Family Picnic

September 20, 2017 Sally5 Comments

We had a family picnic a few weeks ago.

Actually, that’s kind of a generous description.

It was a partial family get-together that involved food, frisbee, and talking.

Five out of eight children — that’s more than half the family.

A kind of weird conglomeration of food that included deli meat (but no bread), watermelon, fresh mozzarella salad, chips, and blueberry pie — I suppose that constitutes a picnic. We were eating at a picnic table.

A huge caterpillar.

Frisbee.

That became layered frisbee.

A walk by the lake.

And lots of sitting around, talking.

The best of life is made up of so many simple moments.

They may not be perfect, but the sum of them is.

photography

People

September 19, 2017 Sally5 Comments

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge — Alphabet with a Twist — needs to have two E’s in the topic — people (I bolded all the 2 E words.)

When my father was in the army, our family was sent to Kagnew Station, Eritrea, in Ethiopia. I was very young at the time and my memories are few, but my parents took a lot of pictures. I especially love the photographs of the people.

I have vague memories of children materializing whenever we were out and about in Ethiopia. Those memories came flooding back when we first went to visit our work site in Bosnia. The car pulled in, and a small passel of girls came running out, excited to see “the Americans.”

The smile of a child is medicine for any soul.

Life · poetry

Glorious Country Life

September 18, 2017 Sally5 Comments

I stopped at the Farmer’s Market
Early Saturday morn
Heard some vendor’s talking
(They both look tired and worn.)

“Went to the tractor pull,”
One guy said to his friend.
“Didn’t get home ’til 2 AM.
Helluva start to the weekend!”

“Damn rooster woke ME at 4 AM,”
His friend to him replied
And he passed him some maple syrup
To carry the jugs inside.

Oh, this glorious country life!
With tractors and roosters the only-est strife
Stars in the night, sun in the day
Cows in the field, newly mown hay
So thankful I live here every day
So thankful I live here every day

On Sunday at the Harvest Fest,
We visited the pig —
Half in wood shavings, half in mud
My goodness, the sow was big!

She had been the champion
At July’s livestock show
For this festival’s Parade of Champions
They wouldn’t let her go

So her owner brought a steer
To parade in her stead
While she wallowed – half sun, half shade
Mud on her snout and head

Oh, this glorious country life!
A parading steer lest the sow run rife
Stars in the night, sun in the day
Cows in the field, newly mown hay
So thankful I live here every day
So thankful I live here every day

Writing

Pronunciation

September 16, 2017 Sally3 Comments

I found myself listening carefully not so much to what the young doctor was saying as how he was saying it.

“How is your appetite?” he asked, the first three words slightly higher in pitch than the one that preceded it.

But appetite — I thought about finding a piece of scrap paper to write down the way he pronounced it so I could remember it properly and recreate it. I think it was ah-PET-it.

My father understood and answered appropriately. Well, almost. He looked at me, repeating the question as he did. “My appetite?”

I nodded a yes — yes, that was the question, and yes, his appetite is good.

“I have no problem with my appetite,” he said, and patted his stomach.

“How is your weight?” the doctor asked, but he pronounced the w as a v — like vayt.

My father looked at me, questioningly.

“Your vayt. Your vayt,” repeated the doctor.

“He’s asking about your weight, Dad,” I translated, a little surprised that my father had deciphered appetite but not weight.

“Oh! My weight is fine,” my father answered, and the exam went on.

The young doctor with jet-black hair, soft hands, and mostly perfect English was from Pakistan. Pah-ki-stahn, as he pronounced it.

There are times I wish I had an invisibility cloak, so I could listen, unnoticed, to the way people from different parts of the world talk.

In Bosnia, I didn’t pay close enough attention. I think I need to go back and try again.

Once I had an on-line discussion on the pronunciation of the word LABORATORY. It turns out that laboratory can have anywhere from three to five syllables, depending on where the speaker is from.

It also turns out that there are dozens of videos on how to pronounce that one word. Crazy.

I watched some of the videos and found my favorite — partly because the video itself has nothing to do with the audio, and partly because I can picture one of my sons playing the semi-gory game shown.

For the record, I say LAB-ra-tor-ee.

And AP-a-tite.

family · Life

Coffee

September 15, 2017 Sally5 Comments

I sat in an exam room with a new health care provider last week. As she worked her way through the list of get-to-know-you questions, she came to medications. The form had said, “List all medications,” but I left it blank.

“Do you take any medications?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said.

“Vitamins or supplements?”

“Nope.”

“Anything over-the-counter that you regularly take?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing at all?” she asked one last time, looking up at me.

“Do you count coffee?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “That’s a food group. Coffee and chocolate — both are food groups.”

I knew then that we would get along famously.

My sister survived Irma. The morning after the storm, she reported that they were fine but didn’t have electricity. To the best of my knowledge, they are still without electricity. She texted me pictures of trees down and debris in the road, then added,

The real problem: NO COFFEE 😬😱😡

I read a joke that made me think of her and her situation.

Q: How do you feel when there is no coffee?
A: Depresso

The other day when I made my coffee, the filter folded over and the coffee didn’t drain properly into the pot. When I went to pour my first cup, I got watery grounds and a mess in my coffee maker. I read that spilling a cup of coffee is the adult equivalent of letting go of a balloon. My situation was the equivalent of multiple balloons disappearing into the sunrise. I felt like crying.

Thankfully, I live in a land of plenty — plenty more beans to grind, plenty more filters, plenty of water.

And plenty of electricity.

Still, I hope my sister’s electric comes back soon — if for no other reason than for the sake of coffee.

(And air-conditioning.)

Faith · family

Patience

September 13, 2017 Sally6 Comments

“Quite frankly, God,” I said, “I’m getting a little tired of working on this patience thing. Could we move on to something else?”

Yesterday morning, I had been awakened by my father’s whistling. It’s happy whistling — “O Danny Boy” — evidence of his penchant for Irish music, that tells me he’s up and getting ready for the day.

Most days I listen for it. “Time to get to work,” I say to my girls as I get off the couch and head for the kitchen to fix his breakfast.

But yesterday, I heard it on the monitor in my room. It woke me up.

“O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…”

Sometimes he sings it. His singing reminds me of Lee Marvin in “Paint Your Wagon.”

I rolled over and looked at the time. 2:45 AM. Ugh.

When I went down to his room, he was laying out his clothes.

“What are you doing, Dad?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said, turning to look at me.

“It’s not even 3 o’clock in the morning,” I told him.

“I know that,” he said — but I don’t think he did.

“Don’t you think you should be sleeping?” I asked.

“That sounds like a good idea,” he replied.

After helping him get back to bed, I went upstairs to my own. Laying there, looking at the ceiling, listening to the monitor, I could hear him rustling around for a few minutes, then quiet, then the heavy breathing of sleep.

I wished I could do that, but sleep never returned for me.

Some time after 4, I came downstairs again and made my coffee. My ever-growing pile of books that I’m working through beckoned me. In addition to daily Bible reading and time with Lancelot Andrewes, my current morning reading consists of

Charles Williams’ The New Christian Year — a devotion a day.
Pascal’s Pensées — a pensée or two a day
Documents of the Christian Church (selected and edited by Henry Bettenson) — a document a day
Walter Brueggemann’s Sabbath as Resistance — a section a day
St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life — a chapter a day

St. Francis irked me yesterday. He said,

Among the virtues we should prefer that which is most conformable to our duty, and not that which is most conformable to our inclination…

My inclination is not towards patience. Mercy, maybe, but not patience. I’d like to swoop in, do some little nice thing for someone who’s hurting, and leave.

This long haul of caregiving is the opposite.

And my patience is in short supply these days.

“Lord, can we move on?” I prayed — but I knew the answer.

I began a good work in you. I’m going to complete it, He replied.

So, when I heard “O Danny Boy” for the second time that morning, I made his breakfast, took his blood pressure, gave him his meds, found the puzzles in the newspaper for him, and tackled another day.

photography

Drvo

September 12, 2017 Sally3 Comments

Cee’s Photography Fun Foto Challenge: Alphabet with a Twist marches on to the letter D — 4 letter words that start with D. I added a twist to the twist this week and chose a 4 letter Bosnian word that begins with D.

Drvo means wood or tree.

I was very excited when, in Bosnia, I saw the word DRVO on a sign, because it was one of the words I had learned on the app I used before the trip. The sign was at a lumberyard, so I probably could have figured it out with the words. Lumberyards are readily identifiable by the lumber. Still — it felt like an accomplishment.

I took a few pictures of wood this afternoon — none of it lumber at a lumberyard, although I did drive by our local lumberyard and think about it.

Wooden railing, wooden steps, wooden half-barrel with sunflowers

A red maple my father planted 45-50 years ago

Looking up at the branches of one of the maples

In a month all our maples will be wearing their most beautiful colors. We’ll be bringing that firewood into the house. The sunflower will be dried and ready for the birds.

Today, however, is a balmy September day, a good day to snap a few photos.

family

Debris

September 10, 2017 Sally9 Comments

I’ve been watching The Weather Channel the past two days with almost a morbid obsession. This waiting and watching and watching — it’s like a slow motion train wreck and I can’t get my loved ones off the tracks.

“Even if we did leave,” my sister said yesterday, “where would we go? The traffic is moving slowly and there’s no guarantee we would find gas along the way.”

Yes, life is one big crap shoot. You roll the dice, you move your mice, and — sometimes it’s the wrong decision, but you have to ride it out. Sometimes, it’s hard to know what the right decision is.

The other day I accidentally pulled out in front of a car at one of our wonky rural intersections (the Bowerstown bridge, for local readers). The other driver let me know — with a toot and a gesture — that he was not happy. I had already committed, though, and had to go for it once I entered the intersection. We all made it through unscathed.

I hope that’s the case for my sister.

Another story I’ve been following — through the friend of a friend of a friend — is of vacationers stuck on St. Maarten. First, gangs were invading the resort to loot it. The Americans hunkered down in the back corner of the back room of their condo. After escaping the gangs, Hurricane Jose set its course for them. “…their greatest concern is the amount of water that will be coming this time as there are no walls/windows to keep it out. They currently have some drinking water and some peanut butter to eat…” The word yesterday was that they had been rescued.

However, before the rescue, in their preparation for Jose, these people were told to collect loose debris left by Irma so it wouldn’t be flying around when the second hurricane hit. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought of that.

I am mesmerized at the swirling red-purple-yellow-green nebulae of winds and rains on The Weather Channel — and I picture The Wizard of Oz on a much larger magnitude. With rain. Lots of rain. And now flying debris.

Someone posted on Facebook decrying people who make a metaphor of this hurricane. I don’t believe it belittles to take lessons from a disaster. Pascal (in Pensées) said,

Two errors:
1. To take everything literally.
2. To take everything spiritually.

It is a literal storm — on a magnitude that I have never seen.

But I also can learn a lot from those swirling winds.

When I feel battered on all sides — and I’ve had that kind of week: a death in the family, personal medical concerns, frustrations in relationships, a sister in the crosshairs of a hurricane, bickering, aching back — battered by both boulders and pebbles — when I feel battered, I can use the lulls to pick up the debris, and I can hunker down in the toughest part of the storms.

So, I turn my attention back to The Weather Channel, hoping to see some news of where my sister is.

“We don’t care about our weather,” Laurel scolded the television, as our local forecast came on.

No, we care about that freight train, Irma, slowly barreling toward Bonita Springs, Florida.

family

Irma

September 9, 2017 Sally3 Comments

It seems hard to believe that this beach where I have walked and relaxed and played will have a storm surge of 5, 10, 14, 17 feet of water. The numbers keep getting higher every time I look at the news.

My sister, who lives in Bonita Springs, Florida, has long been an avid Weather Channel watcher. She says that her cats like to watch, too.

I always laugh about it. “You can’t change the weather,” I say, which is true, but unhelpful.

But now Irma plans to visit.

I’ve collected shells on Sanibel, and felt the waves wash over my feet. Little waves of the incoming tide. Not Irma.

My children have gathered buckets of sand and water as they played there. All in safety.

It’s hard to imagine how changed it will be.

“Is it too late to evacuate?” I asked my sister this morning.

“Oh yeah,” she replied.

As Irma’s winds grow closer, a crescendo unlike anything my Florida family has experienced, my worries will also grow.

And grow.

I had my own little bout with worry recently. Waiting for appointments and answers is the worst. But, in the end, my answers were all good news.

With Irma, I’m afraid that the waiting isn’t the worst part.

It’s too much to hope for good news.

I’ll watch the Weather Channel with a pit in my stomach, waiting for the storm to pass.

My prayers are with all who stay in Florida.

Psalm 55:8

family · poetry

Rain

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 Sally5 Comments

I’m beginning to anticipate
What his response might be —
My mother blamed “the others”
For things we didn’t see,
But my father’s not a blamer
So, when he can’t explain
“It fell down from the sky,” he says,
Like some mysterious rain.

I crawled around the other day
With flashlight in my hand.
Half his hearing aid was missing
And I tried to understand
How these darn things fall apart so much
Half in one room, half another
I would have blamed “the others”
Had I been my mother.

Then Laurel called me from the kitchen
“Wha-T?” I said, but I
Emphasized the “T” too much —
And I can tell you why —
I was getting irritated
At the time that it had cost
Looking for a hearing aid
Half of which was lost.

“Grampa wants you,” she said timidly
And so I went to see
What it was he wanted now
From irritated me
“I found it!” he was saying.
I was surprised at what I saw
The missing piece of hearing aid
Resting in his paw.

“Where’d you find it?” I demanded.
I knew I should happy
But, you know, I wanted answers
And he’d better make them snappy.
“Can you fix it?” he was asking —
Not answering my question
It’s a skill he has in conversation –
Changing the direction

But I was dogged — “Where’d you find it?”
“It fell out of the sky,”
He said, as if that answer
Would satisfy my cry.
He told me again yesterday
When I asked about a pin
He had fastened to his sweatshirt
And I asked where it had been —

Apparently the sky inside
Varies precipitation.
Outside I see it raining rain
Inside, to my frustration,
It yields an odd assortment
Of hearing aids and stuff
That I couldn’t have imagined.
I should be thankful; it’s enough —

The lost hearing aid was found
I’m not still crawling on the ground

For Peter:

Perhaps another explanation is that a wolverine
Creeps into the house at night, stealthily, unseen
And hides my father’s hearing aids
Tapes them to the ceiling
Whence they fall on Dad, while I am searching, kneeling.