Category Archives: Whimsies

It Took Its Sweet Time

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I mentioned that one of my physical therapists apologized to me and all snowbirds on behalf of ARIZONA for the cold weather we have been having. I don’t believe she has the right to represent all of Arizona because frankly it’s a big state and there were a lot of people who seemingly enjoyed the snow in Flagstaff. And I must admit that Superstition Mountain looked very pretty with it’s chapel veil of snow on Sunday morning when Bill and I were able to capture this pretty shot….

Still, since I was one of the many who whined like a little baby whose mother took away her pacifier, I feel the need to admit that I was very happy to awaken yesterday morning to a lovely sunrise and blue skies as far as my eyes could see. What’s more, the weather forecasters were predicting warm and dry weather for the future, with the highs temperature nearing 80 on Thursday. Even the road runner seemed to have a spring in his step on its daily visit to our back yard.

The sunshine and warm temps got me in the mood for spring. And when I’m in the mood for spring, what do I do? I shop for outdoor plants and patio fixings. By midmorning, I had joined the throngs of snowbirds in the garden center of Walmart. I bought a few herbs…..

I selected a couple of geranium plants that I knew would brighten our back yard…..

And I impulsively purchased some new cushions for our patio furniture, replacing the faded cushions that had outlived their usefulness…..

No matter what Keith Urban says, blue IS my color, at least when it comes to patio cushions.

Even at my crabbiest, I knew that all of the moisture and cool temperatures we were getting would create a world of color when it finally warmed up. After all, in the real world, April showers bring May flowers. The time line is just moved up in the desert. Already, we spotted this field of flowers not far from our house towards Superstition Mountain…..

And I know for sure that once the cactus — fat and full as an Italian grandfather after Sunday dinner because of all the rain — start to bloom, the flowers will be beautiful.

The warm weather took its sweet time to arrive, but arrive, it did. And just in the nick of time for Spring Training.

Play ball!.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner Bell

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Many years ago in days of childhood
I used to play ’til evenin’ shadows come.
Then winding down that old familiar pathway
I’d hear my mother call a set of sun.
Come home, come home, it’s supper time.
The shadows lengthen fast.
Come home, come home, it’s supper time.
We’re goin’ home at last.  – Ira F. Stanphill, sung by Jim Reeves

I came across an article recently that posed the question: When you were growing up, did you eat dinner or supper?

For my adult life, I believe I have served dinner. Breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon, and dinner as the last meal of the day. But I had to really stop and think about why I have always served “dinner,” because I’m pretty darn sure that in my formative years growing up in Nebraska, we always ate supper.

What’s for supper, I would ask my mom when I ran into the house after school, hoping against hope that it was something I liked. Maybe a pot roast, or oven-roasted spareribs. Fried chicken would truly be a scooooooooooore! But I’m pretty sure whatever it was, it was supper and not dinner.

I asked Bill the same question: did he eat dinner or supper. I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and I was right. The Chicago McLains always ate dinner as their final meal of the day. I specify the Chicago McLains, because when Bill’s dad grew up on the farm in North Carolina, they ate breakfast, dinner, and supper every day. Bill tells many stories about visiting his grandmother in North Carolina. His favorite story has to do with awakening at 7 or 7:30 in the morning, coming down to breakfast, and there was no one around. He asked his grandmother if he was the first one up. She laughed and told him everyone else had eaten breakfast hours ago and they were already out in the fields.

But he remembers that every day around noon, his grandmother would prepare a big noon dinner. Maybe a ham, or perhaps fried chicken or breaded pork chops. His uncles would chow down on this big dinner and return to work. At the end of the work day, she would lay out the cold leftovers for their supper.

My first thought when I read the article was that Midwesterners and Southerners ate supper in the evening. According to the article from wideopeneats.com, however, the breakdown is more along the lines of rural v. urban than by area of the country. Perhaps that has to do with the story Bill tells about his grandmother.

No matter what we called our evening meal, we always ate Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter dinner whether it was served in the evening or at noon.

By the way, the article goes on to say that the states that Google the word supper the most are Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. All midwestern and all largely rural.

When you grew up, did you eat dinner or supper?

Sparks Fly

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I own too much stuff. I’m a middle-class American, so no one should be surprised at that statement. I own so much stuff that I don’t even remember a lot of what I own. If I went to the storage room in the basement of our Denver home and began pulling things off the shelves, I’ll bet there would be 10 or 12 things that I even forgot that I own. Wow, when did I buy not one, but two, covered Chinese dumpling steamer baskets?  I wonder when I felt the need to purchase these two metal things that stick into the ground and hold wine glasses that I’ve used exactly zero times at exactly zero hillside concerts? Of course there’s the punch bowl that I use whenever I make punch, which is never. And doesn’t everyone own three — count ’em — three ice cream makers?

The situation is bad enough in Denver, but at least there I can say that we have had nearly 27 years to accumulate things, plus we have a lot of storage space in our basement in which to hide our guilty purchases. But our little house here in the desert is becoming precariously full of unnecessary accoutrements. For example, taco salad tortilla shell makers…..

Or these taco plates…..

(At least my unnecessary purchases seem to have a Mexican theme here in AZ.)

The other day, I turned on the Netflix original program called Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. I had been hearing and reading about the program that involves an organizing consultant who helps families clear out their homes of unused items and become organized. Apparently the program is so successful that second-hand stores in certain parts of the country are becoming over-loaded with donations.

Her so-called KonMarie Method of decluttering involves putting your items — clothes, for example — into a pile on your bed. You then pick up each item one at a time in your hands. You decide if that item SPARKS JOY. If it does, you put it in one pile; if it doesn’t, you tell the item thank you for all of its service to you and put it in another pile for giveaway.

I can embrace the notion of going through all of my clothes, and I can even wrap my arms around the notion of seeing if the item sparks joy (although I would rather look at each item to see if there is any chance that it will ever fit again and/or come back in style, e.g. a size 4 Neru jacket). However, I am trying hard to understand the concept of thanking a piece of clothing for which I probably paid too much money to begin with and it made my butt look fat.

The KonMarie method also includes carefully folding the shirts and pants that you keep in dresser drawers in such a way that they stand up on their sides in the drawer. I like the idea of being able to find a shirt at a glance as opposed to the process I have used for 65 years of stacking the clothes one on top of the other, thereby necessitating the need to dig through piles of shirts in an effort to find the one you want, usually unsuccessfully.

Frankly, however, now that I’m retired, my organization method should be minimalization —  owning one pair of jeans, two shirts that can be worn with the jeans, a pair of brown shoes, and a pair of dress pants with a blouse that coordinates. For the kitchen, one skillet, one quart pan, two plates, two glasses, two coffee cups, two knives, two forks, and two spoons.  Oh, and one martini glass.

It’s called the MacKris Method.

This post linked to the Grand Social.

Saturday Smile: Rainy Day Activities

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I’m sure it has happened, but I don’t recall when last I was someplace where it rained — not drizzled, but rained — for three days straight. Well, perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration because yesterday there were a couple of breaks in the rain. Thursday was the day when it was raining when I got up, rained all day, and was still raining yesterday morning when I awoke. Even the scorpions have umbrellas.

Yesterday at my physical therapy, one of the therapists actually apologized to me on behalf of the entire state of Arizona for providing such yucky weather for the snowbirds.

At any rate, both Bill and I have maintained a reasonably positive attitude. Our upbeat outlook is primarily because we have found indoor things to do that have made me smile.

First: I pulled a puzzle out of our closet, dusted it off, and between the two of us, we put it together over the past couple of days. I had forgotten just how much I enjoy puzzles…..

Second: Bill dragged the sewing machine out of the garage and began sewing the apron I have been nagging him to make for me……

He wasn’t nearly as happy about this as the photo suggests.

Third: When he wasn’t sewing, Bill was studying to take the test for his drone commercial pilots’ license. Because he can……

Fourth: While Bill was sewing and/or learning how to fly a drone for commercial purposes, I was reconnoitering through our den window. You know, like a secret agent. What was I studying? Our new neighbors. This is the third family to live in the house next door in the 8-1/2 years we have owned our house. To my delight, the first thing I spotted was kids’ play equipment…..

Photo taken surreptitiously, as any spy would do.

It wasn’t long before I saw a little pink riding car come off the truck. Yippee! A little girl.

Actually, as it turns out, I wouldn’t have had to be a spy, because our new neighbor, Melissa, introduced herself to me. (She likely thought that would make her more comfortable than seeing someone peering through the blinds.) She is the single mother of a 2-1/2 year old girl named Miami.

I do like the sound of little kids’ laughter.

Have a great weekend.

 

Friday Book Whimsy: I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

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I’m not particularly a fan of nonfiction. Despite the fact that I’m a fan of murder mysteries which should translate into being interested in reading about real life murders, I don’t read true crime or watch true crime on television. Thus, when I first came across I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara, I took a look at the descriptive blurb written about the book on Amazon and dismissed it immediately.

The thing is, I kept seeing it on the lists of favorite reads in 2018, including by authors and other notable people I respect. I decided to give it a try. I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.

The book alternates between being a police procedural and scaring the living hell out of me. McNamara, a freelance writer and a crime blogger, tells the story about the 40 year search for the serial killer that she named The Golden State Killer. She manages to write in such a way that a non-fiction naysayer like myself found interesting.

The Golden State Killer — originally called the East Area Rapist and then, when he expanded his territory and his crimes, the Original Night Stalker — brutally raped more than 50 women and killed at least eight men and women between 1976 and 1986. Despite numerous police departments being heavily involved in the search for this madman, he remained elusive.

McNamara tells the story of her obsession with finding this man in a clear and undramatic manner. Her writing is so beautiful, that even in a section of the book in which she talks about her personal life growing up, I was riveted to her story. She became interested in true crime as an adolescent when a murder took place near her house. She spent the past several years researching and writing this book.

McNamara died suddenly before the book was completed and published. Her story was finished under the guidance of her husband, comedian and actor Oswalt Patton.

The good news is that in April 2018 (a couple of years after McNamara’s death and over 30 years after his crime spree ended), California authorities arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo for the murder of eight people, and the kidnapping/abduction of 13 more. Unfortunately, the rapes fall under a statute of limitation that precludes legal charges.

The book will keep you awake at night for certain. I had to limit my reading time to daylight. Otherwise I would spend the night waiting to hear a window break or awaken to a flashlight shining in my eyes.

If you are a fan of true crime — or even if you are a strong-hearted lover of brilliant writing, read this book.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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Stretching the Truth
I had my first session of physical therapy yesterday, as ordered by the doctor. I only have one thing to say about it: OUCH! The hope is that by stretching and strengthening the muscles around my knee, the pain will be relieved. I hope so, because it’s going to be a pain in the, well, knee. She sent me home with a red elastic band and an order to do the exercises at home as well. Masochist.

Does It Hurt When I Do This?
My sister Bec maintains that we can get more and better information from our physical therapists and our pharmacists than from our doctors. Yesterday, she was proven correct. The doc who went over the results of my MRI with me told me that I had an inflamed calf muscle, a muscle that went up to my knee. The physical therapist had me do a specific activity in which I lifted my left leg from the ground and did toe lifts with my right foot. Because it is my right knee that causes the problems, she warned me that it would likely hurt to do so. But it didn’t. Not a bit. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed. “Then it isn’t your calf muscle that is inflamed. It’s your hamstring muscle.” Well, that seems like a swing and a miss from the doctor I said to the PT. “Not really,” she replied. “They overlap on the MRI. It’s easy to misdiagnose.” Well, easy if you’re a doctor apparently, but not a physical therapist.

Some Like It Hot
There is a restaurant in west Mesa that proudly brags on their hot New Mexican-style food. Since New Mexican style is hard to find here in the Valley (meaning no smothered with green chile), I am always eager to visit Los Dos Molinos and eat some of their fiery food. Bec invited me to meet her there the other day, and I was happy to do so. You can practically smell the heat, can’t you?…..

Tempting
Every weekend, in the parking lot of a pawn shop, a van is parked with signs advertising fresh shrimp and lobster from Rocky Point, Mexico……

I will admit that it’s always a bit tempting. Still, buying seafood from a van parked in front of a pawn shop with hand-written signs gives me no confidence. Thus far, I haven’t been tempted quite enough.

Ciao.

When I Grow Up

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I wonder what my mom wanted to be when she grew up. I wonder if a girl who was born in 1926, is the youngest of 14 kids, and grows up in a very small farming community in the middle of Nebraska has the luxury of dreaming about adult options. Given the 14 kids, her mother obviously did nothing much beyond be pregnant and rear children. I doubt she had much time to counsel Mom on all of the options available to women, especially since the options were few: mostly marry and have your own kids. Maybe to a teachers’ college if your family can scrape together a few bucks…..

I never talked to my mother about her dreams. As I grow older, it makes me sad that I didn’t ask her more questions. It wasn’t until after she died that we learned that my mother didn’t finish high school. We were very surprised to learn that she left school at 16 because Mom was very smart. Her grammar was always perfect, she was a great speller, she had a firm grasp of math, and perhaps most important, she knew how to navigate life. With a mom almost totally unavailable to her, the accomplishment is commendable.

As it turned out, no matter what her dreams were, what she did accomplish was being an excellent mother of four relatively sane children, a wife for 46 years to a man with whom she held hands even to the end of her life, a hard-working and smart-as-a-whip business partner with my dad, and someone who never backed down from her convictions. Much to our chagrin, sometimes. When our friends’ parents were telling their kids that the nuns could do no wrong so put up with it, our mom was taking them on if she felt they were wrong. That’s a good example to set for your kids about the imperfections of authority figures.

Because there is such a difference in the ages of my siblings and me, we really had unique parenting experiences. So, generalizations are dangerous. But I can tell you that I never had discussions with my mother about expectations of adulthood. I never remember her asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t feel abandoned; instead, I mostly felt like she trusted my decisions. Well, maybe trust isn’t the correct word. Maybe it was that she accepted my decisions. And believe me, I made some doozies. I wonder what sorts of conversations Mom and Dad had when it came to some of the choices I made as an adult.

Last Sunday was my great-nephew Asher’s birthday, and it brought back a memory. At my dad’s funeral in 2010, I remember that while most of his grandkids sat in the front of the church, four of the grandkids (or their spouses) stood in the back of the church bouncing their fussy infant kids: Maggie (Austin), Kacy (Lexi), Court (Mylee), and Christopher (Asher). It always makes me sad that Mom never knew a single one of her great grandkids, because had she been strong and well, she would have LOVED them.

At the end of the day, after I began my nostalgic musings yesterday, I concluded that while my mother might not have had the options that were available to her kids, she never looked back. That’s why she was so loved by her husband, her kids, and her grandkids. She was really good at her job.

Saint of the Day

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Now that the mystery of my knee pain has been solved and I know that chopping off my right leg is not in my near future, I can move on to other news in my health world. Because you see, when you reach the age of 65, physical ailments drive your life.

A few weeks ago, I had what I’m certain was a bowel obstruction. For reasons that wouldn’t nearly satisfy my (or any) doctor, I didn’t go to the hospital while suffering the stomach pain. I meant to. I planned to, in fact. Bill knew that I was having stomach pain, but I told him to try to get a few hours of sleep before we head to the ER. We went to bed around 10:15; he slept while I watched the time pass on my digital clock. My plan was to let him sleep as long as I could. So at 12:15, I thought, “I will give him another hour.” At 1:15, I did the same. And so on. Finally, around 4, my issue resolved itself and I felt fine. Par for the course; it comes quickly and resolves just as quickly.

Anyway, as the hours ticked away, I googled patron saint of bowel issues. While I had been praying like mad to God, I didn’t figure it would do any harm to ask the patron saint to weigh in as well. To my surprise and delight, the patron saint of bowel issues is St. Bonaventure.

Why the surprise and delight, you might ask? Because St. Bonaventure Church is where I was baptized, made my first communion and confession, was confirmed, and went to Mass every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life. What’s more, I attended St. Bon’s grade school from Kindergarten to 6th grade.

The next day, I went online and ordered a St. Bonaventure medal…..

…..and I wear it every day. It reminds me throughout the day to say, St. Bonaventure, pray for me.

So then I began wondering who was the patron saint of knee issues. I googled it, and learned that the patron saint of knee pain is St. Roch. St. Roch, like St. Bonaventure, was a Franciscan priest. Let’s give it up to Franciscan saints. My early spirituality was shaped by Franciscan priests. (As an aside, St. Roch is also the patron saint of dogs. I don’t know if there is a connection. Perhaps a lot of knee injuries come from people tripping over their dog’s leash.)

Anyway, I considered (and still am considering) buying a St. Roch medal to wear on the same chain as my St. Bonaventure medal. However, I began to think about all of my ailments, all of which have patron saints. St. Alphonsus Ligouri: arthritis; St. Servatius: ankle pain; St. Lucy: cataracts; St. Theresa of Avila: headaches; St. Gemma Galgoni: back pain. The list goes on.

It finally occurred to me that if I start wearing medals for all of my ailments, my load would be so heavy, I would be in danger of a posture resembling a right angle. There used to be a man who would walk around our Denver neighborhood completely bent over. I always assumed he had a back deformity or severe arthritis. Maybe he was just wearing a lot of medals.

St. Anthony (patron saint of lost items) has always been my go-to. Well, Anthony, move over. There’s a new kid in town.

Patience is a Virtue

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Last Thursday, I left you all on the edge of your seats awaiting with baited breath to find out the results of my MRI, which was scheduled to be done tomorrow. As I indicated, the prospects of what could be wrong with my knee was weighing heavily on me, the glass being half empty and all.

On Friday, sometime around 10, I got a phone call from SimonMed, the imaging place that was going to do my MRI. If you can get here by 11, we can get you in for a 11:15 appointment to do the MRI today. Hallelujah! I had no sooner hung up when my phone rang again. It was my orthopedic doctor’s office. We can give you the results of your MRI at a 1 o’clock appointment today, they said. Hallelujah, once again! All of that meant that I wasn’t going to have to spend the weekend worrying about my health prospects.

I grabbed Bill by the shirt sleeve and dragged him to the car to head to SimonMed. The office that could do the MRI was located a half hour from my house. I probably drove by six or seven other SimonMeds to get to the one that could fit me in at 11, but never mind that. A weekend of no stewing about my health.

I have had many kinds of tests and procedures in my life, but I have never had an MRI. The PA in the doctor’s office had assured me that I wasn’t going to be completely enclosed, that, in fact, my head would be sticking out. That was good news as closed spaces and I don’t get along very well.

Soon I was in the imaging room with my leg situated such that it couldn’t possibly move even if I tried. The woman who got me situated was uncharacteristically unpleasant. I say uncharacteristically because my experience with the many, many, many CT scans I have undergone to diagnose my bowel obstructions have all been positive. Well, as positive as you can be when you are being stuck into a cylinder in which you will be shot with massive amounts of radiation. But the technicians have always been kind. This woman was not kind. She was crabby. I did manage to get her to growl out a 15 minutes in response to my question about how long it would take.

And so the procedure began. There was no clock to check how much time was passing. So I decided to say a rosary. No beads, of course, but I can count to 10. I chose to say a rosary because it would distract me from the incredible noise that the radio waves make (ear plugs they give you barely make a dent); it also would help me keep track of time because it takes me almost exactly 10 minutes to say a rosary. Believe me, I have said plenty in my life and I know this to be true.

After I finished the rosary, I still had five or so minutes to kill. My mind drifted to all of the episodes of House I had watched in my lifetime. It was always while Dr. House’s patients were having the MRI that all hell broke loose. Blood gushing from their ears. Eyeballs exploding. Seizures, always seizures.

Just in time to prevent a complete panic attack, the surly technician came in to free my leg, and sent me rushing off to the orthopedic doctor’s office to learn the results.

The MRI showed that I have no life-threatening ailment with my knee. I have an inflammation in the calf muscle that goes up to my knee and separates into two around the knee cap. A muscle strain, treated by just exactly what I’ve been doing: ice and heat, compression, ibuprofen, and patience.

And so, I simply need to be patient. It will be, my friends, a work in progress, and patience isn’t my strong suit, I’m afraid.