Waaaaay back in mid-March, when we were just beginning to take COVID-19 seriously, and when we thought it was going to go on forever (oops, that was just yesterday), one of my cousins decided to tackle the whole situation with a lot more grace and optimism than did this Nana. While I was wah wah wah-ing about there not being toilet paper and when oh when would I ever find yeast again and why couldn’t I hug my loved ones, she started a gratitude journal.

Every day for 150 days, she posted on Facebook something for which she was grateful that day. It wasn’t necessarily a major world event or a life changing occasion. She might have been grateful for her spring flowers popping out of the earth early May or for a letter she received from one of her grandchildren the previous day. She was thankful for rain and for sunshine. She was full of joy when she could finally borrow two or three books from the library.

Isn’t that a great way to have tackled this whole COVID situation? I’m sure she wasn’t all smiles and giggles every day for the 150 days that she posted. But every single day, she saw something in her life — even when it was confined to the four walls of her home — for which she could give thanks.

I am a tried-and-true half-glass-empty kind of person. I’m pretty surprised when things work out the way I hope they will. I remember one exercise we did in high school religion class. Fr. Charles broke us up into small groups (the nemesis of self-conscious teenagers such as myself), and asked us to consider which flower each person in the group reminds them of. I really don’t even recall the reason for the exercise. What I do remember, however, is that the group all agreed that the flower Kris reminded them of was a daisy. A daisy. You know, the bright and cheerful flower that graces gardens all over the world in summer, making everyone a bit happier.

Me? A daisy? No way.

But today I’m going to stretch my floral chops and be a daisy. I’m going to name five things for which I am grateful this very day, as I write this blog.

1.  I’m grateful that my husband sees the glass half full EVERY SINGLE DAY. It doesn’t matter what challenges he faces, he sees the positive side of things. His continual hopefulness keeps me grounded.

2.  I’m grateful that all of our grown children have been comfortable letting us see our grandkids during this difficult period in our lives. The day that we were given permission to hug our grandkids literally made me cry with joy.

3.  I’m grateful to have been brought up by parents who somehow knew the most important things to teach us. Things like honesty, humility, love of God, the importance of family, the joy of good food, and many other things.

4.  I’m grateful that our grandkids always make me laugh and keep me humble.

5.  I’m grateful that God created the Kindle so that I always have a book to read.

This is Daisy, signing off. What are you grateful for today?

Seven out of my nine grandchildren are now in school of one sort or another. Two will be going back in a couple of weeks. Some are looking at their teachers real-masked-face to real-masked-face; others are staring at a computer screen, trying their best to learn something from a face on a screen. Not sure which is better. Not my job. All I know is that every one of my grandkids will try their hardest.

But it has all got me to thinking about what my life was like in my formative school years. A lot easier than theirs is now, that I know. Sister Calista might have been mean as a snake, but at least she gave me the evil eye face-to-face if I raised my hand to go to the little girls’ room. And I could hold hands with my bff as we climbed onto the merry-go-round that scalded your little seven-year-old bare legs before you hung on for dear life as it went round and round at the speed of sound, daring us to defy centrifugal force.

Nuns, circa 1960, had a bad rap, much of which was deserved. But a lot of their teaching method was impactful. They didn’t fool around when it came to discipline, for example. As a result, there was very little messing around as we dutifully walked the couple of blocks two-by-two from our classroom to the cafeteria. There weren’t a lot of discipline problems in the classrooms either. I was a pretty good girl in school, but I watched plenty of my classmates writing I will not talk without permission or perhaps I will be respectful of others 100 times on the blackboard.

What’s a blackboard, some might ask. It was the 20th century version of the white board or the tech screen. And if you were lucky, you were asked to stay after school and clap the chalk erasers to get them ready for school the next day.

And remember the cardboard cursive letters that lined every single elementary school classroom? Neat penmanship was another specialty of the sisters. Plenty of hands got slapped because your capital L didn’t have curlycues that met their expectations.  Now I must print my birthday cards because kids don’t even learn cursive. Why would they when they will never write a letter by hand or turn in a thesis paper that was hand written?

I’m not saying my schooling was better than there’s. It’s a waste of time and energy to spend learning something that you will never have to use. If we didn’t keep up with technology, we’d all still be using an abacus. Look it up kids.

Watch out. Opinion ahead:

At some point, our children are going to have to go back to live school. Teaching by Zoom simply isn’t going to get it done. There’s little chance for kids to ask questions. Quiet kids will be eaten alive. Cheating will abound. Most important, kids learn lots of things in school that have nothing to do with their text books.

I pray for my kids and grandkids every day. But this year, special prayers are going out to both the students and the teachers who are facing unbelievable challenges.

Way worse than dealing with nuns.

The other day I was driving Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole to my house. Somehow we got talking about last names.  “I like my last name,” declared Kaiya with much authority. “I would never change it.”

“Yes you will,” said Mylee from the back seat. “When you get married you’ll have the same last name as your husband.”

“Not necessarily,” I quickly said. I explained that women can now choose whether or not to change their name to match that of her spouse.

That was not always the way it worked. When I married Court’s dad in 1977, a woman’s name automatically changed to that of her husband’s as soon as you put your John Hancock on the marriage certificate. Women were just beginning to keep their own names in those days. I gave strong consideration to doing just that. In the end, I chose to take David’s last name, in large part because in order to keep my maiden name, I would have had to get it legally changed back to Gloor. Seemed like a lot of work. Voila! I had a new name.

When I married Bill, things were different. I could easily keep my same legal last name, and that’s what I did. After all, I worked in a professional position by that point, and business associates knew me by that name. But you might recall that my legal last name was that of my first husband. Bill took my decision like a man, but he didn’t love it. Frankly, I didn’t love it either. After all, McLain is such a pretty last name.

So, a couple of years later, as a birthday gift, I changed my last name to McLain, but took the last name of my first husband as my middle name, non-hyphenated. That way I could have McLain as my last name, but my business cards would indicate the name with which people knew me as my middle name, which would look familiar. Stretch, but hey.

I explained all of this to the kids, and by time I was finished, their eyes were glazed over. There was no elementary school level indignation at the fact that there was a time when women automatically were given their husband’s last name. No horror at the fact that Kaiya wouldn’t have been able to keep the last name of which she is so proud without a great deal of paperwork. Here’s what my story left them with:

Mylee: “So Nana, what was your middle name before you changed it?”

“It was Rae,” I said. “R-A-E. Weird, huh?”

“It’s not so weird Nana,” Mylee responded. “My name is spelled different from other people with the same name. In fact, there are only 683 people in the world who spell their name like me.”

There’s no way she could know that, I thought. “How do you know that?” I said.

“There’s a website that tells you how many people in the world have the same name as you,” she explained. I’m sure she was thinking, as if you can’t find every single thing on the internet. Duh, Nana.

By the way, I never did a single, solitary thing to change my name legally. I simply started using the name. I’ve never looked back, and no one’s ever said a word. I wonder how many things I have illegally signed.

Maybe I could find out from the internet. I’ll get Mylee right on it.

Our grandkids are dribbling and drabbling back to school. The first to take the plunge are Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole. Mylee and Cole are going to live school, and Kaiya is going to some sort of hybrid. Nevertheless, they look ready to tackle their studies…..

This year is a different can of worms, but best of luck to these three as they begin the school year circa 2020.

And by the way, happy birthday to Kaiya, who turns 12 years old TODAY.

Have a great weekend.

I spent yesterday celebrating birthdays and visiting with Heather and Lauren and the boys who are visiting from Vermont. As a result, I didn’t sit down to my computer until 10 at night. Creativity wasn’t going to happen. So please enjoy this oldie but goodie about making pickles — an activity I’m afraid I’m not going to get around to this summer…..

There’s an old schtick that goes something like First prize is a week in Cleveland; second prize is two weeks in Cleveland. I’m not anti-Cleveland, by the way. It’s the first city that came to mind when I tried to think of places people aren’t yearning to visit. I’m over-justifying my use of Cleveland because you never know what’s going to offend people these days.

Or, the other old joke where the plumber says something like The price to fix your toilet is $100; if the homeowner helps, the price is $200. 

Okay, I’ll stop with the corny jokes. Badda bing, badda boom.

At any rate, the above-mentioned feeble attempts at humor came to mind on Monday when Kaiya and Mylee set out to help me make pickles. My annual pickle-making activity that normally takes about 20 minutes of preparation and another 20 minutes of processing took a bit longer, but was considerably more fun.

My grandkids — down to the very last one — are big fans of pickles. Big. Fans. If you think I’m kidding, I will tell you that I opened a pint jar of pickles that I had made earlier this summer, and Cole ate the entire jar by himself. The fact that the pickles were quite spicy didn’t deter him in the least. The whole jar. I’m attributing my grands’ love of pickles to the fact that every last one of them is of Polish ancestry. Also, I make really good pickles.

I’ve mentioned that I put up pickles nearly every year. I make cucumber pickles, but I also pickle green beans, because BLOODY MARYS. The other day I went to my favorite farm store and there were plenty of pickling cukes, but also a whole bin of homegrown green beans. On the floor next to the vegetables was a big jar of beautiful dill…..

It was obvious. Time to make more pickles. And time to teach my granddaughters how to make pickles. (I would also happily teach any of my grandsons, but Cole was the only one around and his attention span — being 4 years old — is about the length of that of a chicken. He played with Play Doh while the three of us worked)…..

Hot jars out of the oven. Drop in a clove of garlic, a two-finger pinch of red pepper flakes, a three-finger pinch of black peppercorns, and some dill. Insert the cut-up cucumbers (cutting done courtesy of Kaiya) into the jars, and let Nana add the hot vinegar mixture. Along the way, I explained the process, emphasizing the need for cleanliness and what to do to ensure that a jar achieves the necessary vacuum.

“Nana,” asked Mylee. “Can you pickle other vegetables besides cucumbers?” I explained about dilly beans and pickled okra and yellow squash and zucchini.

Alas, by the time we finished the cucumbers, time had run out. And so had our energy. Still, while I have no idea if either of them will ever have any interest in making and canning pickles, I wanted them to see how it’s done. It’s my hope that one of their many memories of their Nana Kris will be helping me in the kitchen, and in particular, making pickles……

As an aside, last year Dagny and Maggie Faith helped me make pickles. As they prepared to leave, I handed a jar to Dagny, forgetting that they had ridden their bikes over to our house.

“Do you want to put it in your bike bag?” I asked Dagny. Nope, she would carry it in her hand. “I’m trying to learn to ride without hands anyway Nana.” Well, of course you are.

She made it almost to the curb before it dropped on the cement.

By the way, lest I fool myself that I do a better job of pickling when the grands aren’t helping, I must remind myself that last year, I completely forgot to add dill to my dill pickles.

Bec, Jen, BJ, Bill, and I gathered at RARE Restaurant in Ft. Collins for some food and fun. Our annual gathering at this delicious Italian restaurant always makes me smile…..
Have a great weekend.