tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76925892329632993422024-03-19T03:48:45.825-05:00Melody MeandersMelodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.comBlogger530125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-83943797411195264952021-11-06T11:34:00.001-05:002021-11-07T00:40:04.811-05:00This Old House - Part 2<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">We were committed. Our offer and deposit had been accepted
and we were “pre-approved” for a loan. Next steps were getting an appraisal, a
pest and home inspection, filling out the loan paperwork, and waiting.
Agonizing waiting. Everything had to go through, we had no options. It was
either Spring Street or a campsite under a bridge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The pest report only called out water damage from a leaking shower
pan in the downstairs bathroom, my bathroom. The whole house inspection was a
horror story, pages filled with diagrams, red arrows, underlined passages, and
exclamation points. We decided to ignore it. The roof was sound and that was
what we needed: a roof over our heads. The house had stood for 131 years. Realistically,
Colleen needed only 30 more. Inexplicably, but fortuitously, the appraisal
came in where we needed it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I’m not sure what “pre-approved is supposed to mean – in our
case it meant nothing. We completed piles of paperwork, submitted them, and
then the lender wanted proof my retirement income would continue until my
death. I provided statements demonstrating it was adequately funded, 1099’s,
photocopies of bank accounts, and nothing seemed to satisfy. They wanted a
statement declaring my employer promised to pay until my death. I had no such
thing, but I did have a 122-page document describing IBM’s several pension
plans, although it did not specify which was my plan. I submitted it. I’m sure
no one read it or understood it, I certainly hadn’t. But the lenders gave in and
approved the loan.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The clock was ticking, we were on tenterhooks, but we were
ready, all documents were signed and delivered to the title company. The seller
just had to submit his package and escrow could close. But he didn’t. He
suffered a stroke on a Friday afternoon and lay in a coma on life support in
the hospital. He was single, his only relative was his 86-year-old feeble
mother. If he died, we were doomed. Our only hope was that he would live and
that his mother could quickly gain guardianship. Prayer warriors were summoned,
and he did live. Monday morning his mother applied for guardianship; the court
was cooperative and rushed it through. And we exhaled. The deal closed; we
gained title, for better or worse. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Colleen moved in immediately, just as her lease was running
out. The work on the shower had not been completed, so my move was delayed. However,
my landlord graciously extended my occupancy a couple of weeks. The bathroom
repairs proceeded. Tile was removed from the floor and the bottom 12 inches of
the shower wall to access and remove the shower pan. The demolition revealed
that the shower pan was intact, the pest report was erroneous, and there had
been no need to replace it. However, it was replaced, and the stall was now
ready for use. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Because the old toilet in the same bathroom was too low for
my comfort, it was removed, and a new slightly taller model installed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the meanwhile, dear friends painted my bedroom. The
oppressive dark green wall and the ceiling now soothed me with a beautiful shade
of sky blue, complemented by the soft pink of the remaining walls. It looks
clean and gentle, like a baby’s room, making me feel safe and warm. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just as we were unpacking and settling in, a letter arrived
from our homeowner’s insurance company demanding we make several repairs to
keep our policy in force, or it would be cancelled July 7, just two months
away. We were told our decayed front steps, porch, and the balustrade that was
held together with chicken wire had to be replaced; the broken stained glass in
the front door fixed, some rotten siding dealt with, and the dead ivy and tree
limbs overhanging the house removed. Time was short and so were our finances. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Fortunately, Colleen was on sabbatical from her job at Blue
Shield. When she was not working at getting settled, she was engaged in
volunteer work with the homeless of our community. Many of the unhoused men
were highly skilled and willing workers. They became our labor pool.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">70-year-old Floyd rebuilt our front stairs, porch, and
balustrade. He wasn’t homeless, but he was desperately impoverished and eager
to earn some money. Summer heat was merciless, temperatures reached 110
degrees, often too hot to work outdoors, especially for someone his age and
with a history of TIAs. The quality of Floyd’s work was beyond reproach, but
the pace was agonizingly glacial. I harbored an unspoken fear he would suffer
heat stroke before finishing the job. We kept him hydrated and fed, and we
prayed. And he delivered.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we were
prioritizing home repairs, sewage seeped into our basement. The insurance
company demands had to take a back seat to this emergency. The drains were
snaked out, but only a trickle made it through the system. After days of trying
all sorts of chemical and poking maneuvers, it was apparent that the sewer pipes
were ruptured somewhere along the line. It seemed obvious that roots of the
huge sycamore tree lurking in the front yard had invaded the system. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Again, Colleen employed a couple of her acquaintances -- skilled
handymen with strong backs and empty wallets. Digging out the leaking sewer
line was a nasty job. We soon dubbed the hole in the front yard the poop pit. The
effort involved much more than simply digging; roots as big as the largest
limbs overhead had to be sawed through and removed – some weighed as much as
100 pounds. And there were large rocks as well. The ancient terra cotta pipe
was a shambles. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">We sparingly used the toilets. Water from the dishwasher,
shower, and laundry flowed through easily. On a daily basis, it was necessary
to access the broken pipe in the poop pit and use a hose to flush the sewage
into the main. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The digging began at a point near the front edge of our
property. The pipe went under the sidewalk and joined the main somewhere in the
middle of the street. The city of Placerville informed us we were responsible
for everything up to the main, even though it ran through city property. So, as
work progressed, the poop pit became a poop tunnel, all excavated manually in
the summer heat. Six feet deep and twice as long, the hole could accommodate a
couple of bodies. Possibly insurance adjusters. After two months of living
with an open sewer, the main was reached; roots, rocks, and terra cotta shards
were removed, and PVC pipe was installed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the meanwhile, work continued on the insurance company’s
demands. Rotten siding was replaced, the stained-glass window repaired, dead
ivy still clung to the house and the tree limbs of the evil sycamore tree
drooped over the roof. The house needed paint – the new porch and replaced
siding were bare, the ivy destroyed the paint, and the house was an icky shade of
dirty yellow, like a mixture of mustard and mud. This time we called in the
pros. They had the scaffolding and ladders needed to reach 30 feet where the
ivy clung. Days of scraping and power washing preceded the application of the
beautiful sea-foam green paint. Dark green, white, and a burnt orange front
door accented the decorative Victorian details that made the house worthy of
Placerville’s Registry of Historic Homes. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">On July 4<sup>th</sup>, just 3 days short of the insurance
company’s deadline, the tree in the front yard came down. Again, a couple of
Colleen’s underemployed acquaintances signed on to the job. Bob was a certified
arborist who had difficulty managing his life and his business. But he had
tools, skill, and the need for cash. Until that day, I had never thought of
tree felling as a spectator sport, but I was enthralled. The removal was
challenging. Picket fences extended north and south from the trunk; immediately
to the east was the sidewalk and busy Highway 49. Overhead utility wires were laced
through the heavily leaved branches and the house with many windows was due
west. The tree had to come down limb by limb with Bob climbing into the highest
reaches more than 30 feet off the ground. While still on the tree, limbs had to
be cut with a chainsaw into small enough pieces to be carefully lowered with
pulleys and ropes, threading through the utility wires. And all of this in 110-degree
heat. The tension and anticipation of horror I experienced evoked my memories
of the bull fight I had seen in Mexico City. Like the bull, the tree had met
its match, and Bob was in my eyes, a more glorious victor than any matador. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 264.5pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmOFO0-g3R9NLfW045WJvhXJTzwpVUGyPASRv46DUO16BLVYpGWBMLKJyGr3iZQxdgK1vIxtXHPLSLSXy9UqLl5hWw49MsgtQr2qqGD2uxzZWv7GHRXKXkRLnCj1sDWXnMeOFP4owaWQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="750" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmOFO0-g3R9NLfW045WJvhXJTzwpVUGyPASRv46DUO16BLVYpGWBMLKJyGr3iZQxdgK1vIxtXHPLSLSXy9UqLl5hWw49MsgtQr2qqGD2uxzZWv7GHRXKXkRLnCj1sDWXnMeOFP4owaWQ/" width="306" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-52522795964396611992021-11-05T17:42:00.004-05:002021-11-05T23:16:45.771-05:00This Old House, Part 1<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">My landlord gave me notice. I had to be out by the first of
May. Coincidentally, my daughter had also received notice to vacate her home by
the same date. The housing market was nuts; rent and home prices were skyrocketing.
I needed wheel-chair accessible housing. She had two cats, and a son. We could
see that our only hope was to pool our resources and move into something, somewhere,
somehow, together. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">And so began the search. No rentals could be found to
accommodate our combined household; the tight market meant landlords were not
interested in feline tenants, and I needed stair-free access. Buying something,
anything, became our only option. Our budget was tight; we could only afford a
place at the lowest end of all the listings -- obviously, we would no longer be
living in El Dorado Hills. We cast our net 25 miles in all directions and found
that anyplace affordable to the west was in a scary neighborhood, so we looked
eastward, higher into the foothills, and zeroed in on Placerville. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The idea of Placerville appealed to both of us: not too
remote, charming historic downtown, and deep ancestral roots. By combining our
resources, we just might possibly qualify for one of the least expensive
listings on the market. I only cared that it was affordable and that I would be
able to navigate in my wheelchair, other than that, the choice was entirely up
to Colleen. I’m 82 years old and it’s not likely I will spend many years anywhere.
Colleen on the other hand, could end up spending decades in the place we landed.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">At least I thought I didn’t care about anything else. When
she told me she had found the place and made an offer, I thought our troubles
were over. And then she took me to see it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The 131-year-old Annie Jaeger House, listed on Placerville’s
directory of historical homes, is located on Spring Street, AKA Highway 49,
just four houses from Highway 50. Spring Street is a narrow two-lane road, with
no shoulders for parking and a constant stream of traffic. When she took me to see
it, we waited for a break in the flow before she pulled into the driveway. I
began to absorb some of the details. A scabious residue of dead ivy covered
much of the baby diaper yellow front of the house. The sagging and unusable
front steps led to a porch with a rotting balustrade that brought to mind the
meth mouth of the pedestrians who passed in a steady flow on the sidewalk. The
sense of dental decay was reinforced by the fence sorely in need of numerous
picket transplants. A huge sycamore tree planted in the middle of the front
yard laced its limbs through the utility wires and draped its boughs over the
roof thirty feet above ground level. The lush green front yard was filled with
some sort of lily-like plant with small white blooms. I broke off a bit of one
of the flowers and inhaled deeply. My eyes watered and I began to crave a
hamburger. The entire front yard was a patch of wild onions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">The clapboard siding was nearly intact, the porch and entry near
the driveway appeared serviceable, but steps made it inaccessible to my
wheelchair. We passed the three towering locust trees shading the porch while
shedding leaves in the rain gutters and made our way to the back of the house.
The back yard presented a vertical climb of around 20 feet over 30 feet of
horizontal space. Through a masterful engineering feat, it was terraced into
five usable levels, three of them paved while weeds flourished on two. The
hillside seemed sound even though a huge dark brown house loomed menacingly
just ten feet on the other side of the back fence. The hillside had held for more
than a century with no evidence of slippage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">We entered through the back door, unlocked because apparently
no skeleton key could be found to fit. Surprisingly, the interior was empty and
undisturbed, no one else seemed to have discovered the ease of entry. I worked
my way over the threshold in my wheelchair with some assistance from my daughter
and made a mental note that some accessibility accommodation would be
necessary. Old house smell came flooding into my nostrils and opened chambers
of memory. I had spent my teen years living in a derelict 1890’s Victorian
farmhouse. The olfactory sensation was a smoky blend of cigars, wood fire, dust,
and more than a century of human habitation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In front of me the
original wood floor extended through the dining room to the living room with nearly
opaque windows facing the street. Some of the windows were original glass,
others had been replaced. The floors were as wavy as the old windows. Rising
over the hump in the floor between the dining room and living room took a bit
of effort, but I coasted down the other side with ease. Gaps between the floorboards
had been filled at one time, but chunks of the filler had broken loose in
places leaving small trenches perfect for collecting debris of all sorts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I made a right turn through the doorway at the far end of the living room
and found myself in the entry hall. The front door, with its broken stained-glass
window was straight ahead. To my right 15 stairs with a wobbly banister rose to
the second floor – territory that would forever remain an inaccessible mystery
to me. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Just a bit further along to my right, next to the staircase,
the door to what was to become my bedroom stood open. As I scooted into the
room, I noticed at just below eye level the beautiful rose-colored intricately
worked hardware of the door latch and hinges. The door itself was solid, and
although scarred, still beautifully crafted. In the room, charming details in
the woodwork, picture rails, and window frames lay beneath the grit and grime
of the surface. The flickering blue pilot light of the propane stove standing
on a brick hearth at the far end of the room indicated that it was in working
order. It stood against a dark green wall that made the 12 by 15-foot room
appear smaller. No closet existed. A door in the green wall led to the lowest
terrace of the back yard.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">I retraced my path toward the back door we had entered, but
instead of exiting, I made a right turn into the kitchen. This room was a
one-story annex obviously added to the original two-story home. Further, we had
been told, it was completely rebuilt in 2008 after a tree had fallen from a
neighbor’s property smashing it and a car parked in the adjacent driveway.
Granite counters, lots of cupboards, stainless steel appliances, and great
lighting, while not in keeping with Victoriana, held promise of a good working
environment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oddly, the only bathroom downstairs opened directly into the
kitchen, an arrangement today’s building codes would not permit. The cramped
bathroom with its tiny shower had been rebuilt and seemed to be in good condition.
The toilet was too low for my convenience and would have to be replaced before
I could move in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">How could I tell my daughter what I really thought? She
loved it and only saw charm and potential where I saw decay, insurmountable
defects, and unaffordable repairs. However, the alternative seemed to be couch
surfing or living out of my car; this was clearly an instance of Hobson’s
Choice. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrdzKCnO4anGlEaYkCJCWmRAJdI4QCr7LwGRIt6kqVUz1CgP0Q-ixYBi8e2OXm3K1nH8C6E-vBGKoOYI3SvkG0MDc1GZHg7DXb7DzDQWc1v5pupOjT6VMQ4JpfubQpfA-gsYUbmJwa4cg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="725" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrdzKCnO4anGlEaYkCJCWmRAJdI4QCr7LwGRIt6kqVUz1CgP0Q-ixYBi8e2OXm3K1nH8C6E-vBGKoOYI3SvkG0MDc1GZHg7DXb7DzDQWc1v5pupOjT6VMQ4JpfubQpfA-gsYUbmJwa4cg/w585-h299/IMG_1861%255B719%255D.jpg" width="585" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-54034859192122020772021-01-06T17:10:00.000-06:002021-01-06T17:10:22.434-06:00Topless Club Sandwich<p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal">You’ve probably heard of the sandwich generation, the group
in the middle still raising kids while taking care of aging parents. Well, I
was a club sandwich, taking care of two generations older than me and two
generations younger. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My grandfather became homeless at the age of 92 when his
house burned down in the Oakland fire of 1991. He lost everything. I was living
alone in a four bedroom house, so he and his girlfriend moved in. Not only did
he need someplace to live, but he needed help dealing with settling his
insurance claims, replacing lost documents, building a new wardrobe, managing
his health care, and buying a replacement car. Yes, he was still driving.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My mother, his only child, was suffering from dementia. She
had gone downhill after the death of my father in 1984, so I took over managing
her life and care in a nearby facility. I tried having her live with me, hiring
people to assist, but she was insufferable. She refused to let caregivers do
their job. She wouldn’t eat food they prepared, wouldn’t allow them to bathe
and dress her, and wouldn’t go to doctor’s appointments without me. To preserve
my sanity, I placed her in a care home in 1990, but still managed her affairs,
took her to medical visits, and spent time with her.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Late 1992, my beloved brother was dying of AIDS in Issaquah,
Washington. Providing respite to his partner by sharing caregiving, I flew to
Washington from San Jose on Friday afternoons and returned Sunday evenings. Ken
died in January, 1993 and I served as executor of his estate with all its
concomitant duties.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Later in 1993, my younger daughter’s marriage failed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her ex-husband left the state and provided no
support for her or their three kids. I could not bear to see them suffer; I
needed to know they were safe. So the four of them moved into a house down the
street from where I lived. I provided rent, transportation, baby-sitting, and
pre-school tuition. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And I worked full time as a technical writer for IBM.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When my brother and grandfather died in 1993, I came into a
small amount of money. I knew I had to use some of it to bring a little fun
into my life. Taking a long hard look at the way I spent my time and the
towering responsibilities I still shouldered, I realized driving was the most
fun I had during those dreary days. I loved driving: the isolation, the time to
myself, singing out loud, drumming on the steering wheel, and forgetting about
the difficult reality of my day-to-day life. I was still locked into taking
care of my mother, my daughter, and my grandkids, so my escape would have to be
limited to the time I spent in the car. But, I could make it a lot more fun. I
could do it in a convertible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the age of 54, I walked into a Toyota dealership and
plunked down cash for a white Celica GT convertible. It was sweet, with a big
smile for a grill across the front of it, demure retracting headlights, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a sexy spoiler on the rear, grey leather
seats, and a black rag top. The first few days I was afraid to think about what
I had impetuously done. I continued driving my SUV while the convertible
huddled in the garage. From time to time, I opened the door from the kitchen to
the garage, saw that it was really there, and closed the door wondering what in
hell had possessed me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__sR7NRumetXPEBzifiK1xR6gLMM1IwARFDKNsqERyMmEBv_3H3wpFiI3jAZJq9kn3eua93G5YtbvRwfAl-roIm0x1VfB4i84-_fnDCnZeUtnFCLV9DoYE7xca-BnODIbGQf-B_eQo8Q/s573/1993+toyota+celica+gt+convertible+-+Google+Search+-+Google+Chrome+122021+44226+PM.bmp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="573" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__sR7NRumetXPEBzifiK1xR6gLMM1IwARFDKNsqERyMmEBv_3H3wpFiI3jAZJq9kn3eua93G5YtbvRwfAl-roIm0x1VfB4i84-_fnDCnZeUtnFCLV9DoYE7xca-BnODIbGQf-B_eQo8Q/w520-h287/1993+toyota+celica+gt+convertible+-+Google+Search+-+Google+Chrome+122021+44226+PM.bmp.jpg" width="520" /></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Before long, my daughter’s car died and I gave her my SUV.
The convertible became my only car. I began to realize I could do more than
just drive to and from work; I gradually worked up courage and took off on
weekends. My favorite getaways involved driving the California coast,
especially the Big Sur coast down to Morro Bay and back. I processed grief and
solved many of the world’s problems on those solo trips. I had no desire for
company. The freedom to stop, go, and meander with no consideration for anyone
else and no one to take care of was so liberating. I never questioned whether
the top would be up or down. It was down. Every weekend it wasn’t raining I
took off. Cold weather didn’t stop me, top down, heater and radio blasting, I
was free. Money bought me hours of happiness as I explored California topless.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsn_Nq6aQK3lMwDko1qFZgYRSJgZbxKV1vRe84Dzd4i6ZEfwYoBVKq2kiJkU-FV6UZ8rR1H-cY8_wokOVZbp2IPeif-_6_aEsXM1TyjWEdcZwHkDCofZM88xTOJYpIcR46NrtumLMacjg/s585/big+sur+coast+-+Google+Search+-+Google+Chrome+122021+45433+PM.bmp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="585" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsn_Nq6aQK3lMwDko1qFZgYRSJgZbxKV1vRe84Dzd4i6ZEfwYoBVKq2kiJkU-FV6UZ8rR1H-cY8_wokOVZbp2IPeif-_6_aEsXM1TyjWEdcZwHkDCofZM88xTOJYpIcR46NrtumLMacjg/w424-h271/big+sur+coast+-+Google+Search+-+Google+Chrome+122021+45433+PM.bmp.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During this time I was seeing a psychotherapist because I
had so many tough issues to deal with. I couldn’t focus and sort out what I
needed to do. My mind was a muddled mess. On the shrink’s suggestion, I took a
month off work to get my head together. In retrospect, I know I resolved much
more behind the wheel than I did in therapy. He expressed concern about my
impulsive spending. I was worried about not having any fun. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Supporting my daughter in a separate household became
unaffordable, so she and her three boys moved in with me. We were crowded in my
1500 square foot San Jose home and I began to consider other options. We
decided to move from Silicon Valley to the Sierra Foothills, where I bought a
large home with a huge yard and a swimming pool. I rented a room in Silicon
Valley during the week and commuted to the hills on weekends. Again, driving
became the best part of my week. I developed what I called Zen driving, where I
effortlessly, but fully consciously, moved through the countryside on the 180
mile drive. Heavy traffic never bothered me. I saw as it as opportunity for
more solitude and contemplation. As always, when in my magic convertible zone,
I alternated meditation with singing, listening to classical music at a very
high volume, and transporting myself in more ways than one. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One particular Sunday night, I was returning to Silicon
Valley around 10:00 P.M.; there was virtually no traffic. A Strauss waltz blared
from the speakers in the door while I waltzed down the highway, staying in my
lane, but swinging from one side to the other as I counted out one-two-three,
one-two-three. It took a while before I noticed the red light of a highway
patrol car in my rear-view mirror. I pulled over and the patrolman approached
my car. His first question was, “Have you been drinking?” I assured him I had
not. He said he had observed me weaving within my lane, not crossing the line,
so he wouldn’t cite me, but he wanted to know what was going on. He let me go
with a recommendation that I restrict my waltzing to the dance floor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During the time I owned my convertible, it suffered three
injuries. The first was a sad encounter with a BMW driven by a distracted teenager.
After a month in the repair shop and $13,000 worth of rehabilitation, it was
nearly as good as new. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My beloved car suffered its second mishap on the morning of
January 22, 1997, when my older daughter gave birth to her second son. I was so
excited by the news, I backed into the garage door frame on my way to the
hospital. The result was a small dent in the rear bumper which I left
unrepaired. I thought of it as a birthmark.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My long distance commuting ended when I began telecommuting
and anticipated retiring. Many days I didn’t even leave the home in the hills I
shared with my younger daughter and her three boys. The convertible often
stayed in the garage while my daughter drove our Suburban. My getaway drives
became explorations of the Sierra mountain passes. I drove them all. My
faithful wheels managed the 10,000 foot granite summits with ease. In the
middle of October, 1999, golden Quaking Aspens shimmered, cowboys rounded up
cattle grazing in high alpine meadows, and the first snowflakes fell on my
unprotected head; it nourished my soul. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl7z7RevvqsOgh9wQ784Tk04Imn6tyjCtz7u1eFBEQOUzSmV31H-TkMSXz17K3bWJtAPCnMqC1M1hFQYbkKjy5FnvlkzvZTtU3UdjurRRcEcC__xn6FsmBOxC0xcANLTRzeYiAxkp5MF4/s475/sonora+pass+fall+colors+-+Google+Search+-+Google+Chrome+122021+45100+PM.bmp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="475" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl7z7RevvqsOgh9wQ784Tk04Imn6tyjCtz7u1eFBEQOUzSmV31H-TkMSXz17K3bWJtAPCnMqC1M1hFQYbkKjy5FnvlkzvZTtU3UdjurRRcEcC__xn6FsmBOxC0xcANLTRzeYiAxkp5MF4/w474-h220/sonora+pass+fall+colors+-+Google+Search+-+Google+Chrome+122021+45100+PM.bmp.jpg" width="474" /></a></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">By this time, my oldest grandson was 15, looking forward to
getting his driver’s license, and hopeful that he would inherit my beautiful
little car. He jumped the gun one day when he decided to take the convertible
for an unauthorized spin. However, he was thwarted when, while still in the
driveway, he banged the convertible into the Suburban. The damage to the
Suburban was undetectable, but the Celica suffered a disfiguring blow to the
right front quarter panel, and its left headlight could no longer retract. I
couldn’t deal with it. The car had 120,000 miles on it, the threads on the rag
top were showing signs of wear, and now this unsightly blemish. I decided to
sell. I ran an ad and agreed to sell to the first respondent, a young man who
planned to surprise his wife with a birthday gift. I sold it for about half
what it was worth, but more important it went to another loving home.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-3260864422129047632020-12-11T13:38:00.004-06:002023-03-27T22:41:06.898-05:00Ken's AIDS Quilt Panel<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Ken died in
1993. I participated the best I could in his end-of-life care, commuting on
alternate weekends to Issaquah, spending every possible moment with him and
offering respite to his partner, Peter Fraser. We spent the evening of January
3, 1993, with Ken at Seattle’s Bailey Boushay AIDS Hospice, watching him
struggle to breathe, moistening his lips and mouth with glycerin lollipops, while
his 80-pound skeletal body scarcely made a ripple in the light blanket covering
him. We knew the end was near, but finally gave up our vigil and drove back to
the condo to try to rest up for what we feared the next day would bring. We
rode the elevator up to the third floor, unlocked the door and saw the light on
the answering machine blinking like the flashing light on an emergency vehicle,
semaphoring the inevitable message. No need to listen to the recording, we
immediately knew. It was over. He was gone. Conflicted light feelings of
release and the crushing weight of loss remain with me even now. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Ken was born
when I was ten years old. Although he was my third brother, our bond was more
than that of siblings. He was my own real live baby doll, and I adored him from
the moment he was born. I dressed him, fed him, diapered him, and paraded him
around the neighborhood in his baby buggy. He was precious to me and became
more so as he developed into a bright, verbal, and creative little boy. I
remember one morning; he got out of bed and came running into my room bursting
with excitement. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, my three-year-old brother
said, “Melody! I had a film last night!” and for the first time, he told me
what he had dreamed. He never stopped telling me his dreams. When he was in his
40’s and living in Washington while I was in California, he would phone and
tell me about his dreams. Or he might call to share the excitement of the first
snow of the season. I was the first family member he told the devastating news of
his HIV diagnosis. He was calm. I was hysterical. It seemed impossible and yet,
inevitable, given the raging epidemic and his active gay life. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I remember
his fear of abandonment when I got married. I was then 20 years old, and he was
10. During the ceremony with around 150 guests in St. Lawrence O’Toole’s
Catholic Church, he cried out, “Melody! Don’t leave me!” And that was my cry on
the day I learned of his diagnosis – a virtual death sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">His death
ripped a huge hole in the fabric of our family. Sister Valery’s loss was
profound. Three years younger than he, they became bonded playmates. They
shared a magical childhood populated with a host of imaginary folks, some friendly
and some wicked like Grassy Pill, a being who lived in hell which was near San
Francisco; she was always making mischief. And there was the marshmallow lady,
derived from the Nutcracker Suite, who took naughty children and stuffed them
under her skirt where they were doomed to smell her stinky underwear. Ken and
Valery shared secrets and fantasies in a world of their own. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">In the
months following Ken’s death. As executor of his bankrupt estate, I trudged
through the requisite busyness: tax filings, insurance dealings, and distribution
of his worldly goods. He was cremated and his ashes distributed among me, my
sister Valery, and Peter. We held a memorial gathering for him in his hometown
of Oakland and distributed mementos to his legion of friends. I kept a coffee
mug which, 27 years later, is still in my rotation of cups used frequently.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Still,
nothing seemed to adequately memorialize Ken. I wanted the world to know how
special he was. I soon learned about the NAMES Project, also called the AIDS
Memorial Quilt, and knew I had to make a commemorative panel. But then, life and
other deaths got in the way, and my resolve dissipated. In the next decade, end
of life care for my mother, my grandfather, my aunt, and ultimately my daughter
absorbed my time. Upon the death of my daughter, I became the guardian of my
four- and five-year-old grandsons. Responsibility for the boys was truly a gift.
They were wonderful children, but I was an aging woman, a single grandmother
tending to the needs of the boys and the exigencies of daily life. My creative energy was drained, and the notion
of a memorial panel was shelved.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">By the time
the boys were around 10 and 11, demands on my time for their care slackened.
Hours during the day opened up while they were at school, and when at home they
were occupied with friends, music lessons, and schoolwork. I began to feel my
creative sap rising again and the desire to make a memorial panel for Ken come
to the surface. I had a pattern, a drawing made a decade earlier by my niece,
Hollis Blair. A plan of attack for the project began to fall in place: I bought
the sewing machine needed to make the panel I envisioned. And who knew? Next, a
trip to Home Depot and the purchase of a painter’s drop cloth, a sturdy canvas
fabric that could withstand the handling it would receive as part of the AIDS
Memorial quilt. I would use it as a foundation and backdrop for the design I
intended to fabricate. With a supply of fabrics and a collection of photographs
of Ken at hand, I was ready to dive in. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I dyed
pieces of the canvas, one strip sky blue, one of grass green, and stitched them
together making a three foot by six-foot rectangle, approximately the size of a
grave. The design depicted a plant in eight stages of life, ranging from a
sprout to a robust thriving flower and finally a wilted and dying scrap of
vegetation. Pictures of Ken in corresponding stages of his life would bloom in
the center of each flower. I spent days poring over old photos, stirring up
wonderful memories – vacations, family Christmases, triumphant events in his
life - so many joyous moments captured. </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">There were hundreds to choose from
and looking at each entailed time travel and a visit with Ken.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ken's world
expanded when he started school. The picture in the first bud on the quilt
panel is his kindergarten class photo. He loved school and his teachers loved
him. He formed many enduring friendships but never loosened his bonds to the
family. He strengthened ties to the farther reaches of our kin through “All
Things Relative”, a family newspaper, which he composed and distributed
faithfully.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The picture
in the second flower on the quilt is of him during his high school years in the
60’s – the height of the Beatles era. His hair was accordingly long, and his
polyester shirts were of vibrant colors. He continued to gather witty, kooky,
and bright friends, although he never had a serious girlfriend. He told me he
just kept hoping he would meet the “right” girl. He remained closely engaged
with the family and especially with his nieces and nephews. He committed to
taking each to Disneyland as a tenth birthday gift. He and niece Hollis became
partners in running the annual Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco for
several years. Each niece or nephew would declare he was their favorite uncle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">After high
school, he attended UC Berkeley, our father’s alma mater. While in his senior
year at Cal, the Vietnam War draft lottery was implemented. His number was 5,
meaning he was certain to be drafted. Because he feared being sent to war, he
quit school, joined the Marines, and landed a desk position in Alameda,
California. He had escaped the danger of being sent to the war zone and
survived the daily personal terror of his homosexuality being discovered. The
third flower shows him in his Marine uniform and at the peak of his physical
fitness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">When he was
discharged from the Marines, he returned to Cal Berkeley and completed a degree
in Biology. He later decided a career in accounting would provide him a better
income and so, he went back to school at SF State for an accounting degree and
an MBA. The picture in the fourth blossom shows him at his prime, physically
fit, comfortable with his sexuality, and with a firm footing on a career.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">In the early
‘80’s, Ken was very active in the gay life of the San Francisco Bay area and everything
that entailed, including carousing at bars in the Castro district and frequenting
the bath houses. Every night was a party, and he was out, loud and proud. When
the deadly reality of the AIDS epidemic became known, monogamous relationships
seemed safer. The fifth plant shows that Ken has plucked a flower representing
his choice of a partner. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Although gay
marriage was not yet legal, he and Peter Fraser entered a committed union. Peter
was employed by a Canadian airline and lived in Vancouver, B.C. while Ken was
still living in Oakland. Maintaining the relationship required lots of travel
and immigration was not an option for either of them. However, commute hours
and distance were significantly reduced when Ken took a job based in
Washington. He was able to buy a condominium in Issaquah, and they had much
more time together.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">But, by then,
his HIV infection erupted, his health began to fade, and he had full blown
AIDS. The sixth flower represents this decline. He was able to continue working
for a couple of years before being racked by a cavalcade of AIDS-related
illnesses. He suffered pneumocystis pneumonia, shingles, tuberculosis and blindness
in one eye from herpes; his depleted immune system was powerless. Peter
lovingly and steadfastly cared for him through one episode after another. The
ravaging of his body is illustrated by the next to last plant.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">The final
flower represents his last days in the AIDS hospice. He spent about six weeks in with wonderful compassionate care in that sorrow-filled
place. I took some small comfort in knowing how
many loved him and shared the agony of his death. I found the suffering of so many young men,
many dying alone and abandoned by their families almost beyond endurance.
Frequent trips to the chapel, helped a little, but I truly felt as though a
part of me had been sucked out, a sensation I can still feel in some measure
today.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I am pleased
that Ken’s panel is one of 48,000 that travels to be displayed around the
country and that it was chosen to represent the month of July in the 2009
version of the annual AIDS calendar. This single panel is dwarfed in the
largest piece of community art in the world. The entire quilt would cover 20
acres and weighs 54 tons. Still, it represents only a tiny portion of the 32.7
million who have died globally since the beginning of the epidemic. I believe
the NAMES project has served to amplify AIDS awareness. I personally derived
some comfort by making Ken’s panel. Sending it off in the mail felt like
exhaling after holding my breath a very long time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;">I </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2BB8JKv6vKMP_vnOFbrNhHOhtoJSfV3jylPUJmZfhyphenhyphenkfLxcs6Rx4jLTa-EdZKQNZ3VfkO9sgFqLAGEETJdz6XFsZUbksTuQ1OVybvCOxAxH5i0Tdr76p_mf5dj7dR31mFv-t_efYu9o/s750/IMG_0914.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="750" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2BB8JKv6vKMP_vnOFbrNhHOhtoJSfV3jylPUJmZfhyphenhyphenkfLxcs6Rx4jLTa-EdZKQNZ3VfkO9sgFqLAGEETJdz6XFsZUbksTuQ1OVybvCOxAxH5i0Tdr76p_mf5dj7dR31mFv-t_efYu9o/s320/IMG_0914.jpg" width="320" /></a></p>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-26407327213903948222020-11-22T15:48:00.013-06:002020-11-23T13:57:15.748-06:00Home Sweet Bed<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYh8xFV0BcFd-Nymnq3bUsIuadVC6cw1gpQTIqzVr-QaUIxHIJAn7q1vpJG7a1f5JPEbNBUzhX6kUFxYDhdBfmUw0P-IYtuZHrLarfpyDso5BiRVww1UmZC3qG4oDoYWmA9qTN1kDufOs/s3390/IMG_0893.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYh8xFV0BcFd-Nymnq3bUsIuadVC6cw1gpQTIqzVr-QaUIxHIJAn7q1vpJG7a1f5JPEbNBUzhX6kUFxYDhdBfmUw0P-IYtuZHrLarfpyDso5BiRVww1UmZC3qG4oDoYWmA9qTN1kDufOs/s320/IMG_0893.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In four months, I will be living someplace else. I don’t
know where and I don’t know how much of my stuff I will be taking with me. And yet,
I’m not especially concerned. One thing I am sure of, I will take my bed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nineteen years ago, my daughter, Robin, was murdered and I
took custody of her four and five year old orphaned sons. In those early days, I
felt like a burn victim, seared to my soul with grief and overwhelmed with
responsibility; sleep was elusive. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks to the tender empathy of my cousin, Connie Blair
Brehm, for the past nineteen years, my bed has been a refuge, a place where I
am comforted from my nearly unbearable pain. Just after Robin’s death, Connie
asked if I would like to have Grandma’s bed. It had been in use at her home for
the previous five years while she had been the caregiver and guardian of our
Aunt Helen, the childless daughter of our mutual grandmother. Helen had moved
to assisted memory care and no longer used her bed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mental images of the bed and 70 years of memories associated
with it washed over me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had been in
awe of the towering bedstead that stood in the small bedroom at Atlasta Ranch
in Fallon, Nevada. It dominated the room where my grandfather slept. Although
to my young self it seemed odd, my grandmother slept in a separate bed on the
south porch of the house. The morning of August 2, 1953, while I was spending
summer vacation with my grandparents, my grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack
in that bed. My memories of the sad day are always illuminated with a mental
image of him drawing his final breath. It’s a gentle and comforting image,
graced with thoughts of all that had occurred in that bed which had served
since the marriage of Minnie Pauline Nichols and Ernest William Blair on
December 26, 1908, in Placerville, California.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bed was purchased at Sloan’s in Sacramento, and shipped
by rail to the first home of the newlyweds in Goldfield, Nevada. Conception and
birth of my Aunt Helen in 1910, and of my father, Seward James “Bud” Blair in
1912, no doubt occurred in that bed while in Goldfield.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bed and the family moved to Tonopah, Nevada, in 1918. In
1922, their third child, Ernest William “Bill” Blair, Jr. was conceived and
born, though his birth was in a hospital.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1924, the household settled on Atlasta Ranch in Fallon,
Nevada. After the death of my grandmother in 1973, the bed remained in Fallon
with Aunt Helen until Alzheimer’s disease overtook her. In 1995, the bed and
Aunt Helen moved to LaVerne, California, to be cared for by cousin Connie and
Dieter Brehm. And there it remained until it was moved to my bedroom in El
Dorado Hills, California.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the past nineteen years, I have moved five times, always
making sure my bed was the first thing put in place in the new house. And
always, it symbolizes safety, security, refuge, and comfort. The golden glow of
the oak suffuses my room with warmth. The seven foot tall headboard protects me
while the carved and curving acanthus leaves on top symbolize the angel’s wings
of my grandmother watching over and guiding me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The walls around me matter little, I am secure knowing I
can lay myself down in my bed, wherever that may be.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p></p>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-8197198889891552332020-11-07T13:40:00.007-06:002020-11-10T14:47:13.027-06:00Spilling My Guts<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s over!
Sudden tears oozing out, giving way to a flood streaming down
my face. It started when I read that Kamala Harris was the first woman, the
first black person, the first south Asian to be elected Vice President of the
United States.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Big huge
gulping sobs that come hiccupping from my diaphragm. I don’t normally cry. What
has come over me?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">Euphoria
Like the moment after a difficult labor and a long pregnancy, when my newborn
is placed on my belly and my hand reaches down and touches her. Something
overwhelming kind of like electric shock races through me, but it is a current
of joy and release from pain that I had been feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I bring up
the mental image of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of the creation of
Adam.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">If my
reaction is so intense, what do Joe Biden and Kamala Harris feel?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%;">I stop and
look at Facebook, post my reaction, read comments from my friends in Asia and
Europe. It feels like the whole planet is rejoicing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px; line-height: 107%;">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/photos-show-celebrations-across-the-world-as-joe-biden-wins-us-election_n_5fa48a89c5b64c88d3feaddb?ncid=newsltushpmgnews&guccounter=1</span></p>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-595037319756475552020-07-27T17:23:00.006-05:002023-03-27T22:46:25.775-05:00How's the Vegetarian Thing Going?Funny you should ask. The vegetarian thing is going pretty well, but it is certainly not a reduced calorie way of eating, at least for me. It's no secret, I'm a foodaholic, and I have the body to prove it. I think about food ALL the time. I love to read about it, plan meals and snacks, shop for it, prepare it, and,of course, eat it. Not so much clean up after eating it. <div>These days my sole sources for reading about food are online. Pinterest is my bible. I also participate in a private Facebook page called "What's For Dinner" where a couple dozen of us describe our evening meals. I think I'm the only vegetarian in the group, but I do get lots of meal ideas from these folks, and I enjoy sharing my successes and lamenting my failures. I have more pictures of food on my camera roll than I have pictures of my kids and grandkids. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBo2eS543wVRH940FFSiq9VFW39n9JRF-1u4txOwRNQ5rfGsNHgN10G5nhr89chzkS5c-KK8cjFoK3CpQ_VmVf4HLZrPgq3VFD84e-ExfpFWrZ_iNw4UOaNDK6Kaet_gUKtfiJ6mb9ZXg/s3147/20200411_165815.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3147" data-original-width="2178" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBo2eS543wVRH940FFSiq9VFW39n9JRF-1u4txOwRNQ5rfGsNHgN10G5nhr89chzkS5c-KK8cjFoK3CpQ_VmVf4HLZrPgq3VFD84e-ExfpFWrZ_iNw4UOaNDK6Kaet_gUKtfiJ6mb9ZXg/s320/20200411_165815.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My birthday lunch this year: roasted artichokes and asparagus, tomatoes, and tabbouleh</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPhwBhm7hVkO1AjqMGH8nPbnRWRDZu003QnaZZlMZwuYlVotpkh9dH2D45SDAYqVHnYR0i_O6Q1I_rbQFayIVCnDIvgmLgb1ixfk-X1VhG5T6xYlR2l2kZg_G_-9O7UQ2BymxyR2ngkAw/s1961/20200418_203931.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1961" data-original-width="1697" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPhwBhm7hVkO1AjqMGH8nPbnRWRDZu003QnaZZlMZwuYlVotpkh9dH2D45SDAYqVHnYR0i_O6Q1I_rbQFayIVCnDIvgmLgb1ixfk-X1VhG5T6xYlR2l2kZg_G_-9O7UQ2BymxyR2ngkAw/s320/20200418_203931.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Birthday dessert</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">s<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXLWf6rukWfAMFmZdCTd9FbI_QiaJi0_jTkBPVyWbElIxdBvf58Fz7EIa5MFndTj9gjDD9CmsqBtBYqWNaWD3iH50ZWDkmdx8YHlqsHlMyF4RbenB-cVZRHbwZLmkdq4VN_eEBBawxShI/s1844/20200415_170439.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1261" data-original-width="1844" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXLWf6rukWfAMFmZdCTd9FbI_QiaJi0_jTkBPVyWbElIxdBvf58Fz7EIa5MFndTj9gjDD9CmsqBtBYqWNaWD3iH50ZWDkmdx8YHlqsHlMyF4RbenB-cVZRHbwZLmkdq4VN_eEBBawxShI/s320/20200415_170439.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A favorite tortilla soup</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Grandson Ben typically picks up my e-cart from Raleys. Other markets offer the service, but I find Raley's online shopping easy to use and I like their practice of substituting something bigger and better if the requested item is not available. Lately, I've heard some negative comments about their masking practices while others extol the rigid controls by Safeway. I'm considering switching, Ben also goes to Costco occasionally buying huge amounts of granola, the world's best dill pickles, and other staples of our diet. All this shopping by proxy leaves a void in the full satisfaction of my food obsession. I miss grocery shopping. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-hWkcNM710aL8fMTSzK4yzs7RSEJM6BrSJc_sLtgIbc4rZZGBIQeO7qWA9Cg5ltg2psDNLHle5xJ5-fPRR3raMN4BbQPi1Dpl2NH-16wh09Vx98xcdrdjThP8kUMd4PO8g_v1Eydgk84/s2541/IMG_0533.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2541" data-original-width="2234" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-hWkcNM710aL8fMTSzK4yzs7RSEJM6BrSJc_sLtgIbc4rZZGBIQeO7qWA9Cg5ltg2psDNLHle5xJ5-fPRR3raMN4BbQPi1Dpl2NH-16wh09Vx98xcdrdjThP8kUMd4PO8g_v1Eydgk84/s320/IMG_0533.HEIC" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The world's best dill pickles (the artichoke hearts are great, too)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so I am planning a trip to Trader Joe's. I will be there promptly next Monday morning at 8:00 AM when the store opens to seniors. I will go hungry. I will roll through the doors in my wheel chair with Ben following closely behind with a cart. I want to fall prey to all the yummy things on the shelves and in the freezers. I will choose bananas for 19 cents each, the mango/jicama slaw will leap into the cart as I roll toward the apricots, cantaloupes, peaches, avocados, and limes. Moving on, I give myself permission to select four different cheeses and then Tzatziki, Greek yogurt, butter, and eggs are chosen as I round the corner to the frozen food/cookie and candy aisle. All kinds of frozen foods beckon, prepared meals, and that terrific vanilla ice cream. Thai, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, and Indian selections excite my salivary glands. I can't pass up the truffle flatbread. All the while I'm scanning for alluring condiments and seasonings. I'm going to try the honey Alepo sauce. I need the mushroom Umami seasoning, and the Everything But the Bagel seasoning. I mustn't forget at least two boxes of triple ginger cookies. And then around the next corner for olive oil (the Greek EVOO is the best), tomato/red pepper soup (low sodium), some Thai yellow curry, and then the next aisle for nuts (unsalted) and all the "cluster" cereals. And the grand finale, drum roll please, the beverage section. I absolutely must have tonic and soda water, vodka, and at least six bottles of wine. This is going to be more than my budgeted $200.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I find I am coming to like spicier foods, veggies can be pretty bland. I use a fair amount of condiments and prepared foods which can be very high in sodium, so I make low sodium selections wherever possible. I don't miss meat, I don't think I could bring myself to buy it for any reason, but I haven't discarded the intention to cook a Thanksgiving turkey. We'll see. And wine is less appealing since I've given up meat. I was a moderately sophisticated imbiber and enjoyed pairing good wines to an interesting menu. That has lost its luster when the menu is meatless, although cheese, fruit, and wine make a pretty good combination.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So,what do I really eat?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Breakfast choices: Frozen waffles with peanut butter and a banana or frozen fruit medley; pepper jack cheese omelet (often with spinach, mushrooms, and onions); plain Greek yogurt with frozen fruit medley stirred in, topped with granola; bagel with cream cheese, fruit</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Lunch: leftovers, soup, salad, fruit, nuts, and cheese, sandwiches, quesadillas</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Dinner: lots of frozen meals; spaghetti; Pad Thai; curry; variation on pasta dishes; hearty soups; rice-based concoctions; baked potatoes; tacos; pizza</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-84262672813581533692020-07-15T19:16:00.002-05:002020-07-15T20:00:29.391-05:00Rant Warning<div>I'm really tired of Trump-bashing. And I'm really sad there is so much to bash. Today he has ordered the CDC to stop reporting COVID-19 data. Instead, we are to believe information released by the White House, which to date has released misinformation and outright lies when not turning a blind side to the issue. I won't bore you with the details, but if you're curious, look here:</div><div><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/">https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/60</a><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/">8647/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>I do take hope when I hear he is turning against FOX News (or they are turning on him).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbdJNLAuBfEbPJJAV9IhZvWSytB2Ih3ykqSMZRO3r6KecQchPUFTiFJ3Ur0LSIC9UVBYaAqNlJpFLSoB4Uy4oBkwL2YV-_uGWV9w0-dz8BZOqyYw-D_SpA_THG21Y-k8Qa7X8deADPKPo/s877/IMG_0498.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbdJNLAuBfEbPJJAV9IhZvWSytB2Ih3ykqSMZRO3r6KecQchPUFTiFJ3Ur0LSIC9UVBYaAqNlJpFLSoB4Uy4oBkwL2YV-_uGWV9w0-dz8BZOqyYw-D_SpA_THG21Y-k8Qa7X8deADPKPo/s320/IMG_0498.PNG" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have at least three acquaintances who have discarded their loyalty to Trump. Hope springs eternal. I don't know how much more rejection he can gaslight. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">His "press conference" on Tuesday (7/14) in the Rose Garden was 57 minutes of campaigning and incoherent rambling followed by 6 minutes of questions and then an abrupt departure. He is not well.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I seriously doubt he will finish his term. I even think there is a possibility something will keep him from getting the nomination. I suspect Romney will ultimately be the Republican nominee. And then there will be a real contest and interesting debates. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My fantasy has Trump walking off the job, leaving Pence in the lurch. I think he might seek asylum someplace that won't extradite him. I wonder who he would take with him. I'm pretty sure Melania and Barron would refuse to go. Likely, Ivanka and her family would go and probably Don, Jr. and Eric.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I can't shake the feeling that something dramatic and unprecedented is about to happen. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And how about this? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>CEO of Goya products avows support for Trump.</li><li>Backlash occurs advocating boycott of Goya Products.</li><li>Ivanka openly advertise Goya beans on Twitter. </li><li>Further backlash ensues.</li><li>President Donald Trump, leader (?) of the free world appears on Instagram with an array of Goya products on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.</li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">How can he stoop so low while the epidemic is out of control? No leadership on how and when schools should re-open -- parents, teacher, and friends in a frenzy over the best course of action. I am enraged.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm going to keep this short because we are all tired of political rants and I think I need to do some breathing exercises.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-84023077968485656432020-07-10T18:22:00.019-05:002020-07-10T21:36:39.333-05:00Batteries Not Included<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m old. Don’t argue
with me, I’m proud of it. It took me a long time to get here. Why do people
always want to disagree when you declare you’re old? “You’re only as old as you
think you are;” “you don’t look near your age;” “you’re young at heart;” “age
is a state of mind;” et cetera, ad nauseam.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I don’t mind being
old. It has some real advantages. I don’t menstruate; I can’t get pregnant; I
won’t lose my job; I get to pre-board airplanes (when not in the middle of a
pandemic); I get discounts; people make way and help me without being asked;
and I can say nearly anything and people will forgive me because, well, I’m
old.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Don’t get me wrong,
there are some inconveniences. Consider getting up in the morning...</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I reach for my glasses
on the nightstand and knock them to the floor. Retrieving them is not simple. First, I must detach myself from my Cpap. I turn off the wheezing machine, take off the head gear, and put it on the nightstand. I then remove the chin strap which prevents dry mouth by wrapping my head and chin in Lycra. I’m hoping the strap does double duty in mitigating the droop of my sagging chin(s). </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Back to picking up my glasses -- they are out of reach and my knees don’t function very well, so I hoist myself
from bed to the wheelchair, I try to bend over to snag them but realize I am
risking tumbling to the floor, so I wisely wheel myself out to the living room
where I left my grabbers. Back to the bedroom, the glasses are retrieved,
planted on my nose and the world is a brighter and clearer place. Somehow,
being able to see magically improves my hearing a tad. Impaired vision easily
solved.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now that I can see what I'm doing, off </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">to the shower I
roll, after gathering towel, ensuring bath seat is in place, retrieving
hospital-style walker, checking on supply of body wash and shampoo, and
adjusting water temperature. Feels so good to have a clean start on another
beautiful day. No need to blow dry my hair, I’m not going anywhere. After
brushing my teeth, I insert my partial plate. No one can tell I don’t have a
mouth full of pearly whites. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL1d46mxSmiWWvIx5RljHMCo7bD8gnvv-LPpeWnsoAkoAQPiaeVLaoJNykRsJW_unRSqTExFf0mJ2DhLSMNgQskUj-RjMktAKVXT9dmf7p1QeDfVKvYSnDmne34CTcCuugEPa5-ABLVIs/s4032/IMG_0470.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL1d46mxSmiWWvIx5RljHMCo7bD8gnvv-LPpeWnsoAkoAQPiaeVLaoJNykRsJW_unRSqTExFf0mJ2DhLSMNgQskUj-RjMktAKVXT9dmf7p1QeDfVKvYSnDmne34CTcCuugEPa5-ABLVIs/s320/IMG_0470.HEIC" /></a></div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But the hearing
problem still persists in considerable measure. I retrieve the hearing
aids from their overnight UV cleaning box, brush all their little nooks and
crannies with the little brush that I, thankfully, have not dropped on the
floor this time. It’s time to replace the batteries. I remove the paper tab and
hold them in my hand for a minute to warm them up and thus extend their life.
Do you have any idea how long a minute can be? Inserting the batteries, again
grateful I did not drop them, I push them into my ear canals and loop them over
the top. Having rather small ears, between glasses and hearing aids, it’s
getting a bit crowded back there.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I select and put on my
underwear, with a panty shield, just in case...</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I choose pants with a
leg wide enough to pull up over my knee to provide easier access to my lower
legs for wrapping in Ace bandages. A pullover shirt that doesn’t require
fiddling with buttons completes my outfit. I only add accessories if I’m going
out – and that hasn’t happened in months. (Editor's note: She says that every
few weeks whenever she goes out again.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Next steps require
assistance. Because of venous stasis, my legs need compression wrapping. Ace
bandages are wrapped around both legs from knee to ankle to foot. When my
pant leg is back in place my knee brace is attached to my right leg to add in
stability and mobility. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiEjVqhig-Jzreqv_jh3x-LUR6XXE9209gveDACWYElh1vzC0Vk_6Twe6iDPiTNYW2ncEgAVEmRXzi9FQTe07qfDLcl4fKWEzoCYkF_zJGdd9pVua83G8oBmbaYGIxmljZID4T0vaO21w/s4032/IMG_0380.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiEjVqhig-Jzreqv_jh3x-LUR6XXE9209gveDACWYElh1vzC0Vk_6Twe6iDPiTNYW2ncEgAVEmRXzi9FQTe07qfDLcl4fKWEzoCYkF_zJGdd9pVua83G8oBmbaYGIxmljZID4T0vaO21w/s320/IMG_0380.HEIC" /></a></div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, a handful of
pills regulate blood pressure, heart rhythm, and cholesterol, topped off with a
cup of strong black coffee to jump start my day. My loins and all other parts
are girded. Carpe diem!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Total elapsed time: 90
minutes. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I am more of a puzzle
than Ikea furniture. I’m thinking of getting a tattoo that says, “Batteries not
included. Some assembly required.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-32145266285320692282020-07-06T20:11:00.004-05:002020-07-07T07:23:18.669-05:00Omnivores Be Warned! This Post May Contain TriggersFebruary 1, 2020, was a day I planned to have Ben pick up the groceries on my list. And there was no meat on the list. I had eaten the last of the frozen meals containing chicken the night before and I just didn't feel like eating meat anymore. There is nothing remarkable about the date, that's just when it happened. And I feel like it happened<i> to</i> me, that something external to me had decided that Melody would no longer eat meat, not a personal choice. Kind of like it had been inscribed in the brushed stainless steel finish of the dual refrigerator doors, "No meat shall pass these portals".<div>I wish I could say it was because of some noble reason like realizing the inefficiency of meat as food for humans. I read <i>Diet For a Small Planet </i>years ago and kept eating meat. And I know cows contribute a lot to the environmental methane overload. All are solid reasons to avoid meat, but didn't sway me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4qRehIIqiGsOFlRAXdUPgBc7LjHXSR-56yZNmUFEswACXb5xnrdGkebD1ulptFnRWaJX8x8JclXlM7wQ_AmZwrwCb8trjM_kOU6IJglIqJgb7NJv6g2d7pMK2E92zkspTPfZqI_3f-5g/s650/IMG_0463.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="403" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4qRehIIqiGsOFlRAXdUPgBc7LjHXSR-56yZNmUFEswACXb5xnrdGkebD1ulptFnRWaJX8x8JclXlM7wQ_AmZwrwCb8trjM_kOU6IJglIqJgb7NJv6g2d7pMK2E92zkspTPfZqI_3f-5g/s320/IMG_0463.PNG" /></a></div><div><br /><div>However, several other things over a long time had lead me to this point. I have always had a gut reaction to meat counters in grocery stores -- just so <i> </i><i>much </i>meat, and all of it raw and dead. But, the thought of a nice barbecued rib eye served up with twice-baked potatoes, roasted corn on the cob, and a good bold Cabernet Sauvignon painted over any fleeting thoughts of revulsion. Maybe it was really the thought of the Cab. Sadly, since meat has been off the menu, Cab has lost its allure.</div><div>I suppose another factor had been the several trips I had taken to Southern California during 2019, driving up and down the dullest road in America --Interstate 5. Between Sacramento and Bakersfield there is very little in the way of sensory stimulation, except. . .Harris Ranch! The miasma of the feed lots assaults the olfactory nerves for miles around and bring tears to the eyes. There is no escape, no matter how insulated the vehicle, the odor of Cowshwitz permeates. And do you know? There is a restaurant and a hotel there! I can't imagine how anyone could have an appetite, especially arriving from the north where the feed lots sprawl and the prevailing winds conspire to announce the presence of so many thousands of steers literally on their last legs. And who would want to spend the night? To better to soak in the glory (gory?) of it all? And yet, the label Harris Ranch Beef on a plastic-wrapped prime rib in a white Styrofoam tray conjured up visions of a Christmas feast, with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, Brussels Sprouts (another olfactory assault) and the perfect Cabernet. So, is it the prime rib or the Cab? They are inseparable in my reverie.</div><div>And then there is the fact that I co-habit with my grandson, an avowed vegan (until February 1, 2020). He seemed to exist mainly on hummus, guacamole, and granola, with an occasional frozen Pad Thai meal. But, when I stopped eating meat and started cooking vegetarian meals with the possible inclusion of dairy or eggs, he suddenly broadened his food choices to include whatever I prepared. He never proselytized his culinary practices, but his disinterest in meat dishes I prepared had some influence on my conversion. I love to cook for an audience -- feeding the people has always given me joy. When the audience is limited to a single person who is not impressed with virtuosity in the kitchen, what had formerly brought joy, became tiresome. What was the point?</div><div>Then there was the time when a truckload of cattle was overturned and around 80 cows escaped. After a few hours they were rounded up and loaded into another truck, with all accounted for and no apparent injuries. The public reaction was bizarre. Everyone was worried about the well-being of the animals and relieved that none had gone missing and that none were hurt. Those creatures were on the way to the feed lots and eventual slaughter. Wouldn't a more compassionate person pray they made their escape?</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHVCzdjh-xw044qIcnRoprrl2nS382rLYQS-GzGprDihKbcedms3pcNPb7x67RGTLg3ZIB7SdpXGLg4l9vVtWOAaKMfFcUPyadSTNjisbsmYDHoaFF6ZVdGL2B00tAsKXwKTtWSCiIVQ/s731/IMG_0462.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="731" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHVCzdjh-xw044qIcnRoprrl2nS382rLYQS-GzGprDihKbcedms3pcNPb7x67RGTLg3ZIB7SdpXGLg4l9vVtWOAaKMfFcUPyadSTNjisbsmYDHoaFF6ZVdGL2B00tAsKXwKTtWSCiIVQ/s320/IMG_0462.PNG" width="320" /></a></div> </div><div><br /></div><div>The last straw was the dog. When Oreo was in the throes of her final illness and I became keenly aware of just how sweet, and trusting she was. I realized how all these years she had depended on us to take care of her. It was clear she had feelings. And since she did, doesn't a cow (or chicken, or pig)? Don't confuse me by the fact that dogs are meat-eaters. A whole lot of what I came to feel has logic holes as big as a Florida sinkhole. </div><div>Fish was kind of a separate issue. It took a while for me to make the mental leap to exclude it. I miss it far more than I miss meat. If I should ever fall off the vegetable wagon, I'm sure it would be for some harvest from the sea. I miss shrimp, crab, and lobster from time to time, although not enough to buy and cook it. </div><div>Pairings no longer play into my meal planning. I never wonder, does red wine go with brown rice and white wine with white rice? Consequently I'm spending a lot less money on wine. My bank account and my liver rejoice. Of course, as always, Champagne goes with everything.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-y_0gjHe8XAiPazP6YIAV7FP-rVPKWRXpDHbjupCOOJ4YntuWEHZNfKjEJ-IiTsnRVgnrNophg89gVoiWTihEv4Y50JCZmcd9p9IBb-H9rItXYxmpheKMmDksmmdXjb_xtQD3dKKKZ_E/s974/IMG_0460.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="476" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-y_0gjHe8XAiPazP6YIAV7FP-rVPKWRXpDHbjupCOOJ4YntuWEHZNfKjEJ-IiTsnRVgnrNophg89gVoiWTihEv4Y50JCZmcd9p9IBb-H9rItXYxmpheKMmDksmmdXjb_xtQD3dKKKZ_E/s320/IMG_0460.PNG" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>And so, I simply could not eat meat anymore. I don't know if it's forever, but it is for today. </div></div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-16986941728406191012020-07-04T17:03:00.003-05:002020-07-04T17:34:55.197-05:00PuzzledDuring this time of quarantine, Ben has been assembling jigsaw puzzles. He's very good at it and enjoys challenging but interesting puzzles. The first one he worked kind of resembles a depiction of the COVID-19 molecule. Closer examination reveals satanic faces. Maybe it is the deadly molecule.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisC-83bvxqo7MqSl3VnChfxdW3ieai_Jr1r5TuOL8xnGB7gOHjFLh98YETA6-NE_IvatnfmQfhvT-_x7gQPVyBouhWLO12ZouE3gb1n5SOUXCNW-VayxJ9tjE6g_3lCFNUhCoU5RuNj1w/s3543/IMG_0342.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2307" data-original-width="3543" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisC-83bvxqo7MqSl3VnChfxdW3ieai_Jr1r5TuOL8xnGB7gOHjFLh98YETA6-NE_IvatnfmQfhvT-_x7gQPVyBouhWLO12ZouE3gb1n5SOUXCNW-VayxJ9tjE6g_3lCFNUhCoU5RuNj1w/w320-h206/IMG_0342.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">He moved on to a beautiful round dragonfly puzzle which was missing a piece.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0PqNaMMTDsIaZ4hV6uqFnBmlIKOLFMQeHqHTb68Z9uHKF_PpD7dppc1EY7w6bCi4C-E1u1FgiMr9qN2sdI5AulYYfG8PiWRj5NINDt10Hi5LcuYh3hhUSarln6IwO9goW59ac3fjfIE/s3132/IMG_0352.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3132" data-original-width="2806" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0PqNaMMTDsIaZ4hV6uqFnBmlIKOLFMQeHqHTb68Z9uHKF_PpD7dppc1EY7w6bCi4C-E1u1FgiMr9qN2sdI5AulYYfG8PiWRj5NINDt10Hi5LcuYh3hhUSarln6IwO9goW59ac3fjfIE/w355-h400/IMG_0352.HEIC" width="355" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This solid black circle within a rectangle challenged him next. It took longer than the others, but he did it.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPWDZ0cBNYrNx0-6yKWCERPiok-qMkisMuZ2KLYtnon15z69JtFCSCx14_VGZn9McDGULvbFJ9_IM3WQu_t3Zdxe-xtEQivqUTw8uzMNRqyueWztiUsfPfUknVcISfGO3163MMFkezemg/s2890/IMG_0443.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2719" data-original-width="2890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPWDZ0cBNYrNx0-6yKWCERPiok-qMkisMuZ2KLYtnon15z69JtFCSCx14_VGZn9McDGULvbFJ9_IM3WQu_t3Zdxe-xtEQivqUTw8uzMNRqyueWztiUsfPfUknVcISfGO3163MMFkezemg/s320/IMG_0443.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now he is working one that was just a box full of pieces. When he started, he had no idea what the finished product would look like. Of course, he now knows it is Washington crossing the Delaware -- kind of an appropriate theme to begin on Independence Day. It's by far the easiest of the lot.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRy28Vpy5mPITArCWe1M-BpbWGvFU0x_IozQIaChjuZynK2OTSWADKcGjvHhxlVoR2oRKL-dnETDE7hwmNXa0_1U-IJJWn_tnrev7t8PS9wM5X-0qSxyHjEYOxGRu5n6vZgGWQHbE4CjQ/s4032/IMG_0450.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRy28Vpy5mPITArCWe1M-BpbWGvFU0x_IozQIaChjuZynK2OTSWADKcGjvHhxlVoR2oRKL-dnETDE7hwmNXa0_1U-IJJWn_tnrev7t8PS9wM5X-0qSxyHjEYOxGRu5n6vZgGWQHbE4CjQ/s320/IMG_0450.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let me know if you would like to have any of them. We'll gladly pass them along. We have no plans or place to keep them. In fact, the more stuff we get rid of, the easier it will be when it time for us to move. And that time is approaching rapidly.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ben and I need to find someplace else to live by September 1. Matter of fact, Ben has found someplace. He will be moving to Davis into a shared apartment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have no idea what I will do. I'm in kind of a difficult "monkey in the middle" situation. My income is too low to qualify for a good rental, but too high to qualify for any kind of assistance. My physical condition is such that I cannot live alone, but not severe enough to draw on my Long Term insurance.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, I really don't know what to do or where to go. I have faith that it will work out, I can't imagine that I will be thrown to the curb, but I'm eager to find a solution. At the present, I am puzzled.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">***</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And masks are for sale -- speak up! $5 each, porch pick up or I will mail them.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZng8969YQ7ua2q-kN7G7bCDC6Nt9rsIxArKXOBu126_iPUF_fYq9fexlxQjtwGn7u9VZqitNbLPxaoOE8cuZUzNZH2jWoQ02T_N6EAr_-qEmnYjZHIKgfOd7YjYYeAQOVjxx8xkXikqM/s2905/IMG_0445.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2872" data-original-width="2905" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZng8969YQ7ua2q-kN7G7bCDC6Nt9rsIxArKXOBu126_iPUF_fYq9fexlxQjtwGn7u9VZqitNbLPxaoOE8cuZUzNZH2jWoQ02T_N6EAr_-qEmnYjZHIKgfOd7YjYYeAQOVjxx8xkXikqM/s320/IMG_0445.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfSoQNhe2yHUmiH-i7-SoDkmJwKe_mlBxDD7H2EwrZwJAkWF3SzNqzOh10fY2W4K54Cgb_h0R44FvovpxQ4ozAoF6NLsdNcQ_lEYzF_eZZvQIPGIRVgq2OP9-P_wzrc5W5Z7CEh-7l2e0/s3022/IMG_0446.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2652" data-original-width="3022" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfSoQNhe2yHUmiH-i7-SoDkmJwKe_mlBxDD7H2EwrZwJAkWF3SzNqzOh10fY2W4K54Cgb_h0R44FvovpxQ4ozAoF6NLsdNcQ_lEYzF_eZZvQIPGIRVgq2OP9-P_wzrc5W5Z7CEh-7l2e0/s320/IMG_0446.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div></div></div></div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-22463953105616287622020-07-03T17:24:00.001-05:002020-07-04T22:38:44.850-05:00Mac and Cheese (Without Ham and Peas)I'd been thinking there had to be more to Macaroni and Cheese than noodles and cheddar or the blue Kraft box. In years gone by, I prepared a stove top version of the dish for grandkids, Ben and Logan, probably one out of every three nights when they were between the ages of five to fifteen. Then I got fancy and added ham and peas to the mix for a one-pot dinner. Oddly, I don't recall ever serving it to my children, I'm not sure why, perhaps memory fails.<div>So, in the throes of quarantine gluttony, I turned to Pinterest (it's what I do when I'm not on FaceBook). I finally settled on a recipe that called for a ton of four different cheeses and a half ton of whipping cream. Separately, the ingredients sounded delicious and I made the leap to gathering the fixings (not easy when I shop online only twice a month). I wanted to sample an uptown version of good old Mac and Cheese.<div>The recipe calls for a roux which was really just a bunch of butter fat and four tablespoons of flour, and a pint of whipping cream. And then I added the cheese. My logical mind was telling me that this was a lethal dose of fat and the cooking odors alone could be fatal. But, my quest for a true gourmet Mac and Cheese experience continued. I tried to pour the sauce in all its cheesy glory into the cooked noodles. It had the consistency of molten lava and moved at that speed, which if you live at the base of a volcano is very rapid, but standing over a hot stove was agonizingly slow. Giving up on pouring, I scooped about a third of the mixture into the pasta. It now looked like noodles floating in fondue. Deciding enough was enough, I abandoned the plan to put the whole mess into a baking dish and covered in buttered bread crumbs. It was time for the taste test. My worst fears were realized. It was like eating a cheese-flavored version of the library paste I used to eat in kindergarten and I suspected it would likely have a catastrophic effect on my GI tract. </div><div>I have a lopsided frugality about food. My parents came of age in the depression era and war-time rationing was in effect during my early childhood. I was a proud member of the clean plate club and dutifully thought of the poor starving children in China. So, in my "waste not, want not" convoluted way of thinking, I am willing to buy whatever food I crave, cost be damned, but, I unwilling to throw out leftovers.</div><div>And here they are (refrigerated version):<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMtyga9ta9DVq5EKwk9a_hlM-WtlqvBmTENCAuz0BoXNZEZQlHmdStcTH6LkaxI902T4EYiMX27s3C26Mrr8xloMX-kEzk_tZmJ6cItOpoZ8_Poh_23Qn-Vagz_Ul9kmu50d9plIKg3M/s4032/IMG_0447.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMtyga9ta9DVq5EKwk9a_hlM-WtlqvBmTENCAuz0BoXNZEZQlHmdStcTH6LkaxI902T4EYiMX27s3C26Mrr8xloMX-kEzk_tZmJ6cItOpoZ8_Poh_23Qn-Vagz_Ul9kmu50d9plIKg3M/s320/IMG_0447.HEIC" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjql0p4qvH_ZBxA1S-TNdvtatN0gviJ4_cuhBoVwTr29aY6lIpYGOB9v3RZ7lkXQcylJyYTe1yh3ZA-8AIVAb4rhQGdY7c0iuRlILNrFyqibfyReIq7-ZlvHsiwEHRxlFr6uO2ptx7O5mQ/s4032/IMG_0448.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjql0p4qvH_ZBxA1S-TNdvtatN0gviJ4_cuhBoVwTr29aY6lIpYGOB9v3RZ7lkXQcylJyYTe1yh3ZA-8AIVAb4rhQGdY7c0iuRlILNrFyqibfyReIq7-ZlvHsiwEHRxlFr6uO2ptx7O5mQ/s320/IMG_0448.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div>The top photo is the gummy pasta coated in sludge. The bottom photo is the sludge. Notice how the right-hand edge of the sludge resembles the contours of a slow-moving lava flow. The noodles will probably remain in the refrigerator until they grow green fur, at which time I can toss them out -- into the garbage can. I'm pretty sure they would have the same effect on the garbage disposal and septic tank as they would on my GI tract.</div><div> The bottom photo shows the leftover sauce-- so much sauce for a pound of pasta. It cooled into something about the consistency of the infamous Christmas Cheese Ball. I tasted a bit of it. It was delicious. Its life will be extended serving as a spread for crackers until it too, turns Merry Christmas green. And there is no way I will give you the recipe.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Mask News</b></div><div>See yesterday's post for photos.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Masks are $5 each, postage and handling free to friends and family (if you are reading this you qualify.</li><li>More styles and sizes coming the near future</li><li>For every mask sold, one is donated to Folsom Mask Makers for use in hospitals and schools.</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-77792320661880987722020-07-02T23:31:00.001-05:002020-07-03T00:16:42.466-05:00Quarantine Day #124My quarantine began March 1, but some aspects go back even further. I fell September 2 last year, and fractured my left tibia and bruised both legs thoroughly from ankle to knee (I have pictures, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to see them). I hobbled around for a couple of months and finally was unable to walk at all in early November. I've been using a wheel chair ever since. So, my world became very much smaller and closely resembled what I am now experiencing in quarantine.<div>I don't know the date of my last haircut, probably sometime in October. Hair hanging in my face drives me crazy, so I've adopted a Pipi Longstocking coiffure. What you don't see in the picture is the mullet formed by the hairs that refused to be bunched up. Pretty goofy, but it's become my go-to daily hair style.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcMCY04gLEyUCY8tyGe6JmEdS6OrLrRbaT4OYJzCX_B5TjEGPPtSXbGs83_QwH0sAdX3V7h0EEsyOWwOtHMjwPIDBK0Oje0KPK7SvO4MxrY9rm96buJrJ9vSvm6YG5Haus1utdxim2lc/s3088/IMG_0423.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2320" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcMCY04gLEyUCY8tyGe6JmEdS6OrLrRbaT4OYJzCX_B5TjEGPPtSXbGs83_QwH0sAdX3V7h0EEsyOWwOtHMjwPIDBK0Oje0KPK7SvO4MxrY9rm96buJrJ9vSvm6YG5Haus1utdxim2lc/w123-h164/IMG_0423.HEIC" width="123" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">February 16 was the day I last set foot in a restaurant. Sister Valery and I had lunch with brother Rick -- the first time I had seen him since he and wife Kathy split up. And shopping at Trader Joe's sometime before the first of March, was the last time I set foot in a grocery store.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I now do all my shopping online, using e-cart for groceries and Amazon for just about everything else. Ben picks up the groceries and my prescriptions from CVS. But it really doesn't feel much different and I don't feel like I'm suffering. I've visited with a few friends and family members sitting outside, maintaining social distance and using masks as appropriate. No shared food. On a few occasions people have come into my home briefly. Upon their departure, I run around with Clorox wipes and Lysol spray.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All that said, I am not suffering, I don't feel deprived. My (inadequate) income continues. And like always, I sew, read, cook, write, and pay rapt attention to politics and social movements.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here's my mask inventory for sale: all are adult size, have nose wires, and soft elastic bands that fit over the ear. I'm going to work on some smaller sizes and a couple of different styles in the near future. I have several of each of those in the bottom picture. The top ones are one of a kind at the moment, but I have more of the same fabrics and will be making more.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZjGzb6wbU4Gauku7GNTwMzAf6Q5llQZ0aD77ZoGw4azz6LGeF4G3uoypHSTcoQ-pcvXocb3ib7ZebQOJCYFKQ1pGKHRxL6qyKz7eGbaLuYIlU6Txltdh15JuMdAZdWBQIEGrvi1zRKY/s3022/IMG_0446.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2652" data-original-width="3022" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGZjGzb6wbU4Gauku7GNTwMzAf6Q5llQZ0aD77ZoGw4azz6LGeF4G3uoypHSTcoQ-pcvXocb3ib7ZebQOJCYFKQ1pGKHRxL6qyKz7eGbaLuYIlU6Txltdh15JuMdAZdWBQIEGrvi1zRKY/s320/IMG_0446.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhb0Sivhq3_k5HuIh-NZliC6tBRFsk4b4hMulNnFO5Ebggo6Hb0TfOc_zjsM1kBgcxru18M9blhp3G9cE2get-NY-Dl8Ih1Kj_ORFl6dn59-ovuZlKl7SyydI5tv3nIuCLgzb_VaG6m84/s2905/IMG_0445.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2872" data-original-width="2905" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhb0Sivhq3_k5HuIh-NZliC6tBRFsk4b4hMulNnFO5Ebggo6Hb0TfOc_zjsM1kBgcxru18M9blhp3G9cE2get-NY-Dl8Ih1Kj_ORFl6dn59-ovuZlKl7SyydI5tv3nIuCLgzb_VaG6m84/s320/IMG_0445.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-62043419416391832772020-07-01T18:20:00.039-05:002020-07-01T20:13:07.146-05:00Back to the BlogosphereI quit blogging when I felt what I had to say might hurt others. Time has thickened my hide, I hope my readers feel the same. I am compelled to speak out on so many things ranging from a very personal level to global issues. Maybe I'll step on a few toes, I'm okay with that. Folks are free to disagree in comments. I will publish any well-thought out opinions, but won't tolerate personal attacks directed at me (politicians are fair game), just leave out any nasty language, be creative, exercise your vocabulary. So you are going to hear about whatever is running around the squirrel cage of my mind.<br />
Today it's masks. I'm for them. And I make them. And I hope to sell them.<div>They're $5 each, $1 shipping and handling. Each mask is made by me in my smoke-free, pet-free home from new material which has been laundered to remove any chemical residue from manufacturing. To order, email me at: melodyblairmoore@gmail.com, put "Masks" in the subject line. Please and thank you. I will evenually open an etsy shop, but I'm giving my friends a head start.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Lrf-0MiYdd_4DK7BDm0X19nXNq2_MXp-paX0TAA4Pdd7fnRtCAmLiT6zWG5-NkKp_cqdgjdKpm3Upx7OSpZ4rmz6dBGGhmDScQ7ijfAB47YxZvKeOyg0aD8Mc9Ox6JSkgdfXYPHgLUA/s4032/IMG_0434.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Lrf-0MiYdd_4DK7BDm0X19nXNq2_MXp-paX0TAA4Pdd7fnRtCAmLiT6zWG5-NkKp_cqdgjdKpm3Upx7OSpZ4rmz6dBGGhmDScQ7ijfAB47YxZvKeOyg0aD8Mc9Ox6JSkgdfXYPHgLUA/s320/IMG_0434.HEIC" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXvrpYVfzvjzk9qV7ztyxG4IM8b1fB0BcimO5imLE50TVpJN12rjbAAY-i2b3y_98BHbjw-deles2mEUMA5XnykkpHdcy8e7WAToTcKvKVR5ZkO0xByOuYX6Eqw7688BSUTxBd8LA9c3k/s2394/IMG_0437.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2394" data-original-width="2283" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXvrpYVfzvjzk9qV7ztyxG4IM8b1fB0BcimO5imLE50TVpJN12rjbAAY-i2b3y_98BHbjw-deles2mEUMA5XnykkpHdcy8e7WAToTcKvKVR5ZkO0xByOuYX6Eqw7688BSUTxBd8LA9c3k/s320/IMG_0437.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eur_2i_QsVUioQ-pcGwdkOpzYdmGFxSELZKS3zU4PiRAio6zAVZGoZOURi5-722rNwv2YIx0II39YcrOOVJsDZSY1vbrAdwPUt7gVZrI6_V89SSiCXH9R6Zda14d1gJaZDGbFR10pJ8/s3386/IMG_0438.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3386" data-original-width="3021" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eur_2i_QsVUioQ-pcGwdkOpzYdmGFxSELZKS3zU4PiRAio6zAVZGoZOURi5-722rNwv2YIx0II39YcrOOVJsDZSY1vbrAdwPUt7gVZrI6_V89SSiCXH9R6Zda14d1gJaZDGbFR10pJ8/s320/IMG_0438.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1MkqFVR0PiWmBWgyw3jbJTXbqDKM0DTWQ1e03vHibNek3B-64C5HIryFZa_tpR8mwfXVeyihGkh9D3uibppdSQDjapMUSD2JABkfZqKArElSbNEh_AgN31-JzxFFbxXpk57d-oaXe1g/s2985/IMG_0439.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2985" data-original-width="2649" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1MkqFVR0PiWmBWgyw3jbJTXbqDKM0DTWQ1e03vHibNek3B-64C5HIryFZa_tpR8mwfXVeyihGkh9D3uibppdSQDjapMUSD2JABkfZqKArElSbNEh_AgN31-JzxFFbxXpk57d-oaXe1g/s320/IMG_0439.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZk0ZykexkHFDfJGe4ccQYUxNuONn3zEderNqkmkzgSvhScvZ6dQggU_2XYGy8kSZnt-KJmbpLRNGa4YvL0EwKgzXKrphCJJhuuOyzlRIgLnQNJBQV04jofwSVSBbdXZw4tfOVZeBA4lQ/s2780/IMG_0440.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2780" data-original-width="2429" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZk0ZykexkHFDfJGe4ccQYUxNuONn3zEderNqkmkzgSvhScvZ6dQggU_2XYGy8kSZnt-KJmbpLRNGa4YvL0EwKgzXKrphCJJhuuOyzlRIgLnQNJBQV04jofwSVSBbdXZw4tfOVZeBA4lQ/s320/IMG_0440.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUvCZ5rg-PIBmRVIeLNs8kiGGRDaBoEVkQVaDkEQa9_FNnp7xfc3Hw6tv4aJ-DDGWbakWoJJ-HmLF7zB0xi-H2QUk0g3xtIowVxn1K3q3_oDr5-yg-esBcZPMYXqLIUyVWmdX1aU4J7fo/s4032/IMG_0442.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUvCZ5rg-PIBmRVIeLNs8kiGGRDaBoEVkQVaDkEQa9_FNnp7xfc3Hw6tv4aJ-DDGWbakWoJJ-HmLF7zB0xi-H2QUk0g3xtIowVxn1K3q3_oDr5-yg-esBcZPMYXqLIUyVWmdX1aU4J7fo/s320/IMG_0442.HEIC" /></a></div>My beautiful model is Alexandra, daughter of beloved friend, Lisa. Every mask is made with love and prayers, hope, and good wishes for the wearer's good health from the heart and gnarled hands of this 81 year old woman. Custom orders can specify custom prayers! I'll show new masks at the bottom of each post.</div><div>In future posts I'll ramble on about politics, the pandemic, the opioid epidemic, the gun violence epidemic, racism, the declining global reputation of the USA, aging, books and maybe an occasional Netflix or Amazon Prime offering, food, travel, quilts, masks, family and friends, maybe a tad about the weather, but I'll try not to be boring.</div><div>Please tell your friends to follow me!</div>Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-55431887919269047202018-08-01T17:55:00.001-05:002020-07-13T20:07:52.584-05:00Seward's Folly-- Part III<br />
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Widowhood did not become my mother. She had gone straight from her
girlhood home to marriage and motherhood. She often spoke of her loneliness as
an only child and vowed she would not inflict that loneliness on her children.
Remembering the large family of one of her friends, she said every night
was like a party at their house, something she strove to emulate with her own
brood. But, once everyone had left home, the only party she attended was her
private party with Jim Beam. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">After the death of my father,
she tried desperately to hang on to the traditions she had so carefully developed
while raising her family, but unfortunately, alcohol clouded her ability to
pull it off. I remember one particular evening. She prepared a huge elaborate
paella, made from pounds of expensive fresh seafood. She invited several family
members and a couple who had been friends from the UC Berkeley days. When
dinner time arrived, she brought the masterpiece to the table stone cold. She
had forgotten to cook it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">My mother's friend pulled me
aside and said, "Poor thing, you children have got to do something about
her."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">She was drinking heavily, I
found cash register receipts from several different liquor stores listing all
kinds of booze: bourbon, scotch, vodka, gin, rum, etc. She deluded herself into
believing she needed to stock up for a party or to have a full bar available in
case someone dropped in for a drink. I looked at her cancelled checks. Some
days she was so shaky so could hardly write. We did have to do something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">We planned an intervention. We
tricked her into coming to a facility in Half Moon Bay where we gathered in a
room. In a meeting facilitated by a staff member, we told her how concerned we
were for her, how we loved her, and wanted her to be the person we remembered,
the one who was bright, funny, creative, and sober. She was outraged. Even
though she had already been drinking that morning, she denied she needed help,
and asserted that she could take care of herself. She made it clear we were
trespassing in her private world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The therapist said she had
never seen such a strong-willed resistant person and after a couple of hours,
we declared the intervention a failure and took her home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">No further parties occurred. I
took over holiday dinners except for one Thanksgiving; we decided to have
dinner at the Claremont Hotel in the Berkeley hills. When I stopped by to pick her up, she was in a bathrobe and nowhere near ready to go. I explained she
needed to hurry as we had to stop and pick up her father (Bobo) on the way to
dinner. She disappeared into her bedroom for a long time and when I went to
check on her, she was still in her robe, shuffling through stuff in her room,
but making no move to get ready. She was in a blackout, unaware I was
there and that it was time to leave. When I tried to explain that we were late
picking up Bobo, she just laughed and said, "Oh, Bobo doesn't care."
I told her I was leaving in ten minutes with or without her. Ten minutes later,
while she was still in her bathrobe, I left.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I did pick up Bobo and,
although we were late, joined ten other family members gathered for dinner.
About half way through dinner, an apparition appeared at the entrance to our
small dining alcove, and it snarled at me, "Melody, how dare you! I will
never forgive you." Fortunately, she had taken a cab, and not driven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I think of my mother in
paradoxical patterns; she was shy and introverted, thought of herself as a
"private person", but she loved parties. She worked faithfully to
make holidays and birthdays special to each of us. And I think she loved the
release of inhibition from the alcohol that flowed freely on those occasions.
Sadly, as she drank alone, she became reclusive and shut herself off from
friends and family. She lived alone and in filth with a little dog who never
went outside. Her one constant contact with the outside world was a phone call
she made each morning to her father, to make sure he had made it safely through
the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">One morning, he called me to
say he had not heard from her. Her telephone went unanswered. We both knew this
was an ominous sign. I lived an hour away, in San Jose, but decided to leave
right away to check on her. I hung up the phone, and called my son-in-law, Wes,
arranging to pick him up to make the trip to Oakland with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Arriving in her driveway, we
kicked our way through piles of fallen leaves to the locked front door. Looking
under all the obvious places, empty flower pots and planters, decorative rocks
and ceramic frogs, we found no key. Breaking a window in the still unfinished
downstairs game room, Wes worked his way upstairs through trash, dirty clothes,
and dog feces littering the green shag carpet, to open the front door. We made
our way through the silent house to her bedroom while the dog, a filthy shaggy
toy poodle, sniffed at our heels. She lay on a mattress that was askew, half
off and half on the bed, her head seemed caught between the mattress and the
headboard. She responded to her name with a groan, and we managed to get her to
an upright sitting position. She seemed conscious, but unaware of her
surroundings and with no sense of who we were, why we were there, what had
happened, or anything else that would affirm that she was mentally
present, so while I sat with her, Wes called 911.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">She was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with a brain bleed
of unknown cause.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Comatose for several days, the initial outlook was grim. She was
not expected to be able walk, talk, or participate in her own care. But, she
did regain enough function to be able to live in assisted living for a number
of years, an arrangement that brought her safety and was a relief to all of us
who cared about her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I assumed Power of Attorney and rented out Seward’s Folly. The
rent money, along with her other sources of income, provided for her very
comfortably the rest of her life. When she died, the mortgage-free house was
sold, and each of the heirs received a nice little sum for indulging their own
follies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-13134225856523291642015-10-22T22:10:00.001-05:002015-10-24T12:11:23.010-05:00Seward's Folly -- Part IIWe dreamed of a large, comfortable house with a bedroom for each kid and spacious common areas to serve for family gatherings and parties. The reality was an all-consuming monster that ate our family.<br />
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The first few years were filled with dreams, plans, foundations, and hope. Then, years passed, and little progress was made on the new house, while the old house continued to deteriorate, as did our family.<br />
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My mother slowly settled into drinking more and doing less. From time to time, she seemed to bob to the surface and show some signs of life, learning to drive, taking Spanish lessons, joining a garden club, or leading a Bluebird troop for my sister, Valery. But, for the most part she became more reclusive, spending hours in her rocking chair, smoking cigarettes, working crossword puzzles, or playing solitaire, sipping on bourbon and soda, and taking long naps.<br />
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She had a set of household tasks she performed religiously. She always made her bed when she got up in the morning, started the coffee, and prepared breakfast for the kids. Each morning she made sure her kids went off to school with a hot breakfast in their tummies, and a brown paper lunch bag filled with a sandwich, homemade cookies, a piece of fruit, and a paper napkin.<br />
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Every night, we ate dinner together in the dining room. Rarely, was anyone missing, and it was just as unusual to have a guest. The table was carefully set for seven people; dinner plates, salad plates, paper napkins, and silverware were laid out in Emily Post-perfect order. The silverware was sterling and we always used salad forks as well as dinner forks. Our mother brought the food to the table in serving dishes which were passed around, so we could each serve ourselves. Ritual was infused in our meal practices, but not until recently did I view them as offerings of love by our mother who was not able to demonstrate love in ways more easily understood by children.<br />
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I set the table until Valery was old enough to take over. Then, I was promoted to salad maker. Those were the only two chores that were ever assigned in our household. No one but our mother ever did the dishes. I never understood that, but she didn't want us doing them. And, of course, this was before every kitchen had an automatic dishwasher. We never ate out during those years before frozen meals and takeout. And I don't remember my mother ever being ill or missing a meal, except when she went to the hospital to have a baby.<br />
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She seemed almost possessive about meal preparation and dishwashing, unwilling to let the kids do any of it. Laundry was the same. In 1953, we got a brand new automatic Westinghouse front loading washer and a dryer that played the tune to "How Dry I Am" at the end of the cycle. They were installed against the far wall of the back room, their bubble glass doors looking across the room like a gigantic pair of eyes.The washer and dryer were in constant use, but nothing ever got ironed or put away. A mountain of clean clothes was piled on a nearby table. We pulled what we needed out of the pile and ironed it ourselves, if necessary.<br />
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The back room was an unfinished room, about 20 feet square, attached to the house by a breezeway. It served as my father's office as well as laundry room. It also had a toilet, but not a full bathroom. His drawing table was positioned under a north-facing window; it couldn't have been for the light, I don't believe that grimy window was washed once in the twenty years I knew of.<br />
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The back room was the repository for his not-so secret bottle of wine. He never left the house without a stop in the backroom, ostensibly to use the toilet, but he always left the room drawing the back of his right hand across his mouth and and emitting a breathy mahhhh sound. His left hand would reach into the front pocket of his trousers and withdraw a tube of lifesavers. Removing one peppermint circle from the tube, he would blow tobacco shreds from the center of it before popping it into his mouth. Then he was ready to hit the road.<br />
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I left home to begin married life in 1959 and my brother Mickey joined the Air Force a couple of years later. Neither of us would return to the family home. So, instead of five, there were now three chicks left in the nest.<br />
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The house progressed slowly. Beautiful blue-green granite stones were purchased for the large fireplace in the family room and slate for the floor of the entry way. Framing and roof joists began to give the structure a three-dimensional aspect. The fireplaces were installed and the chimneys rose through the roof line. And I remember joining in the family prayer for a dry October as preparations were made for the installation of the roof, a large flat surface of crushed white marble. Windows and siding were added and the house was enclosed.<br />
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My father in his weekend uniform, wifebeater shirt and baggy khaki pants, </div>
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Christmas, 1968, still in the old house,</div>
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By Christmas 1968, the oldest two of the Blair children, brother Mickey and I, had produced five members of a new generation. They gathered under the Christmas tree, which was, as usual, placed in front of the door to nowhere. At that time, brother Ken was a sophomore at UC Berkeley, and Valery was finishing high school. Mickey, Ricky, and I were all married and living in our own homes. The marriage and the very lives of my parents were on unstable ground, The new house was at a standstill and all resources of cash and internal fortitude had been tapped out. </div>
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My mother complained to me on the telephone that my father never did anything but pace around the unfinished interior of the new house and that she was going crazy living in the tumble-down old house. And, in fact, I believe she was going crazy. At one point, she disappeared for several days and no one knew where she was. She had taken their beloved German Shepherd, Jody, with her, so my father felt reasonably sure she was not suicidal. She loved the dog so much, he felt she would not take the adored animal into a dangerous situation. In retrospect, I believe she was suicidal, but I was so wrapped up in my own life, I took what my father told me at face value and didn't doubt him. She was drinking very heavily on a daily basis and when she was alert, she raged at her youngest daughter, Valery. </div>
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My father complained that he didn't know what to do with my mother. Her drinking was going to be the ruin of him and he just couldn't stand it anymore. I was helpless, caught in the middle, and suggested to each of them that they leave the other. Each reacted the same way, as though I had blasphemed, "I could never leave your mother/father! How dare you even suggest it!"</div>
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A last draw on his inheritance, and probably more refinancing, produced a final infusion of cash. At last, in 1971, after all five children had left home, eighteen years after moving into temporary quarters in the tumbledown Victorian, my mother and father moved into the dream/nightmare house. It wasn't entirely finished, bricks still lay in piles around their ultimate destination as a decorative element on the exterior of the lower story. The downstairs pool room and workshop walls were unfinished, and parts of the exterior lacked paint, but a certificate of occupancy was issued, and the old house was emptied and demolished.</div>
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Demolition of the old house. The kitchen sink is to the left, my bedroom to the right. The only bathroom, with a tub and no shower, was in between the kitchen and my bedroom.</div>
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Preparing to topple the chimney of the old house</div>
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The house was torn down, all but the back room, left standing and visible in the picture above, with my father standing in front of it. It still held his drawing table, building material catalogs, architecture textbooks, drafting tools, probably the bug-eyed washer and dryer, a supply of empty wine bottles, and in all likelihood, some unfolded laundry.</div>
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My daughter, Colleen standing on the felled chimney, you can look across the debris field to the new house.</div>
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Six grandchildren and the first Christmas in the new house, 1971</div>
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Just as construction was being completed, my mother's mother (Mimi) died, leaving a bunch of cash and telephone company stock which was promptly liquidated to provide funds for furnishings. My mother entered a gloriously productive sober period and went into a decorating frenzy. She attended a class on interior decorating, sewed curtains, bought and arranged furniture. The youngest two children, Kenny and Valery, were at that fledgling state in their lives where they bobbed in and out of the nest for a brief while. But, for the most part, the nest was empty and my mother and father had the roost to themselves.</div>
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In 1973, my father's mother died and he collected the remnants of his inheritance. For the first time in twenty years, it wasn't necessary to pour all available time and money into the new house. My parents used the money to travel the world. They made friends in the UC Berkeley alumni association, and they entertained. I think the years from 1973 to 1984 may have been the happiest in their lives. The kids were all grown and independent, the soul-eating behemoth was placated, and they were free, free at last.<br />
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Of course, the story doesn't end there. My father died on April 1, 1984 of a sudden heart attack after a night of smoking, drinking, and dancing. He was 71 years old, and my mother was a widow at 65. For the first time in her life she was entirely alone.<br />
<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-33899872676415731992015-09-24T16:44:00.003-05:002020-07-13T20:29:17.616-05:00Seward's Folly - Part IMy father, Seward James Blair, was named after William Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State. He was named thus at the insistence of his paternal grandmother, Amanda Schooley Blair, who worshipped the husband of her older cousin, Frances Seward. Amanda’s father died in 1850, seeking his fortune in the California gold fields, leaving eight children, all first cousins of Frances Seward, fatherless in Ovid, New York. The Sewards lived 31 miles from Ovid, in Auburn, New York, and Mrs. Seward, a very compassionate woman, took eight-year-old Amanda under her wing. Some versions of family lore assert that Amanda was a paid companion to Seward's consumptive daughter, Fanny. In any case, according to letters written by Mrs. Seward and journal entries by Fanny, Amanda spent a good deal of time in the Seward house after the death of her father. In spite of the illustrious and convoluted history of his name, Seward James Blair was known by everyone as Bud.<br />
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Seward James Blair</div>
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Amanda Schooley Blair</div>
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William Henry Seward</div>
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Frances Miller Seward</div>
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Bud Blair was an architect and a dreamer. So, it was inevitable that he aspire to build his dream house. He also had well-honed carpentry and other construction skills developed as a teen-ager while working with his father on their farm, constructing outbuildings which were always way over-engineered for their intended purpose. I remember in particular a "shed" about six feet square, with foundations, an eight foot ceiling, a window, wood floor, and shingled pitched roof. The sole purpose of this little cottage-like building was to house old magazines. Other buildings were more utilitarian, a workshop, accommodations for poultry, feed, and farm equipment. Bud was a builder by birth and he intended to demonstrate it on a grand scale.<br />
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First, the plans were drawn for a 4,000 square foot ten-room house, intended to accommodate our family of seven. Features included a 500 square foot combination kitchen and laundry with three sinks and two refrigerators, abundant cupboard space, and state of the art fluorescent lighting. There were four fireplaces, one of them an indoor barbecue, a wall of glass thirty feet long and twelve feet high, and roof surface of 1/12th of an acre.<br />
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Construction proceeded at a glacial pace. Little progress was visible for years, yet all available time and money was allocated to the "new house". Piles of used bricks accumulated in the yard. Old railroad ties for use in future landscaping gathered in other parts of the property. In the meanwhile, we lived in the old house as it began to fall apart around us. The roof leaked in so many places that elaborate interior systems for handling the runoff were devised. At least 20 buckets were placed in strategic places in the attic and an intricate aqueduct moved rainwater from a gaping hole in the ceiling to the kitchen sink.<br />
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One day, while my mother was grocery shopping, my brother, Mickey, decided to show our horse, Nellybelle, the inside of the house. She followed placidly as he led her into the kitchen, through the dining room, across a corner of the living room, down the hallway, and out the front door, where her foot broke through the rotting boards of the front porch. He was able to extricate her without much difficulty and return her to the pasture before Mom returned. No one ever asked about the hole in the porch. New evidence of the house falling apart appeared frequently and was just taken for granted.<br />
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But the walls went unpainted, the roof unpatched, as all extra time and money were devoted to the new house. Decorative pillars between the dining room and living room were hollow, having been eaten out by termites; only many layers of paint gave them form. The piano, couches, and chairs ringed the large living room, with a vast open space in the middle because it would not support the weight of heavy furniture. Walking across it felt like preliminary bounces on a trampoline; glassware clattered in cabinets. A door in the living room opened onto a porch, one story above ground level, but the rotten staircase had been removed years earlier.<br />
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For Christmas, my father wanted only a keg of sixteen-penny nails. Vacations were spent chipping mortar from used bricks, or looking at building supply catalogs.</div>
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Back view of the old house and yard.</div>
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Mom works with enthusiasm at painting the foundations of the new house in 1959.</div>
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Repurposed bridge piers delivered, to be used as floor joists.</div>
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Foundations laid, ready for floor joists. Front view of old house in background showing the porch the horse stepped through.</div>
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Valery and Kenny in front of the Christmas tree, 1958.<br />
The door behind the tree leads to the porch without a staircase.</div>
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1959 must have been seen an infusion of cash because there was an apparent building spurt.<br />
Foundations and a steep concrete driveway were poured that year. Huge timbers salvaged from the destruction of a bridge across the Oakland-Alameda estuary were laid across the foundations to support the subfloor. My dad secured funding by throwing himself at the mercy of anyone who seemed to have some ready cash. Refinancing and second mortgages were negotiated frequently, his mother was tapped for further advances on his inheritance. Local magnates, Fred May and Louis Lurie were approached. Sometimes it worked, more often it did not. Sometimes the house seemed to be taking form, but more often, it lay fallow.</div>
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<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-88435715011233111992015-09-08T17:21:00.000-05:002015-09-24T18:56:13.317-05:00And Then There Were Five<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On October 18, 1949, Kenneth Lee Blair was born and I was ten and a half years old. I remember answering the phone (a heavy black bakelite phone with a rotary dial and a springy cloth-covered cord), when my mother called from the hospital to announce, "It's a boy!" and I remember being very disappointed I didn't get the baby sister I wished for. But, I rebounded as soon as I held my sweet new sibling in my arms. I felt as though he was my own real live baby doll. I kissed him and cuddled him, dressed him, took him for walks,and thought he was the cutest, most perfect being on the planet. Changing his diapers and feeding him were duties my mother gladly yielded to me and I considered them a privilege.</div>
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I remember pushing him in his Taylor Tot down to the new Lucky's Supermarket where an old lady stopped us to fuss over the baby. She looked up at me and asked, "Is he yours?" </div>
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Her question filled me with pride, but I told her the truth, "No," I said, "How old do you think I am?"</div>
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She replied, "Oh, I don't know, they have them so young these days." I wished he were my baby and maybe in a way, he was. I had a maternalistic bond with Ken that endures to this day, even though he died in 1993 and I felt the loss as deeply as the loss of a child. </div>
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The picture below was taken in April of the last year we lived in the Athol Avenue house. That July, when my mother was five months pregnant with her fifth child, we moved to 5501 Leona Street, to a tumble-down Victorian era farmhouse on an acre of land in the Oakland Hills. My parents had visions of living in that house only as long as construction of their dream house was under way. But, that's a story for another day.</div>
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Easter 1952</div>
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In 1952, my mother finally delivered the baby sister I waited for so long. Valery Joan Blair was born October 25 and again I remember answering the phone call from the hospital. "It's a girl!" announced my mother.</div>
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"I knew you could do it!" was my response. </div>
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And like for brother Ken, I had lots of opportunity to practice my child care techniques. From the time I was five years old and told to keep an eye on Mickey, until I left home, I always had a hand in caring for my younger siblings.</div>
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With Mickey, I felt an intense sense of displacement and sibling rivalry. I didn't have the same issues with my second brother. When Ricky was born, I was nearly five. My job was to keep Mickey safe and out of the way while our mother took care of Ricky. Ricky had a few health struggles when he was young: asthma and a milk allergy as an infant, and a severe case of whooping cough when he was about five. I was too young to be directly involved in his care, but I felt he was very special and needed to be protected.</div>
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Because I was involved in the hands-on care of both Kenny and Valery, I felt very maternalistic toward them. At the same time, they grew to be very close to each other with frequent escapes into a fantasy world created by the beautiful and creative mind of Ken. </div>
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As they grew closer, I grew more distant, moving into my own world filled with girlfriends, boyfriends, and plans for a future formed by my past.</div>
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Christmas, 1954</div>
<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-21294190333460469982015-08-10T16:09:00.002-05:002015-09-24T18:56:41.558-05:00In Sickness and in Health<i>These are real events as I recall them. After August 20, 2015, when Logan goes off to college, I will again veer off into my fantasy road trip.</i><br />
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Much of my adult life I've been harshly critical of my mother because of her alcoholism. I'm sad and angry that it removed her from active participation as a grandmother in the lives of my children. Today I put that aside and remember the selfless, tireless, beautiful young mother I had as a child.<br />
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She was just twenty when I was born, two years after her high school graduation from Oakland High School in 1937. She and a group of her girlfriends had formed a sorority they called the Maddi Kappi; they hung out together and met a bunch of architectural students from Cal (UC Berkeley) and that's how I came to be.</div>
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She was a student at Heald's Business College, but she didn't finish the program. She worked one Christmas season wrapping gifts at Hale's Department Store in Oakland, the only job she ever held. According to Social Security, her lifetime earnings were just over $200. And then, she became a mom.</div>
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I always thought she looked kind of like Lauren Bacall. She was fun, flirty, loved to dance, and loved to sing, always humming under her breath as she went about the housework. I was proud of the way my young mother looked and felt sorry for the kids with fat frumpy older moms.</div>
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My father was a student when my parents married and he worked part time for Standard Oil as a draftsman. He graduated from Cal a year after I was born. Shortly thereafter, he went to work for Owens-Illinois as a draftsman and then later as an architectural engineer. He remained in that position until his retirement. His salary was always just a little short of what we needed to get by, so he supplemented it by spending hours at the drafting table he set up in our dining room, drawing house plans for all the executives at the glass factory. He designed several homes which are still standing in Piedmont, the Montclair district, Orinda, and Oakland. He further supplemented his income with a series of loans from his mother, drawing down on any future inheritance.</div>
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In those days, the only inoculations available for kids were DPT and they weren't mandatory, so we didn't get them. These were also the days before health insurance, so any doctor's visit was an unplanned expense and our household had no room in the budget for unplanned expenses. Only maternity care was allowed in our household. </div>
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I don't remember my mother ever being sick, or even slowed down by her pregnancies -- five of them (although today I'm writing about a time before the youngest two were born). I have vivid memories of the times we were sick and the wonderful loving care she bestowed on us.</div>
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Measles, we called them the red measles, the two-week kind, were epidemic among kids from about five to eight years old. And we caught them serially, so for six weeks a fevered child lay in my mother's bed. The shades were drawn because of the risk of eye damage, I don't know if darkness really did anything to prevent damage, but we also weren't allowed to read for the same reason. I remember running a fever of 105 degrees and my mother getting almost. but not quite, worried enough to call the doctor. In lieu of a doctor's house call, my father called Dr. Bensinger, the plant doctor. He became our <i>de facto</i> family physician.</div>
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When we were sick we slept in our beds by night, but in the daytime, we rested in our parents downstairs bed and we were treated royally. Mom read to us, sang to us, brought meals in on a tray, and bought treats like comic books or ice cream bars. When she left to walk down to the corner store, we got out from under the covers and jumped on the bed. Being sick had lots of perks. </div>
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In addition to the measles, chickenpox and mumps won us time in our mother's bed. For some reason, we never caught rubella, known to us as the German measles, the black measles or the three-day measles.</div>
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Brother Rick (the little guy in the pictures), and I had the whooping cough. I had what was probably the world's lightest case, I barely coughed with a slight whoop for six weeks and felt fine most of the time, but I had to stay out of school. They said whooping cough was two weeks coming, two weeks there, and two weeks leaving, comprising the six week quarantine period. Rick had a terrible case. Every time he coughed, he vomited. He coughed until the blood vessels in his eyes broke. He became very thin and we were all very worried about him. He was given special drinks to keep him hydrated and fed lots of Popsicles. I think Popsicles were a universal cure, at least in our household. </div>
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But the worst, the very worst, was the ringworm. My father had taken in a stray kitten. We loved it and cuddled it and fought over who would get to hold it next. And then I began to itch on my chest, right where I snuggled the kitten. Soon both my brothers were itching in the same spot. This time my parents took us to the doctor. The first diagnosis was impetigo. When we returned to the doctor in even worse shape with the condition spreading to our arms and legs, the diagnosis became scabies. Finally when the eruptions settled into the characteristic round shape of ringworm, the accurate diagnosis was made, and the kitten was identified as the source of our malady. Sadly, by that time our other household pets, my beloved cat, Dingle, and our sweet cocker spaniel, Duchess, had to be put down. </div>
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Not only did we lose our household pets, but all our stuffed animals were burned. By this time our entire bodies were covered including the scalps of my brothers. Their heads were shaved, but my scalp was spared and I had to wear my hair tightly braided and pinned to the top of my head. Ours were the worst cases of ringworm the doctor had ever seen. He referred us to the dermatology clinic at the University of California Medical School. There, a half dozen dermatologists peered at us and photographed us for medical journals. </div>
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The outbreak began in June just as school was letting out for the summer. The treatment called for rigorous cleanliness and isolation from any other kids. Our parents were absolute saints during this time. I'm sure they felt enormous guilt for bringing this plague into the house, but the effort they put forth in caring for us and entertaining us was superhuman.</div>
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Like every household in 1949, we had only a wringer washer, Our mother washed and line-dried our bed sheets every day. We bathed morning and night and had a salve called Salinadol smeared over all our lesions. My hair was shampooed daily, greased with the gooey salve, braided, and pinned up out of contact with the eruptions on my neck and forehead. Gallons of Hexol were used in cleaning every surface of the house. My mother worked to keep the bugs at bay from dawn till she fell in bed at night.</div>
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The picture below was taken two months before ringworm turned our beautiful skin into a repulsive mass of sores. It sat on my mother's dresser where she would look at it and weep, wondering if her children would ever be beautiful again.</div>
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Our parents went to great lengths to entertain us and compensate for our cloistered summer. My father built wonderful toys, using cardboard and wood liberated from the stock piles of the glass factory. He built a 5/8 scale stage coach with doors that opened and shut, seats inside, a seat outside for the driver and a side kick. Horses heads also made from cardboard fit over our heads and rested on our shoulders. My grandfather (Bobo) gave us a regular full-sized pinball machine that we operated using slugs instead of coins. Both the stage coach and pin ball machine were in a garage we used as a rumpus room. Mimi bought us books; we couldn't contaminate library books. We had homemade stilts and a constant supply of new comic books.<br />
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Our mother sang to us and our father told us stories. He made up a stories about the Whiffenpoofs, a family who had ringworm, but were able to put them to good use. They would scrape them off and use them as tires on their cars and take wonderful trips. And we did take wonderful day trips. We explored the entire bay area, took the ferry to San Francisco, or had picnics in many of the wonderful East Bay Regional Parks, and went for walks in the woods.<br />
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By the time summer was over and school was ready to start, we were cured. We didn't miss a day of school and our exhausted mother had a chance to rest.Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-85878412059185453012015-08-09T22:44:00.002-05:002022-02-15T16:28:09.770-06:00School Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>Another installment of reminiscing prompted by my trip to Oakland. These too, are true so far as memory allows. </i></div>
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I started kindergarten at Cleveland School in January 1944. At that time, kids could start mid-year because of a semester system that divided each grade into "high" and "low." I think it is a good system; a child who wasn't quite ready for school in September could start in January and not have to wait a whole year to begin. And my mother loved it. She still had two more little kids at home; the nest was getting a little crowded.</div>
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I was a mid-year kid until I skipped the high third grade, going directly from low third to low fourth grade. My mother cautioned me, "Don't go thinking it's because you're so smart, it's just because your class was too crowded." But I was immediately placed in the top groups in reading and arithmetic (we didn't call it math until the fifth grade).</div>
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The desks we sat at like those in the picture were mounted on wooden runners. I remember running the edge of the sole of my shoe along the runners and along the grooves in the pine floors. The smell of the oiled floors mixed with that of chalk dust and the ink in our ink wells created a particular school room perfume which is lodged in olfactory memory. Third grade had a special rite of passage. When we had satisfied Mrs. McNary we had mastered the Palmer method of cursive handwriting, we were issued pens and blotters and our inkwells would be filled. We dipped our pens in the blue-black liquid and carefully scratched out the final copies of our compositions. </div>
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Mrs. McNary's classroom was in one of the portables. Being assigned to a portable was a special honor because they were heated by coal-burning stoves. Not only did we have blackboard monitors, but some lucky boy was also chosen for the highly esteemed position of coal monitor, charged with keeping the coal bucket filled, and stoking the fire as needed. Girls could be blackboard monitors, but only boys were allowed to be coal monitors.</div>
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When I was in about fifth grade, a boy just a grade behind me died by hanging in the basement of his home. We were told it was an accident and I never doubted it. Even though these were the years polio was rampant, and several friends had been crippled, it had never occurred to me that a child could die. Another tragic event was the murder of the mother of a classmate. His brother had bludgeoned their mother with a hatchet in a ferocious rage in the basement of their home. My classmate continued at school, but I could never bring myself to talk to him after that. Even looking at him was difficult and made me wonder if my brother were capable of such a thing. I couldn't bear the possibility of losing my mother. And I feared tragedy was contagious. </div>
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Clayton Wright was my first boyfriend. One day our fifth-grade substitute teacher caught us passing love notes in class. She called both of us to the front of the classroom and while holding me in a hammerlock, squished against her ample bosom, she forced me to read the note aloud to the class. I'm not sure why it bothered me so much, everyone had opened and read the note as it made its way across the classroom, there was no secret within. But I still remember the mortification and the smell of that woman: a mixture of Vick's Vap-O-Rub and gardenia perfume. However, my love for Clayton was undiminished by public shaming. </div>
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Clayton gave me a chocolate-covered marshmallow heart for Valentine's Day. The tinfoil wrapping was all wrinkled because he had unwrapped it to enclose two dimes so I could meet him for the Saturday matinee at the Parkway theater.</div>
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I was more excited about having two dimes than the prospect of going to the movies with Clayton, so I rounded up a couple of girlfriends and we headed for the school store. The school store, located just behind the school on Brooklyn Avenue was in the downstairs corner of the house pictured below with an entry right on the corner. Inside, was a fabulous assortment of penny candy, Mary Janes, sugar dots on paper, wax lips, wax bottles of sweet syrup, several kinds of licorice, lollipops, and both Fleers and Bazooka bubble gum. I bought a little of everything and shared it with my friends. Fortunately, I was able to beg 20 cents from my father to keep my date with Clayton, In fact, the entire fifth grade class kept our date. They sat in a solid line in the row behind us. I was so annoyed that I got up and moved to a seat by myself. As near as I can recall, that was our last date.</div>
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The map above illustrated the approximate boundaries of our free-range territory. It is about a three-mile square area, with Lake Merritt as its main attraction. The red X marks the location of our house. I know as young as nine years old, I borrowed a friend's bicycle and rode all around Lake Merritt, a distance of 3-1/4 miles. My mother never knew about it. When I was ten, I got a beautiful Schwinn bicycle for my birthday and frequently rode around the lake. So long as we appeared for meals, we never accounted for our whereabouts.<br />
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The year I was in fifth grade, I got a violin for Christmas. It was a wretched piece of equipment; the tuning pegs would never hold, and it was constantly slipping out of tune. The fact that I was a terrible musician compounded the horror. Even worse, I loved playing the violin and practiced relentlessly while my mother would beg me to please, please, please, use the mute. You can probably tell by my awkward pose that I simply had no feel for the instrument. </div>
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In the picture of the three little musicians, you can barely make out built-in cabinets on either side of the fake fireplace. The one on the left housed my Story Book Doll collection. Although I never played with dolls, I loved getting new Story Book Dolls to add to my collection every birthday and Christmas. My parents, grandmother (Mimi), and Aunt Helen all helped my collection grow until I had around thirty dolls. When I grew a bit older, they were boxed up and stored in my closet. I noticed one day they were missing and later learned my brother had given them away to his girlfriend. My parents did nothing to help me get them back and he was never held accountable for taking them. I've worked really hard over the years to let go of resentment toward my brother, but this one surfaces from time to time and I'm still mad.</div>
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<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-11164747334990541962015-08-04T16:59:00.001-05:002015-09-24T18:57:09.473-05:00The War Years<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This is more reverie stirred up by my visit last week to my childhood haunts. Again, so far as memory serves, this is true.</i></div>
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World War II is a backdrop to all my earliest memories. I'm told my brother and I were at Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco with my parents, Bud and Ruthanne Blair, and my aunt and uncle, Helen and Bill Millward, on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, while the Japanese were dropping bombs on Hawaii. I see no traces of war worries in our Christmas photo. I see my beautiful mother who hung tinfoil icicles on the tree one strand at a time so that they would hang gracefully. My talented father had graduated from UC Berkeley a year and a half previously with a degree in architecture and was working as a draftsman for Owens-Illinois Glass Company. My brother, Mickey was fifteen months old.</div>
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Christmas 1941, just 18 days after Pearl Harbor.</div>
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Our 1944 Victory Garden</div>
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Among his many talents, my father was a wonderful gardener. He mixed sand into the adobe soil, fertilized with compost he carefully tended, and watered religiously when he got home from work. Several of our neighbors benefited from his green thumb. </div>
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Summer of 1944. My Grandmother, Minnie Blair, holds Ricky while I stick out my tongue and Mickey prepares to spit.</div>
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Grandma visited to see her new grandson, Ricky, and to say good-bye to her youngest son as he went off to war. I cannot begin to grasp the agony of her conflicted feelings as she sits with new life in her lap and contemplates the dangers and possibility of the death of her own dear son, but I think it is written on her face. That year marks the beginning of the time she seemed like an old woman to me. </div>
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My father, me, and my father's brother, Bill Blair, Summer 1944</div>
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Uncle Bill came to visit just before leaving for his assignment in the South Pacific as an Army Air Corps B-24 co-pilot. He returned safely after flying 49 missions in the "Red-Headed Woman." As of this writing, he is still living in Pasadena, California and now enjoys WWII memories with many of his fellow WWII vets who meet together regularly. </div>
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In the picture above, my father patriotically smoked a Lucky Strike from a package adorned with a red circle instead of the older-style pack with a green circle, because, according to the slogan, "Lucky green has gone to war." In front of the fence grew asters, zinnias, and cosmos, while behind the fence were dahlias, more products of my father's prodigious gardening skills. </div>
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My father never went to war for reasons that remain vague to me. I remember hearing something about "flat feet" and "too many kids," His contribution was serving as the neighborhood Air Raid Warden, which as nearly as I can recall, meant when the sirens sounded and there was a blackout, he patrolled the neighborhood, wearing a special vest and a helmet, pulling a canister of water mounted on wheels while checking to make sure everyone had drawn their blackout curtains. It was never clear to me what he was supposed to do with the water, but I knew it was important.</div>
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My parents made another contribution by hanging out in bars (Oscar's down on Park Boulevard), drinking with war wounded, and bringing maimed service men home for a meal. They all seemed to be missing a limb. I remember one with a black glove over a useless rigid prosthetic hand, another had a claw he could hold a cigarette with. One who was missing a leg walked with crutches while his pinned-up empty pant leg swung back and forth. Some of the intact service men were mess cooks stationed at Camp Shoemaker. They were a convenient source of scarce and rationed food. Butter, sugar, and eggs were available in our home while the corner grocery shelves were empty.<br />
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Ice skating is all mixed up in my memories of the war years. I know my parents were both good skaters and enjoyed ice dancing. My mother was particularly fond of a sailor named Matt who was a wonderful skater. In later years, my father, perhaps after having had too much to drink, told me more about Matt. Apparently, he and my mother intended to run away together, taking my brother Mickey and leaving me behind. The rent money was missing around that time, I don't know if it was part of the runaway scheme, or if any one our guests had stolen it. My mother also revealed a dark secret years later while under the influence. She told me she had an abortion after the birth of Mickey and before Ricky. That would have placed it around 1942-1943, the same time she was planning to run away. I don't know how to connect the dots in these scant pieces of information, but I do know they cast a long shadow over their marriage.<br />
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Knowledge of these secrets reinforced feelings that had been developing all my life. I saw my mother as flawed, weak, and flighty: my father as a long-suffering noble hero. And I felt unloved by my mother, thought she saw me as competition and perhaps, I was. My father understood me at a level she could not. I held these feelings for most of my adult life and have only recently come to challenge and change them. In my later years my mother emerges in my mind as something of a martyred heroine.<br />
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<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-65418513593977221352015-08-02T16:08:00.000-05:002015-09-24T18:57:24.901-05:00This Old House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>These reflections on my childhood are true, subject to the frailty of memory.</i></div>
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Before setting out on my great adventure, I took a trip to Oakland to revisit some scenes from my childhood. </div>
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This old house, built in 1914 at 570 Athol Avenue, Oakland, California is the warehouse for many of my childhood memories. I lived there from 1944 until 1952, from when I was five years old until the summer I was thirteen.<br />
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I slept in the house during the night, but most of my memories are outside in the backyard, in the streets, on the sidewalks, roaming the neighborhood, and beyond. We were free-range children. I don't know if that was the norm for the day, or if it was because my mother was always busy with the baby -- I was the oldest of five children, so there was always a baby. Perhaps she was settling into her alcoholism, or just, as she said, "Too nervous to have us underfoot." But, as nearly as I can recall, unless we were at school, it was raining, or we were sick, we were turned out to play.<br />
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Sometimes we played in the backyard. My father was very clever at all kinds of building, and made our backyard into a great playground. There was a nice lawn, beautiful flower beds, a 15 x 20 foot playhouse constructed as soundly as any house with cement foundations, wood framing on 16" centers, solid wood sub floors over sturdy beams, an eight foot ceiling and a pitched roof with exposed rafters. It served later residents as a studio, He had constructed a swing set from salvaged pipes, and an enormous sandbox filled with sand liberated from the glass factory where he worked as an architectural engineer. When glass furnaces were rebuilt, used bricks became available for reuse and showed up in our backyard as a barbecue pit on our patio (pronounced PAH-tee-oh, by him).<br />
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But, the front yard, the streets, the neighborhood and beyond were also part of our range. In the front yard, we played jacks, or rock school on the front steps. In rock school, one kid was chosen to be teacher and stood in front of the students who sat on the steps. The teacher hid a small rock in one of her closed fists. The students started in Kindergarten on the bottom step and if they guessed which hand held the rock they would be promoted. The first kid to the top of the steps became the teacher and the game started over. I loved rock school.<br />
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The street was great for jump rope, kite-flying, hide-and-seek, kick the can, Red Rover, Mother May I, Simon Says, and an infinite variety of tag games, like freeze tag, blind man's bluff, and stoop tag. On really hot days, we liked to squat down in the middle of the street and pop the tar bubbles that formed. We would also pull up a patch of the sticky stuff and chew it like gum. If we were really lucky, someone in the neighborhood would be having a roof repaired and there would be a truck pulling a tar pot parked in front of their house. We could then get a fresh, "clean," chunk of tar to chew on. If we got thirsty, we drank from the hose, anybody's hose, in the front yard and we might accidentally squirt one of our friends.<br />
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We knew all the neighbors, if not by name, by ethnicity: the Brazilians on the corner, the Filipinos next door, the Jews on the other corner, the Chinese on the other side of the block, the Greeks who ran the grocery down the street. Mrs. McCarthy could always be depended on for a cookie if we knocked on her door and asked; Mr. Green always called his car his "machine." The Amundsen's across the street still had an ice box and had ice delivered twice a week. If we were out front when the ice man came, we could get a chunk of ice to suck on. And the Lukes had the first television on the block, making their live-in granddaughters, Sandra and Claudia, very popular.<br />
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Large Queen Anne style Victorian -- missing witches hat tower roof</div>
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The architecture of the neighborhood was eclectic. Older Victorians stood next to Maybeckian shingled houses, Craftsmen-style cottages, '30s deco and Spanish-style houses filled in some of the gaps and a '50s moderne occupied the last-to-be-built corner lot.<br />
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More on the old neighborhood tomorrow.</div>
Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-67050670794658622542015-07-31T16:09:00.002-05:002015-09-24T18:57:40.748-05:00A Tomb With a View<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>This installment of my saga is true.</i></div>
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When my big trip is under way, I will have lots of time for reflection and meditative thought while driving. I love the way my mind takes off while the car follows the open road. Wanting to shore up the foundation for my musings, I drove to Oakland yesterday to visit places that loom large in my thoughts and to clarify some cloudy memories of my first twenty years. The grave site of my grandparents was my first stop.<span style="text-align: center;"> </span></div>
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Ruth H. Anderson was my maternal grandmother. John J. was her husband, but not my blood grandfather. My paternal grandfather, Franklin Howard Hatch and Ruth were divorced in 1920, she became Ruth H. Anderson the next year when my mother, Ruthanne, was around two years old. He was the only father my mother knew and my grandfather in every way but blood.<br />
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The grave of my grandparents (Mimi and Bobo to me) sits at the highest point in St. Mary's cemetery in Oakland, California, literally beyond the pale of the adjoining and more beautifully kept Mountain View Cemetery. In fourteenth century Ireland, the pale was a line of fences that separated the part of Ireland that fell under English rule. In Ireland, it was pickets that followed the contours of the land. Here, in the cemetery, an unattractive cyclone fence ranges up and down the hilly landscape. The ghosts of the Catholics stick to their own kind in Oakland, while the interdenominational, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and atheistic remains lie in integrated society.<br />
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On a clear day, you can see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate through that break in the trees. During the course of their stormy, passionate marriage, Mimi and Bobo lived in a house with a similar view. Their first home was built for them in the '30s and was located on Cochrane Avenue on a steep and sparsely populated hillside. The astounding view from their living room and dining room looked out on the unbridged San Francisco Bay. Later, they watched as construction of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges added a new dimension to the vista.<br />
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They sold the house during a tempestuous passage in their marriage and then lived in a series of rental duplexes, a tract home in Concord, and finally in another home they built on Wilding Lane just off Broadway Terrace. And I know they always mourned their Cochrane Avenue home and the beautiful view.<br />
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He was an Irish immigrant, one of the middle children in a large brood who had fled poverty to make better lives for themselves. I believe fear of poverty was a driving force throughout his life. She was a flirtatious woman, strongly influenced by the glamour of Hollywood. They were always either passionately in love or on the brink of homicide.<br />
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When Mimi died in 1970, he continued to live in their home on Wilding Lane until it was destroyed in the Oakland firestorm, October 19, 1991. He and his girlfriend came to live with me from then until his death February 3, 1993. At the time of his death, he was worth just about a million dollars; thrift and prudent investment had lifted him out of poverty. I was the executor of his estate, most of which he left to various Catholic charities, but there was one very interesting and revealing bequest. He left a sum of money to "Kenneth Nielsen, the son of Kathryn Nielsen, a former secretary at P G & E." To distribute the estate, the attorney located Kenneth Nielsen. Kenneth in turn contacted me and we had an interesting, but not altogether surprising, conversation where Kenneth revealed that he was the illegitimate son of my grandfather. We further agreed to meet for lunch.<br />
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Kenneth wanted information about who he was. I brought about twenty photos of Bobo through the years and a copy of a brief biography my brother had written about him.<br />
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Kenneth was very pleased with my offerings and with any information I could provide. Then I asked him to tell me his side of the story.<br />
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He told me he had experienced "Uncle Jack" being a part of his life from his earliest memories until he was about twelve years old. Then he abruptly vanished and except for one brief conversation, was not heard from again until the will, about twenty eight years later, . When Kenneth was in his early 20's, he and his mother were drinking wine together and truth was revealed. Kenneth was told Uncle Jack was his father. Apparently during Kenneth's younger years, Uncle Jack was a regular in his life: often bringing toys, clothing, taking him to ball games, and just hanging out with him. However, one day Kenneth complained to his mother that he didn't like Uncle Jack's sloppy kisses: they made him feel uncomfortable. I could understand this. All my siblings and I shared a horror of those wet kisses (they weren't salacious, just gross). Kenneth's mother, in turn, reported this to Uncle Jack who apparently got his very tender feelings so deeply wounded that he abruptly ended all contact with the boy.<br />
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So, years passed, and when Kenneth learned the truth about the identity of his biological father, he confronted him via telephone, saying, "I understand you're my father." This occurred just about the time my grandmother was hopelessly ill from a heart attack and stoke. My grandfather was consumed by his love for her, fear of losing her, and the burden of her care.<br />
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His response to Kenneth was,"I don't know what you're talking about. That's the craziest thing I ever heard." And he hung up on him.<br />
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Kenneth was crushed, but did nothing about it and just lived with his wound for the next 23 years until contacted by the attorney and meeting with me.<br />
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When I heard Kenneth's story, I was enraged. It took me a long time to come to terms with the terrible behavior of my grandfather. I could not believe this dimension existed in a man I loved, respected, and grieved: the man I had taken care of in his terminal illness. I too, felt betrayed. And yet, of all the adults in my life, he's the only one I ever heard tell me, "I'm proud of you." He made me feel beautiful and smart. I struggled to balance this out. All I have been able to do is realize we all have a dark side and we can only know the part of a person that is presented to us. I knew a different facet of a smart, loving (to me, anyway) accomplished man. That is still imprinted on me.<br />
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<br />Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-26884249022545243652015-07-27T13:19:00.000-05:002015-09-24T18:58:22.730-05:00The Wild West<div>
<i>This bit of family lore is true to the best of my knowledge. I have seen newspaper reports of both events.</i></div>
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I stayed in Coleville a couple of nights ago because of its connection to a grisly part of my family's history. Coleville is situated at the foot of the eastern slope of the Sierra in a narrow valley where the West Walker river drains the eastern slope of the the Sierra into Topaz Lake. The brother and sister of my great grandmother both suffered bloody deaths in that region.<br />
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Samuel J. Schooley was the first to go. He lived with his brother Henry just over the state line in the Smith Valley of Nevada. In an almost cliched series of events, he was shot by a man only identified by the name of Smith in a fight over a bottle of whiskey. The bullet hit an artery in his arm and he bled to death on September 6, 1874.</div>
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His widowed sister, Adeline Schooley Eggleston, died March 7, 1894 at the age of 65. She lived alone on her ranch near Coleville. Her body was found in her kitchen, with her severely battered face and head under a milk pail. The newspaper reports of the day said it must have been Indians because no white man was capable of such a savage deed. My great grandmother, Amanda Schooley Blair thought otherwise. She was convinced the villain was a neighbor who had been involved in a property dispute with Adeline. Although Amanda hired detectives and lawyers, she was never able to convince the local authorities of the neighbor's guilt and he got away with murder. </div>
Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7692589232963299342.post-71639862863303877002015-07-26T18:30:00.002-05:002015-09-24T18:58:51.163-05:00Closing the LoopPlanted at the foot of Centennial Bluff, my room at MeadowCliff Lodge faced east. I sat on the porch of my room waiting for the sun to come over Mt. Patterson, signalling time for my departure. I wanted to be able to take my time today driving over Ebbett's pass. Sonora pass has the kind of beauty that makes you gasp, but I can take it in while driving. Ebbett's Pass makes me sigh and I need to wallow in it. Sonora's beauty is soul-searing, Ebbett's is serene.<br />
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The road is harrowing, a single-lane asphalt ribbon laid across the landscape with very little grading, turning back on itself like a snake trying to swallow its tail as it climbs the eastern slope. Yet the beauty is reassuring and tranquil. I arrived at the 8,730 foot summit feeling as though my blood pressure was lower than it is at sea level.<br />
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I can show you the pictures, but you can't smell the trees. It was the Jeffrey Pines that first made a tree-hugger out of me. If you bury your nose in the bark, it smells like vanilla; some argue it smells like pineapple, but I disagree. Even the dirt, naturally decomposed granite, has a special clean smell.</div>
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It's serene, but far from quiet. Jays, Golden ground squirrels, Belden squirrels,and Stellar jays all add their voices to the chorus accompanied by the constant soughing of the trees and the river's murmur.</div>
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I sat at the table for nearly two hours until I realized time spent there would be time taken away from my walk through Calaveras Big Trees further down the mountain toward civilization.</div>
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No words describe the trees, no way exists to burn them into memory, a photo doesn't do it. You have to be there, to see them yourself, to feel how tiny and young you are. I've seen redwood and sequoia groves many times all over the state of California. Yet, every single time I'm overwhelmed. I walked the mile and a half loop in a little under 2-1/2 hours, a personal best for that distance with my walker. </div>
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I stopped in Angel's Camp for dinner at Crusco's. The town was quiet. This nineteenth century haunt of Mark Twain and Bret Harte is much livelier on the third weekend in May when the annual frog jumping contest occurs. But I'm not crazy about crowds, or frogs either.</div>
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Miles: 194</div>
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Driving Time: About 4 hours</div>
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Total elapsed time; just under 8 hours</div>
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Gas price El Dorado Hills: $3.249</div>
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Melodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12207785271047798897noreply@blogger.com2