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?