Gratitude #83 - Sweet Biddies!
13 years ago
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Malayan Ambassador.
In the Vaughn Meader good natured parody of the Kennedy family dating back to the early 60's, the Malayan Ambassador arrives at the security gate of the white house for dinner.
He is announced in very proper english. The gate keeper allows him to pass. He goes to the next gate keeper (there was 4 if I remember), finally the aide asks Jackie, who says: “Tell him it is TOMORROW night.”
We did that last night.
Friends of 40 year duration who live in Portland had invited us over for dinner. I made a big loaf of black olive bread and we arrived right on time.
But like the Malayan Ambassador we had the wrong day. We all laughed, cut the bread and had a piece of still warm bread, visited a bit and came home.
Were it anyone but old dear friends it might have been embarassing, but it was just funny. We will go back Thursday and I will bering a pan of corn bread.
The black olive bread takes 3 hours to make. It goes through three raisings and as many stretches of kneeding. I can whip out a batch of corn bread in less than an hour start to finish.
So she will ajust her soup recipe to make it perfet for my cornbread. It will be good.
He is announced in very proper english. The gate keeper allows him to pass. He goes to the next gate keeper (there was 4 if I remember), finally the aide asks Jackie, who says: “Tell him it is TOMORROW night.”
We did that last night.
Friends of 40 year duration who live in Portland had invited us over for dinner. I made a big loaf of black olive bread and we arrived right on time.
But like the Malayan Ambassador we had the wrong day. We all laughed, cut the bread and had a piece of still warm bread, visited a bit and came home.
Were it anyone but old dear friends it might have been embarassing, but it was just funny. We will go back Thursday and I will bering a pan of corn bread.
The black olive bread takes 3 hours to make. It goes through three raisings and as many stretches of kneeding. I can whip out a batch of corn bread in less than an hour start to finish.
So she will ajust her soup recipe to make it perfet for my cornbread. It will be good.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
visit
Friends came to visit over the weekend.
Good friends, but distance make it so we don’t see each other too often.
She lost her long time job a wile back. It seemed to her boss that she had Alzheimer’s. Testing. Yes. More testing, 2nd opinion. No.
But something is wrong.
He is 10 years older. When they were 35 and 45 that was not a big deal, but it is now. She is 65 and he 75.
He is a long time heavy smoker, it is showing now. He got out of the pickup and I sucked in my breath. He looked so much older than the last time I saw him .
We went for walk. He walked with a cane, as much for balance as anything, but still . . .
They have no children between them. He has three, she has a boy she never sees, or even talks to. She is scared.
“What will happen to me?”
I was not worried over the phone. He has been healthy, but now he is not looking so good. What used to take half a day now takes three, he tells me.
They have a nice home with lots of lawn and outside work. It is getting to be too much for him. He thinks about moving into a retirement complex. She seems to agree.
Though not much younger, I think I am in better health. But no one knows what is going on inside -- for sure.
Miriam and she visited and told stories over and over. He and I visited and took a walk.
Years ago I remember seeing the picture of an old lady who had lost her home. I do not remember if it was a natural disaster or war, but she stared at the camera and asked that same question.
“What is to become of us.”
If it is bad, I do not want to know.
Good friends, but distance make it so we don’t see each other too often.
She lost her long time job a wile back. It seemed to her boss that she had Alzheimer’s. Testing. Yes. More testing, 2nd opinion. No.
But something is wrong.
He is 10 years older. When they were 35 and 45 that was not a big deal, but it is now. She is 65 and he 75.
He is a long time heavy smoker, it is showing now. He got out of the pickup and I sucked in my breath. He looked so much older than the last time I saw him .
We went for walk. He walked with a cane, as much for balance as anything, but still . . .
They have no children between them. He has three, she has a boy she never sees, or even talks to. She is scared.
“What will happen to me?”
I was not worried over the phone. He has been healthy, but now he is not looking so good. What used to take half a day now takes three, he tells me.
They have a nice home with lots of lawn and outside work. It is getting to be too much for him. He thinks about moving into a retirement complex. She seems to agree.
Though not much younger, I think I am in better health. But no one knows what is going on inside -- for sure.
Miriam and she visited and told stories over and over. He and I visited and took a walk.
Years ago I remember seeing the picture of an old lady who had lost her home. I do not remember if it was a natural disaster or war, but she stared at the camera and asked that same question.
“What is to become of us.”
If it is bad, I do not want to know.
Monday, May 11, 2009
my Dodge
I made the last payment on the Dodge today.
There is something awesome and inspiring about paying off my last new vehicle.
Didn’t I tell you that I am not a plumber?
I kept saying:
“I am not a plumber.”
“It is against the law for me plumb your bathroom.”
“How can I warrantee work I do not know how to do?”
All of my working career I keep telling customers things like that.
I still do way too much of it.
But I was never good at it, still am not.
We did a total remodel on Linda’s bathroom when she bought the house. YES, I did it! Re-plumbed the entire bathroom and the kitchen sink drain, but I never got the drain on the bathroom vanity really right. We rain out of time. Finally it was so plugged that it just wouldn’t drain at all.
So that was one of my jobs this visit.
All week I worked to determine a better way to engineer that drain so it would work better.
Trips to the plumbing store, drawing schematics, the whole thing. Today I had it all figured out, bought the last parts and took the unneeded ones back. Only then did I take the drain loose. When it was apart I discovered that the original plumber, or maybe the one after the original had made a bad mistake. The drain pipe went into the wall with a tight 90ยบ turn, then went level, or uphill for a foot or so before dropping to the trunk line.
There was no way to make it work really well without changing that drain. SO back to the plumbing store 4 more times. All new drain, in a different location, with a straight shot to that trunk line and a sack of 'new' extra parts!
And tonight the water runs out as fast as it goes in.
The drain pipe is on the far side of the vanity and is nicely hidden from view. Only a 3” hole remains in the wall where the old drain was, and I’ll do a number on that later.
I am still not a plumber. A real plumber would have come in, looked around, made a shopping list, disappeared and had it all back together in less than two hours.
I put in all day (we had dinner at 8, normally we eat at 4), I shopped and schemed all week.
But the drain works like it was supposed to.
I am tired, my hands are covered with black pipe glue (which does not come off easily) and I am going to take a shower and go to bed early. Sometimes I think I am getting too old for such foolishness, but if I say then I am for sure.
And, I am still not a plumber.
“I am not a plumber.”
“It is against the law for me plumb your bathroom.”
“How can I warrantee work I do not know how to do?”
All of my working career I keep telling customers things like that.
I still do way too much of it.
But I was never good at it, still am not.
We did a total remodel on Linda’s bathroom when she bought the house. YES, I did it! Re-plumbed the entire bathroom and the kitchen sink drain, but I never got the drain on the bathroom vanity really right. We rain out of time. Finally it was so plugged that it just wouldn’t drain at all.
So that was one of my jobs this visit.
All week I worked to determine a better way to engineer that drain so it would work better.
Trips to the plumbing store, drawing schematics, the whole thing. Today I had it all figured out, bought the last parts and took the unneeded ones back. Only then did I take the drain loose. When it was apart I discovered that the original plumber, or maybe the one after the original had made a bad mistake. The drain pipe went into the wall with a tight 90ยบ turn, then went level, or uphill for a foot or so before dropping to the trunk line.
There was no way to make it work really well without changing that drain. SO back to the plumbing store 4 more times. All new drain, in a different location, with a straight shot to that trunk line and a sack of 'new' extra parts!
And tonight the water runs out as fast as it goes in.
The drain pipe is on the far side of the vanity and is nicely hidden from view. Only a 3” hole remains in the wall where the old drain was, and I’ll do a number on that later.
I am still not a plumber. A real plumber would have come in, looked around, made a shopping list, disappeared and had it all back together in less than two hours.
I put in all day (we had dinner at 8, normally we eat at 4), I shopped and schemed all week.
But the drain works like it was supposed to.
I am tired, my hands are covered with black pipe glue (which does not come off easily) and I am going to take a shower and go to bed early. Sometimes I think I am getting too old for such foolishness, but if I say then I am for sure.
And, I am still not a plumber.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
grain silos
The Palouse country (Indians of that name bred some of the prettiest horses) is rolling hills of wheat. For temporary storage the landscape is dotted with large wood and concrete silos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Palouse_hills_northeast_of_Walla_Walla.jpg
Once I used silos as a theme in a print making class in Graduate Art School. One of the other students snorted: "Not acceptable subject matter."
I complained about the stupidity of the statement. The Prof said: "have you seen him around lately?"
He had been dismissed from the graduate program (which they can do in a heart beat).
Hmm
finlandia
The song was banned during WWII.
No one was allowed to play or to hear. On hearing the song natives of the country were known to cry, the power of a song that did not even have words.
The mythology is that the songs repeat the machine gun bursts at the Nazi’s as they marched into Finland. Actually it is a protest against Czarists Russia several generations earlier.
The church we visited always has good music, which is one reason I attend here. Today’s program was a brass choir, but included tympani and cymbals, along with the trumpets, trombones and tuba.
“Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius',arranged for brass and percussion. And it was being played in this church. I had heard the music hundreds of times (or more), but I don’t do concerts much (budget thing) and I had never seen this piece performed, for sure not with Brass.
The group did was not large, maybe a dozen players, but brass can could big.
Percussionists are an interesting group. Tympanists spend a good bit of the concert waiting, standing, holding their mallets, or else they are humped over the drums with a pitch pipe in their mouths, listening and tuning the drum.
This time the tympanist was a woman, maybe 55, greying hair. Nothing unusual to look at.
The song starts small and swells. Good brass, big sound. Then the tympanist does a roll. It was not complex, but she did it perfectly. Then there another.
The trumpets do staccato. The base blares, the sounds of music and battle and maybe even of airplanes (though the song was written before airplanes), and the tympani comes to life.
Loud, soft, complex rhythms a performance all in itself. The lady did not miss a beat, her performance was perfect. Her part could make or break a performance.
I am not a Finn, but I sat there with heavy eyelids. The affect was stunning. Afterwards while the church members filed out I just sat and thought. The musicians disappeared with their instruments (ok the tympanists took her mallets and left the instruments). Only the conductor stayed, visiting with a church member.
I approached them. “I do not know where you found the tympanist, but she is absolutely amazing.” He agreed. She was not a professional musician, in fact the conductor did not know what her day job was, except that she divided her time between Portland and Atlanta Georgia.
I told him I was stunned. He asked me if I play brass, I said yes and that I still do and he smiled. His group was mostly grey haired. They were way over my head in skill level, but I would love to play with a group like that. I told him that I started playing trumpet as a way to strengthen my weak lungs. He nodded.
When it was all over I felt blessed and a bit weak in the knees.
I will never forget this performance.
No one was allowed to play or to hear. On hearing the song natives of the country were known to cry, the power of a song that did not even have words.
The mythology is that the songs repeat the machine gun bursts at the Nazi’s as they marched into Finland. Actually it is a protest against Czarists Russia several generations earlier.
The church we visited always has good music, which is one reason I attend here. Today’s program was a brass choir, but included tympani and cymbals, along with the trumpets, trombones and tuba.
“Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius',arranged for brass and percussion. And it was being played in this church. I had heard the music hundreds of times (or more), but I don’t do concerts much (budget thing) and I had never seen this piece performed, for sure not with Brass.
The group did was not large, maybe a dozen players, but brass can could big.
Percussionists are an interesting group. Tympanists spend a good bit of the concert waiting, standing, holding their mallets, or else they are humped over the drums with a pitch pipe in their mouths, listening and tuning the drum.
This time the tympanist was a woman, maybe 55, greying hair. Nothing unusual to look at.
The song starts small and swells. Good brass, big sound. Then the tympanist does a roll. It was not complex, but she did it perfectly. Then there another.
The trumpets do staccato. The base blares, the sounds of music and battle and maybe even of airplanes (though the song was written before airplanes), and the tympani comes to life.
Loud, soft, complex rhythms a performance all in itself. The lady did not miss a beat, her performance was perfect. Her part could make or break a performance.
I am not a Finn, but I sat there with heavy eyelids. The affect was stunning. Afterwards while the church members filed out I just sat and thought. The musicians disappeared with their instruments (ok the tympanists took her mallets and left the instruments). Only the conductor stayed, visiting with a church member.
I approached them. “I do not know where you found the tympanist, but she is absolutely amazing.” He agreed. She was not a professional musician, in fact the conductor did not know what her day job was, except that she divided her time between Portland and Atlanta Georgia.
I told him I was stunned. He asked me if I play brass, I said yes and that I still do and he smiled. His group was mostly grey haired. They were way over my head in skill level, but I would love to play with a group like that. I told him that I started playing trumpet as a way to strengthen my weak lungs. He nodded.
When it was all over I felt blessed and a bit weak in the knees.
I will never forget this performance.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
mom's day
I lost my mom 27 years ago.
I was 45, Mom just 65. Miriam lost her mom a few years earlier. Marie was 57.
Both mom’s went to that dreaded cancer. Their minds were sharp to the end, but their bodies just could not take the punishment that cancer wrought.
There is no good time to loose a mother. Even though I lost mine a long time ago I think of her regularly, and wish I could talk to her. I tell Emily how much she would have enjoyed her great grandmother. How much my mom would have loved Emily and Jessica, Brianna and Amy.
So mothers day is a day of remembrance for me. She was a great mom, she endured so much when she was young, and she died way too young.
Emily was jut talking on the phone to her mom in Thailand. I reminded Emily that when my mom got sick my sister was in Africa and it took me two weeks to get through, working every night, just to leave a message at the school for Joyce to call back.
There is no happy end here. My daughters mom is going way, but a different way. Her body is healthy. Her memory is not.
So, to all of you who have moms and grandmas. Hug and hold them tight. Those of us who don’t have living mothers will be powerfully envious.
I will honor Miriam with all that the name Mom implies. She has been so good.
I was 45, Mom just 65. Miriam lost her mom a few years earlier. Marie was 57.
Both mom’s went to that dreaded cancer. Their minds were sharp to the end, but their bodies just could not take the punishment that cancer wrought.
There is no good time to loose a mother. Even though I lost mine a long time ago I think of her regularly, and wish I could talk to her. I tell Emily how much she would have enjoyed her great grandmother. How much my mom would have loved Emily and Jessica, Brianna and Amy.
So mothers day is a day of remembrance for me. She was a great mom, she endured so much when she was young, and she died way too young.
Emily was jut talking on the phone to her mom in Thailand. I reminded Emily that when my mom got sick my sister was in Africa and it took me two weeks to get through, working every night, just to leave a message at the school for Joyce to call back.
There is no happy end here. My daughters mom is going way, but a different way. Her body is healthy. Her memory is not.
So, to all of you who have moms and grandmas. Hug and hold them tight. Those of us who don’t have living mothers will be powerfully envious.
I will honor Miriam with all that the name Mom implies. She has been so good.
Friday, May 8, 2009
happy birthday
We have a lot of birthdays in May. This week Andrew turned 16, and my sister a bit older (though far younger than I). That was on the same day: May 4.
Happy birthday Joyce and you too Andrew.
field trip
Today was field trip day.
Matthew and the 5th and 6th graders at his school -- 4 classroom of them, for two days in two big busses.
They got in the bus yesterday morning at 7 in south west Washington and drove to Portland. Here they went to the Zoo and to OMSI.
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is located along the Willamette River in an old building where they used to generate electricity. It has been massively expanded and includes a LOT of wonderful science experiments and information. There is even a old diesel/electric World War II submarine. I had an uncle who served on one like that back then.
Last evening they got to OMSI. Once inside, the doors were locked. No one could go in or out. There was 90 kids and 60 adults, about the right mixture, it seems to grandpa.
They kept the kids going hard all evening. They worked and they saw and they experimented. A sack lunch was furnished, and at 11:30, the lights went out and it was DARK.
Did I mention that they all slept there? Boys and girls, mothers and fathers, teaches and civilians. “Sleep in what you are wearing now.” was the order of the day. They brought pads and sleeping bags. Some parents were awake all night to “make sure” others slept well!
Arline had 4 boys, one being her own. They are good kids. One has a bit of a speech problem, one has serious skin problems, one lost his mother just a few months ago (she was a single mom and now he is being taken care of by an aunt).
Good kids, really good kids, but they are 11 and 12 and all over the place. Believe me, Arline is up to the challenge and she kept them all in line with a bit of loud talk and a lot of grinning and love.
But we are here in town and we don’t see each other enough. So Arline asked the person in charge if there was any time she could get off and spend time with her parents.
This morning was that time. Three wonderful hours.
Arline is a big time knitter, so we went to a couple of yarn shops (talk about a cult!!). I bought a small skein of blue Linen yarn that will work really well in some book binding I am working on.
But mostly it was about just for us to be together.
Interestingly, we saw Lora on our way through her town, we saw Deanna here in Portland and now we have seen Arline. The only daughter we have not seen is Linda and we are staying in her house with her Emily.
Strange how all of that that works sometimes.
Matthew and the 5th and 6th graders at his school -- 4 classroom of them, for two days in two big busses.
They got in the bus yesterday morning at 7 in south west Washington and drove to Portland. Here they went to the Zoo and to OMSI.
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is located along the Willamette River in an old building where they used to generate electricity. It has been massively expanded and includes a LOT of wonderful science experiments and information. There is even a old diesel/electric World War II submarine. I had an uncle who served on one like that back then.
Last evening they got to OMSI. Once inside, the doors were locked. No one could go in or out. There was 90 kids and 60 adults, about the right mixture, it seems to grandpa.
They kept the kids going hard all evening. They worked and they saw and they experimented. A sack lunch was furnished, and at 11:30, the lights went out and it was DARK.
Did I mention that they all slept there? Boys and girls, mothers and fathers, teaches and civilians. “Sleep in what you are wearing now.” was the order of the day. They brought pads and sleeping bags. Some parents were awake all night to “make sure” others slept well!
Arline had 4 boys, one being her own. They are good kids. One has a bit of a speech problem, one has serious skin problems, one lost his mother just a few months ago (she was a single mom and now he is being taken care of by an aunt).
Good kids, really good kids, but they are 11 and 12 and all over the place. Believe me, Arline is up to the challenge and she kept them all in line with a bit of loud talk and a lot of grinning and love.
But we are here in town and we don’t see each other enough. So Arline asked the person in charge if there was any time she could get off and spend time with her parents.
This morning was that time. Three wonderful hours.
Arline is a big time knitter, so we went to a couple of yarn shops (talk about a cult!!). I bought a small skein of blue Linen yarn that will work really well in some book binding I am working on.
But mostly it was about just for us to be together.
Interestingly, we saw Lora on our way through her town, we saw Deanna here in Portland and now we have seen Arline. The only daughter we have not seen is Linda and we are staying in her house with her Emily.
Strange how all of that that works sometimes.
happy grandpa
I have been driving Emily to school since we have been here.
Her mom does sometimes, so I am not bending tradition too much here. But I have done it almost every day.
Friday schedule is different. Her school, a Catholic high school, says that it is “The School That Works.” When I remember that every kid has a school sponsored job each Friday it all came together.
Most of the jobs are clerical jobs requiring clean clothes. Emily works in the Portland Zoo, at the children's petting zoo. Clean clothes are optional and the Zoo furnishes rubber boots. At first it involved a bit of shovel and fork work, but now it involves working with the animals and training others to work with them.
Emily is an official “goat trainer” now. Since I like goats (having owned a few myself), I am pleased, and while the work was not terribly glamourous, I assured her that if she worked good at it they would find her a whole different job next year. At first she was not sure she liked the job, but through the year it has become enjoyable (good for you Emily--the big book talks about those who do good work at simple things get to work on more important thing).
So, anyway, today she offered to take the bus to school, from where they go to their jobs (so the school has a better handle on what is going on). She has a bus pass, so that part is not difficult.
“Emily, you know when I am home in a week or two I will sit and think of all of the time I ‘ wasted’ going with you and wishing I had spent it more useful.”
RIGHT? NOOOO.
I will say to myself that it was so wonderful, each moment I spent with Emily, and it will be such a good memory.
She grinned and got the keys to the Jeep.
Her mom does sometimes, so I am not bending tradition too much here. But I have done it almost every day.
Friday schedule is different. Her school, a Catholic high school, says that it is “The School That Works.” When I remember that every kid has a school sponsored job each Friday it all came together.
Most of the jobs are clerical jobs requiring clean clothes. Emily works in the Portland Zoo, at the children's petting zoo. Clean clothes are optional and the Zoo furnishes rubber boots. At first it involved a bit of shovel and fork work, but now it involves working with the animals and training others to work with them.
Emily is an official “goat trainer” now. Since I like goats (having owned a few myself), I am pleased, and while the work was not terribly glamourous, I assured her that if she worked good at it they would find her a whole different job next year. At first she was not sure she liked the job, but through the year it has become enjoyable (good for you Emily--the big book talks about those who do good work at simple things get to work on more important thing).
So, anyway, today she offered to take the bus to school, from where they go to their jobs (so the school has a better handle on what is going on). She has a bus pass, so that part is not difficult.
“Emily, you know when I am home in a week or two I will sit and think of all of the time I ‘ wasted’ going with you and wishing I had spent it more useful.”
RIGHT? NOOOO.
I will say to myself that it was so wonderful, each moment I spent with Emily, and it will be such a good memory.
She grinned and got the keys to the Jeep.
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