Author Archives: kzmclain

Saturday Smile: Grandkid Almost Heaven

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Our trip back to Denver has been a good one, with both Bill and I being able to visit with friends and family. Here are some of the highlights that have made me smile….

Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole enjoyed a movie day at our house that included candy, soda, the essential popcorn, and The Troll Movie. Mylee and Cole are concentrating on the food. As for Kaiya, she is unable to refrain from performing for a camera.

I was able to avert disaster just as Alastair, Dagny, and Maggie Faith were about to commence using their various sticks to go into sibling battle. The trick? A camera.

Adelaide shows me the trick to a selfie…..from what I can tell, the trick is to have her take the picture instead of me!

You can see why I’m smiling. I’m very blessed. And, by the way, the reason this post is entitled ALMOST HEAVEN is because we’re missing two of our grandkids who are at home in Vermont! Now, that would be heaven.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Coincidence of Coconut Cake

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I love coincidences, I love alliteration. I love coconut cake. I had high hopes for a book with a title that encompassed all three loves.

The Coincidence of Coconut Cake, by Amy E. Reichert, didn’t quite satiate my reading appetite. More like a Hostess Twinkie than a made-from-scratch coconut cake, it was too predictable. Promised by the publisher to be a cross between How to Eat a Cupcake and You’ve Got Mail, it unfortunately didn’t have the wit or romance of either.

Reichert is described as being an author who likes happy endings about characters that you would invite to dinner. The Coincidence of Coconut Cake had the requisite happy ending – and I do like me a happy ending — but I’m not sure I’d particularly like to dine with any of the main characters.

Luella – called Lou – is the owner and chef of a French restaurant that is just barely making it in Milwaukee. A mean-spirited restaurant critic puts the nail in the coffin when he writes a scathing review of the restaurant after dining there on a particularly bad night for Lou, who just caught her fiancé in bed with another woman.

Lou drowns her trouble at a neighborhood bar, where she meets British-born Al, and they strike up a friendship. Al mentions to Lou that he hasn’t found anything good about Milwaukee so far, and she agrees to show him all of the wonderful food traditions in the area. They agree to not talk about their jobs. Eventually a romance blossoms.

It won’t come as a surprise to you to learn that it turns out that Al is the restaurant critic who is responsible for Lou’s restaurants ultimate failure. All the expected angst transpires, and is eventually settled happily.

The premise is cute, but the plot is fairly predictable and the characters are a little too one-dimensional for me. The Coincidence of Coconut Cake isn’t horrible, and the parts where they talk about cooking and food are fun for someone who likes to cook and eat as do I. But don’t dive in expecting a great novel with a lot of interesting twists. It won’t happen. Just enjoy it for what it is, a simple romance novel with a spattering of recipes and cooking.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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Home is Where the Heart Is
Bill and I arrived back in Denver on Tuesday afternoon. Court and the three kids picked us up at the airport. Kaiya and Mylee were happy to see us; Cole probably would have been, but he was out like a light, deep into a dreamland nap. He seemed happy enough when he woke up, and then became very happy as time went on. Particularly when he learned that, despite the fact that we have been gone for three months, there was still Play Doh around the house. Simple needs.

Movie Date
I had made tentative plans to take Kaiya and Mylee to see Beauty and the Beast; however, it seems Cole didn’t want to be ditched. I was promised by his dad that he could sit through a movie; however, given the fact that the movie is more than two hours long, is NOT animated, and it costs an arm and a leg to see movies these days, I elected to forgo a date to the theater and substitute a movie date at our house. I bought all the necessary candy, popcorn, and soda pops, and rented three kids’ movies from Redbox. It was a movie extravaganza.

Now, Where Did That Go?
Allen and Emma have been housesitting at our Denver abode since January, so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked in the door. What I found was an immaculate house, and a lovely display of sunflowers, a bottle of wine, two chocolate bunnies, and some fresh fruit, along with a sweet card. Nice housesitters, no? As would be expected, they have made the house comfortable for themselves, which means un-kiddifying it, given the fact that they have no children. So the grands were surprised to find an empty cookie jar, an absence of kids’ cups, and the Legos were nowhere to be found, though I was able to find Play Doh, as mentioned above. A few Facebook messages resulted in being able to locate the Legos, so crisis averted.

Flower Power
We have made it a habit to come back to Denver one time during our winter stay in AZ, but it has always been in February. That, of course, is too early to see any spring flowers. Then, by time we get home for good in May, the spring flowers are long gone (except for a few late-blooming tulips). So it has been fun to see my spring bulbs bursting into view this year….

Ciao.

Blue Highways

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In a galaxy far, far away, or more accurately, during a time long, long ago……Bill and I loved to take road trips. The truth is, I think our hearts are still willing, but our bodies are not. A few hours in the car, and Bill and I walk like C3PO. But I do love me a road trip.

We both have a fondness for road trips because we took them as children with our respective families. Every year, Bill’s family packed up the car and headed to his paternal grandmother’s home in Statesville, North Carolina – a couple of days’ drive from Chicago. And I have spoken ad nauseum about our family vacations to Colorado from Nebraska.

Road trips are fun. Road games. Rest stop picnics. Stopovers at the site of the World’s Largest Wad of Gum. Of course, Bill says his father was much more reluctant to stop along the way, driving past kid-requested stops so fast they were merely a blur. Our dad was more willing to stop. He was so glad to get a break from his hard job that he would gladly pull over at the historic marker for the site at which the Ouija Board received its name (a real thing) at the request of one of his kids.

Ten or 12 years ago, Bill and I took a wonderful road trip from Denver east and south, ultimately resulting in a visit to both of his brothers – one who lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and one who lives in Birmingham, Alabama. On our way, we drove through southeast Colorado, parts of Kansas and Missouri (including an overnight in Branson, MO), Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee (where we peaked through the fence of Graceland, but were too cheap to buy the tickets to see the inside of Elvis’ famous house). We ate Memphis barbecue and Kansas City barbecue, had to join some sort of a one-day club in order to have a glass of wine in some small town in Kansas, and ate the tastiest banana puddin’ at a little café in North Carolina. We got a speeding ticket in either Missouri or Kansas, and bought a beautiful coffee table at a furniture store in North Carolina, which still graces our living room in Denver. I don’t know how many miles we drove, but I do remember that they were mostly two-lane highways, and that Bill drove every single mile of the trip, not because I wouldn’t drive, but because, well, he’s Bill.

I’m so happy that we took that trip when we did, because as I mentioned earlier, now we probably wouldn’t survive that much time in the car. Our son Dave and his family took a three-month trip in an RV a few years ago, where they toured much of the eastern United States. Now that’s the way to go. Stretch out and relax. Well, unless you’re the driver. Anyhoo, they’re talking about doing it again, only this time visiting the western states.

If that’s what they plan to do, they should read this article, which I found fascinating. A group of scientists (who apparently have little interest in anything like finding solutions to climate change or curing cancer) used a complicated mathematical process to determine the most efficient way to visit the 48 contiguous states in the shortest period of time. All stops had to be at a national site such as a park or monument.

The route that the scientists came up with would take 224 hours (some nine days) of driving time. Some of the stops included in the Most Magnificent Road Trip EVER are the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Alamo, Graceland, Fort Sumter, Mount Vernan, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, Hoover Dam. You get it. The list goes on and on, as you will see if you read the article.

Personally, if I was going to do another road trip, my goal would be to visit every tourist attraction you read about on a roadside sign. Alligator farms, Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Museum, UFO sites, the Salt and Pepper Museum, and on and on…..

Just like the hoity-toity scientists’ road trip, mine would also take two to three months. Let’s face it, you can’t just run in and out quickly when you’re looking at toilet art.

This post linked to Grammy’s Grid.

Dodging Fangs

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March is undoubtedly the nicest weather month in the Valley of the Sun. January can actually be a bit chilly (if you consider 55 degrees to be chilly), and February can be hit or miss. But March is generally sunny, the temperatures begin to be consistently warm, but don’t reach the can’t-touch-the-car-steering-wheel temperatures of summertime, and rain is at a minimum.

Though we have only spent the entire winter here for a couple of years now, I think I’m right in saying that this March has been particularly warm. That was a bit odd, because December and January were particularly cold. Go figure.

So, despite the fact that I didn’t go out and get my degree in either zoology or meteorology last night, the warm temperatures have made me aware of the fact that the rattlesnakes and scorpions might be awakening from their wintertime slumber sooner than normal. I’m nervous about scorpions in the dead of winter when they are sound asleep with their little scorpion pillows and their little scorpion stuffed animals, so you can imagine how nervous I am as the temperatures rise.

And then there’s rattlesnakes. While I actually know little about the behavior of rattlesnakes because see above – no zoology degree – what I have heard is that they are particularly cranky when they first come out of hibernation.

Then, of course, you have the baby rattlers, because what do you think a boy and a girl rattlesnake do during those long winter months? And it’s a scientific fact that baby rattlesnakes are more aggressive than adults, because they have all this energy and don’t know what to do with it. (That last part is not a scientific fact, but simply the observation of a nana of nine grandkids.) That, coupled with the fact that baby rattlers are born without rattles, well, just YIKES.

All this is to say that Saturday morning, I walked over to our neighborhood CVS store and realized that I am crazy. Certifiably.

The walk is not long – a mere two blocks. But about one of those blocks is a vacant lot with lots of desert vegetation and no sidewalk, only a dirt path worn from hundreds of walkers who are not certifiably crazy.

You see, as I set off on this part of my walk, I was a NERVOUS WRECK. So nervous, that, after a few steps on the dirt path, I elected to walk instead in the street. Now, the logical part of me is fully aware that the danger of getting hit by a car driven by an elderly woman who can barely see over the dashboard is significantly greater than the danger of getting bit by a rattlesnake. And the little old lady won’t even rattle prior to sending me flying through the air.

Still, there I was, walking in the street to avoid meeting a rattlesnake.

You might recall that I actually have met a rattlesnake face-to-face in the desert. It was back in 2013, but I remember it like it was yesterday. It is no surprise that I was with both of my sisters, because I can scarcely remember all of the times we have gotten into some sort of trouble as a trio. We were on a pleasant walk early in April on an asphalt sidewalk in a deserty area, all wearing flip-flops. It wasn’t as dumb as it sounds. The walk was a last-minute decision following a scenic drive. The cacti were blooming and we had no intention of getting off the path. As they say, the ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.

We just took a little diversion off the asphalt path and on to a dirt path. We just wanted to see a few more of the scenic flowers.

Until we heard the rattle. It took a moment to know what it was, and by that time I was looking into the fiery eyes of a rattlesnake. Well, I might be exaggerating because I didn’t take the time to look into his eyes as I was bolting out (flip-flops and all) into the cactus along the opposite side of the path, despite knowing full well that you aren’t supposed to startle the snake.

We got away, and Bec spent the next 15 minutes picking cactus needles out of my foot. Bless her heart.

The good news is that I didn’t see a rattlesnake on my way to CVS, nor did I get hit by Edna Mae in her Buick. The bad news is that not seeing the rattlesnake doesn’t mean I’m not certifiably crazy.

Here are some good things about springtime in the desert….

 

Now I See

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I think a lot of people will agree with what I’m about to say: As I grow older, darkness is not my friend.

Eight or nine years ago, my mother-in-law – who was a whippersnapper in her early 90s at the time, walked down her dark hallway to bed one night, ran into the ironing board she had forgotten was there, fell, and broke her femur bone. The good news is that she recovered and is getting ready to celebrate her 100th birthday in July. The bad news is, well, everything I said above, up to the good news part.

Darkness – and an awareness of what happened to Bill’s mom – is why Bill and I each keep a flashlight within easy reach by our bed so that we can click it on in the event we need to go to the bathroom. And we’re old, so that need arises often.

It’s rare that I fully understand the so-called theme of the scripture readings at the weekend Mass, but even I – as dense as a London fog on – yes – a dark night – understood that the theme this past weekend was light.

The Old Testament reading was the story of how God let his people know that David was his chosen King – the light of the Jewish people. The New Testament reading had the same theme. In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul told the folks in Ephesus, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord……..Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

But the reading that really hit home was the gospel from St. John in which he tells the story of Christ bringing sight to the man blind since birth. As Jesus spat on the ground to make mud with his saliva, he told the blind man, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” The man, who had been in the dark his whole life, suddenly could see everything, thanks to Jesus’ miracle. Jesus gave the man light because he IS light.

It made me think about all of the times that I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep because I begin worrying. Sometimes I worry about something specific – a health issue with one of our children or a problem one of our kids or grandkids might be having at work or school. Sometimes it’s more a general sense of doom. And I know you will all agree with me that THINGS LOOK WORSE AT NIGHT. I have literally spent hours worrying about something in the darkness, and when the sun rises, I think, “Really? I was so worried about that? It’s no big thing, really.”

Court and Kaiya enjoy the warmth and light of a fire at a family gathering.

St. John goes on to tell us that, upon the man suddenly being able to see, the Jews were beside themselves. They told the man that only God can perform miracles, and asked him how this mere mortal could make him see. Over and over again, the man told them he didn’t have a clue how it happened, but all he knew was that he had been blind from birth and now he could see. Maybe this mere mortal shouldn’t have been able to bring him sight, but he had. Because (say it with him) I was blind and now I see. Don’t get it. Can’t explain it. But there you have it. I couldn’t see. The dude rubbed mud in my eye and now I can see.

Just like the Jews, I always want answers to my questions. Why does Bill have Parkinson’s? Why does someone drive a car onto a bridge and kill people? Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s easy to blame things on God, just like the disciples at the beginning of the gospel when they asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Sin wasn’t the reason for the blindness, Jesus explained to them. Good would come from the blindness. And that reminds me that no matter how dark things get, Jesus will always bring light to me if I believe and pray. Because Paul reminds us that Christ promised that he would give us light. So in the same way that our problems seem to diminish in the daylight, Jesus, who is light, will bring us strength when we accept that he is our light.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Friday Book Whimsy: The Light Between Oceans

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The Light Between Oceans, a novel by M.L. Stedman, is the story of love, loss, despair, hope, and redemption. While I wouldn’t call it the saddest book I’ve ever read, it would rank among the most poignant. And it definitely is a story I won’t soon forget.

Tom Sherbourne returns to his home in Australia after surviving the horrors of World War I, filled with guilt. Why did he survive? He takes a job on a tiny and isolated island off the southern coast of Australia where he takes care of the lighthouse. Doing something good for others helps him forget his past. It is a quiet and lonely existence. On one of his trips back to the mainland, he meets – and eventually marries – Isabel, a young woman looking for a change in her life and eager to have a family. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. Isabel suffers miscarriage after miscarriage, and finally has a stillbirth after which she is unable to have children. Her sadness is almost beyond bearing.

So it seems like a miracle when a boat drifts up to the isolated island carrying a dead man and a living baby, cold and hungry. They bury the man and nurse the baby back to health. Isabel thinks it’s a miracle and believes they are meant to be parents to that child. She is convinced, and subsequently convinces a reluctant Tom, that the mother is dead and that the child would be placed in an orphanage if the truth was known by the authorities. They stay mum, and raise the child as their own.

When the child – whom they name Lucy – is 2 years old, they return for a visit to the mainland, and what they learn there changes their lives forever. Not only their lives, but the lives of several others. They face a moral dilemma.

The Light Between Oceans was a difficult book to read, because there was no right or wrong answer. It was a classic Solomon’s baby scenario. No bad guys; all good guys. No win.

The author’s writing was beautiful. Her descriptions made me understand exactly what it felt like to be so lonely and isolated, and to have a great need to love and be loved.

As far as I am concerned, the book ended about the only way it could. It was a tear-jerker, and that’s no lie. I can recommend this book with that caveat.

It has been made into a movie starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz, and it was largely filmed in Australia. I can’t decide whether or not to watch the movie….

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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Rocky Mountain Visit
Now that things have settled down a bit here, Bill and I are taking a quick trip back to Colorado next week. I am looking forward to seeing everyone, and it’s good timing because it will be Spring Break for all of our Denver grandkids. I have learned that the two littlest McLains will be visiting their Aunt Julie for much of the week, so I hope I can see them for a quick hug and kiss before they leave for Montana. And I’m hoping that Dr. Cole can take a break from his busy medical practice to see me….

London
I was saddened to hear about the terrorist attack yesterday in London, as were people all around the world. It particularly shook me up, however, because the site of the attack was right next to the hotel in which Court stayed during a January business trip to London. He undoubtedly crossed the Westminster Bridge during one of his walks. It reminds me that one never knows what will happen on any given day. My prayers to all people involved.

What Time is It?
You may or may not know that Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time. No one in the desert has any desire for an extra hour of sunshine when the temps are in triple digits. I understand that, but man I get so confused trying to keep track of what time it is in places other than where I live. I have literally been unable to connect with my Colorado family any way but texting because by time I think of calling, it’s too late because they are an hour ahead of us. Plus, more important, I have trouble voting on The Voice because for reasons I don’t quite understand, they think I’m in Denver. So by the time the last performer sings, my time to vote is nearly up. Such problems, right? So, if you have been wondering why it seems that I’m posting my blog later, the truth is I’m posting my blog at the exact same time. It’s just later for you.

Hot Stuff
I’ve committed to making one of my beautiful afghans for my grandson Alastair. Up until now, I have been steadily crocheting these afghans, which are simple to make but look and feel amazing because they are made of Bernat blanket yarn – a thick and extremely soft yarn, perfect for snuggling. He is feeling a bit left out because I hand-made items for each of the girls for Christmas. I attempted to make him slippers, and I found that for reasons I can’t explain, I simply had no luck. They were huge. They were crooked. They were awful. So I bought him a pair of slippers. So when they were here, he asked for one of those afghans. I have the yarn and my will is strong; however, it has been in the mid- to upper-90s, and sitting beneath blanket yarn has been quite unpleasant. I will persevere, however. His birthday is in April.

Ciao.

Shopping Daze

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There’s some point in a visit to any IKEA store when I transition from being a wide-eyed consumer equally transfixed and excited by all of the choices in home goods being offered to me to feeling as though I’m part of the Bataan Death March. The point at which this transition takes place varies, but I think it’s generally somewhere around the bedroom linens and furniture, when it becomes abundantly clear that everything looks exactly the same.

I’m not the only one either. If you look around, you will notice that there are people of all ages whose eyes resemble those of the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. They are pushing those crazy shopping carts that have minds of their own into displays of plastic glassware and, even more dangerously, into the backs of people’s ankles. They don’t apologize; no one expects them to. We’re all zombies by then.

Bill and I got out of our ‘hood yesterday, first making our way south to the Chandler Fashion Center, or whatever the hell they call malls these days. I needed something from Nordstrom, and there are only two Nordstroms in the Phoenix metro area. I’d be damned if I would drive to the Scottsdale Mall – er, Fashion Square — since it is described as an upscale luxury fashion center, and I am neither luxurious nor fashionable. Chandler it was.

I was helped at the MAC counter at Nordstrom by an exceptionally nice young woman wearing neon blue lipstick that kept me so distracted that I had trouble concentrating on all of the things she was telling me to do if I wanted to look 10 years younger, and praying that wearing blue lipstick wasn’t one of them.

I rarely wear makeup, but I noticed recently that Jen looks years younger than me, and attributed it to the fact that she wears a foundation that covers any signs of aging. Of course, it could be partially due to the fact that she actually is younger than me. Nevertheless, I felt it might be time to set aside some of my hillbilly ways and perhaps put on a bit of makeup now and again. Hence, the stop at Nordstrom. Next time you see me, you will be astounded at how young I look. Or, on the other hand, you might think I look like Charo.

But back to IKEA.

Since we were on that side of town, we decided to visit the IKEA store. I had recently seen a photo of some shelving in a bathroom that appealed to me. I mentioned it to Bill, forgetting that if you mention it to Bill McLain, it will come. With the persistence of a dog with a bone, he immediately began researching where to find the right kind of shelving and for the best price. The final answer? IKEA.

Very often we can circumvent the unavoidable somnolence of a trip through IKEA by going in the exit and making our way directly to the area where you pick up the various and sundry boxes that contain all of the 10,000 parts that make up your item. We have even been known to walk the opposite direction of the arrows – like a salmon swimming upstream – if we know the item at which we want to look is near the end of the maze.

This time, however, he wanted to show me the item and wasn’t entirely sure in what section it was located. Hence, Night of the Living Dead.

And, by the way, we were not the only ones to have the idea to visit IKEA yesterday. Don’t these people have jobs? Perhaps, like us, they just wanted to get out of the heat.

But within 45 minutes of arriving home, Bill had put the 10,000 pieces together and here is the result…..

This post is linked to Grammy’s Grid.