Monthly Archives: August 2019

Busy Having Fun

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It seems there was very little time yesterday to sit down and write a creative blog post. I was too busy breakfasting with my sister Bec who is visiting from AZ. I fit in a few chores around the house before I got a call from my granddaughter, who was the only one of the kids that was home, as the others started school yesterday, and she didn’t have to go until today. Want to hang out? she asked me, and who would say no to that? We went and got a pedicure — mine much-needed and hers much-wanted. We finished the day enjoying happy hour and dinner (fried chicken, and delicious fried chicken at that) with friends……

You have seen the t-shirt that reads My mom and dad went to Mexico and all I got is this crappy t-shirt? Well, I had a couple of days packed with fun and all you got was a dull and boring blog post.

We ate dinner at RARE Italian Restaurant in Fort Collins on Sunday night. The draw? Half-priced bottles of wine. We asked for — and received — seating by the kitchen because we all love to watch chefs do their thing.

And this was one of their things.

Last night I had a wonderful rest. Expect better things tomorrow.

The Times, They Were A-Changin’

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I had lunch the other day with a friend who is about my age. That means that she, like I, was in her late ‘teens and 20s during the tumultuous 70s. She told me a story about herself that I hadn’t heard before (or at least don’t remember hearing; if I was in my 20s in the 70s, I’m in my mid-60s today and there are a lot of things I don’t remember!).

She grew up in a small town in Maine, and went to a tiny now-nonexistent Catholic college in Burlington, VT, for her undergraduate degree. She must have done well, because she got a scholarship to Columbia University. You know, the Columbia University in New York City. It was 1974. School started in September. By November, she had called her family and asked them to come get her. She was ready to come home. She didn’t find the coursework beyond her abilities. She found living in NYC beyond — way beyond — her comfort zone.

Now, I find it necessary to explain that my friend is not a meek and fearful person. She is a strong woman who eventually got her Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Denver, and held important library-related jobs before she retired recently.

But the 1970s in NYC frightened this poor inexperienced girl from a tiny town in Maine. And she never regretted her decision to leave the Big Apple.

After she told me this story, we began talking about what it was like to be a young adult in the 1970s. Though in 1974 the Vietnam War was mostly over, the cries of LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? still rang in our heads. Women were burning their bras in support of equal rights for women. Young adults were running around barefoot wearing flowers in their hair. African Americans were fighting for civil rights. There was a lot of energy in the air nearly everywhere you went. And often — despite the chants to make love, not war — there was a lot of anger and angst……

But the marches and protests were mostly in big cities. So imagine living in NYC where they told her that if she missed the subway stop for Columbia University, she should ride to the end of the line and head back instead of getting off at the next stop which was Harlem.

The 60s and 70s were a time that’s difficult to explain to our children. The 50s had been a time where conformity ruled. Still stinging from the effects of WWII, people wanted nothing more to live in a little house in a quiet neighborhood where men put on a suit and tie every day and went off to their job while women stayed home to care for the children. Everyone was happy.

Or were they? In the late 60s, the Vietnam War got everyone giving second thoughts about nearly everything. Later Baby Boomers perhaps didn’t find the protests and open sexuality as disconcerting as those of us born earlier — closer to the end of WWII. I remember being caught between wanting to put flowers in my hair and wanting to polish up my saddle shoes.

The 60s and 70s changed the world forever, and I don’t think I would change the course of history if I had the chance. I might make different personal choices, but lots of good things came out of those crazy times.

But it was quite a world for those of us who grew up in Rumford, Maine. Or Columbus, Nebraska.

 

Saturday Smile: Back to School

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My grands go back to school a few at a time. This week it was the Zierks who started school. Kaiya had her first day at middle school, and happily reported after the first day that she had already found a buddy. Mylee — who is in fourth grade — was very happy because her BFF is in her class, something that hasn’t happened since first grade. And Cole had his first day in all-day kindergarten. He reported after the first day that “School is so long.” They made me smile…..

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: Sold on a Monday

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Some time back, I read (and reviewed) a novel written by author Lisa Wingate entitled Before We Were Yours. Her novel took place in the late 1930s, and was the story of children who were kidnapped by an orphanage and then sold. The story was based on fact. It was one of the best books I read that year.

Because of my connection to that book, Sold on a Monday, by Kristina McMorris, caught my attention. It too, took place in the 30s, this time during the Great Depression. The story was based on a real photo taken during the Depression that the author came across while doing some research. The photo was of two small children sitting in front of a rundown farmhouse next to a sign that read 2 Children For Sale. Off she went with an idea for a historical novel.

Reporter Ellis Reed is lucky to have a job during the hard times of the early 30s. He is the society writer for a newspaper, a job he loathes. He yearns to be an important journalist. In the course of work, he comes across a sign advertising the sale of two children. He shoots a photo, but is unable to interview anyone.

When he returns to his office, he convinces his boss that the story is important, and the editor agrees to print it along with the photo. Unfortunately, the photo — and the negative — are destroyed. What are the chances? So he does that thing that reporters are not ever supposed to do. He sets up a fake photo and writes a fake story. Bad things ensue.

In the meantime, Lily is stuck in the dead-end job of being the newspaper’s secretary, while she really wants to be a writer. Since she is a single mother of a little girl, she knows she can’t be choosy. When Ellis’ dirty deed leads come to her attention, the two of them work together to try to make things right again.

Perhaps this book would have worked better, had the author based the story on these two children in the same manner that Wingate’s story was of the kidnapped children. Instead, the children become almost an afterthought with the attention focused on the two protagonists. Unfortunately, the author’s character development and ability to move a story along made this a book I slogged through. I finished the novel, but was left feeling that the story could have been so much more.

In her Afterword, we learn that surprisingly little is known about the real photograph. There apparently is some evidence, however, that the mother who was selling the children wasn’t doing it because she was poor, but instead, just because she wanted to be childless.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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Noisemakers
It seems like nearly every morning around 9 o’clock, we begin hearing the sound of trees being trimmed and branches being ground up in big grinding trucks somewhere in the neighborhood. We decided it was time to join the In Crowd. Yesterday a team of three men came and trimmed up our honey locust tree in the back yard……

Bill had cut on it a bit throughout the years, but we had never had it professionally trimmed. It is the tree upon which the swing hung for years, serving all nine of our grandkids (though Cole’s time was short-lived, as the branch began to die)…..

Fire or Water
Not long after we bought our Denver home, Bill bought a hot tub. He also built a deck, and one of the areas was raised up, so that the hot tub fit flush into the deck. We used it quite a bit for many years. It finally went kaput and has been an unsightly paperweight in our backyard for quite a while. Well, no more. Over the past couple of weeks, Bill did what Bill does. Using a saw, he cut the hot tub into pieces and has slowly been loading up garbage bags to put out the week that they take extra garbage. In its place, he bought — on sale! — a fire pit fueled by propane…..

It’s quite pretty, and we can’t wait to really try it out. As it is, he, er, encouraged me to have a glass of wine one night by the pit, when it wasn’t ungodly hot. We will enjoy it this fall.

Sitting Room
We needed a place to sit around the firepit, donchaknow. Because I am uncertain just how much we will use it, I decided instead of investing a ton of money on an outdoor seating area, we could start with some inexpensive chairs I got on sale. They came yesterday, and I have barely seen Bill since…..

Soup’s On
My son Court had surgery yesterday during which they removed some nodules near his vocal cords. Everything went fine, thank the Lord. But for 48 hours, he isn’t allowed to speak, even to whisper. And he is limited to soft foods for a few days. I texted him yesterday morning and asked if he would like me to make him a pot of soup. Yes please, he responded. I love French Onion Soup, but I’ll take anything if that’s too much work. Well, I’m his mommy, so I began cutting onions until my eyes burned from crying…..

He texted me later and said the soup was delicious. But here’s Cole’s thoughts on the matter…..

Ciao!

 

Be Like the Child

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Yesterday I went to Mass to pray for a special intention. I don’t go to daily Mass very often, but every time I do, I think to myself I should go to daily Mass more often. It’s so different than the Sunday Mass. Much quieter and informal and, well, more sacred somehow.

Anyhoo, Matthew’s gospel included the story of when the disciples are wondering who is the coolest guy in their group. Jesus calls over a little child (and I couldn’t help but think that nowadays, the kid would go running to his mother crying about stranger danger, but I digress) to illustrate an important point. Jesus tells them that they should all be like children, and that way they will be able to enter his Kingdom. “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.” In other words, to be the coolest guy in the group, they have to have the innocence of a child.

The other day I posted about the honesty of children. I’m not saying I’m the coolest gal in the group just because I said the same thing as Jesus, but I am pretty cool. Children — at least children who are reared by parents who are firm and loving and trustworthy — trust their parents and grandparents. In fact, they trust most adults. That’s why they have to be educated about stranger danger. Their trust can get them in trouble with bad guys.

And it made me think about the fact that God is firm and loving and trustworthy. So why don’t we trust him in the same way that most children trust their parents? But maybe I’m too hard on myself because I trusted in him enough to go to Mass and pray for my special intention, knowing he would listen to my plea.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus went on to say, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”

Every night of Court’s childhood he recited this prayer before he fell asleep:

Angel of God, my guardian dear
To whom God’s love entrusts me here.
Ever this night, be at my side
To light, to guard, to rule and guide.
Amen.

By the way, years and years later, Court told me that all those times he said the prayer, he said “To whom God loves and trusts me here.” Frankly, I think I like his version better. Like many of the Catholic prayers that I memorized as a kid, I never really thought about the words. Thank goodness God speaks Kid.

I believe in the existence of angels, and guardian angels in particular. My guardian angel has intervened in my life many times, keeping me safe. I love the notion that the guardian angels of children have God’s attention at all times.

That’s the way it should be. And we should have the innocence of a child, making our own angels’ lives easier.

Hiding From Serge

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At long last, Bill and I are making preparations to paint our home. I can almost hear a collective cheer from any of our neighbors who read this blog. Since moving in 27-and-a-half years ago, we have painted our house exactly once. The professional painter who gave us a bid was practically speechless when we told him the last time our house was painted. Apparently 10 to 12 years is the real norm (at least if you’re a professional painter and you need to feed your family). He’s the man who painted the inside of our house last summer, so he’s used to us being hillbillies.

Bill and I are going to try to make the act of picking out a paint color a convivial experience; however, we don’t do convivial very well. I am more than thankful that as we remodeled our house the past few years, we both agreed on the important things: we wanted dark wood floors and the puke beige with which we had been living to be a lovely shade or shades of gray. Likewise, we agreed on the gray color for the carpeting. As for the navy walls in our bedroom, he let me fly on that one without saying a word. I think he likes it and I know I do.

Our painter had a few thoughts, but Bill and I were as one when we didn’t particularly agree with his suggestions. He thought we should accent our tile roof by painting our house a southwestern terra cotta. I’m pretty sure the neighbors’ heads would explode in our conservative ‘hood.

We set off to the paint and home décor store yesterday to begin the process. We were greeted by a lovely young woman. I will admit, however, that she was quite a relief to me because I was frankly terrified that our consultant would be, well…..

Do you remember Serge in Beverly Hills Cop?

I held my breath and waited for her to say, “For what it’s pertaining?” in a funny accent. And when we looked blankly back at her, she would add, “You know, what it’s meaning, regarding?” And then she would look me up and down, with my dirty blouse from having been pulling weeds in the garden right before we left the house without realizing white wasn’t a good gardening color. Though unless she is very snobby, she couldn’t possibly study us like Serge studied Axel Foley.

It’s my favorite scene in a movie full of wonderful — if profane — scenes. As an aside, I read somewhere that the actor who played Serge — Bronson Pinchott — made up the accent. Good job Bronson. It was perfectly snotty.

Conviviality seems to be the ruling emotion as of yesterday afternoon when Bill spread a sample of the paint selections on the wall. My standards are low. I explained to him that I simply want a paint color which, upon being applied, results in people walking or driving by the house to say, “Why, I think the McLains finally painted their house,” without a sneer or a gasp. Simple needs.

Our marriage survived an entire inside remodel. I hope an outside paint job doesn’t do us in.

Honesty is the Best Policy

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God created grandchildren to make up for the fact that he also created teenagers. Grandchildren keep us honest, and so do teenagers. It’s just that teenagers do it with a sneer, while grandkids look wide-eyed and adorable. Even teenaged grandkids usually reserve their sneering for their parents.

My sister Bec told me the funniest story about her grandson Carter, now 11 years old. This particular incident took place a number of years ago. She was driving and he was in the backseat. She was carefully making her way through the always-dangerous movie theater parking lot, where (particularly in AZ) senior citizens are backing up without a glance over their shoulders to see if there are cars or pedestrians in the area, while others are poised to take the spot whether there are cars waiting or not.

In that way that we adults do, she groaned, “There is nothing more dangerous than driving through a parking lot.” Carter was silent for a few beats. And then he solemnly replied, “I think it would be more dangerous if we were driving through a volcano.”

Carter truly knows the definition of danger.

See? Keeping us honest. I love that story because it perfectly illustrates how small kids look at the world without blinders, and usually without judgement. Carter didn’t judge his nana for her error. He just wanted to make sure that her feelings about driving in parking lots didn’t make her too lackadaisical when she approached a volcano.

Our grandkids help us to know what we look like in other people’s eyes, though it’s true we may not care. There was the time, for example, when Alastair announced that my hair was gray. That was still the time when I was trying to convince myself that the gray in my hair looked like lighter highlights. He brought me down to earth and I have since come to grips with the fact that I have gray hair. It helps that my hair continues to turn more gray each year, making it nearly impossible to claim highlights.

And you know what? It doesn’t have to be your own grandkids. Other folks’ grandkids can bring you back to reality as well. When my great-nephew Noah was maybe 5 or 6 years old, he looked at Bill through eyes that squinted like a detective and asked him, “Are you old?”

“Older than dirt,” he responded.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Being a grandmother is the best gig I’ve every had. I enjoy all of my roles, and mostly always have. I love my husband and am proud to be his wife. I’m delighted to be Court’s mother, and have always been so. I’m a stepmother, an aunt, a great-aunt, and a friend to many — all good things to be. But being a grandmother, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

But do they have to be so honest?

 

Saturday Smile: He Doesn’t Look a Day Over 21

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Last night, Court and his family came over to see his Aunt Bec, and to enjoy a celebratory seafood boil she prepared in honor of his birthday. He turned 39 on Thursday, and ascertains that 39 sounds a LOT older than 38. I think it sounds darn young, though it is true that having a son approaching 40 is a bit disconcerting.

We had a wonderful, wonderful evening. We ate the seafood boil in the traditional way, off of the newspapers on the table……

Admittedly, this was puzzling to Cole, but he rolled with the punches. We laughed and ate and licked our fingers and assured Cole that the key lime cake was coming soon……
Cole and Mylee helped me put every candle I had in the house onto the cake, and led the way as we paraded into the room with the candles blazing. He blew them out in one try!……

Happy birthday to my much-loved son, and a good weekend to you all.

Friday Movie Whimsy: Yesterday

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Because Yesterday is a relatively family friendly movie, I saw the preview for the film many times in the previous few months. Every kids’ movie and every adult movie I watched featured the preview. And every time I saw the clip, I thought, “I don’t have any desire to see that movie with its ridiculous premise.” The truth is that it wasn’t until a blogger I like and trust said Yesterday was wonderful (in fact she said it was one of her favorite movies of all time) that I decided I wanted to see the movie. And I knew I had better hurry because it must be at the tail end of its run.

The British film features a cast with which I was mostly unfamiliar. I recognized Lily James from her Downton Abbey Days, and she plays the manager and closest friend of wannabe singer/songwriter Jack Malik. As hard as he tries, Jack finds no success and is becoming frustrated.

And then there is a never-explained event during which the entire world loses power for 12 minutes. Following that cataclysmic event, it doesn’t take long before Jack figures out that no one else in the world has ever heard of the Beatles or is familiar with any of their music. He takes advantage of that fact, and becomes an overnight success using their songs.

The story is poignant and mesmerizing as Jack is torn between the joy of finally being appreciated and the guilt in knowing that he has stolen the music even though nobody knows it. Or do they? The fun in the film for me is the opportunity to hear the classic and familiar Beatles songs performed ably by talented actor and musician Hamesh Patel who plays the lead. What, in fact, would the musical world be like if the Beatles’ music never existed?

The ending, which included a pleasant romantic conclusion, was satisfying and allows the viewer to leave the theater with a smile. See the movie while you still can!