Gnat Over-rides (ccr)

Gnat Over-rides.  Those moments when the Goliath threats take second seat to the annoyance du jour.

You, Gentle Reader, have put up with my whining about serious issues— family members and their health, jelly-to-a-tree frustrations, economic situations,  rants against my church for failures to own the sins of commission and omission–important and very serious issues.

Taking a break to swat the gnat.

“So I go like you know…and then he goes…and I’m like you know….so I go…and he like goes…and then I am like so, you know, annoyed!”

Snippets. Overhead as I stayed several strides ahead of a cell phone user on my favorite walking path.

Next my wordsmith brother sent a commentary on the use of the word ‘up’. “Fry up some bacon. Open up the windows. Close up the store. Dish up the ice cream.”  Up is a busy place.

Language is dynamic and new words are important as we express concepts formed in that intense new dynamism. Webster expands with each edition.

But how are like and go and you know dynamic replacements for said, replied , responded or answered? How did up become a two letter stumble to anyone trying to learn the language?

So like confusing up my brain, you know?

Brain By The Book

I rarely forget where I put the car keys, my current library book, my purse. Food on the stove doesn’t burn and nothing gets locked in the car. My calendar keeps us on time and in the right place each time.

Because my mother spent the last years of her life lost in dementia, I soon learned the awareness tests. In a ‘just-in-case’ moment that comes from my chronic planning gene, I decided that the “subtract 7 from 100 and continue to zero” must become as easy as reciting the alphabet. To be on the safe side, I put encyclopedia in my list of words to spell backward.

Imagine–preparing for dementia!

And it just might be one of my better planning-to-plan ideas.  Light switches have been known to migrate from one side of the doorway to the other.  Appliance dials  seem to be programmed to malfunction after 9:00 PM.  On the rare occasion, I have looked out the passenger window and have needed a nano-second to become orientated.

Part of my strategy was an arm-load of Brain Books.  The consistent message is  clear.  People my age are constantly reminded to do both physical and mental gymnastics, push ups for the muscles and connections for the gray matter.

So I bought several and checked out even more from the library.  Odd.   As I thumbed through the books, I noticed a strange and consistent editing error.
Beginning language (right brain) activities were  often English 101 type exercises…fairly easy,  predictable and kind of fun to whip  through.

But the math activities! Why would that much quoted rocket scientist spend time designing totally unreasonable math stuff for such an easy language book? And who invented Sudoku? More importantly, WHY invent Sudoku? If all the columns and rows add to the same number, why not just tell me the number and move onto a crossword puzzle?

Are there more  Brain Books in my future? Maybe, but someone needs to do a better job of balancing the material–say ratchet up the language stuff and understand the proper use of the delete-all-math key.

Black Jack and Rosalind Russell

So many clichés about aging…so many cutesy sayings to get the laugh and cut off the whining.  Basically, the whines deserve to be squelched.  Someone just might suggest that the complainer’s  happiness lies in the natural alternative to aging.

I love being alive, love my life, my family, my friends, my activities.   When any group starts, “Well, my (surgery, illness, problem) went like this…”,  I have been known to draw tongue  blood  determined to avoid contributing to the ain’t-it-awful-one-upmanship.

Granted, verbal processing  is vital to some folks. With that need in mind, it is my duty of respect to listen, maintain eye contract and wait for the pause.

Despite the rehashing of medical miracles, we, the over 65 group, are good for a lot of grins.

Consider the Miracle Of The Hair.  80% of women are without a single visible gray hair and 99.9% of men are gray, white-haired or bald.  Must be part of the Venus/Mars deal.

And speaking of Venus/Mars…How about those commercials for the little blue V-pill.   Most prescriptions have totally scary side effects, but 4 hours and still worth the risk?

We make lists to remember what was on the other lists that might have been on the list we lost while we were thinking about what we should have handled yesterday.  Or was it last week?

Picking up yesterday’s reading material and going back several pages to figure out what happened before we dozed off makes for slow return of library books.

Waxing  nostalgic for the days of our youth when everything was amazing is a definite clue to geezerhood.  (If you, Gentle Reader,  grew up in the 50’s, you are part of the group that holds claim to complete accuracy about that decade’s perfection.)

Tsk- tsking about the current dress or hair styles while pretty much enjoying the view is an old person’s game.

Excusing totally embarrassing memory lapses with that senior-moment sheepish shuffle is coin of our realm.  (My spouse’s name is what?)

Which brings me to Rosalind Russell.   Some years ago, Bob and I caught the tail end of an old movie.  We both recognized the actress but could not come up with her name.  It plagued me for weeks.  Then, at approximately, 4:00 AM I awoke, sat up in bed and shouted, “Rosalind Russell”.    Now we had a tag for the longer delayed memory stuff  struggling to get out.

And Black Jack?  Well, we do have surprisingly  intriguing conversation considering our combined ages total 146 years.  One of those conversations was about candy and gum from those perfect 1950’s of our youth.  Valomilk, Grapette, Teaberry Gum but what was that licorice gum that lasted about 3 1/2 minutes before it turned to tasteless rubber?

We loved that gum, but naming it was threatening to be a Rosalind Russell.  Bob needs his oxygen aided REM sleep so I determined to force the connections and find that name prior to the next 4:00 AM surge.

I am not proud of how I handled it.

Black Jack is now the tag for bolts of memory hurled from the mind and out the mouth at  the most inopportune times.  Consider a hushed church, soft organ music, walking back from Communion, head bowed in reverence, and out pops “Black Jack!”

Poor Bob.  He had to sit in a different pew to convince people that his wife didn’t come to Mass that day.  And who was that woman playing cards in church?

Pony Poop?

One of these beautiful days, I will convince my friend, Tim, that he needs to meet each of you via blog comments.  He is my elementary, high school friend and neighbor from Tauromee Avenue, St. Peter’s Grade School and Ward High School, Kansas City, Kansas.

Roots run deep in KCK.  Just ask any Dotte and they won’t need those seven steps to Kevin Bacon as connection to most other Dottes.

How I wish the following lines were mine, but they are not.  They are Tim’s.  “In a room full of pony poop,  (all Pollyannas) are happy because somewhere in the room there is a pony to ride.”

So I am waiting at the doorway, saddle at the ready and smiling in anticipation for the moment that this current medical mess gets rinsed of pony stuff.  The sunset beckons.

Mark THAT Day

The memory of the photo is as clear as if I held the paper in my hand.  His tiny arms reach for the next step as my first-born attempts his climb up the concrete steps of Jardine Terrace Student Housing.  He is less than a year old and refuses  help.  I stand behind ready to break any fall yet knowing he will make it to the top.

A recent article on the levels of letting go, of saying good-bye to our little ones brought this photo to instant recall.  Of course, we never really do let go, but we learn to step back and keep the silence.  We learn that every experience has a part of becoming, the child-to-adult journey.

As I have written before, my memory  has some very annoying circuitry and specific incidents often lack detail even though  emotions flood the recall.   Details take second seat to the feelings unless and until specific phrases spark the whole picture.

After reading the article and experiencing the emotional flood of mommy-stuff, the phone rang.  That year old little boy has climbed a long way from those concrete steps graduating to mountains, to ice climbs and now to long distance kayaking.  His first-born is about to graduate from high school.

Our conversation takes us to his 11th summer and the Big Beer Incident in St. Agnes Woods.  Talk about a moment of wanting to let go, to throw up my hands, shake my head and wonder at the wisdom of encouraging independence.

This was the time before  the teaching of fear through Stranger-Talk.  The neighborhood was safe and the kids had the run of sidewalks, summer days and banging screen doors.   We were a village and every house had something to drink, a cookie or two, a welcoming back yard and bathroom privileges.

Mark’s mini gang rode bikes to the small creek in St. Agnes Woods, a place of hide-outs, adventures and growing up.   His awesome stingray bike was the big gift of the previous Christmas and definitely  his ticket to ride.  He loved that bike.

On this day the boys explored, searching for hidden treasure.  They found it!

Five cases of beer, probably  stashed by students from the nearby high school, unearthed by curious 10 and 11-year-old kids.  And of course we all know what boys do with beer, right?

Shake the cans violently, open the tops and have beer fights squirting one another,  playing War until the last beer emptied.  Hair, body, clothing and bikes drenched.  The smell rivaled any a brewery and the boys were filthy from falling in the dirt, leaves and creek mud.  They ached from laughter and the fun of forbidden fruit.

I swear I smelled them coming and my first thought was not one of loving protection and clutching helicopter mom.  Talk about not wanting to hold his hand!   He reeked.  And he tried to look contrite, but the fun was too deep and the smile could not be contained.  “We had a beer war and we won!”

“Who lost?”, I wondered.

And the dads reactions?  Absolutely perfect.  “What a waste of good beer” spoken between bouts of laughter.

I will forever treasure Mark That Day.

A Lot Of Bull

Maybe I look retired-school-teacher-granny woman, but old never starts out like this.  Turn back a few pages, and I was breaking  ice in the stock tanks, slinging bales of hay (well, dragging bales of hay) and crimping wire along the electric fence.   Bob loved it all.   I loved Bob—-so there you have it.

Our herd usually had eight to ten heifers/cows and our wide shouldered, mean faced, powerfully built, short-legged bull with the creative name of Black.  In the interest of full disclosure Bob was not exactly expert at creative naming.  One Spot, Two Spot, Three Spot and A Boy Named Sue were his best efforts.

During that sip to siphon fiasco (Napa We Are Not),  Bennie came to call.  Guessing that the odor of plum/cherry/white grape alcohol was irresistible as Bennie pulled up a chair and let loose with a running commentary on the fine smell, the pretty colors, how much he loved fermented fruit.  Before long he was slipping a tumbler in the flow as he offered to help keep the floor clean.   We had never met Bennie before, but country hospitality is what it is.  We knew there was purpose in his coming so we had the courtesy-smarts to wait for the punch line.  It came.

Bennie had seen Black from the road and wanted to bring his heifers to our place for service.  By the time that punch line came, Bennie was blushing and back pedaling as he tried to stay on the delicate side of explaining the service Black was to perform.

With two green bottles in his giant over-all’s pockets, Bennie left his phone number and started for home, ready to load his ladies in the pick-up.  Twas the season and Black was pawing to perform.

Time passed and we had some additions to our herd, so we guessed that Bennie also had results, though we had not heard from him.   The calves grew to market size. Older cows and Black filled a few freezers and yet another summer slipped into autumn.

Bob worked on weekends. I was finishing the raking, staking and general fall chores when I heard a noise on the front porch.   Tiptoeing in case the noise was the local legend bob cat, I eased up to the corner of the concrete porch and found myself staring into the face of long gone Black, short legs and all.

Our Black was a gentle giant who sometimes followed like a puppy so I was unafraid of Black, Jr.

“Move.  Get off.  Shoo.”    Lame shouting while I prodded Junior with the rake,  not even denting that armoured hide.    So I got behind him, strategically placed my hands and pushed,  shouting and shoving with every muscle.  By now, the bull was snorting and I was getting worried.

Ducked inside the front door and found Bennie’s phone number.  When I explained the situation, Bennie let loose a string of expletives urging me to stay inside and lock the doors.  “Him’s the meanest  bull God put on the earth.  When he’s a-snorting, he’s set to get a-goring.  Me and the Mrs. are on the way.”

Tiny orange clown car rattles up the long drive, the Mrs. handling the wheel and Bennie standing on the running board— gun in hand and bull whip dangling from his belt.  Before she screech-stops sending gravel flying, Bennie jumps off and races toward the porch, whip cracking and air shots echoing.  Grabbing Junior’s nose ring, Bennie pulls, the bull bellows, inching forward with each tug.   This man is a wrangler.  Seconds pass and the bull moves to the front of the car.  Mrs. is gunning the sewing machine motor, Bennie is screaming, shooting and high snapping that whip! Obviously, they plan to herd Junior all the way home!

As they disappear around the curve, I double with laughter.  Just wait until Bob says, “How was your day?”

Napa We Are Not!

Some years ago, we traveled to California and toured the wine country.  Odd destination for us as Bob’s beverage of choice was ice-cold beer. I drank a glass of wine every other leap year preferring to hold out for  that single shot of Wild Turkey or that thick  Greek liquor squirted from an animal skin and offered to guests at certain ethnic weddings.  Our opportunities to attend  those rare, but always exciting, marriages were dwindling as children of friends finished their round of passage.  Of course, sipping wasn’t allowed,  but a little sleight of hand gave an ounce to last the evening.  That was just right…not too much, not too little.

Still, the wine tours were fun and Greeks were famous for stomping grapes into battered pulp.  The guides did complicate the process,  making fermentation sound like rocket science.  We wondered how a bunch of grapes could create subtle hints of clove,vanilla, an infusion of flowers and memories of oak.  A grape remembers?

While in the tasting rooms, we felt a creeping inferiority as connoisseurs adjusted their faces to match the taste.  We were clueless, but those little palette cleansing oyster crackers were good. Besides, we discovered that a creation called honey wine was a delicious as  dessert and went well with any styrofoam carry-out we enjoyed at the motel.

Along the way, we bought a few books about wine-making as souvenirs, not resources.  Little did we realize that  the seed had sprouted.   We knew the jargon.  We learned by watching and we had ceramic crocks seasoned by years of autumn pickle making.  If a porous oak keg was good, a tight ceramic crock had to better.

A cherry tree and a plum tree provided the ‘stomp’ for our first two batches of home-brew.  Pits came close to our undoing, so we purchased a gallon of white grape starter for the third of our Antonopoulos Backyard Fromage.    Corks, bottles, yeast, sugar,  hydro-thingies, thermometers and some other stuff I cannot remember made a $20.00 bottle of RedX wine look pretty good.  This was starting to be funny, but not so much fun.

Moving right along, the juice morphed.  We permanently stained the kitchen floor as we sip-siphoned from crock to green bottle effectively hiding the white to pink to rose-colored wine.  The smell was pretty overwhelming and I vowed never to taste the stuff again.

We were clever enough to set the varieties apart, giving me time to hand print perfect little labels, vintage, date and birth fruit.  Adding to the homey feel of our product, we punched holes in the labels and tied them to the necks with rough twine–way cuter than either of us.

Living in Tornado Alley proved to be  a decided advantage.  We have an earth cellar on this old place and have actually used it a time or two when the dark clouds and tree shaking winds proved threatening.  But now it had a more important job–our wine cellar.

Painstakingly built wine racks were in place and we proudly stocked them with over 60 bottles of something that neither of us had ever actually enjoyed that much.  I kept thinking of truck stop diesel.

Time passed.  A holiday table seemed the perfect setting for serving our white wine with turkey.  Besides, most guests would refrain from negative reactions in honor of eating our food.  Bob and I pulled back the cellar door , switched on the dim bulb and prepared to choose our presentation white.

How can I describe my ‘gasp’ to you, Gentle Reader?  A gasp of disbelief is definitely not adequate.  I was staring at naked wine bottles—– and a lovely Martha Stewart mouse nest created with the comfort of my hand printed labels!

The crowd was large that holiday so several bottles of surprise wine complimented the meal, and no one complained if they got rose( not white) from the green bottle at their table.  And you know what?  Most of those bottle are still down there waiting for the Champagne Fairy to give them a sprinkle of sugar and  another chance to sparkle.  I suppose if we got thirsty while surviving a tornado…..

God’s Shopping List (ccr)

Two people with generous hearts, Dan and Virginia,  handle the details of a prayer group originally started at St. Therese Parish in Parkville, Missouri.  For years, faithful men and women have prayed for intentions shared through phone and email.   The outreach is great and God gets His list from  that far-and-wide place.   Many of the self-proclaimed Prayer Warriors are senior citizens who have weathered what both pesters and sustains lives.  With only an occasional wobble, their trust in God is strong.

Dan and Virginia keep the intentions before the faithful.  Virginia accepts phone requests and Dan compiles the emails.  Their ministry is a gift to all who believe and participate.

As I read the most recent email list, I smiled at my childhood image of God.   Powerful Giant looking through the clouds, scanning His Shopping For Miracles List that reached from His hand in heaven to the needs of the earth below.   As children, we prayed with such innocent intensity convinced that we could sway God’s choices.  Felt a little like the body language as the schoolyard captains picked teams on the playground.  Lean in, make eye contact and focus on not being picked last.

We are older now.  God has grown up with us.  The bearded and haloed figure is no longer first-out in our sense of God.  The Power, the Majesty of creation with man as pinnacle, is part of the evolution.  Despite what we know of evil, it is the sustaining Goodness that makes prayer a Comfort, that holds up our Trust.

Joining with others in Community Prayer is part of our Powerful Connection with this grown-up hold on God’s Shopping List For Miracles.  Sitting alone, watching whatever floats by— be it cloud formations, flickers in the fireplace or a sleeping child— we pray our connection to God, a prayer of Thanksgiving.

James Dobson’s Retirement From Focus On The Family

Originally, the title  of this blog was Focus on Faux Pas.  That would be my major faux pas that connected to the radio program, Focus On The Family.

A couple of years prior to retirement, I arrived at the classroom with a super fantastic idea for a welcoming bulletin board.  During the summer, I wrote letters to the incoming students and included a request for a family picture.  By the first of August I had photos from most families, a huge roll of gold paper, large letters cut from blue flock, terrific photo frames and embellishments to impress the most jaded of bulletin board crafters.   (Our school colors are blue and gold.)

Step ladder in place, table filled with my trove and I was totally excited about my best-ever effort.   In a few hours, I was standing back in admiration.

As the week went on, other teachers began to prepare classrooms and, as always, there was a wonderful spirit of coming back together and the excitement of a new school year.

But I noticed something different.  Usually we were very easy with comments of praise about colleagues’ efforts.  My friends were oddly quiet about my masterpiece.

I looked again, carefully inspecting for something to cause this quiet.  It looked beautiful–smiling families, artistic frames, sparkling background, clever bits of this and that.  Nothing wrong that I could see.

Could I have spelled it wrong?  Cut the caption with crocked scissors?  No.  Looked great.

Focus On The Family in giant blue and centered perfectly.

Gently, my dear partner, Linda, said, “Pat, do you ever listen to James Dobson’s program?  Know who he is?  Realize his agenda?”

“No, my radios stay grooved into NPR and I rarely switch to AM stations?  But why the question?”

Gentle as she is, Linda could not suppress the smile at my confusion.  With all due respect to Mr. Dobson and his focus, this would not fly in a neighborhood public school with great diversity of religious affiliations.

Faux Pas, indeed, became Welcome Westwood View Families. And that quiet?  It  took on a definite bent of teasing laughter.  What a great place to work!

Quilting 101

Perfect day for quilting.

Mix of snow and rain glueing itself to everything, creating that Christmas card look that is growing less of a dream with each storm.  Shoveling was a workout that wasn’t going to happen by my usual a long walk, so shoveling counts as a plus for the day.   Polishing wood or knee level floor scrubbing can wait a bit longer.  Too hyper to read  so  a quilting project is the perfect choice for my start and stop mood.

A couple of months ago, I wasted money through a catalogue purchase of  twenty-five 10 inch squares of mini-matched fabrics.  Cutting for quilting is too much like math so I opted to pay extra and let a factory handle the scissors.  I just knew they would be beautiful, matched, squared and ready for creating three beautiful quilts.  Did I mention that I wasted triple money on this plan?  I did.  And those  squares are still piled on the sewing table.    I cannot find a way to arrange without tossing at least half the pile.  Some pieces are just so ugly.  My creativity hasn’t stretched far enough to silk purse this three eared piggy.

But today is the day.  Armed with see-through rulers, rotary blade, cutting matt,  tailor’s chalk and determination I have the pieces spread on the living room floor.  (Crawling around arranging and rearranging is another exercise plus for the day.)   Maybe reducing the 10 inch squares to 5 inch squares  reduces the ugly parts, right?  Like a spot reducer diet that never actually works either, right?  Or how about a really old-fashioned look, a granny quilt made from worn out family clothing and no pretense of matching?  But who would wear clothing from such ugly stuff?

A true quilter would head for the fabric store and simply purchase new fabric that compliments the salvageable squares.  To me, that is good money after bad so not going to happen.  But I have come up with a solution.

Blog.

Blog about it and see what you, Gentle Reader, have to say about erasing ugly from fabric.  As for me, I need to clean up that living room floor, go back outside, reshovel the deck and walk, and feed the cardinals that bring such beauty to the winter whiteness .  Would’t that make a beautiful quilt!