The first rain of the season

Today we are having our first real rainstorm of the fall, and it is so pleasant we have been sitting around all morning enjoying it. The trees are blowing around and there are leaves all over the ground. It will make it a little wet for trick or treaters. but they never seem to mind. We are somewhat isolated here, but we always get about twenty or so, and we really do love to see them.
My neighbor called to say that she had read that in California it is possible to practice medicine without a license. Where in the world did she read that? I went onto the internet and looked at several newspapers, including the S. F. Chronicle, and found nothing like that at all. I hope she brings the article over - I would like to see it. Not that I would consult an unlicensed practitioner but it is a matter of interest, at least.
The election is coming up and none too soon, as far as I am concerned. I have even gotten a little bored with Obama, eloquent speaker as he is. Sometimes I listen to him and the cadence of his voice mesmerizes me, but when he is done, I have no idea what he said. We used to get the same effect from listening to Swami Chinmayananda when we attended his classes. It was as though we were hypnotized!
I didn't vacuum the carpets today, even though they could use a good cleaning. I am trying to follow my own advice to lighten up on my compulsive cleaning, so I forced myself to just let them be. It wasn't all that hard, ha, ha!
Bye, take care and keep in touch.

You can't win

This happened in our little house about a year ago. I thought it worth mention just for the humor involved.

Scene 1

Family room, in great disarray. Furniture is shoved down to the far end of the room. Blocks of 4X4 wood are piled up in the middle of the room. Tools are strung around and sliding glass door is off the track and standing up against the wall. Clock on wall says 6:30.

Enter wife. Looks dismayed but says nothing. Husband is working on door. He looks cheerful and relaxed.

Husband: “See these screws? They adjust the depth of these little wheels that slide along the track. I have to make them longer.”

Wife: (nodding) “O.K.”
Husband works diligently with screwdriver. Wife looks and cries out in alarm.

Wife: “Stop! Stop!. You’re taking the frame apart.”

Husband mutters but tightens screw. Loosens other screw and the wheels fall completely out.

Husband: “There. There’s the problem. The wheels are flat.”

Wife takes wheels and runs them along the track of the door frame. They wheel smoothly. Husband then takes off the other set of wheels and they appear to be unharmed as well. Husband now attempts to put them back on the door.

Scene 11

Clock on wall shows 9:00. Husband and wife are in kitchen, eating can of Dinty Moore beef stew. Husband is frustrated. Wife is tired.

Wife: “We could stop and work on the door tomorrow. I’m a llttle tired.”

Husband: “Go to bed then. You’re no help anyway. I can do it myself.”

Scene 111

Family room where husband and wife are trying to get the door back on track. Husband is using crow bar, cats paw, spatula and various putty knives and the 4X4 boards to winch the heavy door up into position. The clock on the wall shows 11:30. Husband tries to lift door by himself and actually gets it up on the track. The wheels still won’t roll and husband wrestles with it, moving it an inch or two by brute force. Wife (fearing he will suffer physical damage) finally speaks.

Wife: “We could just leave it and call the window and door people. This is a two-person job and we don’t have the proper tools. It won’t cost too much.”

Husband throws tools down on the rug, utters a rude expression and gives the door a good kick. Door thumps into position and slides easily back and forth. Mission accomplished!

Scene 1V

Wife and husband are drinking hot coffee in kitchen and resting before cleaning up the family room.

Husband: “I think next I’ll tackle the kitchen sink. I’d like to put in a new stainless steel one. And the hot water heater needs a new element.”

Wife says nothing, until husband goes back into family room.

Wife: “You can’t win. I won’t even try.”

Exits to help husband. Clock says 12:30.

On Throwing Things Away

The following little ditty was presented as my offering to my writing class on the assignment we were given to write about throwing things away. I couldn't resist waxing poetic.


I rummaged in my bureau drawer
which always is a mess
I threw away my old brasiers
With pleasure, I confess.

Old socks went too and handkerchiefs
and pairs of underwear
Pajamas, scarves, belts and such
All hiding from me there.

I didn't waste a lot of time
there still was much to do.
I went into the closet
And found an unmatched shoe;

That was just the start of things
I now was in full swing
Old lipstick, powder and perfume
I threw out everything.

I could go on and on of course
I threw out lots of stuff
My husband said with great dismay
"I think you've done enough."

It sounded like an order
There was nothing I could say
Except to mutter to myself
"There'll be another day."

I apologize for an occasional spelling error in my blogs. I notice that I spelled "flour" as "flower" in my last blog. Sometimes I get carried away and don't even notice an error when I read my blog over. But keep in touch and thanks for your comments.

A One-Act Play

The following little scene happened a few months ago and describes one of the moments of drama that we experience now and again in our quiet little household. We remember it with amusement now.

A ONE-ACT PLAY

Scene: Husband and wife are standing in kitchen, peering into food cabinet.

Husband: What do you feel like eating?

Wife: What is there to eat? We're out of everything.

Husband: There's a can of refried beans on the second shelf. Could you make something with that?

Wife: I wish we had some tortillas. We could have beans and tortillas.

Husband: Couldn't you make some? See if there's a recipe in Joy of Cooking.

Wife looks in book and finds recipe for tortillas.

Wife: reading aloud: Two cups of corn meal, one cup of warm water and pinch of salt. Mix together with hands and make 12 balls. Flatten with plate. Fry in skillet. Sounds easy enough. We do have corn meal.

Husband measures carefully. After washing hands, he follows instructions and mixes corn meal and water and attempts to make balls. Corn meal and water crumble and fall all over the countertop, and husband scrapes it all back up into bowl and looks helplessly at wife.

Wife: Try adding more water. Make it warmer.

Husband adds more water and gets mush. He tries to drain it on paper towels and finally throws the whole mess in the trash basket.

Wife: You must have measured wrong. Try again.

Husband: Read the recipe again.

Wife: 2 cups corn flour, l cup water, pinch of salt.

Husband utters cry of indignation. You said corn meal. The recipe says corn flour. You read the recipe wrong.

Wife wordless cleans up mess and washes dishes. They eat toast and refried beans and scrambled eggs.

Did I learn anything from this experience? I learned to keep more supplies on hand. I learned to read recipes more carefully. And I learned that toast and beans aren't bad, after all.

Growing up on a little farm miles from the nearest town, we often had to make do with what we had on hand. Sometimes the results of my mother's innovations were remarkably tasty. One example is her emergency hasty pudding mix, made of white flower and water, served with canned blueberries or milk and cinnamon. She could cook up a squirrel stew to feed the whole family and leave us feeling as though we had just eaten a feast. Her venison roasts were as tasty as anything one could get in a fancy restaurant. Why I am not a good or enthusiastic cook I will never know. Meantime, I am trying to learn to at least read the recipes.

Ships that pass in the night

Playing chess on the internet is like a blind date, or perhaps can best be described as a one-night stand. It is possible to set up an encounter with a specific player if both know where to find each other, but usually it's catch-as-catch-can, and one night I plunged into the game as one of over 7,000 players. i logged into a social room, meaning one where anyone of any skill level could be found, and found LoonieMommy31 waiting on the black side of the board, waiting for an opponent.
Perfect. Her (or his) score was 1173. Mine was 1176. I clicked onto the sit button and typed in a greeting. Loonie shot back the letters asl, and I typed in "I am an 86- year-old Grandmother from California."
No one ever believes me, except for a priest from New Orleans, who responded with a non-committal answer which I have now forgotten. But Loonie shot back "LOL" which means "Laughing out loud." "It's true," I protested and Loonie answered "Liar. If you can't play any better than you can lie, I will knock you off the board."
I of course accepted the challenge, and the game was on. We both played conservatively and used up about twelve moves to set up our pieces. The pawns moved up to the middle of the board, making room for the bishops to move out. The knights sashayed up to the middle, where they faced each other in the classic English opening. Loonie and I both castled. Loonie moved down to threaten my rook.
What happened next defies all logic, It will forever remain a mystery to me. I honestly don't know what I did. Without even meaning to I somehow performed a brilliant move which checkmated Loonie, and ended the game. I only know that I shot up the queen to push back the knight, and the little notice came up on the board saying "Checkmate. White wins the game."
I was so shocked that I failed to type in the traditional "good game" message that the winning player usually sends the loser. I tried to see what I had done, I did invite LoonieMommy to play another game, but then I saw that LoonieMommy had left the room.
Like ships that pass in the night, make brief contact and then go on their way, we had met briefly and parted. How will I ever find her (or him) again? Sometimes as many as 9,000 players are on board. I will play again, and as almost always, will meet someone interesting and fun, but I will always remember Loonie and my miraculous win.

Thou Shalt Not

This afternoon I attended a memorial for a friend from my writing class who had sadly passed away. We gathered together to read some of her poems and remember her humor and kindness. In looking up her poems in my collection of writings, I came across some of my own little essays and memoirs. I will insert one or two from time to time, but tonight I thought I would put in a few sentences from one of my shorter offerings. It is titled "Thou Shalt Not" and follows below:
1. Thou shalt not nag Thou spouse.
2. Thou shalt not heap scorn upon Thy spouse"s diminishing physical capabilities.
3. Thou shalt not buy lottery tickets with the grocery money.
4. Thou shalt not tell Thy wife that her new outfit makes her look fat.
5. Thou shalt not leave the toilet seat up.
6. Thou shalt not tell Thy wife how to drive the car.
7. Thou shalt not sneak money out of Thy husband's wallet.
8. Thou shalt not let the dog sleep on Thy bed.
9. Thou shalt not sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night and drink up all of the milk.
We had a lot of fun with this offering, with the members of the class adding their own admonitions and some pithy comments were exchanged. The class has disbanded now, as some of the members are incapacitated or have moved to retirement homes. I suppose more and more we will be attending memorials, as we are all now in our late eighties or even nineties. But it is a segment in my life that I remember with great fondness.

A few days of idleness, a day or two of contemplation

Howdy! I am back in action again after a couple of days of some strange malady which kept me on the couch with my husband in attendance at my beck and call. I was, for some reason, dizzy when I tried to walk, and could only stagger around, even needing to be helped into the bathroom from time to time. Then in the evening, my arms went numb and I could see only a little, with black spots dancing before my eyes. I naturally feared the worst, but I thought, "If this is how death comes to me, this isn't that bad. I'll shut my eyes, say the Act of contrition, and off I'll go." Luckily, it wasn't to be, and today I am recovered, and getting ready to go to a memorial service for a long-time friend, who used to attend a writing class with me, and wrote heart-breaking poetry. She had been ill for quite a while, and I hope her passing was easy.
We still have our little boxer dog, who sneaked into the living room and stretched herself out on the sofa when I wasn't looking, and looked so comfortable that I let her stay there awhile. She knows exactly what is permitted and what is not, but like a child she tries to get away with mischief now and then. She follows my husband around like a shadow.
While laid up on the sofa, I listened to a good book tape about the Civil War. The carnage that went on between the two armies seems unbelievable to us now, sometimes they fought face-to-face, clubbing each other with gun butts and swards, at other times firing point-blank into each others faces. I have enjoyed going to Civil War Reenactments in the summer and they are very interesting.
It is interesting to me that although I am a skeptic about religion, if I am ill or injured, out comes the rosary and my lips move in prayer and it does seem to help. I though I had forgotten the Act of contrition, but when I needed it, there it was. Old habits die hard.
bye all, and stay in touch. I love getting comments.

Hobos and woodpiles

My husband is watching a movie on television and the dishwasher is loaded, waiting for me to push the button. We had a nice dinner and a bowl of freshly popped popcorn, and are going to make out the shopping list soon. How fast the week has gone!
We are having cooler weather, and our wood supply still hasn't come. The dealer is having trouble with his truck. Our situation reminds me of the huge woodpile we used to have stacked up in front of our little house in Wisconsin when I was growing up there. I have somewhere a picture of my father posing beside the split wood, ax in hand, showing off his huge supply of wood. Actually, he seldom split wood. The job was usually done by my brothers or various hobos who showed up at the house, willing to work for food. Some of them split the wood easily, others labored mightily. It all depends on the aim of the ax and the speed with which it descends. When we moved into this house, there were several cords of wood stacked in the driveway and in the woodshed. It took us a couple of years to burn it all.
One never sees hobos anymore. During the depression, they came along fairly often. Since our farm was only about a mile from the train tracks and the main road, they found it easy enough to pay us a call. My mother always managed to scratch up enough food to give them a decent meal, and if they were clean and interesting, they got to eat on the kitchen porch. Other-wise, it was out on the steps. We never felt particularly threatened by any of them, they were just a fact of life in those hard times.
I listened to Coast-To-Coast radio last night, and the topic of conversation was the book labeled "The Forgotten Man," detailing the many aspects of the depression of the thirties. The forgotten man apparently was Herbert Hoover, and I will certainly try to get a copy of the book to read. I really don't think we are headed for another time such as that, but you never know.
time to go and make out the shopping list. Goodnight and keep in touch.

Motorcycles and memories

This is an ideal time to blog - dinner is cooking on the stove (Swiss Steak), my husband is listening to a Mountain Man book tape, and the dog is on her bed listening for noises from outside. I had been listening to the book as well, but it is pure fantasy with the Mountain Man, Smoke Jensen, slaughtering about three men in every chapter, usually by gunshot but occasionally by fire, explosives or drowning. Now his wife Sally has been kidnapped by three outlaws and heaven knows what Smoke Jensen will do to them when he finds them, which he will. I am better off not knowing!
This has been a quiet day, with the neighbors all off on their motorcycles and nothing much going on in the neighborhood. My husband used to have a motorcycle that he rode up and down the hills and valleys of Marin, usually with me riding on the back. I will admit that there is something hugely macho about a man roaring up and down on his "wheels" and to the female clinging on behind, he seems as close to Godly as a man can get. We got brushed off the road by a car one time, and as the motorcycle skidded down into the ditch, my husband yelled "jump!" and we both threw ourselves off at the same time. I landed with a thump onto his broad back and neither of us was hurt a bit. We laugh about it now but the driver of the car neither slowed down nor seemed to notice what she had done. It was not an uncommon experience.
Not being able to drive a car or ride his motorcycle after he lost his vision was probably the hardest thing for my husband to endure. He especially suffered when I was driving and he was a helpless passenger. He noted and remarked upon every little mistake I made. Then six years ago I had a diabetes episode (luckily at home, not behind the wheel of the car) and my doctor warned me not to drive anymore. We do have a kind daughter who takes us anywhere we need to go. I suppose there are a good number of people driving around who should give up the privilege but one can't blame them for resisting.
Well, only a couple of weeks before the big day. We are waiting with bated breath. Take care and keep in touch.

The debate, at last

Time has passed so quickly that I can't believe it's been ten days since I last entered a blog. I guess i was waiting for the debate to gather my thoughts together enough to write a little. It was a good debate, but didn't change my mind one whit. I voted for Obama on an absentee ballot, and made sure I mailed it in. We have a new mail carrier and the poor fellow has such a long route that he doesn't get to my mail box until six in the evening. Being new, he is still a little slow.
My husband used to deliver mail, and had a very interesting route. He carried the mail on his back, in a pouch, walking down Madrone Canyon in Larkspur, California, and delivered to several of the music groups including the Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, who was a dear, if eccentric, little soul. She used to meet him at the door with a cup of coffee, and greeted him as warmly as she would have greeted her own Daddy, causing us to think that maybe she considered him to be a father figure. Although surrounded by a group of hangers on, she still seemed to be lonely. That was long ago, in the early seventies. On Saturdays I used to walk the route with him. He was liked by everyone on the route.
Oh, those were the days. We used to walk up the mountain to what was known as the East Peak, which we reached by walking the fire trail which started right behind our house. Halfway up was a rustic Mountain Home Inn, where lunch could be purchased, quite delicious, and then the trail continued up and up to the very top of Mount Tamalpais, and the whole valley would be spread out far below. If we looked carefully we could see our little house almost hidden among the redwood trees.
It seems rather ironic that I can hardly walk today. I use a cane and stagger around holding onto doorways and railings when i go up and down steps. It's not so much the result of my broken hip as the consequences of Parkinson's Disease, a troubling and almost untreatable affliction. But one cannot reach my advanced age without a few ailments. I keep up my spirits and can still do all of my own housework. My faithful husband is always at hand.
I will try to get in the groove once again. Take care and keep in touch.

The first rain and the first fire in the stove

It's hard to believe that this is Sunday evening already. Where did the week go? We had the first rain of the season yesterday and built our first fire in the wood stove last night. We heat mainly by electricity but there is something so comforting about a wood fire that we couldn't resist lighting it and letting the warm glow of the flames light the room. With a contented sigh, the dog settled down in front of it, and stayed there quietly until we went to bed. We don't actually burn wood anymore, but do burn pressed wood logs which are a lot easier to light and make a lot less ashes.
Tomorrow is shopping day, so I will soon have to make out the list for the week, and hope that I don't forget any vital item. My husband does the shopping, with the help of my son-in=law who kindly takes him to the store and helps find items now and then. He does pretty well, at that. Once in a while he will read my list incorrectly and I will find an item I didn't want in the shopping bag, but it happens very rarely. I used to go along as well, but as I no longer can walk well, they find it easier to leave me home! I spend the time tidying up the house and rather enjoy my time alone.
I am afraid my creative ideas aren't very evident tonight. Am I slowing down? Or am I simply in a slump? For a while in my life I took valium which leveled out my moods and then i was switched to zanax, which made me somewhat giddy all of the time. Now I resort to Tylenal but only about once a week. I'll try to be more inspired next time I blog! Good night all and keep in touch.

They went ahead and did it

Hi. Ye Gods, they passed the bail-out bill! We're supposed to call it the rescue package, but let's call it what it is, a bail-out of the big banks and corporations. I was and still am opposed to the action, but I have no doubt it will pass the House and become a fact of life.
This has been a hectic and nerve wracking week. I have to confess that I have sat crouched over the Television for hours on end listening to the debates in the house and watching the voting as it went down the tubes. Of course the Senate passed it and one would have to admit that it was inevitable that it would be passed. Now the House will pass it and we will resign ourselves to watching history unfold once again. I don't subscribe to the gloom and doom attitude, however. I think we would have been all right letting the stock market take its course. I can say that with a light heart, as I don't and never have owned any stocks or bonds. Neither have I or my husband made large purchases with our credit cards and we always paid cash for our cars and furniture. I can't remember when credit cards came into being, but we have about twelve of them which we keep in a drawer and never use. We use one of them for small purchases and pay up the balance every month.
This has been a fun week as well, as we went to a rip-roaring party on Saturday, with good food and wine, music and dancing and about two hundred guests singing and dancing. I tried to coax my husband out onto the dance floor, as they were dancing the "Minnesota Two-Step", which he knows how to do, but he refused to budge, and sat at the table charming the other two ladies who shared the table with us. I mingled among the other tables and met a lady who claimed to have been married and widowed four times, and had sixteen grandchildren. I rather think she was spoofing me. Later i saw her dancing the boogie-woogie with a nimble-footed elderly gentleman.
Last Sunday my family were all here for my birthday, and I got to rock my little great-granddaughter to sleep, singing songs to her and reciting nursery rhymes. My husband said she fell asleep to escape my singing!
Tonight will be the VP debate, and in preparation we are having TV dinners so we will have no dishwashing chores after we eat. These are indeed exciting times. Glad I am still here for them.