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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| I hate it when I misplace something. It absolutely drives me bonkers when it's the book I'm reading. I feel like throwing a tantrum. Bill has the same problem, so when either of us sends up the alarm, the other goes to town helping hunt. (Now there's an expression I haven't used in a coon's age: goes to town. Those are both "oldspeak," aren't they?) Worse yet, I've lost two books that were together, and they were borrowed, with underlining and notes in the margins. The kind of books you don't lose. The last time I saw them, I was planning to read some of one to Bill, and sooner, to look on line to see if I could find a cheap copy. So, logically, they should be in the office by Bill's computer, or in the living room by the laptop. Nope. So, because I need to give them back tomorrow night, I need to spend the rest of the evening hunting. I don't even remember the names of them! But I'll know them when I see them. Wish me luck. |
Last week's poetry newsletter by Red Writing Hood <3  featured a template for a poem called Where I'm From, originally written by George Ella Lyons in .... One the the examples she showed was an excellent one by kizzy72  , and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to share it with you. "Where I'm From"  I decided to try my hand at it, and found it very fun to do, even though kizzy's is much better. I am from rows of home-canned peaches, tomatoes and green beans, put up on shelves in the cellar, the cool damp smell of earth floor with a row of boards to walk on. I am from Fiesta ware, from setting the table with the cobalt blue plate for the person I liked best that day; and Ivory soap that floats and is 99 and 44 one hundredths percent pure, and was especially good when bathing in the lake. I am from skate keys, and cookies after school in my grandmother’s house that once was a bank, on the intersection of the two main streets in town, where we lived for five years, crowded into the back bedrooms. I am from the rented house with the key in the milk box, and a widow lady next door I could stay with if Mother forgot to leave the key out. I am from red linoleum floors that look like bricks, in three different houses where I grew up. I am from the crocuses we all watched for, to come up through the snow; from the stand of bamboo growing by the lake that made good fishing poles. I am from hunting for wild apples for pies and persimmons for pudding, and for wild bittersweet to decorate the table. I am from use-it-up, wear-it-out; from Stant and Lenore, from Hazel and Harold, from Betty and Jack. I am from enveloping hugs, and dollar bills for my birthday. From “sit up straight” and “pretty is as pretty does.” I am from going to church on Sundays, wearing white gloves or singing in the choir. I'm from Indianapolis, and a long line of Hoosiers; from Mom’s chicken and dumplings and Mother’s old staple, tuna salad. I'm from the mother whose family called her the “general manager” and made her cry, and whose uncle told her he’d accidentally put his foot in the cream pie on the floor of the car on the way to the picnic. I’m from my grandmother Nana who liked to sew and made the inside of the garment look as good as the outside, and my other grandmother, Mom, who barely got the dress hemmed in time to wear it. I'm from the grandfather who made a party on the card table with Vernor's ginger ale and canned shoestring potatoes. I'm from the grandfather who read me the Sunday funnies, every single one whether I liked them or not. I’m from a father who taught me that everything from snakes to cabbages were beautiful in their own way, and who always said, "It never hurts to try," a man who was always a gentlemen, and curious and kind. I am from library books, camping out, and high school marching band. I'm from long car trips to Michigan, or Florida, or Wyoming. I'm from sneakers and trench coats, but also from Broadway plays and matinee length pearls with the "little black dress." I'm from sorority girls and grits, and y'all come back now, ya hear." I am from the Twelfth of Never, the Peppermint Twist, and Baby Let Your Hair Hang Down. I am from a wooden salad bowl of family pictures that sits on the hearth, and books at Christmas inscribed, “To Ann, with love, from Mother and Daddy.” I am from ticking clocks and polished silver, linen napkins and kitchen aprons, sheets hung out on the line to dry, cookbooks and etiquette books. I’m from honest people and honest things. Here's the template. Give it a try. Template: I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______. I am from the _______ (home description... adjective, adjective, sensory detail). I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail) I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name). I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one). From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another). I am from (representation of religion or lack of it). Further description. I'm from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family). From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member). I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth). |
Sometimes I find myself thinking, "I don't really want to go to church." More often it's that I don't really care about the seminar coming up, or the training session, or the pastoral care meeting. So far, I continue to go, but I don't feel very connected or enthusiastic. Maybe it's time I retired; I've thought about that. Our priest is retiring in January, and I will potentially have more to do until we hire someone else. I haven't even gotten involved in the search process, as the congregation looks for a new priest, partly because as clergy I don't really have a say about that. Who they pick will be who I'll have to work with, so it will certainly concern me. I felt the same way this morning, reluctant to put on my clericals and head out. Bill had already gone, choir practice being between services. So I got ready and went. And, as usual, I was glad to be there. In religious words, I was blessed. I can't explain it. Being part of the service is an honor. It gives me perspective on my life.... There's a lot more I want to say about that, but not right now. The TV is on, with a very funny show called Big Bang Theory and I can't concentrate about a serious subject. Anyway, I introduced myself to a stranger at coffee hour after church, thinking she might be the mother of a young woman who killed herself this week. I never met her mother, and heard she was here for the funeral. I knew the girl as a young teen whose brother was schizophrenic. I didn't know she had developed the same illness. The stranger was not the mother, but she had a lonely look about her. She was fairly new in town, and had taken a cab to church. I offered her a ride home, and on the way, heard about her job as a copy editor for a company that publishes health newsletters for hospitals. It's a job I'd thought about applying for. It turns out that she's not very happy there. The job includes checking out the sources to make sure they're accurate. What she found was that the company had not gotten permission to use copyrighted material. When she took this information to her employer, they assured her that as long as the source was attributed, it didn't matter. She didn't think that was right. She went to a lawyer to find out for herself, and the lawyer concurred with her. Taking that information to back to the company, she again found her information ignored and, now, her loyalty in question. They have offered her a nice settlement to leave, but she is unsure. She had been freelancing, and that did not have a lot of security. She is older, and is concerned about having a full time income. Tomorrow she has to make a decision, although I wonder if the decision isn't already made. I'm guessing she can take their offer, or not, but not count on continued employment with good working conditions. I was glad I was at church today, and glad I offered her a ride home and gave her a chance to talk. I don't know if it helped her make a decision, but I think it helped her to talk to someone who understood her problem. Bill met me later at the German Heritage festival, where we had a sausage with kraut and enjoyed seeing the exhibits and people we knew. When we got home, we began winterizing the pool, finished at least half the job before it got too late. The rest can be done later, even when it's colder because it doesn't entail getting wet.  |
| What makes this an abstract kind of day? Well, I'm glad you asked. I don't feel good, but I thought if I got out and did some things I'd feel better. I didn't. I did visit one patient because I had a 10 o'clock appointment set up. He was hard to understand, due to neurological problems caused by a tumor on the cerebellum, but he smiled and was glad for company to break up his day. He's younger than I am, and I knew his wife when I worked at the hospital and like her very much. They are quiet people though, and I was having a difficult time keeping the conversation going. Antihistamines are keeping me out of mental focus. Maybe calling this an abstract day says more about my poor understanding of the word than anything else.  If I picture an abstract painting, it has a background of yellow, with a large dark blue rhombus in the lower left corner, and some red and orange squares and parallelograms near the center, with a lighter blue triangle upper right. The dark blue figure represents my feeling crummy. The red and orange shapes were things I did get accomplished-- there aren't many of them. And the light blue triangle is my hopes for feeling better for the weekend. Ta-da! I'll blame it on alfred booth, wanbli ska and his blog a few days ago about abstract poetry. I didn't do any research, but did let the idea play around in my head. Here's the result:ambivalence leaves wobbled by the wind neither here nor there tangential and uncertain no safe harbor only lonely circumstantial breath comes and goes continually chuffing, charging chanting insignificant song |
| Sure enough, my sweet Bill came in with a dozen red roses and a card. He always makes the cards extra good by crossing out and adding on words and drawings in the margins. So what did I give him? While we ate our steak and drank nearly two bottles of good merlot, I asked him to explain the difference between a turbo-jet and a plane with a turbo-charger. So, with much ado, he gave me a lengthy and ingenious explanation, complete with props. The patty pan squash and an 8-grain dinner roll fit in somehow, but I can't really remember. I think the squash was the prop compressor and the roll was the carburetor power recovery turbine. I did understand it at the time, and could ask decent questions, but I can't quite remember it now. I caught onto the pressurized air idea, which I'd never understood before. Thankfully, I remembered about carb heat from another instructional session. This took well over an hour, and he had a great time. I actually did too. Wasn't that kind of a gift? (I also bought him some new slippers today.) I have a cold today.  I thought it was just allergies yesterday, like it was one day last week, but this time it's just gotten worse. My rate of Kleenexes per minute has decreased slightly, but still, if I had to leave a trail to find my way out of a maze, there'd be enough wadded up tissues to lead me back out easily. |
| Twelve years ago today Bill and I met for the first time, and he took me out to lunch. If this blog ends abruptly, know that I'll fill it in tomorrow. It will be because he's headed down the driveway, and the least I can do for him is not be blogging when he arrives. It's also almost all, because, even though I thought of something good to get him for a present, that was months ago. I either bought it and already gave it to him, or forgot what it was. I'm so lousy about special days. I didn't even buy a card; but if I had, I would have put it away somewhere and not been able to find it. So there you go. I did stop at the store and buy steaks though-- a little treat from Nutri-Systems, and we have several bottles of good red wine. Now, on with the story. Twelve years ago I was in the middle of a divorce, and so was he. I had asked Jeannette, a friend and co-worker, if she knew any single men, and she said she'd get back to me. She called a mutual friend, and they agreed Bill and I might get along. Their husbands knew him through Civil Air Patrol, and they had been around him many times themselves. Jeannette said he was, uh, you know, rather large, and I knew she meant fat. That seemed to be her only misgiving, and, as I told her, I wasn't planning to marry him. I just wanted a male friend to do things with sometimes. She also told me he had a very nice voice, and I could hear it on his answering machine if I wanted to. I had been dating, sporadically, a man I'd met via the newspaper, who had a rich, Southern voice like my first husband. I liked it better than the sound of Bill's. Bill's message said that if he wasn't at home, he was probably out flying. That sounded interesting. I liked flying. There were a surprising number of similarities in Jeannette's description of Bill to the engineer with the Southern voice, things I liked. They both played the guitar and sang, and I'd been enjoying being serenaded on my back deck. They both were interested in many things, like fishing and golf, also things I wanted to do. And both were pilots. If I'd made out a list of things I'd like in a man, those would all have been there. T.O.G., the other guy, missed on big points though. He was not at all interested in religion, and he was quiet, tending toward defensiveness like husband #1. When Bill called to ask me out for lunch, he said he'd pick me up at work at noon, and to be prompt. Okay. I didn't think anything about it. It is daunting to have even someone you know not show at the appointed time. I was prompt. He came into the hospital where I worked and stopped at the operator's desk to have me paged. As soon as I came out, he began apologizing for telling me to be prompt. He said he'd been nervous and he meant to assure me that he'd be prompt.  Now that I know him, I understand why. Now that he knows me, he understands why it was the appropriate thing to say to me too. We made conversation easily, and he asked me a lot of questions about myself. Half way through lunch he suddenly said, "I can't believe it! I haven't spent the whole time talking about me!" So he got the pictures of his kids out of his wallet and began to tell me all about them. I liked it, both that he showed some self-awareness, and that he obviously loved his son and daughter. I think he asked me to go somewhere with him that Saturday, but I don't remember for sure. A couple days later I called him up. I said I was going to take my car over for a lube after work, and it was boring sitting around the waiting room. Did he want to come over and keep me company and then go across the street for a pastrami sandwich? He arrived promptly, and we had a nice time before I had to go to a class. Looking back, that sounds like a strange invitation, but I think I knew that I wanted a man who would think it was fun too. We were married about two years later.  Gotta go make salad. Anybody out there have a "how we met" story to share? |
| First of all, I did make the call last night to the social worker who got fired. She talked a lot about her visit to her brother who is dying of cancer, and then launched into her firing. She thinks it's because she just made a claim to the EOC because, despite doctor's advice, she was still having to use a desk setup for a right handed person, and she is a lefty. She's been in physical therapy for her hip, due to twisting, and actually hasn't been cleared by her doctor to work full time yet. Her trouble with her back and hip began after a car accident twenty years ago, but have recently gotten much worse after a period of pretty normal activity. I'm sorry that she doesn't take any personal responsibility in the loss of her job. But I'm also sorry management encouraged her to go visit her brother and had the "pink slip" waiting in the mail when she returned. She was at her most vulnerable then. If they'd done it earlier, she could have used the money she had to spend to make the visit toward a more permanent move. Plus, she could have gotten vacation pay. As it is, she is really strapped for money and is planning to sell furniture and whatever she can to pay her rent, which has just gone up $100. I certainly hope she'll be able to get unemployment. I just came from delivering a figurine to her that was left behind on a window sill. Her apartment smelled of stale cigarette smoke, and now I do too.   As I pulled into my driveway, a couple who live in the next block walked past with two toddlers in a stroller. I didn't know they'd had a second baby, and are expecting another. Actually, the one they're expecting will be their fourth. Their first baby died in a terrible birth accident with too short a cord. I was on call when it happened, didn't know they lived in my neighborhood at the time. In fact, maybe I didn't even live here yet. The dad has gone through nursing school and works at the hospital. The mom has written a book about the loss of her first child. The family looked happy and healthy.  Here's the kicker. Their house is beautiful. No, it WAS beautiful. I remember when I was looking for houses in this area, I was disappointed, after seeing the For Sale sign, then to see it had been sold. Seven years later it is falling apart. The wood has been so long without stain or paint that it is splitting. Shingles are missing, windows are cracked and screens hang half off. Their car is no better. It's one of a number of vehicles in their driveway, and it's obviously been in more backup accidents than I have even. The bumper is pointing at the ground. The fenders look as if they hooked a few posts, and one door is dented. These accidents didn't all happen at once either. I walk the dog that direction, and I've seen the damage mount up. The first few years I wondered if they really needed money to do a little fixup. He was still in school. I even thought of offering to help, although they wouldn't have known who I was. But by now I can't think of any excuses for them. They've just trashed the place. Now, to throw some positive notes into this blog, because today's showers were scattered after all, I got to the Y today for a workout. That's two days in a row! And I got to my second meeting of the Christian Scribes, which was helpful and fun. The seven ladies who were there represented various levels of skill, and all were pretty good. Several are published. Four of us had something to present today. Three of the offerings were all first person true stories, two of which were chapters from books they are writing. I brought one of my Wren and Margot dialogues and talked about my characters and my idea to actually use them in a novel. The episode I shared was about a blogger whose latest entry had infuriated Wren. One of these ladies did not know what a blog was, and had it confused with spam. Another was curious about how much of my day I spent blogging, and I could sense a little judgment there. I told her that Wren and Margot probably only read five or six regulars a day, and might spend an hour at it. (I didn't tell her how much time I spend!) She seemed relieved. The two published authors were very interested in the dialogue and the characters and thought it could be quite entertaining. So that was good! |
| Friday afternoon when I stopped by hospice to chart on a patient, I saw the office staff sitting at a social worker's desk. They appeared to be dismantling the cubicle, or at least removing everything from the desk and itemizing it. The regular occupant had been back East for two weeks to be with her brother during a serious surgery. When I asked about their task, they looked at me sternly and told me to ask the administrator. First, I hate that kind of superior secrecy, but I went on about my own business. After all, it was Friday afternoon. When I passed the administrator in the hallway on my way out, I made a comment about the activity. I'd decided by then that the MSW (social worker) had probably decided to move back there where her family was. I knew she wasn't happy in her job, or the rest of her life either. The administrator is always quite friendly, but Friday she was, well not curt exactly, but short. "I sent out an email," was all she said. I had already logged out of my computer, so figured the message would last till Monday. This morning I arrived just in time for the team meeting, which was followed by a group session directed by a local counselor. He came last month shortly after the husband of one of our nurses was killed in a tractor accident. It's been decided that he would come regularly for a while to help with grief issues among the staff of caregivers. It is a heavy load they carry sometimes, and it is very sensitive of the administrator to provide that for us. Hal, the counselor, began by asking what had happened since he'd last been with us. Someone offered that the nurse who had been widowed in the accident had since left hospice and gone to another job, working as a nurse at the university. And, she went on, we had also lost another staff member. Hal picked up on the nurse leaving, since that possibility had been on people's minds when we last met, and they were already beginning to grieve the loss of her from our midst. Nothing was said about the other staff member, although I'm certain that not everyone there knew about her departure. After that session, we chaplains and MSWs got together informally in our cubicle area. They were talking when I walked in, maybe about the grief group that will be starting this week. There was not much energy in the conversation, and long spaces between topics, so I mentioned our missing co-worker. They all assumed she'd been fired. She'd made no secret of the fact that she thought it was going to happen, but she'd been saying that for nearly a year. Actually, I hadn't heard it recently, but the others had. So I brought up the topic of boundaries, a topic dear to the heart of the MSW who went to Albuquerque with me. (She feels that many of the staff, including the MSW who was now gone, had loose professional boundaries.) She said she knew from experience how hard it is to be fired, as I know also. I said I intended to call the ex-co-worker, and I hoped that none of them thought that I shouldn't. I said I would not be drawn in to take sides, or to place blame; but I wanted to offer some compassion at least. The other chaplain said she would call also. We all talked about the strange atmosphere around this kind of incident. Maybe it can't be helped. Maybe it's the only professional way to handle it. Still, it felt impersonal and cold, toward us, that is, to not tell us to our faces. About then the head nurse came by and said all staff were to be out of the office by 4;30, with no explanation. We immediately figured that our co-worker would be coming in at that time to pick up her belongings. Our jobs will all have to be shifted around to accommodate the extra load. That will be okay. But, tell me, isn't there a better way to handle letting someone go? Probably not. I'm going to call her now before it gets too late.  |
| At the beginning of the summer, our church had a dinner and silent auction to earn money for scholarships for seniors graduating from high school. Bill offered several plane rides, one hour sightseeing trips around the city. We bought/won four hours of yard work from a boy and his dad, eight hours total, and today was the day. The weather was perfect for yard work, 72 degrees and clear, and the father and son team came over about 3 o'clock. Bill can't stand to have someone working by themselves, so he had to help, and so of course I did too. They cut down ivy that was growing up into our trees, and I bagged it: ten 39 gallon bags. 390 gallons of ivy. Whew! There's actually still more to pick up, but we were done in, and there were no more grass bags. Now, after a gin and tonic and some Nutri-System ravioli, I've got my feet up and feel better. This is the beginning of the third week of that diet, and Bill has lost about ten pounds. I've only lost a couple, which is discouraging, but also an excuse not to order more of this stuff. I think I can duplicate the meals with fresh food cheaper and certainly tastier. I'll need to keep the portions small and package them some how so that we'll stick to eating less. And you're right: gin and tonics aren't part of the System, even with diet tonic. Maybe they should try freeze drying some of those too! |
  In case I don't get around to writing any more here later, I'll let Seamus lie around and take up some space. He's usually happy to do that. He is a 14-yr-old Bouvier with his summer haircut. He's lying on my new carpet, which he's taken a shine to, next to the new floor which is too slippery for him. He got to go to the park today, and he was happy to do that too. He isn't hard to please. |
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