Monday Maunderings

If I were far, far better disciplined than I am, I would be working on the outline for the presentation I'm supposed to give at judge camp in a couple of weeks. However, it is a topic on which I have lectured endlessly over the decades, so I am more likely to wait until the last possible moment then tweak it for the audience to whom it is being presented. A bunch of judges at 8:00 a.m. That means that there is absolutely no hope - they will barely be awake at that hour and I know, from past years, that most of them see this topic on the agenda and just sort of groan softly anyway. Might be a good project for the several hours I shall be trapped on the airplane from Atlanta to Houston this weekend. 

The Wonderful Wooly is here today. Originally recommended to me by one of my best girlfriends, he retired from the mindless rigors of the Tennessee Valley Authority with enough pension in his pockets to do only what he wanted to do. For this I am thankful, because what he wants to do is attack other people's "To Do Lists" and fight them to the ground. He is much loved by the women who call him up and say, "I have a list." I added to my List until I could justify a whole day of Wooly and today is that day! It is such a strange and somewhat melancholy luxury to once again have a man about the house, pottering around fixing and changing things. If even for just a day. The erstwhile husband and I remodeled and built the daylights out of a couple of houses and I think of those days with some nostalgia. I am, once again, relegated to carpenter/electrician/plumber's mate and it's almost fun. He has handed me stuff twice and said, "Here, go down to the hardward store and get another one of these." I put my helmet on and zipped down the hill to the store; they know there is a project afoot, so the owner said, "You want us to just leave the ticket open?" It's great to live in a small town sometimes! It took me three days to figure out how to get to the burnt-out bulb in one of the bathroom fixtures earlier this week. Wooly, upon installing the new light fixture in the laundry room, told me to come in there to see how to change the bulb in case he wasn't around. It is deeply humbling to realize that, after all those years of high-falutin' education, it takes me three days to figure out how to change a light bulb!!

A friend, who is only a couple years older than my child, advised all and sundry this week that he is designating this as his mid-life crisis year. That made me think about where I am in this curious life. I started my sixth decade a few months ago. I have decided that this decade will be much better than the previous one. In the fifth decade, my much-loved, beautiful and talented daughter-in-law was diagnosed twice with cancer (and continues to live with the second diagnosis); my beloved spouse decided to leave me after a quarter century; I changed homes; I had some major surgeries; both of my adored parents died. I have had better decades. Somehow, though, I have to believe that if I am still standing, it means that God isn't through with me yet. I find myself just now crawling out into the sun again. A rather different version of myself. An older, chubbier, somewhat more wrinkled version of myself. But a version that is finding it easier to laugh at herself and at the vicissitudes of a life she didn't ask for, but which was given to her as a wonderful gift. I am beginning to find joy in looking back as well as looking forward. As I write today an old William Ackerman album is playing in the background; an album I was introduced to and I loved when I first met the absconded Erstwhile. For the longest time I couldn't listen to that music, or Kate Wolf, or anything else that reminded me of how very contented and sometimes happy I once was. I think I've come out the other side of that tunnel, though. I am finding a way to be differently contented now and, sometimes, genuinely happy. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to share that with someone again? But, isn't it lovely to have it at all? As they say, 'Don't cry for what's over; laugh because it happened!'

The latest "You Did What?!" project is the acquisition of the Vespa. I have thought about a scooter for some years (during that Bad Decade) and finally decided, when I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to pedal my bicycle up the hill to my house again, that the time to act was now. A little scooter shop in Red Bank had a 2009 Vespa LXV150 with only 200 miles on the odometer. To make the deal appear even more propitious, there was an Oregon license plate on the scooter. I still maintain that, while God may vacation other places, He lives in Oregon. Some guy had moved out here from Oregon with the scooter and was now selling it. I looked at it for a long while, threw a pencil on the project (as they say in The South), and thought about all the reasons this wasn't a good idea. Then I bought it. It has been a community project all the way. Friend Kathleen took me to the scooter shop initially. Friend Darrell went to Red Bank to collect the scooter in his pickup truck and delivered it to my house. Friends Darrell, Tim, Jackie, and Frank have been advising me on all things motorcycle (or "that little scooter of yours", as it's called) whenever I have questions. I went to Scooter School for a six month weekend (it felt like that), got the M endorsement on my driver's license, and I now ride my scooter to work as weather and circumstances permit. I park it in the basement of the courthouse and the corrections officers who bring inmates into court through the basement tell them that they will suffer all manner of horrible medieval torture if they even touch the judge's scooter. I have suggested to them that this is probably like painting a target on the scooter, but I think they mean well. I have assured those who ask that I have no intention of any more tattoos, body piercing or leather attire. Alas, I see myself more like Jennifer Patterson of "Two Fat Ladies" on her Triumph Thunderbird ...! My sensitive and considerate child continues to remind me that he stands ready and willing to come get the scooter as soon as I become too old and decrepit to operate it. Meanwhile, what fun!

Jennifer & Clarissa

The bicycles have not fallen entirely by the wayside. I had to take the bike rack off the Cooper awhile back when body work had to be done. I was rear-ended while leaving the parking lot at the DMV by a driving test examiner. A wonderful example of low comedy. The rear bumper and driver side rear quarter panel had to be replaced and the bike rack causes all manner of horror and confusion to those who have not before encountered anything as badly designed. You have to stand on your head, cross your eyes, stick your tongue out the side of your mouth, and continuously pray the Hail Mary while you attempt to install or remove the darn thing. Do I need to say that I usually just leave it on for months at a time when I put it on in the spring? Taking the bike anywhere to ride requires the rack, so it's been a fairly bike-free few months. In any event, it's been so disgustingly hot, I don't know how much riding I would have done anyway. While the Cooper was in the shop for a week, I rode my bike to work (this was pre-Vespa) and was sweating like a horse by the time I got home in the afternoon. I walked the bike up the steepest part of the hill ... . However, now that the weather is more civilized, I may put the rack back on and try to get some early morning rides in. My best riding buddies have moved to Georgia, so finding someone to just poop around with on the bicycle is the next project. Wooly is putting up two new racks on the garage wall for the bikes today (I can't figure out how that big, fancy drill works). 

It appears that my questionable services are again required to hold something, or go get something, or hand something to the journeyman. It is good for my soul and my character to be reminded that there are others who know, oh, so very much more than I do about important things! Be well, do good work, and stay in touch. 

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you.

                                                                    ~ Will Rogers

Loving Them & Missing Them

I was cleaning out old emails and came across this one (to my siblings) from October 2008. Dad died on May 28, 2010 and Mom died on May 28, 2012. I miss both of them horribly.

*****

"Good Lord!", as Poodle would say. Sometimes I have to wonder if aliens came and took the parents I had when I was 7, or 16, ... or 40. There are days I swear I'm living in an episode of 'Waiting For God.'

 

Today all three of us were scheduled for Pre-admission Testing (PAT) at the Outpatient Center of the local hospital. Dad has that lumpectomy on Wednesday and Mom has a colonoscopy a week from tomorrow. My procedure is equally ookey and of no importance for purposes of this missive (I didn't go to law school for nothin'!). Dad was scheduled to be first and we had to be there at 8:45 this morning. That may as well be the middle of the night for those two, so I called twice on my way over there to make sure everybody was up and marginally functioning. I should have known things were going to get dodgy when I saw Dad sitting behind the wheel of their car when I got there. First, he nearly ran over me in the garage. Now come on, people; you know how small that garage is! Then, I got in the back seat and he started grumbling that Mom 'just had to eat her breakfast before we left." I panicked because I know that Mom can take up to 4 days to eat a meal, so I went inside to check on her. She had finished her breakfast, but she was making some sort of inspection tour around the house making sure that none of the bathtubs were filling up, no irons had been left on, all doors were locked, the temperature on the hot water heater was correct, etc. I reminded her that we were running a little late and needed to leave ... um, NOW. When we finally got in the car, Dad backed out and nearly hit my car, which was parked across the street. As we corrected course and headed down the block there was a running vaudeville act in the front seat consisting of Dad complaining that he didn't even see that car and Mom shouting, "Did you hit her car? Did you hit her car?" I just rested my head against the back of the seat and took deep, cleansing breaths ... Then I asked Mom where her PAT paperwork was. She turned around and gave me her deer-in-the-headlights look and said, "What paperwork?" This, of course, precipitated another chorus of what-shall-we-do. I told Dad to just drive to the hospital and I'd go back to look for the paperwork. We went inside and I got them signed in and started to leave to go back to their house. Mom told Dad to sit down and wait while she went with me. Taking yet another cleansing breath, I turned to her and said, "Mom, have you got any idea whatsoever where those papers are?" She smiled and said, "Not a clue." I then suggested that it might be faster if I just went and looked for them by myself. So I planted both of them in the waiting room and headed out. While I sometimes get the creeps going through all the stuff they save, I did manage to find the paperwork pretty quickly and beat feet (or wheels) back to the hospital. They had just gone into the admissions office when I got there so I slipped in and handed the clerk the paperwork. Mom asked me where I found it and, although I told her, she insisted that it couldn't possibly have been there ... !!!  This, of course, set Dad off and they were off again in their own little world together having one of those disputes that make the rest of us slap our forehead and want to throw water on them. Yet another cleansing breath and I suggested to both of them that, perhaps, we could continue this discussion later because we needed to answer the admitting clerk's questions ... NOW.  Mom kept muttering that she couldn't figure out how the paperwork got there.

 

When the nurse called us back to do Dad's pre-surgery testing I found myself feeling a bit uncomfortable because the nurse kept looking to me for answers and I suspected that Mom was probably perfectly capable of answering most, if not all, of the questions herself if Dad couldn't answer them. It continues to amaze me that she gets lost half-way through a sentence, but can remember dates and details of Dad's medical history like a computer. The brain is a mysterious thing. Because Dad's answers were a bit confusing to the nurse, they are going to have the anesthesiologist talk to Dad's cardiologist before they do the procedure on Wednesday. He's had several procedures involving anesthesia since that memorable one when we nearly lost him. You will recall that one because we all flew or drove in from all over the country. Don't want to do that again, so it's best to check.

 

We're supposed to go to Cade's Cove tomorrow and Dad assures me he'll be fit and ready. Mom couldn't remember where we were going. Oh well, at least it's not dull!!

 

Keep well, do good work, and stay in touch,

Love ya,

Jayne

Gatlinburg 10-08

Old age, if it's nothing else, should at least be theatrical, don't you think?

(Martha Grimes)

An interesting, if somewhat unsettling, experience today. As you know, it doesn't rain, but that it pours. Having heard little or nothing for a very long time about the house and farm I moved from in Ten Mile, today three different people asked me about it and told me what had become of it. If you were never at that house, let me tell you about it.

My erstwhile husband (E.H.) was made redundant at the nuclear plant in Oregon, Trojan by name, when the company that owned the plant shut it down. After what seemed like a very long time, he was hired by Tennessee Valley Authority to work at the nuclear plant in Spring City, Tennessee, called Watts Bar. He came to Tennessee to begin working and to look for a place for us to live. I stayed behind in Oregon, continued to work at my law practice and waited for our house to sell. Providentially, our Oregon house sold reasonably quickly and we had cash in hand to buy a place in Tennessee. During the time he was here alone, E.H. found the property he really wanted to purchase in Ten Mile. When I came to Tennessee on what was billed as a "scouting trip", he showed me that property first, middle and last. I admit that he made a desultory effort to look at some others with me, but it was obvious what he wanted most to buy. An older house built 23 years before by the elderly couple who were selling it and about 85+ acres of land. We had horses and a pack of dogs at the time. We bought the property.

While I went back to Oregon to make ready to move our belongings (including the aforementioned critter menagerie), E.H. spent every nonworking hour he could at the "new" house, stripping it down to the studs and preparing to remodel the house completely. He also spent a huge amount of time and vast physical energy preparing the arena outside the barn and fencing the dog yard outside the shop up on the hill. I note in passing that the dog and horse stuff was finished before the kitchen ...

The work that had to be done by a builder and crew was completed before I arrived in Tennessee and the two of us, thereafter, did all the finish work. I painted every room in the house baseboards to and across the ceilings; we installed all the molding in every room; we installed the doors and did the rewiring and replumbing that was needed. The bathroom and kitchen were designed and installed from the wall studs out during that exceeding hot late summer.

In subsequent years we finished the daylight basement, installing interior walls, a lovely bay window, another bathroom (with all the modcons), a fireplace, we replaced all the windows, replaced interior doors, and all else needed to make it a house we could love and be happy in. Allow me here to insert an observation from an Elizabeth George novel: "She was, in short, a victim of the myth that has been foisted upon women since the time of the troubadours: Love conquers all; love saves; love endures." 


Let me cut this exegesis short by simply stating that E.H. came home one day after twelve years in that house and announced that he was running away with a ukulele player he had met at music camp. Odd, but true. And this brings me back around to the beginning of this minor dissertation.

Today three people asked me if I had been back up to the Ten Mile house. Two were friends from work who happened to have some sentimental reasons to stop by the place, as it abutted their extended family property and they had spent childhood days there fishing, hunting and generally being consumed by the golden haze of long-distant memories. The third was a law enforcement officer who was looming large in my kitchen while I was signing warrants for him. The gist of the stories all three told me was this; my lovely home has been vandalized to the point of becoming a fire hazard and eyesore and the local druggies are using the area down by the pond (so many fond memories of dogs, children, grandchildren and simple peace) to cook methamphetamine. I'm told that counter tops have been ripped out, there is no longer a front door on the house, wiring has been ripped out of the walls and there are squirrel nests in what's left of the kitchen cupboards. Holes have been punched in the walls and the cottage behind the house has been nearly destroyed. Everything that could be carried away has been. 


There was, of course, yet another story of how the house was purchased from me and then became part of a huge criminal conversion case covering a couple of counties. I believe the property now belongs to a benevolent society and they probably don't know what to do with it. I haven't been back up there since I moved out. Too many memories, good and bad. 


I was a bit surprised by my reaction to the intelligence today that my old home was now a complete shambles and being used for illegal activities. My first emotional response was, "What a fitting memorial to the end of my marriage." Curious to find that I still feel that strongly about it all these years later. This is not a dirge to that time in my life, nor a plaint about the characters involved (myself included). It is, rather, a surprised observation of how my quietly demented mind seems to work these days. There is a scene in the Kevin Reynolds film "Tristan and Isolde"  in which, after the illicit love affair is discovered and disaster follows, Isolde returns to the Roman ruins where she and Tristan had been so blissfully, if briefly, content with each other and finds that it has been completely destroyed and only ashes and stone are left. The destruction of the physical being a metaphor of the state of the emotional. I guess that's what the report of the destruction of my former home was to me today. Not simply destroyed by an 'act of God', but deliberately and disrespectfully vandalized. 


Lives develop in different directions. People change. Promises made can not be kept. Houses are destroyed. However, the sun continues to come up each morning. After the storm the rainbow continues to appear. After a while, pain subsides (even if it doesn't go away entirely). Someday I will be complete in myself. Someday someone will reclaim the Ten Mile property and new people will have new memories from it. 

"I think, after loss, life requires an act of reclaiming. You have to reject being overwhelmed. Life has to go on." (Vita Sackville-West) 

Mislaid post from late November ...

I am between housekeepers. This may sound less than tragic to some of you, but I'm here to tell you that it is no small thing. The wonderful woman who kept house for me for ten years has moved on to other employment that doesn't include other people's homes. The women who is to become my new housekeeper can't start until the week after Christmas. She has kept house for ten years for my Girlfriend Judge in Athens and assures me that she is sure I will be "no problem" (sic). I'm not entirely sure if the fact that we are judges (she also keeps house for another judge, but he is a guy) makes us somehow more difficult to deal with. My last housekeeper always said I was one of her "easy" ladies. I'm not sure if I'd rather be a difficult judge or an easy lady ... At any rate, what all this is in aid of is that I find myself having to make some effort at keeping my house from falling to wreck and ruin in the interregnum between the Queens of Clean. While I am perfectly capable of cleaning house, let's face it; I hate it. That's why I have a housekeeper. I'm one of those OCD cleaners who practically uses toothpicks, cotton swabs and toothbrushes to clean. By the time I'm through messing about with pet hair, pet paw prints, pet nose prints, etc. (are you sensing a theme here?) I am so tired, achey and grumpy that no one in their right mind would want to be around me and the furkids can't figure out what my problem is. Tonight I got as far as scrubbing down the kitchen with 16 different kinds of cleaners and moving everything except the refrigerator to clean behind, above, next to and in front of. There are now enough cleaning cloths in the washing machine to cover a football pitch three deep. I hope I can control myself and not fall, weeping, at the new housekeeper's feet when she arrives.


The holidays, which were looming large and scary on the horizon, have now come thundering over the ridge and are bearing down on us with merciless and terrible speed. I had envery intention of attending the Lessons & Carols program presented by the local collage choirs. It seemed like a civilized and lovely way to start the proper season. However, after an unnaturally long day of perfectly uncivilized behavior in divorce court, by the time I got home all I could think of was a glass of wine and putting my face in a pillow (not at the same time). So on to the next holiday adventure; the city Christmas parade on Saturday. I have the same argument with the courthouse decoration committee every year; they may not put a Christmas tree and Christmas decorations in the courtroom. They decorate the living daylights out of the rest of the courthouse, but not the courtroom. You always know that Santa's coming when you see the jail trustee inmates, in their festive orange jumpsuits, dragging the ladders and boxes of Christmas decorations up from the courthouse basement. A strange sort of turning of the seasons. Beyond that, the season picks up speed as the parties and holiday functions start coming hard upon each other. Then my family will arrive on a big silver bird from Idaho and things will swirl into a whirlwind of ho, ho, ho.


I'm not at all certain how the furkids are going to take all this holiday hilarity. The Christmas tree is always a bit of a struggle. The question inevitably arises; what is the function of this thing inside the house? The answers are different depending upon whether you ask a dog or a cat. And none of their usual answers are satisfactory to me. Oh well, we've survived it before and we shall do so again. I'm wondering if this is the year I'll actually break down and procure proper storage for the tree ornaments. A number of them are as old as my adult life and a number were made by small children who now have children of their own. I suppose I should do something more respectful than chuck them all in a plastic box and threaten anybody who looks like they are going to sit on it. I'm am skeptical of the little ornament chests with all the little drawers for ornaments. That just seems too persnickity to me. Now that I have taken custody of the cedar chest that was in my parents' house from my earliest memories, I suppose I could store the Christmas stuff in there. After all, that is where the Christmas regalia was always stored during my childhood. For me the smell of cedar is the smell of Christmas. Well, good! That's settled then. No doofy cardboard ornament storage for me.

Daffodil & Baby Lamb waiting for Vacuum Monster

I think I've been sitting here long enought that the furkids have regained their sangfroid after the Vacuum Monster's last performance. The vacuum cleaner is noisy enough, but Daffodil, the butterball corgi, insists upon defending me against all dangers, foreign and domestic, that may ensue from allowing that machine to run wild in the house. She barks the entire time it's on, charges it, bites it, and generally makes a perfect nuisance of herself. And I don't feel a bit safer. The other dogs just growl menacingly from whatever perch each has assumed. The cats ignore the machine but they complain of the dog barking. We're all a wreck when the job is done. So now we're in a more sedate configuration; each is disported in some restful position around the room, from which they can leap to my defense if the occasion demands it. Thank God the UPS guy is through delivering for the day; I thought Owen was going to wear himself to a rag alerting all and sundry of the comings and goings of the big, brown truck. A ragamuffing feral cat, who would fit comfortably in a cereal bowl, has taken up residence on my front porch. He/she won't let me get near, but does deign to clean out the bowl of food I leave on the porch. I suppose I prefer the cat to come to the front porch because, when the neighbor's cat, Nicki, comes onto the back deck and sits just outside the french doors, my cats have epizoodies on the other side of the door. I shudder to think of how everyone's dignity might come unstuck if the glass suddenly disappeared ...


I think my equipoise has been sufficiently restored that I can venture disengaging myself from the furry tentacles thrown around me and go see if there is some new way I can mess up the kitchen. Be of good cheer, y'all.

Somehow mislaid from last month ...

I find myself with an unexpected morning to myself. The messy civil case scheduled for the legal crack of dawn today either settled or was otherwise momentarily compromised at the virtual last moment yesterday and, so, off the docket today. The multi-agency meeting long scheduled for the afternoon was, similarly, kicked into the latter part of the month instead at the end of court yesterday. It's a fine thing to sleep until it is light on a mid-winter morning. Even the dogs, in uncharacteristic cooperation, failed to greet the rising sun with their usual bravado.


I seem to have managed lately, in text messages or snippets on FaceBook, to disgruntle, annoy or confuse any number of people. I shall, therefore, take advantage of this unforeseen free time to either attempt reconciliation or further bumfuzzle things. You just never know how it's going to turn out.

~Grace does cat yoga ~

Firstly, to those who now think that I have no sympathy or consideration for the feelings of cats in general and house cats in particular; I refer you to the conditions obtaining in my actual home. While I have, in fact, gone so far as to make sure that the cats who live with me are incapable of reproducing and, further, have mutilated their little front feet so that they can not completely destroy the interior furnishings of my house, I believe that they will confirm that they don't have it so bad. I think the worst they can say of me is that I do not invite them onto my bed to snooze. Everything else in the place is up for grabs. The long and elegant fabric throws with lots of fin de siecle fringe not only give the couch and love seat a touch of shabby refinement, but also distract from the places underneath them where, over the centuries, feline teeth in fits of pique have said, "Oh, yeah? Watch this." I have a duo of felix domesticus so that neither should feel abandoned. In the dark watches of the night, however, it often seems that the noise level from battle joined between them bespeaks a signal desire for a solitary existence. I, at any rate, come off feeling that way when I have to listen to it! They consume pricey specialty foods and demand precedence in all domestic activities involving the non-human members of the corporation. In short, they probably live better than most of the human population of the world. I do not apologize for this; rather, I just wish that my correspondents who do not have to deal with me in person on a regular basis would not give such a PETA-worthy response to my off-hand remarks. Those of you who do have to deal with me know that I'm as likely to recess the mills of justice or reschedule appointments and other obligations in order to run home and let the critters out or take them to the vet as I am to do the same for a nuclear attack. As I wite this the furkid contingent has gracefully draped itself across furniture and along available sun spots on the carpet, waiting patiently for the next item on the day's agenda.


Then there is the matter of my apparent inability to fully recover from hip replacement surgery last year (12/21/10). While I really do not want to become one of those annoying old women who constantly and exclusively whine about their health, it's tough to ignore it when the first thing people ask is "How's your hip?" I suppose I should just embrace dissimulation and say brightly, "Great! Never better." Then limp away. I suppose the post-50 slide to oblivion has begun for me and I just don't want to accept it. Girlfriend Emily and I have re-enlisted at the YMCA and are trying to find some sort of regimen that allows us to get some useful exercise and companionship. At one time, when we seemed decades younger, we would meet at the Y every morning to exercise at 5:00 a.m. After awhile, getting up at 4:00 every morning became tedious, my mid-line joints started failing, and it all went pear-shaped. I have faith, however, that we will be able to figure out something. I think I might be ever so much more fun to be around if I felt more life-like. Please, God, don't let that be an illusion!! For the moment, though, it's amusing to watch the corgis go tearing through the house and out the back door in the morning for first airing, while Pumpkin (aged Dachshund) and I limp and groan along behind. Must keep a humorous sense of the world.

Lastly (and because I have to finally get about doing SOMETHING today), there is the matter of amateur music and funny headgear. I love my girlfriend, Jeanne, dearly and respect her many talents. She has, however, a baffling affinity for dressing up and theatrics. I say baffling because I don't share the penchant to the same degree (wearing feathers in my hair during a party at my own house doesn't count). We play music together and we play music for others. There was a minor contretemps the other day over wearing funny hats while we played for some folks. I didn't want these hats when we had to buy them years ago. I have always fussed and complained when she decreed that we would wear them to play for others. I finally, last week or so, just said, "No." I may, now I think on it, have said some other things, but they were mostly for emphasis. There is something slightly ridiculous about a bunch of post-menopausal women dressing up like Renaissance teenage boys. Especially when they need to wear glasses to see the music. I don't discount the misplaced fervor of those who who choose to attend Medieval Fairs (faires) got up to look like mutton dressed as lamb, but I have no wish to do so. So, no funny hats and better tempers when we play together. I have no objection to concert black, but I don't wear pumpkins, reindeer, hearts, shamrocks, flags, etc. to denote the season of the year. Maybe some nice feathers in my hair ...

And, with that, we shall leave this lamentable episode ...  

(Winston Churchill)

Nesting ... what's that all about?

I have never considered myself a particularly domestic woman. In years past I seemed to be busy enough that I didn't pay a lot of attention to my home decoration. Get a couch, sit on it. Paint a wall and leave it. Are there enough chairs at the dining table? So, why this sudden onrush of gilding the nest? It would be a miracle of nature if I was planning to populate the nest, so that's not it. Do I need some sort of validation that this is my little space in the universe? Am I just tired of what is already here? Who knows? But I have just dropped a shocking amount of hard-earned income into the coffers of several companies who flog wall stencils. We'll see how this all works out when they arrive and I try to figure out how I'm going to configure them. I've priced drapes/hardware for the bedroom and summer drapes for the living room. I can't really buy any more print art because I've run out of wall space and the stuff that is already hanging on the walls is there because I still love it. 

When I bought the house some years ago the fact that all the rooms were painted the same deep taupe-family color and all the molding was the same material seemed like a mindless relief from all the visual and emotional Sturm und Drang of the house I was moving from. When I decided to spend one year's income tax refund on a bathroom remodel, I had to repaint that bathroom when a wall was removed. That project inspired me to consider what else could be made better (more "me") in my living space. It has become an ongoing project. I have lists and lists on the List Apps on my smartphone. I'm not one who feels comfortable exhibiting all my thought processes in social media, so don't look for me on Pinterest or anything such like. I did go as far as getting out my stencil project file the other night when friends were over for dinner. The women looked at what I was considering, made intelligent comments on size, weight, color, placement, etc. One of the men said, "So, you're going to paint weeds on your walls?" They're not weeds, they're ornamental grass. Oh well, that particular individual spends hours and hours every weekend on a lawn tractor mowing acres of lawn during the growing season. As my mom used to say, "Consider the source ..." I've asked my Latin guru for a couple of translations that I'm considering for a statement on the dining area wall. Fortunately, his sense of humor doesn't run to telling me something scatological or inflammatory as the correct translation ... I hope!


My yard guy, Jay, and I are doing our annual winter dance in which we try to find a time when we both can be at my house at the same time to decide what needs to be done while the plants are still dormant. In a fit of manic exuberance (that may be redundant), I planted several American River birches along my driveway when I first moved in. They are now rather tall trees, which, in the summer, droop their weighty branches all the way to the ground. This is aesthetically pleasing, but it also means I have no idea what's coming down the road until I'm at the end of the driveway. So, we prune in the winter. The ornamental Japanese Maple needs attention again so that it doesn't look like a Dr. Seuss creature in the summer. I keep threatening to plant flowers somewhere, but that would simply involve weeding so it will probably remain in the threat category. I  plant the myriad of pots on the deck and then forget to water them. Jay constructed a line from the solitary water faucet on the back of the house to the deck, so maybe I'll have better luck this year. My green finger friends suggest a drip system. Sounds a bit medicinal ...

I have a new housekeeper. My last housekeeper was with me for ten years, so starting with a new one is a bit traumatic. It's rather like a new, intimate relationship. Frankly, people who are cleaning your house for you get to know an awful lot about you, and I have rather serious trust issues after the last couple of intimate relationships (which involved no house cleaning!). However, this woman comes with sterling references from people for whom she has been house cleaning for years. We've had our minor contretemps, but I think it's just the settling in process. What I have never been able to figure out is why housekeepers never put anything back exactly where it was when they are cleaning. My sense of the aesthetic may not be brilliant, but it is my own, and in my own home I want things to be where I intentionally placed them. Someone suggested that it's the housekeeper's way of letting me know that those things were, in fact, cleaned. Hmmmm. I think I'll know if they aren't cleaned without having to spend 15 minutes after I get home moving everything back where it belongs. Oh well, she leaves the harps alone and my music stands remain in their normal condition of artistic disorder, so I am reasonably content. I don't think I want to know what she may be thinking about me at this stage of our relationship!! At least the pet hair gets scraped up weekly ...


With that I shall force myself to get back to what little I actually have to do at the weekend. May all the best be with you and yours.

I'm not sure if there's one right place I'm supposed to be, he said, but I know a couple of wrong places I'd give a second try in a heartbeat. (StoryPeople)

In the Bleak Midwinter (apologies to C.G. Rossetti)

I spent an hour last week composing a blog on my iPad and managed to lose all that work and deathless prose in the slip of an unintended keystroke. I am firmly planted in front of the desktop computer this time with all the benefits of having to "mash on" (as they say in The South) about 47 keys six times before any command will be executed. I am used to this level of cooperation because I live with three corgis and an antique miniature Dachshund. Let us hope for better things with this effort at publication.


In addition to that, it seems that the fine folks at Blogger have, yet again newly "improved" the  user experience by moving everything around and changing the way things look. Have these pointy-headed young people in small cubicles nothing better to do with their time than change things that we foundation members of the Wrinklies Brigade had finally figured out how to use? Alas, change is inevitable and one must accept it. One does not, however, have to like it! I shall press on, but if things look decidedly dodgy, please address your editorial comments to the pointy-headed people.


In a fit of geographic and temporal dissatisfaction, I have lately found myself watching a ridiculous number of foreign language films set in Europe c.1930 - 1960. Some are more recent efforts than others and all show me a viewpoint different than the American view of that place at that time. The fit before that seemed to be reality dissatisfaction and I was watching a long series of films in which The Enemy hailed from another planet and/or had mutated or mechanical abilities not available to the average soldier, scientist, or citizen. It is curious how similar the themes of Europe's c.1930 - 1960 conflicts are to interstellar or inter-cellular conflict. Being a child with a vivid and active imagination, I have an almost endless capacity for manufacturing wild and exhausting dreams when I sleep. It has been most curious to see the effects of incorporating the visions of these European filmmakers into my already vivid dreamscapes so that I wake up in a breathless panic, not sure whom I can trust or where safety is to be found. I suppose these are old themes that all societies have had to grapple with, but I wish they wouldn't pursue me into sleep. For many years my catalog of dreams has included scenarios in which I was being pursued by something dangerous. During the last marriage there came a time when I suddenly found that, if I could only reach Someone, I would be safe; I would be protected. It was an especially bad dream the night my sleep story revealed to me that this particular safe harbor no longer existed (if, indeed, it ever had). Thereafter, Someone now appears in the dreams as one more dangerous pursuer; albeit not violent. The gloss given to this by the foreign films is the edgy and dispiriting visual images that add the sense of hopelessness in the middle of conflict; whether interior or exterior. Watching relationships and buildings crumble in a more violent and temporal war, during which no one really knows whether all this sacrifice is going to make a spit's worth of difference, gives a vivid imagination loads of fodder for sleep-time wildness. So, in addition to every other thing I can manufacture to make my life more difficult; the dreams have been wild! This is not to say that my dreams are never pleasant; they are, sometimes. To be honest, though, more often than not, I wake up thinking, "What the hell was THAT?"

On a saner note, my strange and amazing grandson has been dropping teeth like a birch tree in the fall! While the Grand Kids were here at Christmastide, we watched the entire Harry Potter canon. I was given to understand that there was, thereafter, conversation in Idaho about how to save up for Harry Potter costumes. I'm not sure that this tooth-shedding exercise is not in support of that effort! I may just send him a gift certificate for some Harry Potter memorabilia website and tell him to stop trying to look like an extra from Raging Bull. 


Else, the midwinter is settling in with its usual seductive invitation to sleep and to eating too much. The foodie publicists are all displaying huge articles with succulent photographs of vast pots of soup, chili, stews, and all manner of wonderfulness. I have a slow cooker (purchased in a moment of midwinter madness one year) that has the capacity to do almost everything except clean under the refrigerator. Sadly, it is most useful when preparing a meal for 36 people. Why is it that winter comfort food seems to need to be made in party or battalion amounts? Yes, yes, I know; "make it and freeze it," you say. I suppose so, but there is still something a bit tragic about taking one's shabby little one-cup serving bag of frozen food out of the freezer and standing in front of the microwave waiting for it to thaw and warm. Much more festive and companionable to ladle great scoops from the pot into bowls and onto plates. Alas, it is not to be. Thankfully, there are friends to invite over for midwinter dinners and cook with! And, notably, one of my foodie websites had an entire fistful of recipes for cooking with kale that did not involve black-eyed peas or other nastiness. I shall make some attempt at vegetarian-inspired healthfulness this winter. 


And now, furkids and harp practice call to me. Best to each of you!

"If life is a muddle, we can't look for love to make it all come right" (P.D. James)

(translate: Get your skates on, Jayne, and straighten up!)