uniform (under his warm coat). I asked him if there had been a game. He smiled and said; “yes, and we won 1 to nothing.”

We were warm in our coats, hats and mittens, but it seemed so surrealistic to see those little guys playing soccer and the big guys baseball when we were working just to stay warm.

It has to be a sign of spring. It always seemed to me that spring really was when the girls started wearing tank tops That has not happened yet.

But spring is coming. Today is predicted to be in the mid 50’s and that friends is spring.


This is from Lora. It was a letter sent to me. I asked her if I could repeat it on my blog, she rewrote it a bit and sent it back.

Old street clock.

I wish

I need a different kind of clock.

We have one on the side stand (we have matching stands that are fastened to the wall so the drawers under the bed can open under the stands). The clock is one of those with big 3” high numbers, so I can read it with my glasses off.

The clock is still on Standard time. It is a little of a bugger to change and I have not done it yet.

Well last night I went to bed about midnight, but the clock said 11. Miriam had gone to bed much earlier, and when she woke and looked at the clock she was glad I had come to bed “early.”

But when the clock said 4:30 this morning and was actually 5:30, I wanted to get up, but I new that if she saw that clock she would scold me for not getting enough sleep etc.

So what I want is a clock where I go to bed on standard time but I wake up to daylight savings time. In at 11 and up at 5:30 or 6. Works for me.

In fact, seems like we used to talk about that at work.

That might get more complex.

Every vehicle has a story. Once this old Dodge was new off the dealer lot. Once it's proud owners made payments on it. Who? Where? When? We don't know.

another engine

Dad stayed in the trucking business a long time before going back to building houses.

After he was pretty well healed from the accident with the two engined truck, he went out looking for a buyer for the tanker. The Tankers are pretty tough trailers and after some tires and brakes and such, it was road worthy again.

Instead he was offered a job landed with it. But today’s story is not about that deal, though there were some interesting details.

Dad began hauling wheat from southern Idaho to Portland, where it was shipped to asia. Most of the wheat we grow in the NW is soft wheat, which makes great pasta and noodles, but not great bread. So most of our production goes over seas.

He also started a wholesale lumber business so he would have that magic back haul. He still ran Fords, big hulking beasts by pickup standards, but much smaller than the Kenworths and Peterbuilts.

The weight rules were lower then than now and he was sure he could haul enough more load than the big guys to make the operation profitable.

But his Fords were underpowered again. He had one pretty decent pass to go over and a lot of up and down road, so he got to thinking and buying parts.

First he built a single axle (but with duals on each side so it had 4 tires/wheels With that he could pul the maximum allowed by the law he had the extra axles that were required. But that extra 15,000 pounds slowed the truck down.

So he bought a used Cadillac engine along with a Hydromatic transmission. Then he glued that engine into the trailer. He ran wires clear up to the cab so he could control the motor as well as monitor the engine.

I drove that rig a bit, and when you put in the clutch to shift gears, usually the whole truck would slow down, but with that Cadillac engine it kept on going.

I do not remember how long he ran that rig, but I think it was a year or so. Then the great state of Oregon set up a new rule, pretty much tailored to make his trailer obsolete and illegal.

The ruling was simply that every engine had to have a driver. And dad’s did not. There is some logic to what they did of course.

I do not know what happened to that rig. My guess is that it got disassembled and the parts used in a whole bunch of new projects.

happy birthday Matt

Self portrait, with my macbook camera.
Today Matt is 13. He is a good kid and I love him very much.

rant

Tonight I went to a dinner sponsored by a church group.

The meal was prepared by a professional chef who is member of the group and a friend of ours. He is the only reason I went. The meal was fine, the company good, the entertainment ok, and then the pastor said we would have a movie that I had never heard about. I should have bolted.

It was mostly a movie about a religious conversion, with the sub plot about a rich guy whose wife comes down with Alzheimer’s. The person who wrote the screen play had talked to Alzheimer’s caregivers, but had no up front experience, that was obvious, but the story was not really about AD.

It was intense. In a very erratic way it went through a bunch of stages of the disease, The family never really connected with each other or the disease, which was the point of the story. Any way it was very very intense. People around us were sad movie weepy and different reasons I was seething.

Partly at the ineptness of the writer and how the story never did justice to the AD issues made me very unhappy, of having my face rubbed in a clumsy telling of the AD story. And partly I was seething at the young narcissistic pastor who did not bother to tell me of it’s content. And he knows me, obviously not very well.

When it was over I went over to him and said: “I wish you had told me what that movie was about.” He looked away. He did not seem to care about my discomfort.

Very good friends were sitting with us. When it was obvious that I was not happy, Miriam turned and said: “It’s Ok I used to be a nurse, and I worked in an Alzheimer’s unit.” Well, she was a LPN at one point, soon after we were married but she never worked in an AD unit.

And I was frustrated that after ten years of dealing with this disease, she still is in denial.

So I seethe. Tomorrow I may feel better, but don‘t bet on it.

OK, it is not that cold, and I did not take this picture this morning.
But it sure is not summer or even spring like today.

cut and sew

Today is that biennial day when we add here and subtract there.

You understand, you cut a half foot off of one end of the blanket and sew it on the other end, so the blanket seems longer.

I rather liked the idea of the change from standard to savings time (the latter seems so frugal). If the spring version did not reflect the beginning of summer, when the sun suddenly went down at 8 in the evening, it was the beginning of spring, real spring.

But, something went wrong this year.

I just took Leo out for his morning walk. It is 28º. Not really cold, but definitely cool. Yahoo Weather (I did not get paid for that outburst) says that the high today will b 37. Hmm.

They are often a bit low in their estimates. Often it gets a bit warmer, but If they are off 5º that puts us about 40. Some summer, some spring.

But, hope springs eternal. I planted seeds in pots in my little studio this week. I put the pots on the heat starting pad (made for just that purpose). The seeds will begin to pop up later this week.

But still, first day of longer blanket season and only 40º.

I’ll not garden too much today. But this evening Miriam, Leo and I can go for a nice chilly walk, and do it in day the daylight.