As dorky as it sounds, I am never happier than when I see my various and sundry grandchildren playing together.

This week Kaiya and Mylee came to spend the afternoon with me. After school, the two girls were joined by their cousins Dagny and Magnolia. An 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 5-1/2-year-old, and a 3-1/2-year old, all girls.

Sometimes when the lone boy cousin (well, save for the two boys in Vermont, far, far away, and the new baby, who at not even a month, can’t get into too much trouble) joins in, it just causes a slight rift. He has a hard time not teasing or being a bit, well, boyish. And even when 11-year-old Addie is there, it sometimes can get a little strained. She, being the oldest, wants to make sure they are all doing it – whatever IT is – the right way. But I’m here to tell you that those four girls played together for an hour without even a raised voice.

I don’t know what they were playing. I’m not sure 3-year-old Mylee was too certain, but whatever it was (and it involved treasure maps), they were the best of friends. And there’s nothing like searching for buried treasure while wearing your swim suit following a dip in Nana’s splash pool.

It made me very happy and brought a definite smile to my face.

But I have to share one more thing that made me laugh this week, courtesy of thebigmamablog.

I guarantee anyone who has had to work on a child or grandchild’s science fair project will relate…..

Have a good weekend.

Hermaphrodite

A few years back (quite a few, actually), there was a teeny tiny movement by politically active women (vehemently politically active, I think) to get the spelling of “woman” changed to “womyn” or “womon.”  The rationale behind it was that we women (wimmin?) didn’t need the word “man” as part of our gender title. Nothing came of it, I’m happy to say. I have enough trouble remembering “woman” v. “women.” Oy vey.

I am open-minded when it comes to political correctness. While some attempts are admittedly silly, my philosophy is if I am hurting anyone’s feelings, I will try to avoid doing or saying or writing whatever it is that is causing the problem. Short of using “womyn.”

But I heard a story recently that was seriously so kooky that it made me laugh until I had tears rolling down my cheeks.

The names will be left off to protect the innocent.

A brief explanation here before I move on. I personally believe that during human reproduction, weird things can happen. There are proven cases of people born with both male and female sex organs. I also believe that for whatever reason, there are people born as one gender who feel strongly they should be the other gender. My story doesn’t discount all of these issues.

Back to my story….

A certain company has a person working for them who is undergoing a gender change. While born a man, this person is in the process of becoming a woman.

Now the human resources folks at this company, apparently in an effort to be sensitive, asked this person the preferred address by colleagues: “him” or “her.”

The answer? “They.”

Yes, my friends. This person wants to be referred to as “they.”

As in: “Where is Pat today?”

“They is on vacation.”

Now maybe this amuses me because I have degrees in journalism and communication, and am a writer by choice and profession. I am also a stickler for correct grammar (though not always successful at using it). I would never be able to say “they is…” But you really couldn’t say “they are” either, as there is only one of, well, them.

However, “they” is really serious about this, as “they” filed a complaint with the HR department because “their” boss referred to “them” as, well, something other than “them.” Him or her I guess.

Am I lacking sensitivity?

For some reason, as I pondered this, I remembered a funny story that a friend of mine told me. She grew up in a very small town in Wisconsin. While she lived in Denver, her parents still lived in this small town. Her mother was visiting her one time, and asked my friend where she liked to shop for clothes. My friend told her mother, “I like Ross Dress For Less.”

The next day, her mother said to her, “Honey, let’s go shopping. We can go to Cross-dress For Less if you would like.”

The storm system that had been bringing us afternoon storms has taken a bit of a break (though our weather people say it will return in a few days), so we are enjoying a few full days of sunshine. My petunias are in, as are my tomato plants, and I have my geraniums in my pots in the front of the house.

Since the weather is so nice, not only have I been opening our front bedroom window at night, but I have also been opening our bedroom window that faces the backyard. That way we get a nice cross breeze all night long.

But here’s the thing. Remember my Butter Battle? Well now as the sun just begins to turn the sky a pale pink at four o’clock, the house finches in the backyard join with the chickadees in the front yard to give me a symphony of bird songs.

I really don’t mind as I find the chirping so sweet. But….

(Cue music) Dum dum duuuuuuuuum.

They have been joined by a murder of crows. (That is the correct term, by the way. A group of crows is referred to as a murder. I think it’s because as you listen to the truly unpleasant sound they make, you want to murder someone.)

I know that all creatures somehow fit into God’s plan. But I struggle to figure out the role of the crow. I guess it’s just to consume the dead squirrels that lie in the middle of the street post vehicular squirrel homicide. But seriously, that caw caw caw? What’s up with that? There is certainly not a thing pleasant about that sound. Especially at four o’clock in the morning.

The crows showed up last spring for the first time. Our neighbors – for reasons I simply can’t understand – choose to feed big birds such as pigeons. I don’t judge. Save for their flying over my house in flocks, the pigeons leave us alone. But I believe the large peanuts that attract the pigeons have also attracted the crows, and that’s just plain unpleasant. The crows like to gather in our trees, like some sort of Edgar Allen Poe/Alfred Hitchcock collaboration, and caw caw caw. It’s darn right creepy.

I didn’t have a great night’s sleep anyway. On Monday, as others were grilling their burgers and hot diggity dogs, and as Bill was working on our sprinkler system outside, I chose to have a movie marathon. I had gotten two wonderful movies from the library – The Music Man and Mary Poppins and watched them both.

I probably haven’t watched Mary Poppins since my son was small – so probably not for thirty-some years. As for The Music Man, I don’t think I’ve seen that movie since I was a small girl myself. But as I watched, I tried to figure something out. Those were not the days of DVDs or ITunes or You Tube. So – at least with The Music Man – I probably have seen the movie once. Maybe a second time sometime in my life. Same is likely true with Mary Poppins. I don’t think we ever owned the video tape when Court was small. BUT I KNEW EVERY WORD OF EVERY SONG IN BOTH MOVIES.

How did that happen? My speculation is that Mom owned the records. We always had music going in our house when I was growing up – either from a radio that sat on her kitchen counter or from the enormous stereo console that sat in the living room. She/he/we probably played those albums over and over.

But you know how a song can stick in your head? And then run through your brain during the night? I had a musical extravaganza going through my head all night long last night.

Sleep for a bit. Roll over and awaken slightly…..

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go do-own, the medicine go down.

Get up. Use the bathroom. Go back to sleep. Roll over and awaken slightly….

Seventy-six trombones led the big parade, with a hundred and ten cornets close at hand. They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuos, the cream of every famous band.

Roll over, fall asleep again, until…..

I love to laugh – ha ha ha ha – loud and long and clear. I love to laugh – ho ho ho ho – it’s getting worse every year. The more I laugh…..

Argh. Get up. Look out my window. Go back to bed and nod off.

Oh, we’ve got trouble (yes we’ve got trouble). Right here in River City (right here in River City). Oh yes we’ve got trouble, with a Capital T that rhymes with P and that stands for pool (that stands for pool).

I just kept thinking, there are two lovely, LOVELY lullabies in Mary Poppins (Stay awake don’t rest your head, don’t lie down upon your bed, and Feed the birds, tuppence a bag). Why-oh-why couldn’t those damn songs be running through my head. But noooooo…

So if I’m kind of crabby today, between Mary Poppins and Bert and Professor Harold Hill and Marion and my crows, chickadees and house finches, you know why.

After church on Sunday, Jen and I took flowers to Fort Logan National Cemetery here in Denver to place next to Mom’s and Dad’s headstone in honor of Memorial Day.

We do this every year if we are in town for Memorial Day. I think it’s a nice tribute to pay to our loved ones who have passed to the next world. Mom and Dad both loved flowers, so while I know they are so joyous in heaven, it makes me happy to give them this reminder that they are not forgotten here on earth. I really do it for myself, of course.

When I was a little girl in Columbus, we took flowers to our grandparents’ graves every Memorial Day. Mom would pick peonies (she had a whole hedge of deep rose-colored peonies next to our garage) and add in blooms of iris that grew on the south side of the house. She put the flowers in a basket, filled a jar with water, and off we went to St. Bonaventure Catholic Cemetery where she placed a pretty bouquet of flowers in the cemetery vases provided.

The cemetery is old but well-maintained. Despite its size, she never had trouble finding the headstones of Grandmother and Grandfather Micek. Next to their large headstone is a smaller headstone indicating the grave of one of Mom’s brother’s, who died a bachelor. There is also a grave of an unknown (to me) relative, who I would imagine was a sister of my grandma or grandpa. Shoulda asked…..

After paying our respects at St. Bonaventure Cemetery, we drove a short distance to Rose Memorial Gardens, where my paternal grandparents rest. Gramps died in 1969, but Grammie didn’t die until we had left Columbus and moved to Colorado. We left flowers there as well.

After Mom and Dad moved from Columbus, it was a very long time before I ever went back to the cemeteries. But a number of years ago, Bill and I were in town for one of my class reunions, and I decided to find the graves. We went to St. Bonaventure first, and walked right up to the stone, finding it immediately despite the fact that the cemetery is the old-fashioned kind with many granite stones marking the towns’ dead. But when we went to Rose Memorial Gardens, we walked and walked and walked and simply couldn’t find the headstone. This cemetery is – as its name states – a memorial garden, meaning no upright headstones. That makes it a bit harder to find the grave marking.

So Bill got the idea to go to the city library and look it up, something I wouldn’t have even known you could do. He learned the location of the stone, and we returned to the cemetery. Voila!

I don’t think people who aren’t part of the Baby Boomer generation feel the same way about cemeteries and ancestors’ graves as do we. We learned it at our parents’ feet, and they learned it at their parents’ feet. The reality is that we are so mobile these days that it is unlikely that Generation Xers or the Millennials or whatever our kids and grandkids are called these days even live in the same town as their ancestors. My guess is that the whole idea of paying respect to our deceased relatives came to a head following World Wars I and II.

I have a friend whose father, in his retirement, took to driving around the prairie towns of Nebraska looking for some of the old cemeteries, many of which had long been abandoned and fallen into disrepair. But he didn’t have just a prurient interest. Instead, he would use his own time and money to clean and repair the graves of the total strangers buried in these long-lost prairie cemeteries. I always thought that was a remarkable mission.

When Bill and I were last in Columbus (for another class reunion – we go every five years – Go Shamrocks!), we went to St. Bonaventure Cemetery and again found the Micek plot. Bill noticed the stone was looking kind of sad and dirty, so we went back into town, bought some cleaning products, and returned to wash and spruce up the grave. Bill, of course, never met my grandparents (I didn’t!), but it was important to him that the grave is well cared for. I’m telling you, we baby boomers are a good generation.

Anyway, back to Jen and my trip to the cemetery. In tribute to my mom, I also picked flowers from my backyard — iris and peonies and snowballs and columbine. I even clipped a stem from my geranium to put in Mom’s vase as she did love her some red geraniums! Fort Logan – being a National Cemetery – was very pretty as it is every year on Memorial Day. Little flags mark each and every grave, and large flags line the streets. While there is nothing prettier than an old well-kept cemetery, I am happy that Mom and Dad are buried at Fort Logan as it is always well-maintained and pretty. Bill and I will end up there too.

Funny post today, and hopefully not too macabre. I hope everyone had a good weekend, and gave at least a passing thought to those who went before you.

This week was filled with grandkids’ field days — at least the early part of this week before the storm system arrived that brought daily rain, hail, and trips to the basement. Baby Cole, almost three weeks now, showed up at his sister Kaiya’s field day sporting hair just like his dad’s.

Court…….

Cole……

I asked Court if they used the same hair product that he uses to get the hair to stick up straight.

“Yes,” was his reply. Then a pause……”Well, to be honest, it sort of started out with spit-up.”

And sometimes it takes a lot of spit-up.

Nana’s Whimsies will not be published on Memorial Day.

Have a great weekend.

First Columbine of the season in my garden.

It is springtime in Colorado. Well, actually it is springtime all over the United States and elsewhere, but I currently live in Colorado so I will talk only about our spring. And it is decidedly spring right here. Know how I know?

Chirp.

We have a hedge of boxwood bushes along the front of our house, starting right below our bedroom window. Since we have lived here (so, for over 20 years), a flock of chickadees has lived in those bushes. I see them fly in and out. Sometimes one or two might stand watch on the garage roof or fly in and out of the gutters, but mostly they just hang out in those bushes. When we trim the bushes, they make themselves a bit scarce, but they don’t seem to mind. They know they can come back. And they always do.

I like the little birds. During the day I can sometimes hear quiet chirping letting me know they are still there and doing little birdy activities right there in my bushes. I don’t want the chickadees to leave. I just want them to know that we are in a fight.

Here’s why.

Now that it is warm out, I like to open my bedroom window at night. During Springtime in Colorado, the nighttime temperatures cool down to the high 40s or low 50s, and it makes for great sleeping with my comforter over me and my husband next to me. But birds are early risers. Would you like to know what time my chickadees arise?

Four-Oh-Oh.

It’s like they have a little birdy alarm clock. They don’t start chirping at 3:58. They never choose to sleep in until 4:07. Every morning they begin their day at four o’clock. Therefore, so do I.

Sometimes I awake around 3:30 or 3:45 and can anticipate the chirping by closing my windows. Doing this allows me to “sleep in” until 5:45 or 6. Otherwise, I am – as they say – awake with the birds.

Here’s a funny thing about my birds. In our back yard, we have house finches. I put out a bird feeder, and sometimes it’s covered with the sweet little birds. The females are brownish/gray and the males – as God so unfairly prescribed in many species – proudly boast a beautiful orange head and breast.

But the house finches and the chickadees – well, in the words of Rudyard Kipling….

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neigher East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

I never see a chickadee in our back yard nor a house finch in our front yard. It’s like Dr. Seuss’ Butter Battle Book.

But, for the first time ever, I did see a goldfinch at our bird feeder….

So beautiful. Apparently he’s choosing “butter side up….” (back to Butter Battle Book reference).

Another surefire sign that it is springtime in the Rockies is the weather pattern we are now experiencing. Warm mornings with mostly blue sky turning into cloudy afternoon with severe thunderstorms. This pattern will take us into and through much of June. Not every day, of course. But we are definitely in that pattern this week.

Bill doesn’t park his car in the garage. He has a fancy-dancy sports car that gets his spot in our two-car garage. So he worries when we are in this weather pattern because “severe thunderstorms” generally include hail.

Yesterday afternoon as the sky darkened, he informed me he was going to go to Walmart so that he could park the car in the covered garage. I was delighted, as I had some things I needed and didn’t relish the idea of going myself. I couldn’t go because I was in the middle of making blueberry preserves. (Yum, by the way).

While he was gone, the sky got darker and the tornado sirens began wailing. I turned on the news to learn that, while we were definitely in the tornado range, it was centered more to the northeast – right by Denver International Airport, where Jen was in the process of dropping off Maggie, Austin, and Lilly following their week’s visit.

My phone rings. It’s Bill.

“I’m here at Walmart and they have hustled us all back to the shoe department for safety, so I will be awhile,” says he. Apparently flying shoes aren’t as big a concern as flying hunting gear or cutlery or women’s-sized blue jeans.

“Have fun with all of your little Walmart friends,” I told him, stirring my blueberry preserves and listening to my telephone incessantly give me warnings about an imminent tornado.

Shortly after the warnings lifted, my phone rings and it is Jen.

“I have just been in the tornado shelter at DIA,” says she. “We were there for quite some time. In fact, Maggie had to nurse Lilly at one point.”

As for Austin? According to Jen, he just couldn’t understand why everyone was so concerned about the “tomato warnings.”

And just for the record….

Tornado….

Tomato….

Tomatoes are considerly less dangerous.

A guest post by my truck driving friend, Bob B.

On the road again….although lately you really have to be looking hard to find something interesting.

Spring is popping out all over. We have had temps up into the 90s, and then had The Interstate closed last week due to heavy snow. Nebraska people know what I mean by “The Interstate”, but for those of you not lucky enough to be Cornhuskers (or Bluejays), The Interstate is I-80.

Last week the lilacs started blooming in force, which means –as my dad used to say –the white bass are running on the Wolf River in Fremont, WI. Lilacs blooming always remind me of fishing with Dad and brother Tom.

Then, as soon as the lilacs looked like we were going to have a beautiful, bumper crop of purple blooms, it turned cold and rainy, and then they were gone.

Now the spirea are in bloom. Spirea, the bush with white flowers that look like miniature wedding bouquets are widespread throughout the Midwest, and are simply awesome in full bloom. Long hedges of spirea grow in both the city and the country. They look like snow covered bushes during the first week of June. Normally, this is quite a sight during the summer but with as long as winter has been hanging on, this year it’s not that impressive. In fact, it might be downright depressing. What? More snow!?

My travels take me past some famous and impressive fishing waters. Nebraska’s “Big Mac” Lake McConaughy; South Dakota’s Lakes Francis Case, Lewis and Clark, and huge Oahe; and North Dakota’s Devil’s Lake and Lake Sakakawea. The northern pike and now the walleye runs are heating up. I keep looking for a way to stop and get some fishing in, but it has not worked out…yet. Driving across the dams these reservoirs have is always a thrill in the big truck, especially when the wind is blowing down the lake. Hang on tight.

‘Til next time, turn on those headlights when you need to use your wipers, or at dusk and dawn. Remember, you may be able to see us, but we might not be able to see you. And, when it comes to cars v. semis, semis win, or at least tie. Be safe.

In our family, when we use the word “fiesta,” that always means either Jen or Maggie are cooking up some green chili and refried beans. There may be other things added, but those two items are always present or it isn’t a fiesta.

I have posted Jen’s delicious green chili recipe before on this blog. It’s a great recipe with the unique ingredient being ground beef instead of pork. She learned it from her former mother-in-law and has perfected it. Quite an accomplishment for a fair-skinned woman with blue eyes and blonde hair.

But the ingredient that can’t be changed out, of course, are the green chilis. Jen always uses Hatch’s green chilies that she buys at the end of the summer when they are being roasted throughout Colorado, filling the air with a delicious odor that will take your breath away (quite literally if the capsaicin fills your nostrals). She buys a huge quantity, then spends a day cleaning them and getting them ready to put in the freezer where they will be available to her all year long.

She takes some to Maggie if possible, because for whatever reason, New Mexican chilies are not common in Arizona. And any other chili simply isn’t the same.

So I was delighted when I found these in my neighborhood Whole Foods freezer section…..

Last night I prepared green chili using these chilies and Jen’s recipe. I will admit that while these chilies are very good, they aren’t quite as good as freshly roasted. However, my green chili was quite yummy, albeit not nearly as spicy as I would like it. I highly recommend them in a pinch. Great product.

I filled my tortillas with homemade Quick and Easy Refried Beans, a recipe I have posted before.

Recently my nephew Christopher introduced me to fresh, uncooked tortillas, prepared and ready to finish off at home. The tortillas only need 15 seconds on each side in a very hot skillet until they bubble and become brown. They taste just like Grandma makes (well, someone’s grandma; mine made bratwurst)…..

These tortillas are readily available in Arizona, found in the section where you find canned biscuits. However, I was unable, despite exhaustive research, to find them here until I thought about Costco. Sure enough, they carried them, located near the prepared guacamole. Of course, the package contains enough tortillas to feed a small village in Mexico – 44 to be exact. So I will be doling them out to family and friends.

In the meantime, I have been making suggestions to my various grocery store managers to consider selling this item. I hope you can find them in your markets.

Adios.