Author Archives: kzmclain

Our Bags Are Packed and We’re Ready to Go

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Just like Peter, Paul, and Mary, our bags are packed and we’re ready to go. Except they’re not, and we’re not. I’m looking forward to returning to Denver and seeing our family there. But it’s Tuesday morning and I’m doing just about anything I can to avoid beginning the packing process. I hate to pack.

Bill — in his Bill-like way — has been like a busy little beaver, making boxes, filling boxes, taping boxes closed. I, on the other hand, am writing about Peter, Paul, and Mary songs. The trio is telling me my bags are packed and I’m ready to go, but it’s not true. And it’s also not the only time that Peter, Paul, and Mary have mislead me. Many years ago, my sister Bec and her husband accompanied Bill and me to a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert at a pretty outdoor concert venue in northern Virginia. The three of us were excited to listen to the trio sing the songs we enjoyed as we grew into adulthood. Bring on Puff the Magic Dragon! Finally, Peter and Paul came out to greet us. After the applause died down, they informed us that Mary was not there; in fact, Mary was very ill and in the hospital. Don’t worry, they told us eagerly. You will all sing Mary’s part! Furthermore, they added, let’s give her a call! Which, I might add, they proceeded to do. Mary couldn’t come to the phone because she was in the process of, well, dying. I know it’s a sad-but-true story. I would have liked to have seen the look on her face when the nurse informed her that Peter and Paul were on the phone and wanted her to say hi to her fans. Those two doofuses have driven me crazy my entire adult life and Puff the Magic Dragon was a stupid song and no matter what they say, it was too about drugs, she likely thought.

My having told you this story clearly illustrates just how much I don’t want to begin my packing.

I could have packed Sunday, but instead, I went to Maggie’s house where she gave Bill and me a going-away party. I’m not one to miss a good party, particularly when I’m the guest of honor. I could have packed yesterday, but I’m in the middle of a really good book, and I had to figure out who to vote for on The Voice. 

But seriously, we do have a lot of stuff to cram into today. Bill has a dentist appointment. We have an appointment with Hyundai to get our car ready for the trip. The pest control people will pay us a visit. It’s all enough to make me not want to pack.

In the time between when we drive away from the nearly 100 degree temperatures we have been experiencing in the past week or so into our Denver driveway, it’s supposed to snow. In Denver, not here. I just hope it gets it out of its system for good.

Maybe I can kill a little bit of time this afternoon looking at weather patterns in the United States over the next month.

Peace

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On the following Sunday after Easter, the gospel reading is always the story of Thomas. If you have been reading my blog for the nearly six years that I have been writing from my heart and soul, you know that the story of poor old Doubting Thomas is my favorite of all gospel stories. I have always stated that the reason it is my favorite story is because after Thomas puts his fingers into Jesus’s nail wounds and his hand into his side, and finally believes, Jesus tells him blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Like me.

And that’s still true. I love that Jesus talks about little ol’ me to his friends.

But this Sunday, something else in John’s gospel story caught my attention.

John tell us that Jesus entered the locked room (something Hercule Poirot would love) where the apostles are all gathered, except for Thomas, who must have had an appointment with his proctologist or something. John tell us that Jesus said, “Peace be with you.”

Did you get that? He doesn’t say Ta da! or Hey guys, I’ll bet I was the LAST person you expected to see, or You really should get that lock looked at, or Why are you so surprised? Weren’t you guys listening to me for the past three years?

Nope. He says, “Peace be with you.” In fact, when he returns a week later to placate our doubting friend Thomas, those are his first words again: “Peace be with you.”

Jesus’s greeting struck me because it seems of late that I am anything but peaceful. In fact, I’m almost always worrying about something or other. Bill’s Parkinson’s. My stomach issues. My friend’s cancer. Money. My family’s health. My grandkids’ school life. Climate change. Our kids’ jobs. Terrorism.  I even worry about how worrying might be affecting my health.

But Jesus wanted his friends to know that there was (and is) no need to worry. He wants there to be nothing but peace in our lives. Peace be with you, he said to them, and to us.

My niece Maggie recently sent me a link to a series of sermons given by a minister at the church they attend. The series was entitled simply Peace. She sent it to me because she knows that I worry so much that I worry that I worry too much. In other words, she loves me.

The minister’s words really hit home. Honestly, he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. But for some reason, I have been fairly successful at putting his suggestions into practice. At least for now.

It’s simple. Worries fall into two categories: things I can do something about, and things that are out of my control. When it comes to things over which I have control, instead of worrying, put solutions into practice: write lists, enlist help, bite the bullet and do it, and so forth. On the other hand, it is absolutely a waste of time to spend even one minutes worrying about something over which I have no control. Those are the things we give away to God. Or to the universe. Or to whomever or whatever you believe.

That’s a good first step for finding the peace that Jesus wants us to embrace.

Peace be with you all!

Saturday Smile: Photographic Proof

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My 6-year-old niece Lexi was one of the six kids who was at our house for Easter. My 13-year-old niece Mackenzie organized an Easter egg hunt. She hid the eggs for the littler ones to find. At the end of the hunt, Lexi, who is very shy, came up to me and quietly said, “Aunt Kris, I’m the champion. I got the most eggs.” And indeed she did…..

After I told her how impressed I was with her hunting abilities, she said, “Aunt Kris, could you send a picture to Pops showing him how many eggs I found?” Of course, I told her I would be happy to do so. Pops, by the way, is her name for her grandfather, my brother David. I immediately sent a photo to him.

The reason this made me smile was because it so happens that Pops was sitting about 10 steps away from her. I guess in this digital age, if there isn’t a photo, it didn’t happen. Even if you’re only 6 years old.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Witch Elm

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Tana French is an Irish author known primarily for her award-winning Dublin Murder Squad series. Much as I love mysteries, I haven’t read a single one of the books in this series.

But something about her latest book — The Witch Elm — caught my interest. Perhaps it was the title, as I am a sucker for an interesting title — and for witches, for that matter. The Witch Elm, unfortunately, featured no witches and was not nearly as interesting as the title suggested. The only thing that kept me reading was the author’s talent for writing. Her talent for character creation certainly lacks substance, at least as far as this novel indicates.

By his own definition, Toby is one lucky fellow. He also happens to be one of the the least likable characters I’ve ever encountered in a book. He has lived a charmed life, which has resulted in him getting by with a lot of incompetence and mischief that most wouldn’t. He is, in fact, celebrating with his friends the fact that he wasn’t fired from his lucrative job for cause the night his life changes forever.

After returning home, he is surprised by burglars, who not only take his valuable belongings, but beat him nearly to death. He survives, but serious head injuries keep him in the hospital for a long time, and he is cognitively challenged.

Once released, he decides to spend time with his much-loved Uncle Hugo, who is dying of cancer. The house has been in the family for a long time, and is the family’s Sunday gathering place. It is one of these Sundays that Toby’s young niece and nephew come across a human head in the trunk of the wych elm tree  in the home’s front yard.

How did the head get in the tree? Who’s head is it? Is one of the family members a murderer? Since Toby has lost long-term memory, he even wonders if HE’S a murderer.

The plot is interesting, no doubt. Unfortunately, at least for this reader, the characters were so inherently unlikable that I wanted them ALL to be guilty and put away forever. The only redeeming character was Toby’s girlfriend Melissa, and I wondered throughout the book how she could put up with his whining and unrelenting anger.

I honestly can’t recommend this book.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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See the Slot
The temperatures in AZ are rising, which means that it’s time for us to head back to our Denver home. To that end, we plan on leaving on Wednesday for Denver. Instead of our usual drive, which takes us through Albuquerque, we are fulfilling one of Bill’s bucket list items by touring Antelope Canyon in northern Arizona…..

…..and spending the night in Page, AZ. We will then take a couple of more days and drive through Moab, UT, and then get on I-70 and travel past Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs and on to Denver. We should be back in Denver by May 2.

Flowers Are A’Bloom
A bit later than usual, but the cactus flowers are blooming. The burst of color is a sight for sore eyes…..

Nesting
We were excited to discover that we had a Cactus Wren in our palm tree that is in our back yard. Cactus Wrens are AZ’s state bird. Their nests are shaped kind of like a football, not open like a robin’s nest. Generally they build nests in cacti; hence, their name. But apparently these birds were confused and have built in our palm tree. Cactus Wrens males and females share the duties of nest building. We have enjoyed watching everything involved in building the nest. No chicks yet…..

Ciao.

 

 

Bookmarks

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Hallelujah! For once in my life, I’m ahead of the curve. And ahead of — can you believe it? — the fashion curve! Who woulda ever thunk it?

I read something the other day (and it wasn’t in The Onion) that said the newest fashion accessory is — wait for it — a book. Yep. Carrying a book instead of a purse or wearing a bracelet is the most hip look in today’s fashion world.

I, of course, have been carrying books with me since — well, really since I learned to read. I almost never go out of the house without a book. It’s true, however, that these days my books are on my iPad or my iPhone, which apparently don’t count as fashion accessories. Still, I had plenty of years where a ragged paperback book was often in my hand as I went for Point A to Point B.

But now, to be dressed to look like the perfect urban dweller, you must look like this…..

Being the grandmother of nine, I mostly just want to tell her to tie her shoelaces. My grandson Joseph took a bad fall one time tripping over his laces and I don’t want that to happen to her. I don’t think he was carrying a book.

I wonder whether she chose that particular book by the author, the title, or the color of the cover. The red is a nice contrast to the gray pant suit. Did she have to decide between the Stephen King book and Presto! How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear by Penn Jillette, or did that cover have too much pink?…..

How do you suppose she carries her money and credit cards? Does she tuck them into the pages of the book? Are the hundred dollar bills on page 100, the ten dollar bills on page 10 and so forth?

And when it comes to books-as-accessories, size matters, at least to me. Instead of something like the Stephen King hardback she is carrying, I would be leaning towards a paperback version of Of Mice and Men at a mere 112 pages. But if I was going for the big-and-smart-looking book, it would be War and Peace or Anna Karenina. It might deter muggers too. I have nothing against Stephen King, but if I want people to think I’m smart, I’m going Tolstoy all the way.

Also, I can’t help but notice that judging from the model’s svelte figure, unlike me, when she is sitting down and reading that Stephen King novel, she isn’t munching on Takis Hot Chili Pepper & Lime Tortilla Chips. If there is ever a time when carrying bags of chips will become a fashion statement, I will REALLY be ahead of the curve.

 

Killing Time

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I sat down at my computer yesterday to write my blog post. Since I didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was going to write to entertain my massive readership of tens, I did just what a teenager would do if they were sitting down to write a theme for their English class: I dawdled. I cleaned out my inbox. I checked out my Pinterest feed. I looked up things on Wikipedia.

And then the real trouble began: I stumbled upon the Flip videos I recorded some eight or ten years ago.

I’m pretty sure that Flip doesn’t exist anymore. Or if it does, it’s in some new fancy iteration that involves Apple and a cellphone. (Because everything involves Apple and a cellphone.) But back in 2009, Flip was the Next Big Thing. It was a small video camera that you could plug into your computer and easily (the key word for this techno neophyte) download your videos. You could probably do a lot more than that, but that was all I wanted and all I did.

Until I didn’t any more. Which is why I have no videos after 2010. So any grandchildren that came into this world after 2010 (hello Micah and Cole) don’t exist, at least anyone who stumbles across these videos 20 years from now will think.

Such is the way with technology and children/grandchildren. A few years ago, Bill embarked upon a project to attempt to download onto CDs all of the video he had shot of his kids using film and a camera about the size of my yellow VW Bug. He had film of nearly every move his eldest child Allen made starting with his first burp. His middle son Dave had about half that number. I believe out of the hours of film of his kids, poor youngest child Heather had a brief wave at the camera at some point — probably at Allen’s birthday party.

Anyhoo, it’s sad that I don’t have video of all of the kids, because I sat there for probably two hours watching video of Addie, Dagny, Alastair, Maggie Faith, Kaiya, Mylee, and Joseph. (To be honest, most were of Kaiya because Bill and I babysat for her some of the time during her first year-and-a-few-months while her parents both worked and right after I bought my Flip camera.) I have baths and cookie baking and first steps and sandboxes and splash pools. I have Children’s Museum and library visits and swimming lessons. I don’t have any first burps.

But perhaps the saddest thing is, not only do I not have videos of post-2010 grandkids, I have NOT A SINGLE VIDEO OF MY ONLY CHILD COURT. Well, I do have video of his 30th birthday party. But none of him as a child, because I didn’t get my first video camera until 2009 when I bought my Flip camera.

I do have lots of photos of ALL of my grandkids, but if I ever lost my computer, I would be scrambling to figure out how to access them. I guess since they’re all backed up to Google Photos, they live somewhere in the Cloud. It took me a long time to understand the Cloud, and frankly, I still couldn’t explain it to my long-deceased grandmother should she miraculously rise from the dead and show up in my living room asking about the Cloud.

Anyway, as you can tell from this blog post, I never really came up with an idea about what to write. But here’s proof of the existence of all of our grandkids…..

Easter Doings

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Yesterday’s Easter celebration at our house is the last party for awhile, at least here in AZ. We We will leave to return to Denver in a week-and-a-half or so. And as is typical for our family, we chose to celebrate with food and drink.

Specifically, a 12 lb. ham, a 9 lb. leg of lamb, and 3 lbs. of fresh Polish sausages. Nothing says Easter like 24 lbs. of meat……

We did manage to eat a few greens, thanks to Bec’s spinach salad…..

There was the requisite Easter egg hunt, after which Lexie informed me that she was the champion, and it certainly seems to be true…..

She also seemed to be the champion sidewalk chalk artist (or maybe just the only one willing to get her picture taken)…..

As the night wore on, Mackenzie moved away from the noise and crowd to do some school reading. Unfortunately for her, the noise and the crowd followed her to Jen’s room…..

There is truly nothing that makes either Bill or I happier than gathering together the people we love around food and drink. This year our next-door neighbors and now-good-friends Dale and Jan joined us.

We celebrated Easter in style. But not quite as stylish as these three…..

Now it’s time to put our dishes away until next fall.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Lost Man

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While visiting the Australian outback is on many people’s bucket list, it has never been on mine. Even visiting the less remote areas of Australian doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

Having said that, one of the things I most enjoyed about The Lost Man, by Jane Harper, was its Australian outback setting. It gets to be a cliché, but nevertheless, the weather conditions and the wilderness (and all things that go along with that) definitely play a strong role in this amazing mystery.

I’m very familiar with Jane Harper and her excellent writing from her series that also takes place in Australia, perhaps because this British-born author now resides in that country. Her two-book (so far) series (The Dry and Force of Nature) features federal agent Aaron Falk, who runs into all sorts of trouble in a much more populated area of Australia.

In this unrelated novel, Nathan and his brother Bubs Bright, who own adjoining cattle property, are dealing with the apparent suicide of their middle brother Cameron. By appearances, Cameron headed out into the outback, abandoning his car that has all of the necessary supplies to keep him alive. The police are calling it a suicide. Nathan and Bubs disagree, and they think it was murder, and begin to investigate.

The more they look into the matter, the more secrets they uncover. Family secrets that many would like to see buried.

Harper’s writing is amazing, and I found myself with this book, like the Aaron Falk series, finishing a chapter and being unable to refrain from starting the next.

I found the book’s ending satisfactory, though not a complete surprise, at least for me. As for traveling to Australia, after reading the book, I believe the reader will either want to book the next flight or never want to visit Australia, EVER.

It’s a great read.

Here is a link to the book.