sleep again

We went to bed early last night, about 9:30.

I know for at least some of my friends, that is the “normal” time, but I never was considered “normal.” Miriam was tired and I agreed to go with her, but I told her I’d be awake about 3, it seems to work that way.

So I slept and slept hard, and woke up an hour later. I got back to sleep without too much trouble.

And an hour or less later I woke again, each time after a few minutes of being awake I got back to sleep.

Then at 3 Leo woke me up. He had gotten uncovered (as short haired as he is, he sleeps under a blanket. Often I have Miriam look after Leo when he wakes up, because she can go back to sleep almost instantly. If I get up it is very hard for me.

But this time I took care of Leo.

So here I sit in my leather recliner, inside a sleeping bag, since I did not want to start a fire or get dressed -- I will go back to bed in a couple of hours.

It seems that my sleep comes in 45 minute to an hour and quarter “packets”. I do not know if that is unusual, I do not know if it is healthy or not, and frankly I am not much concerned.

It is a nutty way to live, but I do know that there are a lot of people who wake up early and spend an hour or two before going back to bed and sleep. Some do it regularly, finding that this quiet time are some of the most precious hours of the day.

I am not ready to go that far, but I do understand the idea, and I sure do not find the time unpleasant.

changes

I used to tell students that since all good things come to and end, and the semester was ending, it must have been good.

The same logic could go for this week’s change in our national government, I guess.

This blog is not about politics, and I won’t go there, but another line is that a change is as good as a rest.

So, enjoy your rest, because there seems to be major changes ahead, and changes often are what we make of them.

As we get closer to the end of January the garden seeds which I ordered a couple of weeks ago are arriving, adding to the stack. Each packet of seeds is a promise, an expression of faith. There is still a lot of ice on the garden, though the snow is pretty well gone. It is hard to think of much spring this time of year, but i try.

I'll open the cold frame soon and begin eating the salad veggies that have been waiting for a bit of spring weather. I planted them back in September.


For Christmas one of our daughters gave Miriam a 1000 piece jig saw puzzle. She began working on it about as soon as we got home before new years day.

She worked on that puzzle like it was a job, like she was getting paid! It kept her occupied for a long time.

Last night she put the last piece in. It was the hardest puzzle she has ever done. She was sure of that and I tend to agree. The whole experience tells lot about her. Once she starts something she won’t stop.

Hmm, maybe that is why she is still married to ME!!

birthday

Yesterday was Miriam’s birthday.

It was one of those numbers that does not include a zero but is a familiar number. You know 6 times 12; or 8 times 9; or 3 dozen twice. You know.

It was a quite day, she was home all day. I had to leave for a while, so I left her with the computer phone to take cals. Earlier I emailed the daughters telling them to be sure to call their mother on that number. I have told them for years that they can forget my birthday and it is OK, but do not forget your mom's so I send a reminder from time to time!


Emily called first. When I returned from getting icing for the cake (I know, I could have made it myself), a gift of lingerie for miriam, as well as a bit of ice cream to go with the cake, she was happily talking to grandkids on the phone, often repeating the same bit of trivia.

I had to remind her a dozen or more times that it was indeed her birthday and that was why people were calling.

Maybe I should have made some cup cakes and, after we each had one put the rest in the freezer, but instead I made a smallish two layer cake, with strawberry jam between the layers and chocolate icing on top.

She requested a chocolate cake, even though I had thought of angle food, (she has surely been my angel). I have never never made an angel food cake, but it seemed symbolic. I don’t particularly even like them, but I got over the symbolism and whipped up an easy box cake (Oh I know I know, I should have made a mayonnaise chocolate cake).

When I served her the cake, an hour or so after dinner, I teased that I forgot to call the city and get a fire permit, with that many candles. She laughed at me.

I changed her medical insurer, and while I have power of attorney and all the rest of the stuff, the new company got all fussy about it, so I’ll take Miriam in to sign the papers herself. Her signature has no legal bearing, but it will make the company happy.

Miriam is a few months older than I (January to May), and every year since we were 20 (we married at 19), I have teased her about being married to an “older” woman. But it has been good.

I love you Miriam, thanks for making my life so much more enjoyable

Christmas time when all 20 something of us were together, one of my sons in law said: “Dave, this is all your fault.” Then we both laughed.

Don

I attend an Alzheimer’s support group each month.

Second Wednesday at 2 pm in the Church of the Brethren, Orchard and Middleton. Nice looking church, not my church, but what I know of it I like.

The support group is facilitated by three men: Walt, whose wife is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s; Dave who cared for his mother who had dementia (not AD) and died a few years ago as well as Don, the assistant pastor of the church (whose son was the senior pastor until last summer). Don came on board because it was his church, and many members of the group are also church members. All three are wonderfully good guys.

Dave runs a mechanic shop, Walt lives across the street from the church. Don said they started the group as some way to get Walt into a church, and the both laughed.

Don’s son has been the senior pastor of this congregation, then they left to go on a two year mission. Don and his wife Dorothy have been married about 60 years, in age, Don is getting close to his mid 80’s. He is a canadian by birth (talks it too) and a WWII navy vet. He has a genuine easy smile and that ease of being around others that puts us al at ease.

He told us a few months back that his wife had been diagnosed with cancer. She was doing quite well we were sure told, Don’s faith was strong, but he knew reality. Last Wednesday Don could not be to the meeting, Dorothy was having surgery.

Today Walt called to tell me that Dorothy passed today.

I won’t see Don for at least a month (we met this last Wednesday), but I will think of him often. I know it is coming, but loosing a long time partner and friend has to be the hardest thing there is in this life.

contentment

I wasted a lot of my life.

Some wise person said that at the beginning of your life find some work that you like so much that it is a joy for you. I got close at one point, but never quite made the cut. So I warred with my head and gut. Frustration seemed to be my constant companion.

My daughters and Miriam brought (and bring) me great joy. I don’t remember any time not being hopelessly in love with each of them. Now we have added another generation, fine grand children that I am so proud of.

But I often felt frustrated with my career path.

I think my life started to feel a bit more comfortable when we went back to college in our mid 40’s. We both enjoyed the school work. I was teaching, something I love to do. We were making art. We were a long way from home, but the whole challenge of it was somehow very satisfying.

My goal was to get a job as a college teacher somewhere, but regrettably I picked a field that was swamped with qualified applicants. I sent out hundreds of resumes, but never could get a full time teaching gig. There were lots of part time jobs, but part time teaching is not good for the teacher.

Miriam has this horrid disease that is taking her away from me, but interestingly, I have found a great deal of contentment in the last decades. I am not smart enough to know how all of this came about, but I like it.

It took me about a week to adjust to retirement. I am sure that is a sign of some personal failure, but I like that too!

work station

This year I decided to build a fold up work station to go in the house. On cold days or when I want to be close to Miriam, it is a good place to work, and it is all portable and on wheels, so i can move it to another studio if I choose.

The doors for the lower section open to support the drop front on the top section to make a desk. Folded it is 19" deep and 32" wide. The light is one i got from Ikea in Oakland CA, when I visited there last year.

So far it has worked very well.

gadgets

I have a son in law who loves gadgets, particularly electronic ones.

Christmas time he showed me a device called “MagicJack” that plugs into your computer and into a regular old fashioned phone, and allows you to call on the computer for a fee of $20 a year.

Curtis takes it with him when he goes away from home on business, so he does not use up his cell minutes.

He asked if it would be useful to me, and I agreed that it would. So yesterday I got it set up and it works wonderfully. The sound is as good as any phone I ever heard, and gave me a chance to rescue our old PINK princess phone!

So I talked with Deanna last night for 40 minutes and it did not go against my cell time and I was delighted on two levels.

It seems that every thing is going up in price, insurance, groceries and so on, so it is good that I can cut my phone bill a hunk.

Normal 1 or 2 minute calls are not a problem at all. IT is those hour long calls we have with family that adds up the minutes. So I have asked them to call me on my regular phone and I’ll call them back on the computer phone, and we can talk as long as we like!

Thanks Curtis.

addendum

I think it is not considered good etiquette to eat a corner out of a dish of food before taking it to a potluck, so it went with a bit of trepidation. Was it cooked enough? Was it good?

I sat to eat besides my friend Coralee. I ask her about cooking from time to time, and I had talked to her about my potatoes.

She said they were good. I tasted mine and thought they could have been cooked a bit longer, and she said “No, they are fine.” When Coralee says that she means just that.

At the end of the meal there was two servings of apple crisp left, which with a dollop of ice cream (thanks Chris -- I don’t take ice cream to potlucks, but I sure eat it at home!), we took care of last night. It was good.

And we polished the potatoes off for breakfast.


But next time we have a potluck, I will remember what Coralee suggested and make the potatoes again! I asked daughter one about potlucks. I felt a bit intimidated by all of those good cooks in my group. She said find something I could do well do and work on it until it is good and every one will like it.

So, potatoes it is, ready or not!

early morning ramblings

Last night I was bone tired, so I went to bed at 10, and 5 hours later, just like I could predict, I was wide awake. I laid in bed for another half hour, and t hen got up. That is why I rarely go to bed “early.”

I’ll be up till about 6, then I’ll go back to bed and sleep another couple of hours. It will work out alright.


When I woke up I had just had a dream and it was all twisted and turned like dreams, but it kicked up my thinking. What will it be like in 15 years? I am healthy enough, and baring an accident or an opportunistic disease, I’ll be around and be in pretty good health too.

My grand kids will range from 26 to 40. Miriam will likely be gone, and I will be alone. I will be living some where near a daughter, some way. It could be here and it could be there, but it will all be different. I might be living in my RV or I might be living in a room at the back of the shop. That part is not predictable.

I go see my doctor Monday. Miriam has Alzheimer’s and sees the doctor once a year, I am the caregiver and for a while I saw my doctor every month. Routine stuff, but she wanted to make sure I was staying healthy as the caregiver. The last time I was there she said I was in “remarkably good health.” This visit is routine too. I hope it is boring!

So I will likely be around, but I cannot help wonder about my family and friends. One person suggested that you make young friends regularly along the way so when you are old you will still have a few friends left. Otherwise It could be pretty lonesome I fear.


This week we had some apples that were “short dated” meaning they going bad soon. Miriam asked what should we do with them: make a pie or apple crisp. I have always preferred the crisp, so I told her to get the apples pealed and I would make an apple crisp of them.

She pitched a fit about me and my bossiness and how she was capable but how I butted in, and so on. I backed off gracefully, and said she could go ahead, and she did.

It was not too good. For some reason apples baked in hunks without any liquid do not cook well, and she used too little toping, and to make up for that shortage, she put a layer of cocoanut on top. I ate some for breakfast ( with a bit of granola it was pretty good -- but it was a good sized dish).


We have a potluck tomorrow, so I looked at that ¾ dish of apple crisp, and I decided to "repurpose" it. I added some apples to make up for those I had eaten. I made a new batch of topping. I baked it until the apples were soft, but I wanted a bit more of a brown on the top so I put it under the broiler and browned it a bit.

Last night after I slowed down, Miriam decided that I had burned that top layer, so she painstakingly picked off each tiny fleck of what she thought was “burned.” I was hoping that it looked bad enough I could bring a good bit of it back to eat with a bit of ice cream! We will still see how this all works out.


It seems that life is pretty well what you make of it. Some of us are dealt more bad cards than others, but few are dealt a really hot hand. I would do anything to not have Miriam with this disease, but with a lot of humor and a bit of love and patience we are doing fairly well, but that could be a self perpetuating fantasy as well.

But in 15 years I will be in my mid 80’s What will be different? Maybe almost every thing.

Hmm.

nobody

I have been thinking a lot about our new president.

OK, our president elect. He has 12 days then the problems of the world settle on his head. We all wait to see how he acts or reacts to this or that.

But it was not long ago he was a guy from a rather confused family, who though very bright, was unheard of outside his circle. Even a member of the state government does not cause a big following.

I live near the capital of our state, Linda (daughter 4) used to live there and we would visit her often. For a while she owned a retail store down town. I have walked down the street and greeted the mayor of the city, and watched the Governor drive his Suburban away from the capital building.

They are known but not really adversely so. Shucks the guy who represents me in state government lives a block away from my house. He will probably hold that position for a long time, he just retired from his “regular” job a few years ago! In my state we do not pay our legislators a whole lot, nor do we expect too much of them. It is a wonderful retirement job!

So I watch the hubbub about our new president. He has gone from a regular guy who would ride his bicycle around his town, to the most guarded and protected guy on the planet.

More than even he could imagine his life will be forever changed. I am not talking about power and all of that stuff. I am talking about privacy, the ability to walk down the street and be ignored.

A lot of us would like to be famous and maybe even rich, but we have no idea of what that would involve.

So as I watch the ceremonies of the change of administration, read about the appointments and the decisions, I also see a little kid who had one grandpa who was white and one who was black. He did not grow up in wealth, luxury and power, but lived much of the time with his grandparents, sometimes in an apartment.

I wish him well, we need good leadership, the whole world does, but as I watch I am so glad I can walk down the street and no one cares. You can drive right up to my house, in fact you can walk up to my front door and ring the bell. Leo may bark, but at 13 pounds he is pretty harmless.

I like being nobody.

and more

It is winter after all.

More snow last night. December one of the snowiest winters here in this valley.

We need a convergence of cold weather and moisture to get snow, and we don’t always get both at the same time. More snow is predicted each day this week.

Some years back I bought a box trailer to use in my work. The trailer box is 12 feet long and 6’ wide and a bit over 6’ high inside, so it is not a tiny trailer, for sure. Right after I bought it, we had a snow storm, 5 or 6 inches of snow.

I hooked the trailer to my trusty Chevy pickup and went off to work.

The trailer did not have brakes and it was not easy to stop or start or to keep moving in a straight line. I brought it back to where I bought it and had them install brakes. What a difference that made.

I have pulled it through a good number of snow storms since then. But that was then, today is another day of retirement for me and I don’t expect to leave our acre. I’ll take the dog out, shovel a bit of snow, and spend the day in my cabinet shop working on a portable work desk for inside the house.

While I have a nice small studio, in the winter I hate to spend money to heat it. I figured I could do a lot of work here in the house, so I set up a card table in a corner behind the stove and set up shop.

It has worked out well enough to encourage me to build this desk. It is quite low, with doors that open on the lower section. The doors support the drop leaf from the top cabinet, giving me a good work space, AND the ability to put it away fairly easily.

Don’t push the put away too far. It is behind a door and I intend to work there, and not clean there.

In the long run I need to be working more toward systems where I can be with Miriam and enjoy her company as well as be her caretaker.

It is snowing hard right now, Leo thinks he wants to go out, but he will want to come back in very soon.

emily and brianna

This was a long time ago, the girls are 14 this year. I am the very proud grandpa.

friday

I did not listen carefully.

Emily has been with us for a few wonderful days. She has grown up so well, I am so proud of her, and treasure all of that special time.

I thought she was going to be with us nights until the first of next week, when she would fly back to portland. But just now her dad came to get her (we are on good terms with her dad, btw), and she is gone. Just like that.

While I did not understand the schedule, I took time to make us a breakfast of fresh fried potatoes and eggs with cheese, washed down with a glass of my famous (in the family at least) fruit smoothie.

Now she is gone.

Before she left she hugged me and told me that I had always been her father figure. That is a challenge I have taken very seriously for these short years. Her dad has not always been around.

I remember going to San Josen California to see Linda, Duane and Emily. Em was a couple of weeks old. I held her and looked at her tiny hands, each hand smaller than one of my thumbs, and I was in total, absolute awe. It was that grandpa kind of thing, where the old guy looks at the new generation and swoons. I never have gotten over seeing her for the first time.

Before her first birthday she moved with her mom to Idaho, living half an hour away. Most weekends she spent with us, and it was wonderful to have a little one around the house again. She went to church with us, and one week I was to play my trumpet for the service. Em and Miriam were on the back row (Em was still working on “church manners”). As I stood to play, with my trumpet in my hand, just before the accompaniment began, I heard this tiny voice. It was tiny, but in the silence of church it was loud: “PAPA!”

I smiled out loud, the congregation twittered approval and I played with energy.

That child has bored deep into my soul and I have loved her special. I have made a point in my life of never loving one child more than another, but the family has agreed that while I do not love Emily more than Jessica or Brianna or Amy, it is a special kind of love, nurtured by our being so close

Truthfully she has spent more time with us than she has with her father. I am not here to throw stones, that is just how it worked.

As I watch her grow (she is about 5’ 8” now) and get older and wiser (at 14, she is wise beyond her age) I am so proud of her.

But, lest you think I can only talk about Emily, I dare you to ask about Amy or Brianna or Jessica! They are all amazing women, these women and their mothers and aunts. I am honored to be the old guy.

two thousand nine?

Happy New Year every one.

May this year be a good one. May we once more remember that what we are is not what we have as possessions, but what we have as family and friends, and how we love and cherish them.

Even during tough times, good things happen.

Let’s look for the good around us.

proud papa

Christmas day I was watching dinner being prepared.

We were to have about 25 people for dinner, there was a lot of food that had to be prepared. The daughters had volunteered to cook (had they not volunteered the food would have been in short supply). While they worked, I was the designated watcher!

Our oldest daughter's house, where we were staying, has a good big kitchen, with a 3 ½ by 8 foot island in the center. In actuality it is the social center of the whole house.

My daughters were all working. There was not room for me, or I did not look for room maybe. Miriam was putting a puzzle together in another room. I watched in pleased amazement.

The four girls work together, they laughed, they teased about who was in charge of what, the cooked and had such a great time. Each of them are avery fine cooks in their own rights, but their styles vary quite a bit, but here they worked in wonderful harmony.

I was so proud to be their father. Later in the preparation, Mandy, who is our oldest grandson’s new wife (OK, they have been married a year and a half) joined in and the 5 of them worked as a wonderful crew.

Of course the dinner was wonderful, but what will always be in my mind and memory is the picture of the love and cooperation I was seeing.