Ah, San Diego!

Y’know, San Diego is a strange sort of place. It looks so lush and so green that you forget it is sitting in a desert. It looks green and lush because of watering systems providing the water Nature generally does not. Scoot two feet out of watered spaces and you see what San Diego must have looked like to the indigenous peoples and Catholic priests of its distant past. The operative word here is brown.

It is interesting to hear about a city while you are in it. The big San Diego news this week has been the two earthquakes, and the incredible three day storm.

Theoretically, there were two earthquakes this week. You couldn’t tell by me. I only found out about them listening to the news. Not that I cherish BEING in an earthquake, mind you- I have been here for two that were noticeable, and I noticed I didn’t like them- but there is something both disappointing and anachronistic about earthquakes you have to hear about on the news. If they haven’t really quaked anything, are they really earthquakes?

The other big news was the storm, and I did notice that. I noticed it wasn’t a storm, at least not by Tennessee water volume and pyrotechnic standards. What we had for the last three days were dynamically cloudy skies and semi-continuous soft, gentle rain. Perfect rain, really. Steady but not so heavy that it drenched you from car to house. Just the right size droplets; not so tiny that they felt like little needles hitting your skin but not big ploppers, either. The sound of the falling water was gentle and seductive. My daughter Kelly, who is a rain connoisseur, would have been in paroxysms of joy over it.

This was a prolonged rain shower, not a storm, and dropped less than an inch of water in three days. It had little impact on the well watered places, but the neglected remnants of the desert that really is San Diego wallowed in the rain, drank in the rain, bathed in the rain, used rain to make chlorophyll and chlorophyll to make green.

Maybe San Diego is a metaphor. No matter how lush things may appear, we are all living on the edge of a desert. Or maybe not. One thing is certain; there is nothing more beautiful than the desert after a three day rain shower. And that could be a metaphor as well. Ah, San Diego.

Mama in the Golden State

Of all the things I forgot on this trip… how did I remember Mama?

     We have been in San Diego for one day short of a week, and except for the gorgeous weather and scenery, we might as well be home.  Stand by for the second edition of “The Same Thing Happens Every Time.”

     Mama did very well on the flight out.  She refused a wheelchair, though, and Dave finally got a full-blown taste of Mother in action.  Or, to be completely accurate, inaction.  If her elbows could propel her body forward, she’d be sprinting but her feet only move about half their length with each stride, and she has size 6 feet!  We looked like a Chinese family on parade- Papa in the distant lead, wife ten paces behind, mother 130 paces behind her.  Wife periodically stops for Mama, but Dave stops for no one.  As soon as he has outdistanced us by half a mile, he notices he is alone and slows down… and so does Mama.  Somehow the gaps never seem to close.

     Before we left home, Mama and I both had our eyes examined.  I am now wearing SOFT contacts and I love them.  Instead of wearing glasses all the time and taking them off to read, I wear contacts all the time and only need glasses to read- and simple, cheap-o magnifying glasses at that, the kind you can get for $15 at any drugstore, so if I lose them, no whoop!  On the other hand, Mama’s vision has not changed one jot since her last exam, so she did not need new glasses.  The doctor did inform her, in my presence, that she has macular degeneration but that it had not worsened in the last year.  
Mama asked me to explain what macular degeneration meant.  I explained.  She immediately went into a deep depression and began obsessing about going blind.  It was heart-breaking.  I spent the weeks before we came out here trying to comfort her and reassure her, listening to all the various scenarios of blindness she came up with and feeling genuinely sorry for her.  
I started to get a little suspicious when all of a sudden she could no longer read, she could not see to cut her meat or recognize the food on her plate.  She was walking into walls and bumping into furniture… when it suddenly occurred to me that the doctor had said that her vision HAD NOT CHANGED SINCE HER LAST EXAM.  That was two years ago!  I spoke to the doctor and found out that Mama was first diagnosed with macular degeneration in… wait for it…1994!   Here I was thinking this was news, and bad news, for her and she’s known about the condition for 11 years.  Guess she just forgot.  She may go blind, if she lives to be 90, which I am sure she will, but for the record, she’s no blinder now than she was two years ago.

     Along with going blind, Mama has now decided that she is going deaf as well.  Example:  We get out of the elevator on the parking garage level to go to the car.  As we exit the elevator, I tell her “Go left”.  She goes straight and walks into the wall.  I ask her “What are you doing?”  She says “I can’t see.”  I say, “You can hear, can’t you?  I told you to go left!”  She says “What?  I can’t hear you.”

     Bear in mind that Mama is fighting a nasty cold and so is not feeling 100%.  With that caveat, this is what we have done in San Diego so far.

• We have watched the Western channel.  Every day.  Every hour.  If she falls asleep and I change the channel, she wakes up. Once I turn it back to the Western channel, she falls asleep.  It’s more effective than Sominex.


• We have gone to the grocery store twice.  


• We have gone to K-Mart.  She bought a nightie.  She forgot to pack one.


• We have done one small mall crawl which wore her out completely and had lunch at Ruby’s Diner.  Mama LOVED the strawberry shake, but I am throwing out her doggie bag- which contained her entire lunch from Ruby’s-today.


• We took her out to dinner last night.  I will throw her doggie bag from Black Angus out in a few days.

I ask, ”Mama, want to go to the zoo?  Old Town? The Del? Balboa Park? The beach?  Want to sit on the balcony?”  No, thank you very much.  She spends her days in her room, just like she does at home.  She squirrels treats and junk food in her room just like she does at home.  She sneaks into the kitchen to raid the refrigerator when she thinks we are asleep, and so has no appetite when we are awake.  She sleeps all day and then roams the apartment like a ghost all night.  Maybe this will change when she feels better.  At least she has enjoyed the palms and citrus trees in the complex.  Sigh.
     Dave can entertain her this weekend.
     I’ll stay 10 paces behind… going in the other direction.

The Day of Incredible Brain Farts

It is beautiful in San Diego today, if a bit warm.  It feels weird being here after such a long absence.  Coming into the apartment again after almost three months away was surprisingly pleasant- though my absence has emphasized the difference between tidy and clean.  (  Well, it was clean enough; Dave did a pretty good job keeping on top of things, other than dusting, scrubbing tubs and toilets…  We make a good team in a home; he is Mr. Tidy and I am Mrs. Clean.  Between us, we keep a very nice house/apartment.
As nice as it is to be here, I realized quite quickly that all I had really missed in San Diego was my home office.  I have a great office here, perfect in size, situation, and economically and functionally equipped.  I have the perfect desk from Pottery Barn with a matching credenza- fabuloso! I have my easel and paints set up in the corner, a crafting table sitting perpendicular to the desk and still have ample space to dance and cavort.  A wonderful abstract by my niece Melissa is on one wall, my diplomas on another, and pictures of my goonie girls on a third.  The fourth wall is a bank of windows which are letting in a cool breeze as I type.  A glorious citrus scent is on the air.  I could live in this office and be happy.
We brought Mama with us this trip, and despite a terrible cold, she was quite the trooper on the flight out.  She has been sick in bed since we got here, but I took her out for a little outing yesterday and she did very well.  We went to Michael’s for craft supplies and then the Ruby’s Diner for lunch.  Best shakes and club sandwiches on the planet!  Seriously.  Mama finished her shake, but her lunch, minus one bite, came home with us in a box.  About a week from now, I will throw it into the trash.  Sigh.  
I am assiduously working on Christmas already, via the Internet.  Two years ago, I did my entire Christmas shopping online.  I loved it.  I will do the majority of my shopping online again this year.  I figure the shipping and handling can’t be worse than the cost of gas spent going from shop to shop.   I am also working on birthday scrapbooks for Haley, who will be NINE on October 24th, and Emily, who will be two on November 3rd.  God, they grow up fast.  
I am enjoying being here, but I miss my dollhouse. (See previous posts).  My good friend Yvonne is house-sitting for me while I am gone, and informs me that packages have arrived in my absence.  I love packages.  Several came just as we were leaving on Saturday, and it was all I could do to keep from opening them right then and there.  Dave was impatiently tapping his foot… hell, he was stomping with impatience… so I passed on the pleasure of opening treasures.  
Which, as it turns out, was a good thing. One more delay and we might never have gotten to San Diego.  Why?  Because I had a bad case of absent mind.  Last Saturday will go down in the annals of my life as the DAY OF THE CONTINUAL BRAIN FARTS!
Yes, my brain farts.  I am the queen of farts.  
It started with my discovery, just as we were about to merge onto the Interstate, that I did not have my purse with me.  Imagine Dave’s delight!  We turned around, drove back home, and I went in to retrieve my purse, only to find that I had failed to lock the door when we’d left the first time.  Once inside, I realized I had forgotten to pack my insulin, so I grabbed that and ran, because there was a good chance we were now going to miss our flight, and Dave was literally vibrating with frustration.
I did make sure the door was locked when I exited this time, but while driving to the airport in silence, I found myself wondering if I had left my bedroom window open.  I wondered about it while sitting in the airport waiting for our plane (we made it- Dave set a new land speed record).  I wondered about it on the cramped flight to Dallas.  I wondered as we sat in DFW, the world’s most hateful airport, during our four hour flight delay.  I wondered about it on the cab ride to the apartment.  I emailed Yvonne to check it out for me, and sure enough, the window was wide open.  Locked doors, open window- now that’s security!  I wonder how I manage to survive sometimes.  I am going to sit here quietly for a few days until the cerebral indigestion passes. Talk amongst yourselves until then.

News from Lake Soonbegone

Off we go to San Diego again, this time taking David’s mother with us. Hope she handles the traveling all right. Should be interesting getting there- and being there.

It’s been interesting here in the couple of weeks or so since my last posting.
In that time-

• My good friend Sandie barely survived a triple by-pass surgery with innumerable complications. Knees all over Middle Tennessee have been rubbed raw from praying, but I saw her today, and she looks as good as anyone can after an ordeal like that. Thanks be to God! And what a trouper she is! I don’t mind telling you, I was really scared we were going to lose her. She’s not out of the woods yet- two of the three bypasses have collapsed and they had to put a stent in the major coronary artery- so she may have further surgery in her future, but for now, she is home, she is clear-headed, and she’s alive. And where there’s life, there’s hope.

• A few blogs ago I wrote about the “By Cracky Bars” my mom used to make, and my delight in finding the 1953 Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookbook that contains the recipe through Barnes and Noble’s out-of-print book service. http://www.bn.com/ (By the way, the cookbook originally cost 25 cents; it cost me $21.29 to replace it. Well, it is technically an antique now.) The little book has arrived, and I almost cried when I saw the cover showcasing the $25,000 winning recipe for Snappy Turtle Cookies. Mama made those a couple of times, too. Anyway, I turned to page 48 and there, one of the few cookies photographed in color, were the By Cracky Bars, just as I remember them. Their recipe won second place in the junior contest for Miss Yvonne M. Whyte of New Bedford, Massachusetts. There is a picture of her holding a check for $2,000. In 1953, Miss Whyte was an attractive, young- possibly teen-aged- black woman with tortoise shell glasses and a shy smile. I wonder if she is still alive? How old would she be now? She appears so young in the picture, I imagine she was majoring in home ec when she developed this most wonderful of cookie recipes. She really understands chocolate, by the way. And, at the insistence of my daughter, I am posting her recipe. Enjoy!

By Cracky Bars
(Bowl One: Dry ingredients)
Sift together…. 1¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼teasoon soda

(Bowl Two: Creamed Mixture)
Blend together…. ¾ cup shortening
1 cup sugar, creaming well
Add,,,, 2 eggs, beating well


(Bowl Three: Liquids)
Combine… 1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla.
Add the liquid alternately with the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.

Divide the batter. Place 1/3 of the batter in a bowl with 1 oz. melted chocolate and ¾ cup chopped walnuts. Spread in two well-greased 8x8x2 pans or one 13x9x2 pan.

Arrange…. 9 double graham crackers over the batter in the pan(s).

To the remaining 2/3 of the batter, add ¾ cup chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls over graham crackers and spread to cover.

Bake in 375 degrees oven 20-25 minutes. Cool on rack. Cut into bars when cool.

Damn! I can taste them already. One hint- do NOT over cook or they will be dry.
Thanks, Miss Whyte, wherever you are.

• Today I got a belated birthday present from my baby sister Susie. In it was my mother’s old Home Companion Cook Book, a manila envelope full of hand written recipes as well as recipes cut from newspapers and magazines, and…. THE 1953 PILLSBURY BAKE-OFF COOKBOOK! Susie read my blog, went digging around, found Mama’s copy and sent it to me. The first thing I did was smell it to see if it still smelled like vanilla, but sadly it does not. Its cover is missing and its pages are loose, but it was Mama’s and now it’s mine. What a sweet sister I have, and what a great birthday present.

• My hubby bought our daughter a new car this week. It is sitting in my driveway, a gleaming, sleek temptation, waiting for Kel to come get it, and singing a siren song to me. I sooo want to take it on a road trip, but know how I would feel if someone else was tooling around in my new car before I got a chance to play with it, so am restraining myself. This may not last. Kel better get here quick!

• Hard on the heels of knee surgery that took her out of play comes my housekeeper Stephanie’s two-week vacation, which means I have been left to my own devices in my house for almost a month. It shows. I am going to make a serious attempt at housekeeping tomorrow, but I ask you- if I was any good at this, would I have needed a housekeeper in the first place? Due to post-polio effects and the after-effects of four herniated vertebral discs, there are a lot of things I am not supposed to do- like vacuuming, for example- that I am having to do, but I am being careful. A little at a time, a little each day… oh, who am I kidding? I make messes at twice the rate I can clean them. I need HELP!!! I am a cleaner, not a tidier!

• My ancient (18.5 years old) black tabby Shadow has had what I took to be an eye infection. Her right eye was swollen and weeping, so I stopped by the vet’s, described her symptoms and brought home some antibiotic eye cream, which I assiduously applied to her eye twice a day for about 5 days. When I saw no improvement, I took her in to the vet. Guess what? Not a thing wrong with her eye. She has an abscessed tooth! Poor thing, in terrible pain from a bad tooth, and her “mama” is putting cream in her eye. Good thing she has a bad tooth, or she would have bitten me. Now I am feeling both like a damn fool and a cat torturer. How has she survived this long in my care?

Well, that’s all the news that fits. I am still having a wonderful time with my doll house, and add little touches almost daily. One good shrinking potion for me, and I’ll be ready to move in. Don’t laugh… but I tuck the children into their beds every night.
On that note, I will close, because I can hear you laughing.

My Victorian Dream House

Dining room to left, study to right.
Diningroom. Real china. The art is a copy of a picture on my diningroom wall; it's by Tissot and I made the miniature myself.

Young Peter's room. Still a work in progress. Since I took this picture, I have placed a butterfly collection over his desk.

The Parlor, where a soiree is in progress. I am still awaiting the delivery of Alice and Marcia, who will complete the tableau. Again, the artworks are copies of art in my home, and I made half of them myself.

In this picture, you see the diningroom and another view of the study above, and have a glimpse of the kitchen and the truck garden below. The picture is a copy of "The Captain and His Mate" by Tissot, and I made the miniature.

Here is a view of my work in progress. In a later posting, I will show you the girls room, the music room, the garden and the kitchen. How do you like it so far?

Lady Kathleen, Parva Domus Manor House, the Shire :)

The Same Thing Happens Every Time

I’ve been having a recurring nightmare lately. In it, I am 77 years old, barely mobile, half-blind…and I am still dragging Dave’s mother around everywhere I go. It could happen; some people live to be 98 years old, and if anyone will, Mother will.
I wish you could meet Dave’s mother. She really needs to be experienced, she cannot be described. Having said that, I am going to try to describe her. She is short, scrawny, with bird-like legs, salt and pepper hair that is still mostly pepper, and glasses that magnify her eyes so that she looks like an owl. She stares and blinks like an owl as well. She likes clothes that are too big for her, and tends to wear shorts most of the time, so she looks like a cartoon character with her stick legs dangling out of shorts that three of her could wear at one time. She walks bent over, elbows working, taking four steps to my one- and I slow down for her, so my one step is very leisurely- but she can never keep up, so I slow down even further… and when I come to a complete stop, I realize that she has zigged with uncanny speed either to the left or right, and is gone.
Which brings me to this segment of “The Same Thing Happens Every Time.”
Examples:
Dave and I take her to Lowe’s because she says she wants to come. We don’t have much shopping to do, but even so, when we get there, she decides to stay in the car. Not up to all that walking. We dash in, dash out, gone 15 minutes tops, get back to the car… and of course, she is gone. 30 minutes later, we find her. She went for a walk.

We head out to visit our son and his family. Mother wants to come with us. We travel to Manchester, spend a little time, eat a little dinner… and notice Mother is gone. Where is she? Sitting in the car. No pressure to go home, huh?

She likes to go out to eat. She won’t tell me where she wants to go or what she wants to eat, and is usually disappointed with whatever choice I make. When we get to the restaurant, she refuses to order anything to drink, heads straight for the bathroom, and comes back expecting me to have ordered for her. When the waitress asks what she wants to eat, she stares and blinks. When she finally speaks, 7 times out of 10 she uses what I lovingly call her “stroke” voice - swollen tongued, halting, over-exaggerated pronunciations- which is so patently phony that waitresses have been known to laugh out loud. I’ll tell you about her phony faint some other time, but will mention here that it is hilarious.
Anyway, back to the same thing happens every time… she orders her meal and the minute the food comes, she asks for a doggie bag. She eats about six mouthfuls and is “full”. I have learned to inhale my food rather than eat with her sitting with her doggie bag on her lap, blinking at me. The waitress offers her something to drink several times during the meal, but she doesn’t ask for anything until the bill comes. We wait for the drink, wait for the bill to be re-tabulated… and she leaves without drinking the drink and forgets her doggie bag. (Which is just as well, because when she remembers to bring it home, it just rots in the fridge- she doesn’t like left-overs.)

She’s always spoken with a barely comprehensible Polish-American accent but as she has aged- and survived a couple of mild strokes- her speech has become more disjointed and harder to follow. I am her interpreter because I understand what she is saying, though there are times when I misinterpret her deliberately. Well, unless she walks up to 600 pound men at Tractor Supply, and says things like “Oh, you are so fat!” It’s kind of hard to misinterpret that. I just follow her around and mouth “stroke victim” to whomever she is currently talking to.

Mother loves talking to strangers. She loves inflicting her personality on people. She has been calling herself an “old lady” since she became a grandmother at 41; now she tells anyone who will listen that she is 77 years old as if expecting them to say “NO! Surely not! That’s older than the world!” and is always disappointed when they don’t. She tells perfect strangers that she is homeless (she's not -she lives with Dave and I and has a whole wing of the house to herself); she tells them that we don’t feed her (we do), or that we make her stay in her room all the time (we don't); and, my personal favorite, that she has no one to care for her. As you may have surmised, Mother is not the most truthful person on the planet. She will tell her tale of woe to someone one day, and Social Services will show up the next. Thank God we live in a small town where people know us- and Mother.

Whenever Mother is bored- which, sadly, is most of the time because she won’t do anything for herself anymore- she tends to make long, prolonged, and very irritating sounds. Barking like a dog. Cackling like a hen. Repeating a phrase over and over, LOUDLY! If we are watching something on TV she doesn’t want to watch, she sings. LOUDLY! If that doesn’t work, she interacts with the cat. LOUDLY! (By the way, she has decided my cat Patches is a dog, because she doesn’t like cats, but she does like Patches, so Patches must be a dog.)

There are other little things. My housekeeper Stephanie is also her caretaker when I am away, and is as good and gentle and sweet with her as one human being can be with another. Mother calls her Sadie. She calls her Sadie because my last housekeeper was named Sadie. Apparently Mother thinks all housekeepers are named Sadie. The only problem with this premise is that my last housekeeper was named Sandy, not Sadie.

Don’t get me wrong. Mother can be and is cute, she can be sweet, and she is incredibly generous. When I was sick with the flu, she took care of me the best she could and I appreciated it. She is willing to scratch my back, an admirable quality in any person. It’s not that she doesn’t have an upside. There are lots of times when we crack each other up and for the most part, we live and work well together. I love her. I even like her.

It’s just that I keep having this recurring nightmare.

All it takes to be happy is a fully furnished Victorian home

Unlike my dear husband, I did not have a happy childhood. My family was large, chaotic, and dysfunctional; there was altogether too much alcohol, violence and neglect and too little nurturing and calm. Add chronic health problems and a well-founded sense of being unloved to the mix, and happiness just doesn’t fit. I have spent a disproportionate part of my adult life overcoming the effects of my childhood, but now, in my middle fifties, I believe I have found the solution.

I have a glitzy little thing-a-ma-bob dangling from one of the lamps in my living room that reads “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” So, with Dave’s help, I have been giving myself one. Naturally, this process involves toys. Lots of toys. And, in my case, lots and lots of little tiny perfect toys. Miniatures. Yes, yes, I am providing my second childhood with its own house… a “dollhouse”. I have converted a lovely five shelf curio cabinet into a vignette display case for all the dollhouse furniture I have coveted my whole life.

The top shelf is the master bedroom and the bath. The master bedroom is in mahogany, as is most of the wood in the “house”. The bed has real sheets and pillowcases and a satin brocade comforter and throw pillows. There are two nightstands, a dressing table, an armoire, floral carpets on the floor… When complete, Barbara the nanny will be reading to the baby in its crib in the bedroom, while Peter, the eldest son, dries off after his bath in the sumptuous bathroom, complete with blue floral carpet and filled linen case. (Peter is here. Barbara and the baby are here, but we are waiting for the crib and the rocking chair, so they are sitting together uncomfortably on the brocade bench. I sometimes I think I see Barbara tapping her dainty foot impatiently. In fact, I fear Barbara may be a problem if not watched- she’s much prettier than a nanny has a right to be, and the man of the house is sure to notice that.)

The second shelf is the nursery floor. Peter’s bedroom, and that of his two sisters, are here. Peter’s room is rather spartan, as the rooms of Victorian era boys usually were, but he does have a comfy trundle bed, a dresser and a table and chair- and will soon have a shadow box butterfly collection to hang on his wall, being, as he is, a young naturalist. His sisters’ room is furnished in white and pink, of course. Mama, when she gets here, will be sitting on a chair, cuddling younger sister Beth while big sister Christy (who is here, being a timely child) sits on her bed reading a miniature copy of “A Child’s Garden of Verses”- one of my childhood favs, of course.

Mama has come to say good night because she has a houseful of people in the (third shelf) parlor. It is a well-appointed Victorian room, with rich carpets on the floor. Many of the pictures on the wall are miniature replicas of pictures I have chosen for my own home, most of which are works by James Jacques Tissot. The parlor boasts two conversation areas and a music room. In the small corner conversation area, Alice, who is shy, is sitting listening to Eric, who is also shy and has yet to put down his hat. In the main part of the room, Mr. Michael O’Toole has captured the rapt attention of Katherine, (Eric’s older sister), Rhett (the man of the house), and George (Katherine’s husband, who is enjoying a pre-dinner drink). Marcia (when she gets here) will admire the grand piano, which she will play for the assembled guests later in the evening.

In the (fourth shelf) dining room, Hazel the maid is waiting to put the finishing touches on the table. This is pretty tough right now, because the china hasn’t come yet, so dinner will be delayed until it gets here. It’s coming from England, so it may take some time. But there is a fire in the handsome fireplace that makes all the beautiful serving dishes in the hutch gleam, a beautiful oriental carpet on the floor, and a Japanese screen that separates the dining room from the library, to which the men will repair after dinner for cigars, brandy and a game of chess.

The (fifth shelf) kitchen is a beehive of activity as Ruth the cook, with Susan the ladies’ maid’s help, prepares the evening feast. I am having a ball outfitting this kitchen. I have a porcelain sink, an icebox, and an AGA stove (okay, AGA stoves are NOT Victorian, but I have been in love with them since my trip to England, and this was the only way I was ever going to get one). I have two kitchen dressers, and a pantry on the way. To the right of the kitchen is the truck garden, already “planted” with lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower and strawberry beds, and with a green man overlooking it all.
I am having SO MUCH FUN!

BUT… I am forcing myself to STOP buying anything more until after Christmas. I am giving everyone who has been complaining that I am impossible to buy for a Miniatures.com catalog with everything I want in it circled. I have purchased a lot of my stuff from Miniatures.com (http://www.miniatures.com/) and can recommend the site highly. Another site I use a great deal is the Dollhouse Emporium (http://www.dollshouse.com/) and it is also a wonderful source of yummy goodies.

My “people” are actually figurines, since I am creating vignettes rather than playing with them, but they bring a wonderful dimension to the scenes. Katherine is leaning in to hear Mr. O’Toole. Alice is glancing sideways at Eric. They are wonderful and, while not poseable, are much more realistic than even the priciest porcelain miniature dolls I have looked at.

If I can ever figure out how to post pictures to my blog, I will post pictures if you are interested. In the meantime, I am really am enjoying my second childhood.

It's true... you really CAN find everything on the internet

When I was a kid, my mom was a prodigious cookie maker.  She was a superb cook in all areas- well, okay, she made undrinkable coffee, but that was her only failing- and a remarkably versatile baker.  One of her favorite cookie recipes was that for By Cracky Bars.  She made them from time to time and the taste and smell of them particularly lingers in my memory.  She got the recipe from a publication of the Pillsbury Cook-Off entries, a slim, paperback 5X7 little book that bore the stains of frequent use.  

When my mom died, my sister inherited most of her effects.  This was entirely fair, since she had been Mama’s primary caregiver throughout the long illness that finally took her.  Among those effects was that little cookbook.

For the past couple of years, I have been obsessing about By Cracky Bars.  Even though I am diabetic and can’t eat them, I want to make them, to see and smell them again, and to feed them to my granddaughters to see if any of them love the cookie as much as I did as a child.  I asked my sister for the recipe- but after 15 years, and a couple of moves, she could not find the cookbook.  

Sigh.

And then I thought, what the hell?  I googled “By Cracky Bars” and up popped a partial recipe.  All the ingredients were there, but oven temperature and baking time were not.  What WAS there, however, was the source for the recipe.  The 1953 Pillsbury Bake Off Cookbook.  A title. A year.  A miracle.

So I immediately scurried to the online Barnes and Noble,  www.bn.com straight to the out of print book tab, and typed in 1953 Pillsbury Bake Off.  Voila!  There it was in all its glory- actually several copies were listed- and so it is now wending its way to my kitchen.  I will be so happy to have it, not just because I will get to taste By Cracky Bars for the first time in 40 years, but because I will have a little “memorabilia” of my mother’s days as a baker.   I wonder if her recipe for prune coffee cake is in there?

The collector

Eons and eons ago, when the world was still new, and virgins still lived on it, I had a unicorn. Actually, I had two; actually, I still have them. My sister-in-law Rita gave them to me, two beautiful cream porcelain unicorns. They sat on the piano for years. Then my daughter began the tradition of giving me a unicorn every Christmas. This tradition began in 1987, so you do the math. Unicorns are neither mythical or extinct- they have been transfigured into porcelain and ceramic and stone and glass, and they eventually end up here where they belong.

I guess those unicorns started my career as a collector. That, and the kindness of family and friends. A few years later my godson Ian started the tradition of giving me angels. I now have a shelf of angels in the same curio that contains my unicorns. My sister gave me our grandmother's teapot. Even though I don't like tea, I do like teapots, and before I knew it, my hubby and other lovely people deluged me with teapots.

I love anything miniature and so have a small collection of miniature furniture and a moderate collection of miniature tea sets. (Again with the tea! Have I mentioned I don't like tea?) I have a small collection of Boyd's little Victorian girls, simply because they charmed me. I have a collection of mannekins in my bathroom, and a collection of pitchers in the kitchen. I love PICTURES as well, and the walls of our house are graced with many beautiful works of art. We may have to move; I am running out of wall space.

My largest collection by far, however, is my faery collection. I have loved faeries since childhood, and for the longest time it was really hard to find them. I carried one faery all the way from England because he was, and is, so uniquely beautiful and so rare. Until fairly recently, it was a real coup to find two or three faeries a year. However, in the past few years they have become easier to find, and now friends and family are been buying them for me, too. Right now, as I look at a 16-foot expanse of bookcases in my living room, I can tell you that the top of it is completely inhabited by faeries. Faeries peek out of my plants, and dangle from my lamps. I have "hidden" at least one faery in every room of my house (except Dave's bathroom- he draws the line at faeries watching him bathe). There are faeries in the bedroom, the guest room, the kitchen, the dining room and they all bring me great joy.

My granddaughters were collectors for a little while. Kendall collected Boyd’s bears. She’s now, at 10, too old for them. Haley collected angels. She now disdains to collect anything so “girly girl”. Delaney collects faeries. She sometimes collects MY faeries. She is the only granddaughter still interested in her collection, and it touches me that she chose to collect something so dear to my own heart. (I have a four piece collection of granddaughters, by the way- but Emily is too little to collect anything except hugs just yet.)

I love all my collections, but the two that really obsess me are faeries and pictures. And pictures of faeries, for that matter. I have “Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Edward Robert Hughes hanging on the wall opposite me as I type this. And a watercolor of Fairy Land my mother painted when I was 5 or 6 hangs above the bookcases in the living room, an integral part of the faery population there. My best bud Marcia gave me a plaque with dancing faeries that reads “groweth young” and every time I look at my beloved faeries, I do.

Top Ten Really Obnoxious Things... in my opinion

I have spent the morning trying to get an obnoxious fly out of my PT Cruiser. I was doing this while I was running errands, and believe me, it was no fun negotiating the never-ending road construction, heavy traffic, and a pain-in-the-ass bug. I finally succeeded in shooing it out, but the battle got me to thinking about life’s little annoyances. Here are the top ten things I find most obnoxious, in no particular order.

1. A flying insect in the car. Any insect. Any car.

2. People who chew with their mouths open. Chomp, smack, slurp, YUCK.

3. Servers and/or clerks who seem to feel it is beneath their dignity to provide me with service… or courtesy, for that matter. Just TRY to get politely served in this service economy, I defy you.

4. Telemarketers. “Sign up for the don’t call list”, my ass. Thank God for caller ID; at least if you don’t recognize the name or number, you can refuse to answer the phone. Unless you are my husband, who seems to be pathologically incapable of letting a ringing phone go unanswered.

5. Obscene e-mails. This one really pisses me off. Can’t our service providers figure out a way to protect us from these things? I mean, look for the “F” word or something? It seems for every sender I block, three more show up with the exact same message, and frankly, I have never had much interest in “hot, young babes”. Call me weird, but there it is; I’m just not into naked women.

6. Junk snail mail. Why does it cost me 37¢ to mail a one-ounce letter when publishers can ship whole catalogs for the same price? Unsolicited catalogs, I might add, which I must then responsibly recycle or I am the one polluting the planet. PUH-LEEZE!

7. Companies that sell my information to other companies as part of their “Mailing List”. Which is why I get so many unsolicited catalogs. How did the information I provided to them become their property? And if they are going to sell my information, shouldn’t I get part of the profits? At least enough to cover the cost of recycling their crap?

8. Loud bass lines: I like music. I even like loud music. And I like a good bass line- I give it a ten, I can dance to it. However, I do not like it when I am in my pool, 250 feet from the road, and the bass line thumping from an adolescent boy’s car makes waves in the water. Or rattles my bric-a-brac in the house. Call me eccentric, but this annoys me.

9. Badly behaved and/or sassy kids: I have a hard time biting my tongue- and restraining my “swatting” hand- whenever I am subjected to the antics of a brat. All kids misbehave once in awhile, and have their bratty moments; I’m talking about a pattern of unacceptable behavior in a child that goes uncorrected by a responsible adult. I do not appreciate being talked to by a 5 year old like we are peers, or bossed or lectured by someone’s “precocious” little angel. Brats uncorrected do not make pleasant adults. But at least I can tell off an adult without its mother busting my chops. I can think of about a half a dozen brats I know right now that I will enjoy talking to once they are grown. As for now, they just need to be elsewhere.

10. Call waiting. I hate call waiting. I have never subscribed to that service and resent people who do. Why would anyone give people permission to interrupt their phone calls? Don’t they have answering machines? Can’t people call back? When I am talking to someone and they put me on hold to take another call in the midst of our conversation, I hang up on them. Obviously our conversation was not compelling enough to keep them engaged in it, and my time has value. A phone call is an unexpected interruption to begin with- you stop what you are doing to answer the phone. To have an interruption interrupted is just too much.

I’m sure I will think of more obnoxious things in the future. Any of these hit home with you?

Grumping my way to the pool. See ya.

Feeling pretty good, thanks...

I got my very first French manicure today and am ever so pleased with myself.  It’s the little things in life that keep you happy, you know?  The older I get, the more able I am to take great pleasure in little things.  A dip in the pool makes my day.  Watching the birds from the kitchen window delights me.  Curling up with a good book, watching a cloud mass blow by, listening to bird song… it’s like being a child again.

By my estimation, I am going through my second childhood for the fourth time.  I have become a child again with each grandchild.  Though I must admit that it’s not as easy with Miss Emily as it has been with Kendall, Haley and Delaney, it is still wonderful to have a baby in the house again.  She may not be as gentle and loving as the other three, but she certainly is adorable and entertaining.  So bright, so mischievous, and what a mugger!  She cracks me up constantly.  She’s at that age where she likes to do the same thing over and over and over and over, a stage that wore me out when I was a mama but tickles me as a grandma… or NeeNee,  as my four wonderful girls call me.  Miss Emily called me that for the first time yesterday- so you know she has me wrapped around her chubby little finger.

My little girls spent last weekend swimming in my pool.  It is so much fun to watch them.  They are like otters, swift and silly.  It’s also fun to join them.  I may be almost 56 and more than a little plump, but in the pool, I am sleek and youthful and can somersault with the best of them.  The pool has provided us with a medium where we can meet on equal footing.  We are all water babies and kindred spirits in the pool.

Life is treating me well right now.  My children are doing well, my grandchildren are thriving, my body has been giving me a respite from the stiffness and pain I have been dealing with for the past year, and even my sugar is leveling off.  My “blues” have lessened, and my energy has increased.  In fact, I am feeling almost like a kid again.  Yesterday, it suddenly hit me how good I am feeling, and I stood in front of the mirror and shook my tail feathers. I had to laugh at myself.   I am the grayest, fattest, goofiest kid I know.

Making a big splash

Sometime in April, my daughter-in-law Becca came up with the idea of throwing a surprise birthday party for my son Jake on the occasion of his 29th birthday, figuring he would be expecting something for his big 3-0, which, of course, he would. She thought a luau would be fun. Thus began the months of planning that culminated in a genuinely surprised Jake last Saturday- two days in advance of his actual birthday.

The short planning stage segued into the first of several trips to party stores. We bought grass skirts and leis and garlands and bracelet leis. We bought Hawaiian shirts for the guys. We bought tiki heads, and a tiki pinata. We bought luau themed napkins, cups, plates, bowls, platters, and even a grass skirt for the table. We had inflatable palm trees and inflatable monkeys. We bought three tiki torches. We had inflatable coolers for beer and soft drinks. My best bud Marcia stored all this in her home office for us, but the shopping that continued sporadically ended up under my bed. My side was soon taller than Dave's.

Speaking of Dave- my beloved husband took a week's vacation to get the front yard and the pool area looking good for the party. He re-stained the patio set, and cleaned out gardens, and hung hanging baskets; he moved storage lockers, and mowed and weed-eated, all in 95+ heat. What a mensch.

Becca and I made the invitations and got them mailed. We experimented with cakes... five different cakes...I am thoroughly sick of cake, by the way... and finally managed one that looked like a hula dancer, coconut bra and all, and one that passed for a volcano.

Saturday morning, Becca came over with her sister Abigail and my pixie granddaughter Delaney and we cleaned off the front porch and decorated the back yard. We floated an inflatable lobster in the pool, and after several hours in sweltering heat beneath the threat of rain, we all joined it in the pool to cool off.

We'd recruited a friend in the neighborhood to let people park at his house so it would look like HE was having a party. At six o'clock, guests began to arrive. At about 6:30, Jake, Becca and the four girls arrived, hard on the heels of the Prossers, who got here a little late. We manuevered Jake through the house and into the back yard through the closed curtain. Everyone yelled "SURPRISE" and Jake was genuinely surprised!

It was a great party. There were 26 people here, about half of which Jake eventually chucked into the pool; he got chucked in himself several times. With the music of steel drums in the background, we chowed down on hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecued beans and all the acoutrements that go with them. The cakes were a hit. The girls donned their hula skirts and danced for their daddy, and THEY were a hit. About 10:30, we were driven indoors by the mosquitos, but until then, the party was a smash. Everyone helped drag in the food and drink and Jake's numerous gifts, one of which was a scrapbook album of his life that I have been working on for months. I'm proud of it, and think it is a work of art as well as an act of love.

We were all exhausted the next day. Poor, tired Dave left for San Diego. Mama and I went to church and then met Jake and his brood at the Cracker Barrel in Manchester where we had lunch together, and where Mama purchased white rockers for the front porch for mine and Dave's 37th anniversary (August 10). Jake loaded them into his truck and we got the porch set up so pretty... and then we all (except Mama) jumped in the pool. Baby Emily hung out with me in the shallow end while everyone else competed to see who could make the biggest splash. Poor Delaney was at a disadvantage being so little, but Haley and Kendall made decent waves which washed up to Emily and I, to our mutual delight. Becca and Jake made tidal waves, and the baby and I REALLY loved those.

As refreshing and relaxing as the swim was, it was the icing on the exhaustion cake. Damn, we're back to cake again. After the Lapczynski Traveling Circus left for Manchester (Jake as ringmaster, Becca as band leader, Delaney the high flying trapeze artist, Haley the clown, Kendall the lady on horseback and Emily the lion tamer), Mama and I collapsed on the couch. We vegged amid the detritus of a pretty spectacular birthday for the rest of the day, too tired to clean, tidy or generally move.

It was worth it. Jake has been feeling pretty under-appreciated lately. I think he's over it now.

Another good-bye

I lost my baby brother to cancer in April. Maybe that is part of the reason I have been so attuned to other deaths from cancer lately. Last night, it was announced that Peter Jennings had died, at 67, of lung cancer. He was a heavy smoker for most of his life, as had been my brother and my mother. As an ex-smoker myself, I cannot take the cynical attitude of a lot of non-smokers that these deaths were a form of suicide- the intent was never to die, to heaven's sake; it was to be calmer, or to suppress the appetite, or to seem mature. And the addiction is invidious and entrapping, as anyone who has ever tried to break the habit can attest. I quit smoking six years ago after numerous failed attempts, and - sorry, Tom Cruise- I used a drug to finally do it (Zyban). I think I saved my own life, but not my health. After 24 years of smoking, I have decreased lung capacity and traces of emphysema. Nothing critical, thank God, but enough to let me know how damaging that addiction has been, and no guarantee that it won't lead to cancer in my future despite the past six years of non-smoking.

I met Peter Jennings when I was in high school. I attended a journalism workshop at Ohio University and he was the guest speaker. David Brinkley, a hero of mine, was supposed to be the speaker, but the program was changed at the last minute, and frankly, many of us were deeply disappointed... until he started to speak. Okay, to be honest, until we got a good look at him. He was drop dead gorgeous, much prettier than David Brinkley, and, at 16, that made him romantic in my eyes. He instantly had our attention and he spoke to us like we were informed adults, and spoke to our better angels. He was inspiring. After his talk, he met with many of us- all the teenage girls who were hoping to be noticed and some of the boys who were serious about journalism and me, who was both. He was very kind. He patiently answered our questions, and asked us our names, which he remembered to use in his replies. He shook my hand and wished me well in my career; at that time, I was convinced I was going to work for UPI. I didn't, of course, but it meant a lot to me, a young girl in the 60's, that Peter Jennings seemed to think it was perfectly logical and natural that I would. He was a lovely man.

I realize now that it must have been early in his career when he spoke to us, since I met him almost 40 years ago. He was no more than 27 at the time. I followed his career the rest of his life, and felt he was the kind of journalist I would have liked to have been; eloquent, curious, informed and informative. And beautiful all the way into his 60's.

I will miss his presence on the television. I hate that cancer killed him. I hate that smoking caused the cancer.

Ah, sloth and lethargy...

On Sunday, I took yet another step in my transformation from productive member of society to kept woman- I resigned my position as Director of Christian Education at my church. I have held the position for five years, and it has been a labor of love for me. But the chronic travel and my unraveling health made me realize that I am not doing justice to the job, so I tendered my resignation.

Little (and big) pieces of my life have been peeling away this year and I have been busy trying to redefine myself. I have one title left: President of the GFWC Centennial Woman's Club of Tullahoma, and we are gearing up for the start of our year of service. This is the last year of my two-year term as president, but I am also the state chairman for the Endowment Fund, and Education chair for District IV of Tennessee. I find my life as a clubwoman very fulfilling and fun.

But I am also finding my life as a "retired" person fun, too. I see my grandkids a lot more. I can sleep whenever or wherever I want. I can wallow in scrapbooking and sewing and writing and painting and any number of crafts, and I can read and work puzzles, and cook the way I like to cook, from scratch and in no hurry.

MY ONLY PROBLEM IS that I am reverting to my old, natural circadian rhythms. I have always been nocturnal. Having kids, going to college and then teaching for 10 years forced me into a diurnal pattern that became habitual but not comfortable. Now I stay up until 2 or 4 AM and sleep until about 10 AM, which puts me out of sync with the rest of the world- just like the days when I was a young housewife with no kids and did my housework at midnight, to chagrin of my downstairs neighbors. (I don't have downstairs neighbors in Tullahoma, but I suddenly had an inspiring thought about how to wreak revenge on my very noisy downstairs neighbors in San Diego.)

Of course, I am too slothful to move furniture now. Off to work on a scrapbook, me. Call some time... but not before noon :)

It's official... I am my mother... and other horrors

Last May, I went on a shopping binge for Dave's mom, who was celebrating the big 77. Among the things I got for her were two floral house coats. I remember her AND my mom practically living in house coats during my childhood. Of course, they were never worn out of the house- they were HOUSE coats. Actually they were/are short sleeved, cotton, calf-length, button-front or snap-front robes. Women of my grandmothers' generation put them on over their day clothes while they did housework and cooked. The house coat protected their clothing like an all encompassing apron. If some one came to the door, the house coat was slipped off and the lady of the house looked presentable for her company.

The next generation- our mothers' generation- didn't bother to put on day clothes most of the time. Off came the night clothes, on went the house coat and that was dressed for the day- unless she had to go out. And by that I mean REALLY out. She might wear her house coat to pick up the kids at school as long as she didn't have to get out of the car, but she would never wear it to the grocery store or post office. She didn't bother to change out of her house coat if she had company, either, since her company was usually family, neighbors and kids. If a salesman or stranger came to the door, she would dash to get dressed, but those exciting events were few and far between. She had coffee with the milkman and the next door neighbor three times a week- in her house coat.

I remember thinking that I would NEVER be so slothful as to spend a whole day in a house coat. It was analogous to spending the whole day in your pajamas, in my opinion, and what was with all the florals and lace, anyway? Hideous. However, whenever I remember my Mom, I remember her in her house coats. She had tons of them.

SO, based on history, I naturally thought Dave's mom would be delighted with the ones I bought her for her birthday. I was wrong. She tottered into my bedroom with them one afternoon and gave them to me. "They're too big", she said. "I want you to have them." I had already washed them, so there was no returning them, and I accepted them gracefully. "I'll go get you some in a smaller size," I said, to which she hurriedly replied, "No, no, thank you, no." Guess she really loved them :)

And, of course, you know what happened. One day late in the week when I was WAAAY behind in the laundry, and feeling fat and dreading any article of clothing with a waistband, I slipped on one of the house coats. Damn, it was comfy. Damn, it IS comfy. So comfy I carried one with me to San Diego. Its' the perfect article of clothing. Too bad it looks like bed clothes, lacks style, and only comes in assorted florals.

So... gray hair... allergies... asthma...dry skin... crooked mouth...and now, house coats. I am my mother. When we meet again, she is SOOO going to laugh at me.

Bill Murray and Harry Potter

I have found myself sobbing over the deaths of people who have never existed twice this week. Admitting I am emotionally vulnerable since the recent death of my baby brother, I found the experiences cathartic.

The first heart-wringer this week was the quirky film "The Life Aqautic with Steve Zissou" starring Bill Murray, an actor whose characters aren't usually noted for their emotional depth. Something has happened to Bill Murray in the past couple of years. He seems to have found his own heart.
Evidence 1: He was speaking of his life and his six sons with Jay Leno and in the midst of describing how deeply he loved them, he wept. It was touching beyond words.
Evidence 2: "Lost in Translation" was the first cinematic hint that Murray had finally learned how to convey feeling in a way that suited both his personality and his persona. He made scenes believably moving without being maudlin.
Evidence 3: "The Life Aquatic". Perhaps it is entering middle age that has allowed Murray to plum the depths of the heart while maintaining his superficial cool. It is a tough time of life, when a person is neither young or old, but can see too clearly the end of days on the horizon and cannot help but wonder if anything really made a difference. "The Life Aquatic" is classified as a comedy, and it is droll and funny and subversive, like Murray himself; it is also a very moving treatise on loss. All the relationships in this movie are bizarrely complex in deeply human ways, and Murray threads his way through them with a dignity and grace that is fragile, redeeming, and beautiful.

"The Life Aquatic", with all its droll poignancy, triggered the first of my cathartic weeps. I have always, and will always, cry at movies. I am an embarrassment to anyone who goes into a theater with me. But I was at home in my own apartment watching this movie, and so felt free to weep freely. As I wept, I realized that, in this case, at least, the word "movie" really fits.

The second cathartic weep came upon reading the latest installment of the Harry Potter saga. I will not give away any of the plot, but as I read the last few chapters, I was sobbing unabashedly. Books can make me cry almost as easily as movies do, and the Potter books are, in their own way, treatises on loss as well. Think of the poor child Harry. He witnesses the murder of his parents at the age of one. He is sent to live with an aunt and uncle who, for ten years, mistreat and neglect him. He is so starved for connection that, when he goes off to school, it becomes the home he has never had even though every time he goes there, something tries to kill him, he ends up in the hospital, and he suffers trauma, fear, injury, and- in the later books- the deaths of friends. Harry has a loving heart. Where did that come from? He is not needy, he is not manipulative, despite all the years of emotional barrenness he endured. He makes real, committed connections with other people and cares for them deeply. Dumbledore comments on Harry's remarkable ability to love several times; because love is the one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is one of Harry's most powerful weapons. But how do the unloved learn to love? How does Harry manage to go on, book after book, fearing the loss or losing someone he loves?

And why do I care? Harry Potter does not exist. Neither do Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, the Weasleys... But I do. I feel his losses as I read, and weep for those who have never existed as emblems of those who have. Life IS about loss. When you reach middle-age as I have, you begin to see that. But it is also about love. And both can make you cry.

Sears-Mart... Who needs it?

I don't know what is happening to our K-Mart back in Tullahoma now that K-Mart and Sears are merging, but I DO know what is happening to the K-Marts here in the San Diego, and it sucks.

Let's start with the new name. I thought it would be a marketing coup to rename the conjoined stores S-Mart; S for Sears, Mart for K-Mart... S-Mart for s-mart shoppers. Dave was pretty sure Sears wasn't going to give up its name and I am glad I didn't bet with him. The new stores here are called "Sears Essentials". Yuck.

I don't see how that is going to help them, keeping the Sears name. It's not like the store has been doing banner business in the past few years- ESPECIALLY since they got rid of the world renowned Sears Catalog. How stupid was that- getting OUT of the catalog business just as it, and on-line sales- were starting to boom?! IDIOTS!

I personally have always hated Sears, and it's been literally years since I have shopped at a Sears store. The only things that store was good for, in my opinion, were Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances- which are really Maytags and Whirlpools, anyway. When, after being a Sears card holder for over 20 years, Sears refused to deliver or install a very expensive refrigerator we were going to buy with cash to little out-of-the-way Tullahoma, I was done with that store. We got our refrigerator- for less- from Lowe's in little out-of-the-way T-Town.

I've never cared for K-Mart, either. It is a really hateful place to shop. There is no climate control, and that is a nationwide phenomenom. The stores are hot in the summer and cold in the winter, poorly staffed, poorly stocked, and often dirty. There is one and only one reason to go to K-Mart and her name is Martha Stewart.

I heard from one of the employees at the K-Mart here that, short of a miracle of negotiation, Sears Essentials will NOT be carrying the Martha Stewart lines. PUH-LEEZE! What else did K-Mart bring to the table? As much as I hate K-Mart, I was in there all the time because I love Martha Stewart. Her products are well-thought out, well- executed, fashionable, functional, and damn good values. Without Martha Stewart, I will have absolutely no reason to step into another K-Mart, regardless of what they choose to call it.

I am a world class shopper. I like to shop. I like to spend. God has blessed my hubby and I at the end of our working careers with a pretty hefty disposable income, and I dispose of it. K-Mart used to get a big chunk of it. Sears didn't get a dime. Sears Essentials will not be getting a dime of it either. I will go where the Martha Stewart line goes for my housewares, linens, towels, and accessories. I like her stuff. I have no use for Sears or K-Mart without it.

Wonder how long Sears Essentials will last without it? Maybe she'll go to Target. Think we'll ever get a Target in Tullahoma? Gee, I wish I had Martha's number...

No vampires??

I have had a weird sort of disappointing relief upon returning to San Diego. You may recall that I was suspicious that my new neighbors are vampires. I have seen them only once, and they were beautiful in a scary, anorexic, cowboy Goth sort of way. They never come out during the day. Or night, for that matter. As I said, since they moved in, I have only seen them once, that first night as they glided up the walkway in the moonlight and disappeared into their apartment. No sound, no smells of cooking, no music or sound of running water have come from that apartment since. An eery silence descended that has been disturbing yet thrilling.

On my return, however, it appears the "romance" is over. First of all, Kelly has, in fact, seen the neighbors and in the daytime, too. I have grilled her about the people she saw- did she actually see them come out of or go into THAT apartment? What did they look like? Was it really day- was the sun out? She seems pretty confident that she has seen the new neighbors. And in the daytime.

And as if that wasn't bad enough... I could discount her reports but I cannot dispute the evidence of my own eyes. No, no, I have not seen the new neighbors. I have seen their door mat.

It has lady bugs on it. Lady bugs. What self respecting vampire would put out a door mat with roly poly beetles on it? It is depressingly cheery. One part of me wants to believe that it is just a lure- sure, come on in, it's safe in here, heh, heh, heh- but no. No. You'd have to see this door mat to understand my disappointment. It's cute.

Well, there goes the last vestige of adventure and intrigue in my life. If you can't count on your neighbors to be vampires, what's left?

Sigh.

Pet peeves, Volume I

I don't generally write about bodily functions, but I can't discuss my most recent pet peeve without alluding to some of them. Let the squeamish be warned.

Some wrong-headed environmentalist*- probably from California, which is where most wrong-headedness seems to come from- thought it would be smart to invent- and then foist on the American public- the low volume toilet. The reasoning behind this abomination is that using less water per flush will conserve water and help to ensure a cleaner, less processed water supply.

This reasoning might hold water if all people even did was pee, but as we all know, people produce other denser products that need to be flushed. Low volume toilets are not up to the task. SOOO... for every normal flushing of the large intestines, there follows a minimum of three toilet flushings to move the detritus out of the commode. Three, times the number of people in the household, times the number of evacuations per day. Low volume toilets. What a savings.

And, of course, low volume toilets don't have a large volume of water to produce the good hefty pressure needed to move solids so at least a couple of times a week, it's PLUNGER TIME!! Is there any task- other than changing dirty diapers- more hateful than plunging a backed-up toilet? I don't even like the fact that I produce fecal matter, so you can imagine my joy in having to deal with it. I want one big flush and everything gone at once! I hope you're with me on this.

* There are right-headed environmentalists, by the way. They aren't in the toilet business.

Nature and nurture

My son is a very remarkable and interesting person, and has been since the moment he graced the planet and my life with his presence. Note I did not say "easy" or "sweet", though he can be sweet when he makes an effort. He has never been easy. He is too smart, too talented, too eclectic, and too damn stubborn to ever be easy, and he was born in a hurry. Patience is not his strong suit.

My son is a big, handsome charmer with a smile that knocks you off your feet, and dimples the size of New Jersy. Though he is truly is own man, he is also his father's son; intelligent, intellectually curious, physically skilled, a problem solver. More than anyone else, however, he reminds me of his two grandfathers. In any argument over which has the greater influence in the development in a personality, nature or nurture, the answer is almost always "both". My son proves the rule. He has known my father all his life. He never knew Dave's father. Yet both men live on in him, and I see little evidences of them in his complex personality every day.

My dad, who calls himself "Lovable Bill" is mercurial, charming and a natural salesman. He is not an easy person either, (though for different reasons). At 80, he is still a handsome man and he knows it. He thinks very well of himself. Bill is alternately completely selfish and completely generous. He has an incredible green thumb and used to have some of the most beautiful lawns and gardens in town, back in the day when he owned his own home. He has always been a bit of a male chauvinist, loving women without really thinking they were worth much, though he thought my mother, at least, was a "lady". I see some of these attributes in varying degrees in my son, especially the charm.

Dave's dad never got to meet my son. Dominic died two years before he was born, which was a terrible shame, because they would have really loved one another. Dominic could be stubborn and/or unreasonable, but most of my memories of him are filled with love. Dominic was blessed with so many gifts- everything but an education, the lack of which negatively affected his self-esteem. He was a master mechanic and could make or fix anything. He created a pen with a radio in it years before they become available on the market. He was a brilliant craftsman. He crafted his own violin and taught himself to play it. He taught himself to play the accordion, though he played it upside down because he was left-handed. He was a master builder, building or remodeling every house he ever owned. He was a master gardener. I remember helping him in his huge garden many years early in my marriage, and getting the benefit of the bounty that came from it. The first year of my marriage, Dave and I were helping rake leaves and Dave's wedding band slipped off his finger. We looked and looked and could not find it. As it started to get dark, we gave up and went home. The next day, Dominic called to say he'd found it. He'd gone out with a flash light to look for it and hadn't stopped looking until he found it. Such a romantic. He was a beautiful man, both physically and in his soul. My son even walks like him, an almost tiptoeing, rolling kind of a walk.

Like his grandfathers, my son is a beautiful man. He has many talents, skills and gifts and many of the personality traits of both my dad and Dave's. He is more than the sum of his parts, as are we all, but in my son, the influences that helped shape him are easy to see. It's not that I don't see traces of myself, or Dave, and any number of other people in my children. My daughter, for example, reminds me very much of her Aunt Rita. It's just that, with my son, there are times when it's almost like stepping back in time and seeing my dad as a young man, or Dave's dad as a young man. He's a better man than both of them, but they are there in him.