Postcards

Music in the Third Reich

2012-02-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

I still am not quite pleased with this piece, but it’s done. Pedantic, yes. Capturing the horror’s of the thousands of musicians killed in this holocaust, not at all. But done. Yes. No illustrations. If you are truly interested in this topic, I highly recommend the well written and researched web site Music and the Holocaust for further reading.

Music, whether children’s folk songs, formal classical music, or even marches, was used as a core part of Nazi German propaganda during the war years. Music had always been an important part of German society from the children’s songs, drinking songs, the unique atonal music of the 1920’s, and but especially classical music. Now under Joseph Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda, music became a tool of the government. At the web site Music and the Holocaust, we are reminded that, “…Germany had a long tradition of musical success – Germans are disproportionately represented among the great classical composers, including Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, and Wagner – leading some to claim that music was ‘the most German of all the arts’.”

Head of Propaganda, Goebbels, turned the focus of Nazi Germany to classical music. He wrote, “Music affects the heart and emotions more than the intellect. Where then could the heart of a nation beat stronger than in the huge masses, in which the heart of a nation has found its true home?” For Joseph Goebbels, the German state was, “the premier musical nation on the earth.”

The year following the first art exhibit of Third Reich Art, Goebbels held a show featuring the best of Nazi music called “Le IIIe Reich et la Musique” held at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. In 2004, ION Arts wrote about this exhibition that they attempted to show rather than shock using, “engravings, stage decoration, scores, concert posters, (and) films.” "Germany, country of music," proclaims the poster that greeted you at the door. Here they announced cheefully, “You see there the German state eagle merged with a pipe organ.”

In the Reich, music approved by Hitler and Goebbels was from the three master composers that represented good German classical music: Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, and Anton Bruckner. All three composers lived prior to the 20th century, and Wagner was Hitler’s favorite of the three. Wagner, who lived in Bayreuth until his death in 1883, began the annual Bayreuth Festival in August 1876 primarily as a means of stabilizing his finances. J. Anthony McAlister, Los Angeles Music critic, writes that “Bayreuth and the Festival were eagerly appropriated by Germany's… Nazi regime (with the blessing of Winifred Wagner) in one of several attempts by the Nazi's to align themselves with German traditions and history. (It)…was a rather odd blessing of sorts as it allowed the Festival far greater artistic freedom than most other German cultural institutions were afforded during the Nazi era.”

The online site Music in the Holocaust writes of music critic Herbert Gerigk’s politically powerful, comprehensive, race-based guide to German music, Lexikon der Juden in der Musik, (Lexicon of Jews in Music). By 1943, thousands of copies were in circulation, and Gerigk was made “Leader of the Music Branch by order of the Führer for the Supervision of the Entire Intellectual and Ideological Enlightenment of the Nazi Party.” He, “…reflected on the positive impact his Lexikon had wrought on the German cultural landscape. Remembering the pre-Nazi era, he warned his readership not to forget the times when the German was almost at the point of becoming homeless in his own Fatherland. Key positions were occupied mostly by Jews. Besides that, freemasons and exponents of other political entities outside the state were also influential in music. It is very instructive to reflect upon the conditions of that time.”

Despite his well-documented support of the Nazi regime, and the role he played in ruining the careers of countless musicians, Gerigk managed to thrive in the denatzification of the post-war years.… He managed to earn a comfortable living as a music critic in Dortmund, and he remained an active author for decades after the war, publishing numerous …articles and books, well into the 1970s.

Goebbels’s Propaganda Division did encourage music for all levels of German citizens. Children’s folk tunes were written to not only appeal to children but to bind the children closer to the Fatherland. Hitler youth developed a powerful music program to reach the young in every corner of the Reich. Songs were structured to energize workers. Members of the Hitler youth were encouraged to question through swing music early in the Nazi years. Chorale music was enthusiastically embraced everywhere. Most stirring of all were the marches that encouraged everyone to support the Fatherland, the Fuhrer, and the war.

Every organization had their own band, and even the concentration camps had their own orchestra’s. Although Jazz was officially banned, the model concentration camp Terezin had not only a classical orchestra but a jazz band also. A jazz band member, Eric Vogel, said: “We musicians did not think that our oppressors saw us only as tools in their hands. We were obsessed with music and were happy that we could play our beloved jazz. We contented ourselves with this dream world that the Germans were producing for their propaganda.” (Music and the Holocaust -Theresienstad.)

Jazz and jazz related music could still be heard in the camps into 1943. At the beginning of the war years, the Nazi’s imported Jazz and swing orchestra’s into the country to replace draftees. This lasted until 1943. Holocaustmusic.ort.org tells us, “The defeat at Stalingrad (31 January - 2 February 1943) and Goebbels’ proclamation of 'total war' (18 February 1943) signaled the end for most of the venues used by swing bands, which in the end led to the downfall of jazz as well.”
Jewish composers were forced either into exile or into the resistance once the Nazi’s took power. Unable to join Goebbels new “Reich Chamber of Music,” and finding their residuals drying up, many of the most prominent musicians fled to America while other’s went to Britain. (calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/weserems.htm.) “They were in some senses the fortunate ones,” Music in the Third Reich tells us. Indeed, Schoenberg talked of being “driven into paradise,” such was his gratitude for the land that gave him a new home.” Those who didn’t make it out in time went to the camps.

On Musica Hebraica, Simon Wynberg, the noted director of Canada’s ARC Ensemble…writes about music under Hitler: “By the end of the war it was impossible to claim that art-music was intrinsically improving or ennobling. Although it might have soothed a mass-murderer’s savage breast, it had also steadied his gun. And if this realization encouraged a more mechanistic, less spiritual appraisal of music’s power, it also raised the possibility that music itself had betrayed society.”

______________________________________________________________________

For more information on Music during the Third Reich:

Banned Music

Bayreuth Tales

Bayreuth during the Third Reich

Censorship in Nazi Germany

Defining “Degenerate Music” in Nazi Germany

Horst Wessel Song

ION Arts: Music in Nazi Germany

Music in the Holocaust: Herbert Gerigk: (Leader of the Music Branch by order of the Führer for the Supervision of the Entire Intellectual and Ideological Enlightenment of the Nazi Party)

Music and the Holocaust: Carl Orff

Music of Germany/20th Century

Nazi approved music

Nazi Songs

Nazi Propaganda

Nazi Propaganda 1933-1945

Pro-musica Hebraica

PZG: Your Third Reich HQ

Reich Chamber of Music

Third Reich in Ruins

Thomas Barnum: who encouraged me to see deeper into the topic. Thank you.

Mundanities

2012-01-30T06:55:00.001-08:00

An easy pile of work waiting to be sorted. Thank you all for donating to your favorite cause.

It’s a plan the menus, air the shoes, do another load of laundry as I didn’t get it all done, and read day today. Mundane stuff.

I picked up a copy of the Joy of Cooking’s 75th anniversary edition yesterday, but instead of cooking Rombauer I’m going to be cooking Cunningham. I must confess that I liked the original title best: ”Fannie Merritt Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cookbook.” I realize that cookbook has grown way beyond those cooking school years, but I liked the title.

I found two small books this week by Marion Cunningham, of ”Fannie,” and one of them was titled ”Suppers”. I can cheerfully do suppers instead of the heavier dinners. I like a three item meal at the end of the day…entre, veggie, and salad. Simple is good especially if I’ve had M&M’s at the movie during the week. I’d love to add deserts, but I don’t need them and am too lazy to cook them.

Mundane suppers are healthier all around if you are growing lazy on a Monday.

Books

2012-01-29T08:48:00.001-08:00

Book delivery wagon at the Discovery Shop.

I flat out love books. They were my escape and my salvation as a child, and they offer comfort and reward for me today after a long day. Best of all, I get to work with them as a volunteer. They can easily be the bane of my existence too.

I was talking to the cookbook lady Friday as I put that load of cookbooks out on the shelves. She was hovering over my wagon load. Politely. Another lady was digging in the piles as the cook book lady and I chatted.

Her mother died this year as did her most supportive husband. This was also the year of the Kindle and the Nook. “They did my business in,” she told me. She closed her store and does everything online now.

I still read real paper books though you could have caught me hefting a Kindle at Frye’s this last week. My hands told me that the weights are still similar to a good hardbound book, so books resting on a lap pillow are still in my life.

After I got everything shelved, I stepped back and watched them cut my stock in half. The young woman was just beginning her start as a cookbook collector. She took my recommendation and bought the James Beard’s American Cooking and the newly reissued Culinary Arts Institute giant ‘50’s compendium. I grabbed the children’s Fanny’s at Chez Panisse Cookbook and the Supper Cookbook by Cunningham unfortunately on high acid paper. The cookbook lady took everything else of interest.

Rarely do we have so many cookbooks in the store at one time. We do have a lot of hardbound fiction that I won’t read myself. Novels with unhappy endings, novels that all say “bestseller” on their covers, books on how to please your boss, and endless romances in every guise flock to my shelves….and don’t always go out. We discard something that’s sat on the shelf after three months. Month before last, we had two mountains of books go to Father Joe’s St. Vincent de Paul’s. Last month, we had one giant mountain of books go to Father Joe’s.

Worst of all. I bring books home every time I work at the store. I reversed the trend this week by bringing home two hardbounds and taking two bags full to the shop. I have to be honest with myself. I’m never going to read poetry by Edgar Guest. I’m not into particularly bloody mysteries despite the fact that I love Box. His writing transcends the fact that his blood and gore out uglies everyone else’s. And I’m tired of grim works though I have just finished the newest Crais. Now that was beyond grim.

Something in me is changing, perhaps diminishing in some fashion. I find myself skimming books. Oh, shame on me. And I no longer keep every book that comes in to the house. Perhaps my brain is just simpler in it’s aging. I will keep the Crais as I keep all the Stephanie Plums. Yes, that film was really delightful. G loved it too. Yes, now there’s something worth bringing home and keeping just like all the books.

A Brite New Day

2012-01-28T08:29:00.001-08:00

A close-up of nine blocks in the 1960’s quilt.

At work, the day glow sale has begun with a colorful start. At home, there’s a bright new start too.

After work and after our meeting by the bay, we journeyed up to Frye’s on the mesa to buy the Geezer a new computer. According to their online sites, Costco only offered student computers while Best Buy offered nothing useful at all. The Frye’s online pages said that they had just the Gateway G wanted, but when we got there they were all gone. Not even a floor model remained. Discontinued, the manager told me.

G wanted one with the newest, fast processor that also had a video card that would work well with games. I wanted him to upgrade far beyond the computers he was looking at so the new computer would be useful far longer. Finally I stirred the pot a bit putting the manager, G, and his sales person together….for we didn’t want the kid to lose his commission….and to guide G to to look at far more powerful computers. They took them apart, they poked around inside. Had to have expansion slots. Had to have a separate video card. It has beefed up cooling fan and an 8 core processor. Finally the kid grabbed the last of a big, fancy HP model as another couple was looking at it, and G bought it.

While he was shopping, I wandered over to the area that sold programs. I’m using Photoshop Elements 6. It’s old. I can’t take any classes as they all want you to have PE10. At about fifteen bucks more than Costco’s price, I added the newest PE to the shopping cart where I found G had stashed a little gift for me. A new video card. Wow. No more jerking pauses in my computer world.

So this morning, a day the sun shines and the world sparkles, we are indoors playing on our computers. I may run out later to shoot the worlds 4th biggest yacht. And later, we are going to the movies tonight to catch the new Stephanie Plum. What a bright new day altogether.

2012-01-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

I’m the half ribs and corn.

Now that was a high fat, high calorie, simply delicious birthday dinner, and he enjoyed every single bite. He couldn’t even eat it all.

Phil’s BBQ is our local favorite, and just this week results came out saying Phil’s was number four BBQ spot in the nation. Usually lines wrap around the building for lunch and dinner. Birthday folks can get in to the front of the line. Yesterday we were early and there was no line.

“What a waste of a birthday,” say the birthday boy in mock dismay.

“Wednesday and Thursday’s early, there are no lines,” said the counter person. “And you can come in up to a week before and a week after your birthday.”

We all laughed.

Day Glo Birthday

2012-01-26T06:49:00.000-08:00

The newest quilt that came into the shop was this queen sized quilt made from the Day Glo fabrics of the 1960’s.

We are having a most amazing sale at the store. Day Glo. This quilt says it all for me. I had a dress made from one of these fabrics….or near enough. I made it myself. I have to confess that yesterday I was shocked by how bright these fabrics were. This one is tied, and it’s very heavy. I don’t know what’s inside it.

It’s the Geezer’s birthday today. I’ve sung the first song of the day, Lessa and Zoe have called, and I will keep up the harassment all throughout the day. He’s reading about computers and has pretty well made up his mind. He needs a gaming computer…that’s the bottom line. It’s going to be interesting to see what he finds.

Me? The signs I put up at the store said hardbounds were two bucks…unless they were specially priced. The signs came down yesterday as the ladies at the register weren’t reading the tags. They let a fifteen dollar book out the door for two bucks. Ah well. Books have begun selling again, and the prices will still stay at two bucks for the hardbounds. My goal today will be to finish the article on Nazi music and Go out to a lower priced BBQ dinner with Himself. We gotta celebrate.

Music Too

2012-01-25T07:10:00.001-08:00

Lifeboat, MONARCH OF THE SEAS, 2007.

I confess, as I was working on the last essay in the Fascist group, the thought hit me that I hadn’t written about all the arts. I have architecture…in several forms. There’s painting, graphics, and I’ve added films. Theater is touched on in the essay of Thingplatze, those outdoor stages. I’d said nothing on music. So, now here I am writing a new piece. What I know about German music in any era would fill a thimble.

Research. It all boils down to research. I may even have to listen to some of the music. Laughing at myself, of course, as I have tinnitus with me always making its own music. Briefly yesterday I listened to the “Horst Wessel Song.” The music is a dramatic and powerful piece of propaganda in itself tho the lyrics don’t work well in today’s cynical times. Wagner. Hitler loved Wagner’s music. Wagner puts me to sleep. I’m an embarrasment at concerts where Wagner is performed. I don’t care who is on stage yelling at me, I fall sound asleep.

This leaves what? No atonal music, no Jazz, but I did find one web site devoted solely to Nazi Music. At a Teachers Guide to the Holocaust writes that Goebbels set these guidelines for musicians all of whom were forced to join the Reich Music Chamber:

1. Loyal Nazi members who were talented musicians were guaranteed a job.
2. Loyal Nazi members who were not talented musicians were not guaranteed a job.
3. Any non-Jewish person who demonstrated a "genius" for music and was a member of the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber) was permitted employment. This exception in policy permitted musicians like conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler and composer Richard Strauss to continue working.

They were always two faced about everything. Number three is the perfect example. As with Jewish composers working, the ban on swing wasn’t quite a ban. Members of Hitler youth were allowed to protest via their music preferences,. Widipedia’s Music of Germany tells us that, “Joseph Goebbels assembled some of the now jobless musicians from Germany and conquered countries into a big band called Charlie and His Orchestra to perform Nazified versions of popular swing hits to be played in propaganda broadcasts.”

In between bits of this and that, I managed to get some scanning in and some reading in. The Geezer decided he’d rather have a new computer than a fancy dinner out on the town for his birthday. Best of all, dinner was good as was the togetherness after dinner.

Semi-Disappointed

2012-01-24T06:34:00.001-08:00

Above: Another donation to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop earlier in the month. It had a small stain in the center, and a few drops of blood in the white of the side. I took it to the cleaners and most came out. It’s truly marvelously machine quilted by a dedicated quilter. Below: Detail of the quilting seen on the back.

I confess, I devolved yesterday.

After doing all those morning things and lunch, I planned the meals for the week, shopped for dinner, started the laundry and picked up a book. That was it folks.

I truly like Barbara Hambly’s writing. Her series about the black doctor in the south is some of the best writing around. This one is a scifi-magician piece that is sliding downhill into triteness, darn it. I’ll finish it, but I’m disappointed. Even the chili was too meaty tho I followed the directions and cut everything in half….exactly. I was disappointed in that too.

Not in the Geezer’s physical tho. Everything within the boundaries of normal even his cholesterol if one can call the Geezer normal.

Bits and Pieces

2012-01-23T06:53:00.001-08:00

Above: A Jacobs Ladder quilt that came in to the shop this week. Tied. Double bed sized with apologies for the stair rail. Below: A baby lamb baby quilt that came in too. Beautifully stitched by a gramma.

These two quilts came in to the shop this week, and both are different enough to be memorable. The Jacob’s ladder is an all cotton scrap quilt perhaps made in the 1960’s. It’s partially tied and is lumpy. Not warm and comfy. The baby quilt is a three dimensional lamb carefully hand sewn and appliqued amid clouds, and it’s rather delightful. I was thinking I would post quilt photos here in the future if the quilts were unique enough.

Breakfast with Stir Margaret was delightful. She was surprised to see us at her door for I had written down a date a month off. Geeez. Her new dog greeted us nicely….last time the dog was afraid of George. Stir came to breakfast despite me anyway. Kind lady. She’s packing to go on a land tour of the Panama Canal. How marvelous. Giving her time now to the families of AIDS victims and working with domestic violence women too. Has a new nun living with her in that huge house…from a Vietnamese order. Mother’s chair is there….still rock hard and smelling of mold. Stir, G, and I will get together next month to find out all the details of her trip.

Smalls: Life is made up of small things today. Laundry again. Usually we do the big stuff on Sundays and a three load day Wednesdays. Somehow everything has gotten screwed up. No Bee this morning. We are trying out phone calls at 0930…and see how that breaks up the day. I have to answer a brief message from Lessa…”Am I supposed to be there?” She asked in a rather panicked way. We didn’t get the message. The new answering machine doesn’t Beep. We need it to beep. We forget it otherwize. I’m sure it’s a setting so I will read the book after I talk with Bee. I’ll call Lessa before I leave for the pool. Finishing the editing on the last Fascist post today too. Now I have to decide how to package it for publication. I think like a report because of the “Creative Commons licensed pictures.

Doctors: G goes in to talk with the doc about his physical results this afternoon. I wish I could be there too. Me? I’ve had to take pain meds, which I avoid like the plague, twice this last week. By yesterday afternoon, I could barely walk. The docs will give shots every four months, and I want to make sure I have one just before we leave on our next vacation in October. Yes, I am counting the months on my fingers.

Imagine

2012-01-22T08:19:00.001-08:00

Leftover Christmas….that’s me.

Small things. I mailed off two of the three Christmas Cards that came back. I felt awful about having the wrong addresses for two very good friends. I really worry about the third.

It’s a completion of old things to start the new year off. Then we went to that humongous, gigante estate sale and bought nothing at all. I’m so proud of us. At Amvets, I found two white and one light blue turtlenecks plus a very warm looking baggy sweater. The Geezer found a case of 60 watt light bulbs and felt triumphant.

While he was at the museum in the rain, my whole afternoon was spent at the computer putting the five essays on Fascism into one, alphabetizing the links, and struggling with the formatting. I felt triumphant too. It’s all together and now I can look at the whole and make the changes needed.

Imagine. My projects are getting done.

Warm not Naked

2012-01-21T07:47:00.001-08:00

View from an estate sale in Point Loma. Imagine living there.

I want to stop in at my favorite thrift store, but I don’t know how this will go today. There’s also a monumental sale of oriental things up the hill in Claremont. I’d like to stop there too.

It’s not as if we were going to buy anything at the sale. We don’t need things. Still, there is a whole house and many storage rooms were filled with orientaliana, much to the surprise of the surviving partner. He told Barbara, the lady I sort things with on Wednesdays, that he didn’t know they had so much.

I’m willing to be surprised, and the Geezer always enjoys anything from the Far East. My main goal in life today is to find a few turtlenecks at Amvet’s for me. Warmth. Sometimes I feel guilty for shopping at Amvets. They aren’t a real charity…something I only learned recently. Still their acres of color ordered clothes, books, and dishes always have suckered me in.

My problem is that, A. I bulge. B. All new Tarjay turtlenecks are skin tight and made of skimpy fabrics. And C. We don’t have any turtlenecks my size at my store. Skin tight, paper thin fabrics not only show everything, they aren’t warm unless one wears wool on top. Last night I got food all down the front of my one good wool sweater which was on top of one of those skimpy turtlenecks.

Today I’m revolting and turning my back on skimpy. Enough. I’m not buying clothes for me at Tarjay anymore, and I’m shopping for thicker fabrics that don’t show every roll through the weave. I want to be warm not naked.

Editing

2012-01-20T06:51:00.001-08:00

Channel guide into San Diego Bay, 2012.

I printed out all five essays on fascist design and took them with me to the poetry class. Oh, not to read, but to garner any feedback I could. Most members of the group looked only at the pictures, and I can understand their lack of enthusiasm for the topic of Fascism. I’ve been working on this stuff forever so I’m slowed down about it too. Wonderful editor Marianne suggested larger titles, fill in unintended gaps caused by the computer, find a name for the essay group, and alphabetize the links list. Suggestions like that were just what I needed.

We were at what used to be one of our favorite Mexican haunts. I felt very isolated at my far end of the table….out of it. The noise of the place generates a wall between those of us who have damaged hearing and those whose voices vanish into the restaurant chaos. I know that Elizabeth, at the far other end of the table, couldn’t hear either. We were two numb bookends, and later I burped chili all afternoon..

I go now every two weeks giving myself the gift of a day free just to write. This Thursday afternoon, I worked on laundry while I changed and alphabetized. George caught me still folding laundry as he pulled in after work. I cheated on dinner this night also. Frozen mac and cheese with knockwurst and slaw, then we were off to get me a new tail light and an upstairs faucet innard. I took a book, and while he shopped I read Walter Lord’s “Day of Infamy” feeling a bit like a kid reading a book under the covers after bed time. This book is a bit like a jumble sale of facts, but it remains a riveting record of the many accounts of what many people did that December 7, 1941 in Pearl Harbor. Later Person’s of Interest on the box. Both G and I find it has caught us up in its fantasy world.

Best of all, two nights now we have slept like rocks. I love being a rock.

Booktimes

2012-01-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

Rescue dummies at a Harbor Police garage cleanout.

It was fun but slow at the Discovery shop yesterday. No great mountain of books to greet me, but with the discount hardbound books are selling again. That’s cheering. Joan worked hard pricing the books that came in since last Wednesday, and I filled all the gaps in the shelves. Few donations came in while I was there tho, and I am sure that’s reflected in other thrift stores also.

I wasn’t there for the robbery tho.

Hearsay only is that a robber cut the electricity to the building, and robbed the bank at the corner. As a couple of our volunteers rounded to corner to check if FedEx had lost power too, the robber ran through them. The boss wasn’t very pleased as we had to close the store until we got power back.

All in all a quiet day with baked potatoe, iceberg wedge salad with mock blue cheese dressing and dozing in front of the TV by nine thirty.

For Those in Peril on Their Dreams

2012-01-18T06:45:00.000-08:00

Pilot boats waiting for incoming ships.

After bounding around in the pool for a while, I came home determined to take my camera out into the sun shine. I packed a lunch, grabbed the newest Marcia Muller mystery and headed for the bay. Even tho it was cold, the sun was out, and the sky was a beautiful blue.

No shoes. I forgot to exchange my house moccasins for tennies. That limited my walk-a-bout. Still, I got a few good pictures that should hold me through the upcoming rain. Several Navy ships went out, lots of yachts motored by….no wind, and the walkers amused me every time I looked up. The book was great and Grumpy’s fabric covered, bench seat was very comfortable for my change of weather pains. My one trip to the nearby bathroom got me shots of rescue mannequins resting in a SD Harbor Police garage clean-out as well as a variety of other harbor shots.

Dinner was a huge success, but I was up all night with nightmares. Something in the salsa probably didn’t agree. Or did the continuing Costa Concordia news take up a second life in my subconscious? Perhaps Lessa’s bad news triggered the nightmares or that I worry about Lenora and Mohave up in Portland’s snows. Did I mention that I hate nightmares? The Geezer was just about to rescue me from some unnamed peril when I woke this morning relieved I was ok and in my own lovely, soft, warm, comfortable bed.

Set the Timer...

2012-01-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

Cruising can be magic. Photographs from our 2007 Monarch of the Seas cruise….the one that got us both hooked on cruising.

Perhaps I stood or walked too much Sunday night, but Monday morning saw me moving very slowly. I did manage a few laps in the deep end running with the old retired OB Librarian before aerobics class. We talked about movies.

I’d talked with Bee at our usual early hour yesterday morning, but I’ve been more than suggesting lately that we move the time from 6am to something a little later. Now that I’m not drinking coffee, quarter after nine sounds really good to me. We tried it yesterday morning, and both of us found ourselves lucid. We will have to try it for an hour to see how much of our day talking like this will eat up. She insists on real time voice contact at least once a week. I can see the validity of it, but I hate talking on the phone.

Perhaps hate is putting it mildly. I remember as a teen hanging about on the downstairs phone by the hour….my legs up, my legs down, the phone glued to my ear while talking about who knows what with my best friend. Did I mention that my youngest wants phone calls too.

So I came home to find the Geezer still in attendance. With a broom in hand. The plumber was on his way. Now four hours later, I am still doing laundry while reading accounts of the sinking of the Costa Concordia. Down I go, clean laundry in to the dryer, dirty stuff into the now safe to use washer, and up I come to scan. Once I forgot to set the timer and dozed my way past when the sheets should come out of the dryer. They were still wet. I was saved. Now my mantra for the day is, “set the timer, set the timer.”

Dinners are done for the week also. Simple meals. Tonight a Caprese salad with broccoli sautéed in garlic and good dash of crushed red pepper with a hamburger steak. Tomorrow Cajun chicken breasts with a bit of avocado peach salsa on top plus a little couscous. Maybe steamed green beans too. That sort of thing. These are all things I won’t louse up.

It’s a good day to smile.

More Scattered Images

2012-01-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

Top left: Rock in hull photo copyright Maritime Matters. Right: Photo from USA today a poignant view of the Costa Concordia capsized onto the rocks. Below: Costa Concordia Listing after having struck a rock. Photo Copyright Cruise Law News.

On and off yesterday, I would turn on the news to catch up with the Costa Concordia disaster. The BBC Coverage is excellent. There are discussions going on all over the web about the capsizing, and good coverage is everywhere. The Sun also has very good coverage with a raw bit of footage from a passenger. Both Ship Parade and Maritime Matters has updated news of the sinking. Most importantly, Shipspotting has several discussion boards with up-to-the-minute news and conjuncture as has Yahoo's Liners List.

How could it have happened in this day with all our modern electronics, many ask? Others say, as the ships have grown larger, the focus is on passenger comfort and entertainment instead of safety. “Will this be the end of cruising,” writes someone on Google?

Other sinkings have aroused a similar uproar. When the Andrea Doria sank in 1956, the public as well as naval architects began a discussion that has never quieted. Of course the sinking of the Lusitania and the Titanic are still with us, and books continue being written about these two ships. Within the ship focused community, folks are still talking about the 2007 sinking of the Sea Diamond in a remarkably similar situation in Greece. The badly handled disembarkation parallels that of the Oceanos sinking in 1991 where the entertainment staff coordinated the rescue efforts not the crew.

As I begin to consider cruising again, I’m fascinated by the safety aspects of this capsize. Were the crew so busy watching their electronics that no one looked outside the window?

Lately we have seen “We bought a Zoo”, eh…..we’ve seen the new Sherlock Holmes, yes, yes, yes… this is a see it again, and yesterday we saw “War Horse.” What a beautifully filmed masterpiece. I don’t know if I can bear to see it again despite its magnificence. What I do know is that during the load before the last one, there was a small leak behind the washing machine. After the last load, there was a bigger leak. So, before the first load today, we need to get it fixed. Hopefully it’s a simple fix.

Saving

2012-01-14T07:38:00.001-08:00

The slough by the Torrey Pines State Park viewed from the train.

After the usual Friday things, I came home to post to the Discovery Shops Facebook page. Then rather than go on to scanning, prompted by some remarks from Tabor, I thought I would check and make sure things were really backed up where I wanted them.

I don’t mind this kind of work. This sort of plodding organization suits me. It’s like comfort food. I bring up old friends and make sure they are ok. I pat them, tweak then, give then a hug while making sure they are put in just the right places. What I found was that last year’s long train trip wasn’t filed under vacations. It was lost in that giant backup hard drive over on my old computer.

First I had to find it. Then I had to move it to the folder marked “vacations” in an increasingly chilly computer room. Then just to make sure it was backed up, I needed to copy all those pictures a second time to the second “vacations” folder in a now very cold room. By the time the Geezer got home, I was reduced to a shivering mass hovering over 4000 some photos that were still telling me that they would be downloading for another fifteen minutes.

I was bribed away by dinner and left my two archaic computers transferring their megabytes of information between themselves in the cold and now darkened room.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

2012-01-13T06:47:00.000-08:00

Lessa and Aaron in 1989.

Yesterday was one of those doze at the computer days. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz….

Oh, I got a lot done. After swimming, I reviewed all five of the Nazi essays then turned to scanning after lunch. Yes, it was delightful to see pictures of grandson Aaron as a baby….what a round faced cutie he was, but it was a rather endless project. I caught my chin hitting my chest a few times and had to force myself to wake up and move on to anything else.

Today I wake up and move back out into the world. Thrift store pictures and books and stuff will keep me happy joyous and free until mid afternoon. I’ll finish the S. N. Lewett space opera over a cuppa tea before dinner out and a meeting. That will improve the happiness quotient without bouncing my chin off my chest tho I'm happy anyway today. I like Friday the 13th's as I met the Geezer on that date.

Obviously I need to find a new way of scanning that won’t toss me into the arms of Morpheus.

Aaron and the Geezer in 2011.

A Day with Gordo y Gordita

2012-01-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

The Geezer's Chicken Parmesan with two sauces.

He’s had a really good week. Business has picked up from the holiday quiet, and he’s been whipping out the estimates. Time matters. Some he can get turned around and posted in a day. Another he wrote yesterday for $64.00 bucks has been in his queue since mid December. He totaled another for the airbags and the windshield which would leave you wondering how old the car was.

I’ve been busy too. I was the person pricing the material things this day, but I was really needed in books. We got someone’s whole library. Jim, who usually writes the “things and tchotchkes,” was up at the VA for a doctor’s appointment. So I photographed for Facebook, then I did books a bit. Their boxes and bags were growing out from the book storage area in back to fill a good quarter of the huge sorting room. All the red tagged books had gone to Father Joe’s that morning leaving vast empty shelves. The boss and I agreed to lower the prices on the hard bounds from three to two leaving the paperbacks at a buck. They are not selling.

Jill, wonderful volunteer Jill confined to her wheel chair arrived, and I started her out in the main room re-pricing all the books she could reach. Then she began pricing on the mountain of donated books, choosing the discards carefully. Mold, foxing, and dust went in big bins for Father Joe’s….or Sister Tricia’s. Everything else got priced.

I’d come in and price dishes then cart a load of books to the now empty shelves. Then I’d do plates or discard the damaged tchotchkes before taking another load of books to the shelves. A full load of books piled high in the red wagon will barely fill two shelves. I filled shelves with repeated trips. I finished all the stuff and finished re-pricing the books too.

By the time the Geezer got home feeling very hungry, I had downloaded all my images and was starving. What a pair we are. Nothing healthy would do. Shame on us. Wonderful Brian’s in Hillcrest over fed us as he ate half his Chicken Parmesan and I managed to consume only half my Chicken fried steak. He ate his soup and some of my salad, and I ate some of my salad. Neither of us finished those overly full plates but we both felt only a twinge guilty over those truly comforting foods.

With our leftovers in hand, we left as Gordo and Gordita.

Doing the Dishes

2012-01-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

The water shut off valve at the bottom of the hill has caused trouble in the past. Perhaps someone needed to have the water shut off so their condo could be repaired and this valve couldn’t be turned off. The shut off to the double one near our house was sinking into the street. Perhaps that too caused the condo board to go in for a penny in for a pound and fix them all.

Four sites are now holes in the ground, and the work seems to be progressing at a far slower rate than planned. They’ve been turning the water off early. There’s no water by eight. It’s still off at seven at night.

Fixing dinner is truly like camping out at a State park. Bottled water for everything. Rinse with bottled water, put on to soak in a dishpan filled with soapy water filled from the faucet at dawn. Measure cooking water from a bottle tipped on end to catch the last drops. Planning a meal with only bottled water is like planning a military campaign.

After running my errands yesterday, I stopped in at the hole nearest the house. Two men, fully wrapped in plastic, were on their way down to the old valve six feet deep into the street. The new double valve sat nearby in all its colorful beauty. The plastic wrapped workmen were surrounding the pipes leading into the old valve with a chain. The chain would be tightened, and the little teeth on the chain would snap the pipe.

By the time The Geezer got home, the new valve was installed, but the cement poured around the valve arrived without the ingredient needed so that it set quickly. We gave up on doing dishes from our dinner of baked squash and salad and went out for ice cream. By bed time, we were able to wash a load of dishes.

This morning, after I finish this, I’m going to sneak in two more loads and polish off the rest of the dishes by hand. We have casserole cooked for dinner tonight. Camping out in my own kitchen loses its charm when the dirty dishes threaten to take over the house. I think dinners for the rest of the week can be eaten out.

The San Salvador: 1

2012-01-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

Drilling holes for bolts to attach the ribs to the keel.

Forcing myself to stand up, to whip together a sandwich, and to get on the road was truly difficult. I could so easily just stay sitting here at my computer reading blogs, working on the Nazi pieces, and being comfortable at home.

That wasn’t the goal. I needed to get off my bum and out of my comfort zone. So I packed a picnic and headed to the bay. Unlike Tugster’s New York’s waterways, my bay is a quiet backwater. Sitting for hours of watching would only net me volumes of small craft and a very few even larger navy ships. But action along the edges of the bay is truly interesting.

This was my third visit to the San Diego Maritime Museum’s San Salvador construction site. The first two times I didn’t know that visitors could watch the construction at a closer view point for a fee. Museum members get in free.

The construction site is on a now closed street loop near the airport. The ship itself is being built on the old road near a bridge abutment, and the workshops are underneath the bridge. A good use of a no longer in use paved area.

I ate my sandwich by the bay over a mediocre book….I’m no longer fond of being frightened…then sauntered over to the welcoming tent. Museum members do indeed get in free. The work site is welcoming also. Workers stopped what they were doing to tell me what was happening, and along the way I learned new terms….like “stem.” The bow stem had been installed over the New Year holiday, but it was now down preparatory for the final shaping and bolting together with bronze bolts.

I watched them take it apart for a while then wandered down toward the keel to see what the men were doing there. One was shellacking a gusset like stack of wood between the keel and the stern stem, and another pair were attaching the ribs to the keel. I like photos of people at work.

I’ll go back several more times over this next year to watch the progress of this most daring expeditionary galleon.

Applying shellac near the stern stem.

A model of the San Salvador.

Backwards Meals with edits to clarify

2012-01-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

Breakfast at Perry’s.

The Geezer has turned off the water at our shut off so all our hot water won’t pour away down the driveway when the workmen drain the system. I’m up here on the top floor planning a couple of menus that require no water from the faucets.

One rice casserole (made with bottled water), layered with Ortega peppers and jack cheese with a sauce of cottage cheese and sour cream….lite, with a tossed green salad and garlic bread. Heavy on fats and carbs, but delicious. Two meals from that…Monday and Wednesday…two pans too.

Stuffed baked potatoes with minced zucchini and a dollop of sour cream, melon the side, and green beans steamed then tossed with garlic in a little olive oil. Meal three on Tuesday using two pans and a bowl. I need four meals. Baked squash with a side of broccoli and an avocado and tomato salad. Friday, Saturday and Sunday we will have water and can eat out.

Somehow this seems backwards. Then again, life often seems backwards.

No Water, Water, Everywhere

2012-01-08T08:55:00.001-08:00

The complex managers are shutting the water off. Actually, they are shutting the water off for a whole week. We are in reactionary mode and starting the laundry before dawn today in hopes of getting all water related stuff done before nine tomorrow. Nine till four…every day this week the water will be off while the complex replaces all the main shut off valves.

We will shower at the Y. Did I say we did that most days anyway. We will wash dishes at night, we will drink from bottle water that lines our stairs, lines the walls in the dining room, and sits in every other corner. We will fill the upstairs bathtub with water to flush the upstairs toilet. We will do laundry today and next Sunday. Just waiting in the corners sits extra everything from underwear to sheets. I do loves me my clean sheets.

Are we ready? Nope….the Geezer has announced that we are soon off to an estate sale or three. We did get Christmas put away yesterday, we did take Lessa and Zoe out to dinner last night. Though we did repair the dishwasher that flooded the kitchen, we didn’t get the laundry done yesterday. It will be delayed today too.

It’s perfectly ok with me if we eat out every night, but I seem to have developed a distaste for wearing dirty clothes.

Saturday Snippits

2012-01-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the last day of Christmas. Good old Wikipedia on Christmas gives me a good overview of Christmas and the holiday calendar. Yesterday was the last day of the liturgical Christmas season, Epiphany. It’s also a traditional day to take down the decorations. At our house we’ve been known to leave the decorations up until the Geezer’s birthday in late January. We both love our Christmas trees. Not this year. After several years of a worktable in the dining area, I long to see what a table looks like in that space. We are taking the decorations and lights down today.

Google tells me that it’s Charles Adams 100th birthday today. I loved his cartoons when I was a kid. G loved the TV show. He even can still hum the song. It’s also the mid-season for today’s television shows. Old favorites can disappear with little notice, and new shows like “Person of Interest” can vanish with the wave of a number cruncher. G and I have become caught up in this show, and it seems to be doing well. But how can we tell? We are just the audience. We wait for it to stop reruns and return with bated breath.

Clothes. Oh, the bane of my existence is my wardrobe. Being your standard retired, overweight old hippy with bad feet my wardrobe is a bit limited. I have pants: one dress pair and a couple of others each in denim, grey-green, black, navy blue, tan, and brown. I have t-shirts and turtlenecks that will go with those pants, and sweaters that work well too. I’m a solid color girl in a world now swirling in brilliant patterns. My newest volunteer job is as an usher. Not a casual wardrobe there. The guys wear suits, and I’ve gone in search of jackets to go over my solid color pants. After a week of deep searching…including in portions of my closet that are impossible to reach, I now have a turquoise jacket, a lime green blazer, a tweed coat, and best of all, I found a Talbot's silk and wool tweed suit at the fat ladies consignment store. I ought to now be able to mix and match enough to get through the next year.

Arthur-itus. As I become more intimate with this new friend, I string my days out to avoid its ugly side effects. Pain is not my friend, yet I don’t take prescription pain meds….not after that side effect from the “mild” med the doc gave me. Once a week, I do take Aleve on a day when I work out and go to work. Now days I wear braces on my hands not to contain the carpal tunnel syndrome, but to wrap up the arthritis in my thumbs. I wear compression stockings, when I can get G to help me with the right one, not only to subdue the lymphedema from the graft surgery but also to wrap up the arthritis in my legs. I’m well aware that I’m the least romantic of ladies, but I persevere. Four months ago, I changed much of how I move. For instance, I exercise only in the deep water. No more pounding on my joints. I ride scooters in the stores if they have them. It works. Counting by months, it should be time for another shot in my hip. Not yet. I can still get in the truck, so I should last fractionally longer this time.

I’ve read you. I’m really enjoying your posts. I haven’t left notes. Oh guilt. I’m so glad to know all of you. I’m so glad you are in my life. Frankly, I think I’m a far better person for knowing you.

Free

2012-01-06T07:04:00.001-08:00

The San Diego Presidio. A replica built in the 1930’s now offices of the SD Historical Society.

I love Fridays. I feel like a kid let loose from school on Fridays. I swim then go in to the shop today to sort goodies then do books. Afterwards I post pictures from the store to Facebook. Then I’m free. You can see me racing around and waving my hands yelling, “Free, free, free.”

Usually I come home to catch up with you all. Sometimes I play an online jigsaw puzzle at Jigzone, and I’ve been known to play solitaire till I win one game too. Then I grab a book….yesterday a new sci-fi, today a new co-authored non-Plum Evanovitch.

I figured out what made me so very ill on that last cruise. It wasn’t the water, like I thought. Tho one night it was a reaction to the food, the rest of the days it was either caffeine or the sweetner. A month or so ago, the same reaction happened here at home. Once I stopped drinking coffee and diet cokes, I immediately began to feel human. I did have a cup of weak tea in the late afternoons before dinner and had no adverse reactions.

If you have allergies and sensitivities like I do, you become your own investigator. I didn’t want to give up cruising, but I was really sick the whole cruise last year. Now decaf at breakfast. I can do this. Some days now, only one diet coke. I alternate with tea, and the continual, sometimes horrific, nausea is gone. Free indeed.

So if you want me, I’ll be curled up with a new book and a weak cuppa. Probably laughing since I am reading Evanovitch.

I'm supposed to be retired.

2012-01-05T06:54:00.001-08:00

I wear me out with all my projects too.

I want to get back to painting. The stuff I do is awfully gestural, but it still has a core of interest despite the fact that the artist doesn’t have any hand eye coordination.

I need to finish the “scan the old photo project” just to get those endless boxes out of the computer room. It has to be done otherwise all these images will be lost.

Just like with painting, I need to keep learning to write. Getting those Nazi pieces out there, even if in a tiny edition, will validate my work.

Over and above those actual projects, every day I do aerobics and stretches, I write my journal, and I do the housewife stuff of tidy, laundry, cook, and shop. Every day life is supposed to be Weight Watcher focused, but I note the more I WW focus, the more I eat. Two days a week I and my camera go to the Discovery Shop where I take the pictures for the shop’s Facebook account. One day a week, I am scheduled to go to the Poets group, and one and a half days a week I spend with himself.

As part of my life, I go to AA meetings twice a week. At one meeting I have regular commitments. Last time I baked a sheet cake. This time I am an usher. Yesterday I bought a used suit at the fat lady consignment shop. Now I have two good outfits. I’m supposed to go to a WW meeting on Wednesday nights, I want to go to a Alanon meeting on Wednesday nights…..sometimes meetings suffer. Then again, because of those meetings, I get to eat out. Did I tell you that I sit as much as possible?

Monday’s and Tuesdays are mine, all mine. Those are the scan, paint, write, photography days. I quit around three and sink into my giant chair with a cup of tea or a Diet Coke and a book. I’m supposed to be retired, you know. Breathlessly.

Red Cabbage

2012-01-04T06:48:00.000-08:00

I actually made a good dent in my projects yesterday. Tax piles sit neatly clipped and in order. I’ll let G run the totals, but I feel really good about getting so much done.

I also delved into the five pieces of writing that I’ve done on the National Socialism art, architecture, ships, and individual projects. The writing definitely relaxes and improves. The photo choices are good, but the design for the web not a chapbook. I have my doubts that they will translate well into the smaller chapbook format. I’m printing out one of each in the series, and I will take them to the Poetry Group with me tomorrow.

Unfortunately, both G and I struggled for a very long time last night with my photoshop. It didn’t want to work right no matter what we did. This morning, it looks a little funny, but it’s working again. Neither of us thought to restart the computer.

Best of all, I got the laundry done, a simple dinner made, and the double NCIS shows watched. Boy, I didn’t like the new character on NCIS LA. Obviously the character works well if I have such a visceral negative reaction.

Red Cabbage and Kielbasa

I small package turkey kielbasa - cut into slices
1/2 head red cabbage - roughly chopped
1 apple cored and sliced
1 onion thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon ginger
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil or less
1/4 cup broth or water

Sauté the kielbasa in the oil till brown. Add the ginger, stir, then add cabbage, apple, onion, and heat through stirring well. Finally, add the broth, vinegar, and kielbasa, bring to a boil, stir, cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes. I’ll look up where I got this after I swim.

Brave New Me

2012-01-03T06:47:00.001-08:00

It’s a brave me here tackling the mountain of laundry that waits down in the garage. I’m brave going to the gym earlier too. I’ll start a load, go to the gym, jog in the pool, do aerobics, then come home and start another load.

Dinners for the week have been bought so I don’t have to worry about them. Last night meatloaf. Baked squash another night with salad and a veggie. On another we will have meatloaf sandwiches and slaw, and there’s baked potatoes. G really likes that kielbasa with red cabbage, apples, and onion with a soupcon of balsamic vinegar dinner. So do I.

Can I even remember the words kielbasa or balsamic this morning? No. I’ll take a vitamin with my yogurt after the pool and hope it helps. If you want me, I will be running up and down the stairs doing laundry all day. I’ll put the tax papers in order by date, and begin a review of those Nazi articles prior to putting them together for a chap book. That shouldn’t take long…..she says laughing at herself, as I plan to get some photo scanning in too while reading favorite blogs and reading more blogs…..

Can I even remember my own name this morning?

Opportunities

2012-01-02T09:14:00.001-08:00

When I let the soup boil over, the drip pan under the boiler turned black. Really black. Energetic scrubbing wore off the cheap layer of chrome and turned the pan to rust. So yesterday we set off into the world to not only return G’s too small sweat shirts and get new, but to find new drip pans for the stove.

I brought my camera. Liberated was the way I felt.

No trouble with the sweatshirts at JCPenneys. Then to Tarjay which had either too small or black burner drip pans. Nope. Home Depot…which had the right size and color at five bucks for each one or thirteen for a set of four. We bought the set.

We kept window shopping tho. The sun was out, the fog had burned off, and we were on a roll….limited only by my hip. After that bad reaction I had to pain pills several months ago, I still am not even taking Tylenol or Aleve more than once a week. I won’t build up a tolerance. So I’m limited in my walking.

The Disney store, one strip mall down the street offered few opportunities for photography. As I wandered their much reduced and very high priced stock, I spied the Mickey Mouse sippy cups. The ludicrousness of those rows of unsold bottles struck my funny bone as did the rows of padded bras at JCPenney’s.

I’m hoping I can bestir himself out into the world today also. There’s got to be some wonderful photo opportunities waiting just next to the horizon.

Shoptilyoudrop

2012-01-01T08:40:00.001-08:00

It was a lovely start to the new year.

Mr. and Mrs. Shoptilyoudrop shopped.

I’d been nagging Mr. Shop, here known as the Geezer, that his sweats looked as if a homeless person owned them. Fuzzy balls everywhere, stretched necks, limp legs….you know the routine. He’d put them on and be cold.

Repeatedly, as a proper nagging wife should, I pointed out that my old sweats still kept me warm ball-lessly. No fuzz on me. I reinforced this by reminding him that I didn’t buy the cheapest sweats available that I’d paid real money for all these faded ball-less sweats that so artfully cover my full figure every morning.

Last week, Mr. Shop decided he would go to JCPenney’s establishment. He bought one set of name brand sweats, and he didn’t collapse at the price. He was also jawdroppingly surprised by how warm he was all week.

Yesterday he set out to buy sweats. He researched online the time JCPenneys opened, we showed up at the opening hour, and he bought two more sets of sweats. On the way home, he stopped at the local Tarjay and bought a whole pile of not too sleazy long sleeved T-shirts. He did search for a scanner, and did blanch a bit at the price, but he bought them.

Last night, after seeing “We Bought A Zoo,” going to an alcothon….one of those AA meetings that lasts all night long, he tried his new sweats on.

If JCPenney’s is open today, he will take the tops back and trade them in on one size larger tops. I didn’t say a word, because I bought an on sale fleece shirt, and I too didn’t try it on. It won’t zip up easily as the end of the zipper is covered by the fabric trim. Me? I just won’t unzip it. Did I say that.

At least I took my camera along.

Hope

2011-12-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

Newly build Tiffany lamp knock off….lighting our way into the new year.

No resolutions for the new year. Not me.

Personally I have hope but not firm, set in mud resolutions that will wash away with the first rain cloud. Hope that I can do better on WW this year than last. Hope that I can drag my watercolors out of the truck bed and use them. Hope too that all of us stay healthy. Hope that we all have food, clothing and a roof over all our heads that we need. Hope that we all find something to smile about. Those are good starts.

I refuse to get global in my thinking. I can pray too for food for the hungry and justice for the poor. I can pray for peace while admiring the beauty of our world.

Here…I’m going to try to keep my thinking local this year. Simple foods….local if I can do it. Recycled this or that…especially books like the wonderful mound of them the Captain delivered to the store yesterday. Keeping life simple and in the now always gives me hope.

I wish you all a lovely day filled with hope.

Out

2011-12-30T06:37:00.001-08:00

I confess. I’m a failure. Some things I cook really well, and others come out awful.

I make a great beef burgundy, but boy my scalloped potatoes didn’t. I’m queen of meat balls in any form, but this time my pea soup needed stirring far more than it got. Yes, the pan is soaking. Yes, parts of the stove top are soaking too as the soup boiled over at the very start. At least we know all the smoke alarms really work.

This year, instead of cooking old fashioned recipes, perhaps modern cooking techniques and my inattentions might work well together. Weight Watchers will get top billing around here anyway next year. I’ll be able to walk and live better if I get a few more pounds off….actually lots more pounds off.

So tonight you can find me eating out. Wonderful stuff “out.”

Sorting

2011-12-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

Glasses on display for New Year’s at the Discover Shop.

It’s end of the year, tidy up, get rid of stuff time here. I wave my magic wand, and all is in order. Ha.

I did make a major start with my computer yesterday transferring photographs from one folder to another. This morning, after an attempt to get in the pool, I’ll move a few more things around. I start each year with a new folder for writing class, journaling, and photos.

Today G is home sick from work to go to the Auto Show. They know. Work is light right now, and he asked if they would rather pay him to sit at home or go to the auto show and learn things. He’s going with his sponsor and friend Jay….breakfast and the show. Should be fun for both of them.

Me…I have split pea soup brewing. He doesn’t like it but I love the stuff…(so I have a separate dinner made for him). With that ham bone in the house, I consider it a sin not to make split pea soup. I’ll do it on the stove as yesterdays experiment with the crock pot smelled good and tasted good but was sauceless. I’ll turn the soup off briefly to stop by the Discover Shop and set up a book display. My goal yesterday was to clear the shelves for the books coming in Friday and to mark down the three month old unsold books. I never got my part of the store looking good. When I get home, I can go back to simmering soup.

Reading. I just finished one about an Irish doctor. Charming. I’m also reading Foote’s three volumes on the Civil War. I’m in the first book. There’s a giant basket in the living room filled with books I mean to read. Not all are going to be worthwhile. I actually skimmed a famous author’s opus the other day just so I could find out the ending and get it back to the store. I no longer feel I have to read a book if it doesn’t sit well.

Bravo to me.

Now we will see how the soup comes out.

Moving On, and on, and on...

2011-12-28T07:05:00.000-08:00

Lenora at work at the now closed Mission Beach Plunge.

I’m in a bit of a quandary as the year nears its end. There’s something wrong with the heater at the pool in the Y we attend. It doesn't always get the water warm any more. It’s scheduled for replacement this upcoming March. I need to keep myself moving or parts of me stop moving. Water aerobics has been a good solution year round but not if the heater isn’t working.

I had some sort of weird virus in the seventies. The kids too. I don’t do well in heat nor do I function well in cold. When the water is in the mid seventies, I’m out.

There’s all sorts of alternatives. I can go to the Y down in the Valley. They have a special arthritis pool tho there is an extra charge. I can go with G to the gym in the mornings and do aerobics with just my upper body. If we could leave fifteen minutes early, I could still get my hot tub time in. I’m sure other choices will appear.

I overheard the pool manager saying that perhaps they needed to do something sooner than March. I can second that.

And the top came off the shampoo bottle in my gym bag. I felt harried until I got everything rinsed and the bag soaking.

And the top came off the new milk jug. G called my attention to it then was made to smell and taste it. It passed and was put into use for the ham and scalloped potatoes that are now slow cooking.

Friendships

2011-12-27T06:46:00.000-08:00

They check out the new curtains, and they mess up their hair for the photograph.

They visited mom, we meetinged. We movied, they shopped, we shopped…it was like endless passing in the night. Finally Bee and Mikey stopped by our house for a brief visit. It was good to see them both and to see how relaxed Mikey had become.

As the sun fell lower in the sky, The Geezer reached the silent stage which means the feed me stage, I asked if they wanted to join us? “Nope,” they said on their way to eat with family, and I whipped him out for Mexican food. We had ham for the last three days and will return to ham today, but sometimes, it’s good to have a break from something as opinionated as ham.

Now it’s time to return to the mundane for me as he heads off to work. Laundry. Clean out the freezer. Run errands. He’s off to the gym on time, and I am off early to begin to jog in the deep end before the aerobics. I’m outta shape….that’s certainly me. He’s not. But we will meet in the middle. That’s friendship too.

Family Sharing

2011-12-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

Zoe Playing Angry Birds an G’s phone.

Zoe came up the stairs and insisted I sit down. So after great urging, I finally sat.

“Close your eyes,” Zoe said, Lessa Said, The Geezer told me. So I did.

A package was placed in my lap, Everybody came up the stairs, and I was a good gramma with my eyes shut.

“You can open the box now,” Lessa said.

And so I did.

“Hair?” I wondered what I needed with hair. Then I looked up.

There I was with my mouth dropped open so surprized I couldn’t say a thing. Lessa told me, “What do you get for the woman who has everything? She wanted me to cut my hair, so I did.” What a wonderful gift.

G downloaded Angry Birds onto his phone…so Zoe was a happy person.

Our neighbor, Shell, joined us, and we talked and ate and opened presents. You know how that goes.

Christmas Day was breakfast at Lessa’s. Oh, how I wish I had taken pictures of her picture perfect table. A side piece of a brass merry go round horse for Kay, and a lovely brass embossed plate brought Duck to the meal. She used Mother’s flowered Wedgewood desert plates, and they were just the right size for her table.

Fruit with goat cheese, bacon, sausage, hash browns, quiche, coffee, and lots of love. What more could be needed. Nothing at all. Zoe ran rings around us all with her new powered car, then later G and I drove off toward the water to see Bee and Mikey. Nope, they left to see her mom….perhaps they forgot we were coming. So we came home to bake a cake, nest together, I dozing in front of my computer.

Dinner was a ham sandwich…and that was a really good ham, and we took our last cake to the meeting with a smile.

Today we are off to see Tintin early at the mall. Perhaps later we will peek into the chaos of Macy’s or JCP to see if there’s a sweater or two in our sizes.

And a wonderful two days were had by all.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:06:00.000-08:00

2011 Christmas Tree.

To those of you who celebrate this holiday, may you have a truly wonderful day.

Christmas Eve (edit)

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Duck in costume as a Christmas Tree.

Some adaptation needed for this first day of our Christmas. G is working at the museum. Lessa has a long in the past social worker forgetting problem, so G will go up and get them all after he gets off work and bring them down here. I’m glad I’m not the only one who forgets things, but it’s a shame someone’s error is happening to Lessa’s Christmas.

These simple adaptations would have foreshadowed horror stories in the old days. Boy, I would have gotten drunk over this if it had happened to me. Instead of worrying about her side of the problem, Lessa has made the necessary phone calls, run up against the eternal public employee problem of the system being down, and I’m not going to let her wallow in an undeserved pitty party. She had made a brave decision not to drive this holiday. They will fax the papers on Tuesday to get her license reinstated, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday will be days she will just have to reach out and let other’s help here with transportation.

I’ll pick up the ham, and the Geezer will pick up the family. What more could we all want this holiday eve, December 2011. Later I will take tons of pictures justifying my granddaughter Beth’s statement, “Gramma, you always have your camera.” Thanks to G this holiday, I do.

Lessa's friend doesn't feel well so won't be comiing. Feeling very guilty because of the last minute invite, I asked our cat neighbor to dinner. She will come, and I am very pleased. Now I shall run out and get something for her kitties. She will like that.

Friday Christmas Lite (EDIT)

2011-12-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

The curtains: Not a good choice in fabrics. With the sun behind them, they look yellow green. With the light in the room, they look beige. Only when you are close do you see the turquoise. At night, they go well with the room. Disappointed is the word - visually. They sure do keep the room warmer tho as we don’t get the new windows till next year.

The presents are bought and wrapped. The only time we went to the mall this season was to see “Sherlock Holmes.” We loved it, as you knew we would. We did buy from Target, online, and various thrift stores. G repaired my two camera’s- twice, and this week we had to replace our phones this week. I appreciate being brought into the 21st century phone wise, but I’m not pleased at the added expense.

Remembering to email the friend now that she has reminded me what she wanted. Remembering to mail one granddaughters gift and remind one more time one grandson that we don’t have his address. Remembering that the desert needs to be made one day ahead of time….that’s today.

Not Gratitudes: I forget then delegate to G. He forgets. We are not a fine pair when it comes to the grandkids this Christmas. Sadness over returned Christmas Cards.
Gratitudes: Lists they get me through…only ham and lettuce to pick up for tomorrow. We are as well as we can be. We are alive and laugh often. We are able to give back to our communities and help others. We are sober. I mean, what more could one want….lettuce today?

It's Curtains

2011-12-22T07:01:00.001-08:00

Christmas still life with my grandfather’s chair, 2008.

“It’s curtains,” I tell the Geezer this morning.

The curtains are coming; the curtains are coming. We are both skipping the gym, oh - no guilt at all, to move furniture around so the curtain folks have room to hang curtains.

I’m allergic to dust mite poo. Bottom line stuff here. For years we had no drapes at all in the bedroom to keep the dust down. Then for another few years we had those hanging vertical blinds to cut off the light from a new streetlamp. While waiting for the curtains, G took down the blinds. It’s amazing how cold a room can get with single pained glass in an eight foot slider.

Today we will get a tad bit warmer, just as the weather is warming up, with curtains on the windows in the bedroom. Christmas warmth indeed. Best of all, I didn’t lose anything or forget anything yesterday. That’s heartwarming.

The "A's" Have It

2011-12-21T06:42:00.000-08:00

2011 Christmas Tree.

I haven’t had a sterling week. If I could have forgotten it, I did. If I could have lost it….including my purse at the grocery store, I did. If it is in my hands, I drop it. Once I shouldn’t have been driving as the world blurred around me. I’m supposed to email something, but I don’t remember what. Yesterday I woke depressed, then later I locked my old truck up and came back to find a window open. Oy!

This morning, I’m fine.

All I can do is doggedly keep on truckin’. The first thing I’ll do is email my friend and tell her I forgot what I’m to email her. The rest of the day should be a breeze after that because for everything else, I have Triple A or Double A.

Progress

2011-12-20T06:55:00.001-08:00

From Christmas Past: 2004 Front Door.

Marta will come Thursday, so the house will be cleaned. The curtains are coming Thursday too. We will be warmer in the bedroom….golly, there’s a lot of warmth leaving the house through single pained glass.

I pick the ham up at noon on Saturday the 24th. Perhaps I need to get off my laziness and buy the rest of Christmas Eve dinner. The Geezer wants the 1950’s grapefruit and avocado salad. I want a little tossed green Waldorf. There’s no reason we can’t have both….and I already have the celery. What more can one want. I’m happy with progress not perfection this holiday.

Cards

2011-12-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

1979 first hand drawn Christmas Card before I could draw.

When we first moved into this condo, there were Christmas cards arriving all through December. They lined up happily on every surface and offered cheer whenever you walked into the living room. Now there are few….perhaps twenty at the most. Some days none at all arrive. Other days one. It’s disheartening.

No, our inbox isn’t filled with e-cards. I think we have received just two cards online. Instead, folks are just not sending communications at all. I blame it on the homogenization of the holiday. Oh, this is a good thing as our country becomes more multi-religious, but the loss of communication is not a good thing at all.

Many of the new poor can’t afford to send cards out these last few years. I understand that. Many of the old poor can’t either. There are ways around the cost of cards but not the cost of stamps. Once long, long ago when gas was cheap and cards were cheaper, I bought cards and hand delivered them. For many years I sketched the family and sent out folded papers. The first couple of drawings weren’t good, but they were communication.

This year I bought my cards at the American Cancer Society Thrift store and could afford to buy stamps. I want my friends in the far corners of the world to know I think of them often and I care. Today I offer you all a progression of these sketched cards to let you know I sure do appreciate you all in our lives.

Christmas Card 1980. Still rather awkward.

Christmas Card 1981. Lenora was still at home with the OB Pier in the background.

Christmas Card 1983. I couldn’t draw myself. The family on the front porch of the cottage.

Christmas Card 1984. The kids have flown. This is the last of these cards the year I started back to art school.

Looking a Lot Like Christmas

2011-12-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

Above the Christmas Cat, and Below: 1981 Christmas tree in the tiny cottage by the sea.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. I smile at our blue tree every time I walk by it. Underneath are presents…in all colors. Even the Christmas Cat has come out of hibernation to sit among the Christmas Cards.

For a non-Christian, I do Christmas well.

For years, I followed some of my mother’s Christmas Eve customs. There were scrambled eggs and bacon, there was a fruit of some sort, and usually that was all. Mother would then race upstairs to ostensibly get the presents When we all knew that mother was really upstairs frantically wrapping the presents.

Some of us waited patiently in the living room. I don’t think I was among the patient.

Even at the cottage, I would serve scrambled eggs to family and a few friends tho I wrapped the presents the moment I got them. Later in the big house, we would have up to 30 friends and family for a present exchange and scrambled eggs. Here we had smaller gatherings as our living room seats six…and the deck with heater would seat five.

I stopped serving scrambled eggs that first year we ran away from home on Christmas. Now this first year back, we are having ham, sweet potatoe casserole, salad, and Leaning Towers….those whipped cream and chocolate cookie confections that add thousands of calories to any gathering. Whipped cream is much better than eggs any time.

Usuals

2011-12-17T07:54:00.000-08:00

Downtown San Diego totally in focus. 2011

I took acres of photographs at work yesterday for the Facebook page. I did not drop the camera. Oh, I was beyond careful. Why I photographed all the beige clothes, I do not know. But there they are on my hard drive. Silly me. I even went out to the bay, I found flowers, and I stopped for a while in the cold to watch the boat builders work on Cabrillo’s "San Salvador" on Harbor Island.

And too, as usual talking with Bee every other week runs about $58.00 a month of every other week calls if I use the landline. Talking to Bee is worth the money, but it doesn’t cost her anything. If I switch to using G’s cell, it won’t cost me anything either.

I hate using the phone. Bee knows this, but insists. Perhaps my hatred of phones appeared while I worked for National Towing and was on the phone all day eight hours a day…almost. I learned hate it and now try and get off the phone early…end the conversation quickly and hide my head in a dark corner. Today Lenora called to tell me that I had an issue, and I needed to get over it. She doesn’t like email, and I hate the phone. Perhaps we both have issues. At least, email is free.

I wonder if she is awake at 5am so I can call to say thank you for the lovely bouquet of holly and fir branches that arrived.

Looking At

2011-12-16T06:44:00.000-08:00

I liked this video. One high school kid, Sean Quigley, made it all by himself. He made all the music, did the filming, edited it, and put it up on YouTube. For me, it leads me with a grin and a tear into the holidays….and into the future....what joy in the moment, in the creation....

^^^

Progress on the poem. Don’t worry about the iambic pentameter they all told me. The poem was improved they also said.

^^^

Pictures, I took pictures where ever I went of whoever I was with and whatever I was near. I got to the poets meeting early, and I took pictures of everything but the kitchen sink and the food. I took the camera that I dropped so very badly and had been at the camera hospital three times.

Joy

2011-12-15T06:56:00.001-08:00

From Christmas Past: 2006 tree and presents.

Only yesterday when reading a note from one of you did I realize that the structure of Iambic Pentameter was mathematical. It was one of those freeing moments. Liberating, actually. I no longer have to struggle with things I cannot do, and math is my number one item on the cannot do list.

So there was work, there was dinner, and the house, and reading the new V mystery, and G to hug when he came home. A lumpy G. Bumpy too. Encouraged to reach in his pocket, out came a camera. And another from the other pocket. Both fixed and back from the camera repair shop, and one was under warranty.

I was filled with joy. Speaking of liberated. Complete and utter joy is the most liberating feeling of all.

Iambic Pentameter

2011-12-14T06:38:00.001-08:00

The best poet of our group suggested I move my work into iambic pentameter. I had been writing pieces ten sylables a line, and iambic pentameter calls for five beats a line. Da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum.

Can I do this. Occasionally.

After following myself through the house, for I am the worlds worse mess maker, doing things like cleaning up after myself, doing my share of the chores, making the bed, I spent the rest of the day struggling with iambic pentmeter. Sometimes I can get the rhythm going, but the final result doesn’t necessarily make sense.

I’m not giving up, but I am severely discouraged.

Dancing

2011-12-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas Past: Granddaughter M dancing in the Nutcracker. 2004

It’s that time of year for me…..time to backup things from my computer to my exterior hard drive. Time to question what I have and what I want to save.

Do I really need all those out of focus pictures? Will I ever use two copies of my journals from 2009. There are multiple copies of some poems, are these needed? So I will spend some time jiggling things around in Word, in the JPG’s, and anywhere else that looks as if it needs dusting.

My Firefox hasn’t been happy nor has its companion the Mozilla mail program. G’s straightened out the email, but the computer is way too new for all the crashing and tumbling it’s been doing lately.

“Yes, it is, actually,” the Geezer says.

G ran all the anti everything programs, and there’s nothing negative living in my computer. I do have a poem to rewrite for Thursday. Yesterdays errand running took me to the cleaners, Tarjay, and food stuffs. No need to go out in the cold wet weather a second time today. So when I am done swimming I’ll focus on saving my work, writing, and maybe I will fit some scanning in too. These are perfect cold weather things for me to do as I sit in front of the space heater. Maybe finish a book too.

A Fairy Dust Day

2011-12-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

G laughing on another Christmas years in the Past.

Christmas present is finally blossoming a bit. I wrote a holiday letter in Word, and after the Geezer approving it, sent it off to friends online. Christmas cards were a different matter. Should we or shouldn’t we. It boils down to, I do like to get cards but can no longer hand write anything,

Easy, I thought. I will just print out labels and have G do the signing. I’ve done it before with an older Windows. I’d created the data base, so how hard could it be.

I must admit that it took two of us hours to get it started. Himself thought I was fooling when I couldn’t do it on my computer while he could on his. When he finally focused on what I was doing, a mirror copy of what he was doing, and it didn’t work, he began to catch on. It’s probably that my Windows 7 is an upgrade over Windows Vista….and there was an error in the upgrade. That’s all we could figure. He has Vista and it doesn’t play well with either my computer or the Windows ME computer. Networks aren’t always functional here.

In the end, my computer printed out the addresses, I stamped our address and labeled the envelopes, and he stuffed them. I’ll run by the PO this morning and get stamps. We have liftoff with floating kitties and acres of loose, sparkly stuff that now covers every surface in the office. Fairy dust magic for the season, I’m sure.

,,,and Peas with Pods and Two Deserts

2011-12-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

I had thought this store might be a scam. Nope, it was really a Herman Miller store, but with a manager who was half an hour late. We were out in front waiting and could see The Geezers chair boxed on a dolly right inside the door…waiting.

Eventually the guy arrived, and after apologies, let G upgrade to the next fancier chair. We made it home, I took his knock off to the Discovery shop, and G made it to the museum to work only a little late.

Then the museum party. The food was really good. Some poor new volunteer and his wife sat with us, and they seemed appalled at the boozy nature of the gift exchange. Even a opinionated old timer who drank admitted there was more alcohol bottles flowing around this year than last. Last year’s high jinks must have triggered this year’s waterfall of bottles. We brought salt and pepper shaker woodies with surf boards on top. They were wildly popular. Traded three times before we could blink.

We managed to get our hands on two non alcoholic gifts before they were swiftly taken away, and we ended up with popcorn and theater tickets, thank you
Captain for letting G steal these. Sherlock Holmes is upcoming, and we zeroed right on those tickets.

G came home to sit in his new chair, and I found myself dozing over a book and NCIS reruns.

The Captain’s jacket came from the Discovery shop and as did mine.

Of Cabagges and Chairs

2011-12-10T08:14:00.001-08:00

The Aeron Chair from Herman Miller.

It only took hours, and one restart with total loss of all my work, before I managed to create the address data base for the holiday cards. Whew. Then I bought some cute labels and papers at Staples only to discover that I would have to use my smart phone to download an app to print on them.

Fergettabout it. No smart phone here.

So this morning, it took two computer savvy folks on two different computers a bit of time to find a brand of label that Word 2007 will support which Staples carries. I’m a total grump when it comes to returning products, but we will be out on the road.

I kept insisting that he needed to buy something for himself from this bonus. He waffled. I insisted. What did this man who has everything he could want, want.

An office chair. He wants a Herman Miller office chair. Not the two grand Herman Miller office chair, but the one in the middle price range. With his broken neck, he wants to be comfortable when sitting at his computer. So he found a new chair on eBay, found the distributor locally, found they were having a one day sale on Saturday, and off we will go later in the morning with Grumpy to pick up a new chair.

I’ll take the labels with me.

Balance

2011-12-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

Perhaps we all try for balance consciously or not. That’s what I attempt to achieve during my days. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Yes, I always use a neck strap. This time the camera flew from my hand before it ever reached to my neck. Last time, the neck strap snapped. My hands are obviously out of whack, and I need to rethink how I remove the camera from its bag and how I put it on. Rethinking things is balance.

Himself is in balance these days. He was told he is one of the top two employees in the country. They made a company-wide video congratulating him, sent him a giant bonus…this from the company that sent out $25 bucks the first year, and he even got phone calls beginning, “Hello, Mr. Geezer…”

For a moment he thought he would be fired. Don’t those calls always start like that? Instead the bonus. He’s very pleased, and I am very pleased for him.

Everyday we are grateful that he has a job….that he likes his job. For this I am even more grateful. We see and read of other’s in middle age now laid off and unable to find jobs at all, and we are very, very grateful. I often have thank you moments throughout my day when I catch myself stilled in a moment and filled with gratitude.

Last night, the Geezer grew impatient with the slow start of my computer, and he crashed it. Pushed that button. Kapow. This morning, he discovered that my computer doesn’t like being crashed during start up. Even the system restore wouldn’t work. None of the virus protection worked. Nothing was quite where it thought it aught to be. I’m back now, in business, but while I am off to work today, I’ll run a full system scan. Perhaps deep into system tools, I will dust and wax when I get home too.

Yin and Yang….balance.

Camera

2011-12-08T06:49:00.001-08:00

I dropped my new camera at work.

After I swore for about five minutes in front of the little old ladies then apologized, I shelved the books that had been marked, called the geezer with my broken heart, and took the camera to the repair shop where the other one is waiting for parts. I pleaded Christmas gift. They moved it ahead of all the others in the shop, and if it is fixable, it will be ready Tuesday.

I have to believe it is repairable.

Underpinnings

2011-12-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it, we all wear our clothes out. Weeks ago I wore a bra out. Suddenly I became aware that most of my underpinnings were tired and limp. Replacements were needed.

Now, you cannot exactly try on under pants. I can hear the objections now. Long ago I chose a generic fat lady size, and that’s what I buy. But bras have to be tried on. Even if you are a certifiable 36B, not all 36B’s are created alike.

One week, we went to JCPenney’s, and I stood in the middle of their gigantic bra section and was overwhelmed. Totally frozen in place by the choices. Next, I tried the fewer choices at Ross. Their bathroom was broken down, and I rushed home leaving my choices behind.

Last week I tried Ross for Bra’s again. I’d read my current bra label before I started, so I knew my size. I checked to make sure the bathroom was working for this IBS sufferer. There was always hope I would find an Olga. They fit wonderfully. I like color, so any color would do. The less bones the better too. And most importantly, do I need that generous layer of extra padding to smooth the finished look. Certainly not me….not at any weight.

So I chose four. You don’t have a lot of choices if you are in the larger sizes, so they were pretty bland. I didn’t rush home with these generic bras, I had enough sense to go try them on. One fit. The other three were beyond giant on me. There was actual air between me and the fabric. So I chose three more in a smaller size. Each time I stopped to get a ticket that said “4” in a big font size from the little Mexican lady at the dressing room door.

“Gracias,” I would say.

“De nada,” she would reply.

This time they were too small. Oh, they went around me comfortably, but the cups didn’t even think about covering the much larger sized me. 36B me had vanished far, far into the past. Back I went to the bra rack.

By this time I was getting pretty tired. All these pieces of fabric latch together in the back. I’m not capable of reaching around in back of myself and latching three or four hooks sight unseen…if I ever was, so I hook them together in the front. Comfortably. Then I slide this contraption around so the hooks are in back. It doesn’t slide easily. I struggle, I pull, and only after a great test of will, is the front centered and I can put my arms through the straps.

The third try was a success.

I came home to clean out my drawer, lining up the new and throwing away the old. My old wasn’t even fit to go to the Presbyterian Homeless project, but my underwear drawer was a success too.

My Tuesday was a success as I dealt with the humongous mass of papers for the taxes. I emailed the money man and now have a link to go paperless. This weekend we will sign up for the 2012 paperless us, and next year these masses won’t be so overwhelming. I’m assuming we can print the quarterlies and finals out for the tax folks if we need them. Our day was blessed by dinner with the Captain at the Loving Hut where we took over a table for hours of rich conversation. They forgot the Captain’s dinner and comped it, and we gave the waiter extra for monopolizing his four top for two hours. What a wonderful time with a friend.

As a little gift, may I share with you a link to Holiday's at the White house. I especially enjoyed the images of Christmas’s Past. Enjoy.

Holiday's at the White House

Laundry

2011-12-06T07:07:00.001-08:00

A chilly winter afternoon on Shelter Island.

On a chilly winter day I warmed myself by running down stairs. I’d jam the laundry into the machine, wander back up stairs, set a timer, and “ding”…run down stairs again. It’s a really good way to stay warm.

Between bouts of up and down, I ran to Tarjay for ribbons. I’d given Lessa all the Christmas stuff and there wasn’t a ribbon to be seen. As usual, I checked for “Tide - cold water unscented.” None to be had…perhaps their having it the first week was just a teaser to get us in to their newly remodeled store. Yet I noted they had ten plus feet of Tide scented in a large variety of flavors.

Today I shan’t run anywhere. Since the sewing table is newly shorn of it’s photos to be scanned, now will be a good time to sort that appalling pile of tax stuff that is enthusiastically escaping it’s accordion folder. Besides, we have this one room warmed with a tiny heater.

Maybe I will finish my email Christmas letter too. You would be proud of me.

Moments

2011-12-05T07:01:00.000-08:00

There are days that pass in a blink of an eye. Yesterday was one as we drove north in Grumpy to take Bee two antique dishes we found at an estate sale.

It was really cold. One of those colds that seeps through what every you wear. Seeing her warmed me up. We had a few moments to chat then drove home again. It’s wonderful to have friends like her.

Today I anticipate laundry. I know one shouldn’t look beyond the moment, but the laundry looms.

"You always have a camera, Gramma."

2011-12-04T09:11:00.001-08:00

It’s really not fair to take Grampa Geezer along when you are out looking at used cars. The Mitsubishi was great….but Grampa found welds on the frame. The Exploder was great, but it got terrible mileage.

Grampa brought his computer with him, and the two of them perused more SUV’s in the Auto Trader. Grampa found a Saturn Vue….just perfect for Aaron with the small 4 calendar engine and a five speed. He’s gotten a lot better at stick shifts since he joined the military. He took us to lunch, and we headed for a brief break and the museum.

Sitting by the dock on the bay book and camera in hand. Idylic. Photo: Geezer.

Driving up through the busy downtown streets toward the park.

There we were with silkies, double warm pants, double socks, (mine tripled), two shirts and a vest, all topped by warm coats, hats and gloves. I thought I wouldn’t need the bottom silk layers. My thighs were chilly as I welcomed folks to the museum and asked them to leave their bottles, foodstuffs, light sabers, and other necessities at the table. I’d guard them with my life, I told them. Once they laughed, they put their things down. The Geezer was toasty in back with the motorcycles.

“You always have a camera, gramma,” Aaron said.

Trying to explain why, it suddenly dawned on me why I always have a camera in my hand. I don’t forget my life when I take pictures of it.

Bringing the Past to Life

2011-12-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

After a few hours at work yesterday, I came home to wait for the chair and cushions to arrive. As it was carried up, I found myself a bit frightened by my bold choice of fabric. Now, the chair exceeds all my expectations. Rebuilt from the wood up, the broken springs replaced, the wood treated, and the legs refinished, the chair should now be good for another eighty years.

I remember my grandpa Gunny sitting in it in a corner window at 2439 A street. I remember grandma sitting in it reading by the light of the same window.

It was a crème boucle when I was 12, then after grandma died, mother upholstered it in a dark textured blue. For a while Lenora owned it, as she still does, and she upholstered it in a dark blue patterned fabric. When I got it back, I had it slip-covered in white. But the damp and mold in the big house had done their damage. The chair itself reeked of mold. I banished it to the garage.

When this last trust was disbursed, one thing I wanted to do was resurrect this most comfortable of chairs. Bravely I chose a plaid fabric that would work with the deco spread G had chosen as well as the colors in the room.

I’m just as pleased as punch.

A Holiday Start

2011-12-02T07:02:00.001-08:00

Wreath in the window at the shop.

It’s looking like a busy holiday for the two of us this year. As usual, every day I go in to work, I take pictures to post on the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop, Point Loma, Facebook page. What a mouthful. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have things in focus again. I’ll be doing that today as well as books, sorting, and covering for the pricer.

We are taking Aaron car shopping again Saturday morning. I’ll take a good book and sit in the back seat. That way I get to see Aaron and stay out of the way. He reports his mom is doing really well after her lumpectomy. That’s such good news.

This weekend is the big holiday party in our central city park, Balboa Park. The Geezer’s museum was a little short on docents Saturday, so just like last year both of us will go in. They feed us and give us a parking pass, but we have to get there a lot early.

Last year I got to count people. That was actually fun. Push a button and smile as they come through the door. I can do this. Reminds me of working at Petco Park or Qualcom Stadium. Dressing warmly is the key. G’s main focus will be keeping folks off cars. He can do this with ease. All in all, a good start to our busy holiday.

A Blue Christmas

2011-12-01T06:49:00.001-08:00

The Great Geezer decorated outside this year. We have blue and white LED’s across the front levels, and there’s one string around the front door and the balcony above it. For very little effort, we have an appalling amount of light. He’s very happy.

I nervously took the new/used camera to the Discovery shop yesterday, and every shot I took was in focus. It was very exciting to discover this.

Slowly things begin to come together here. The chair and cushions are due back today or tomorrow. The curtains are to be installed tomorrow. The bedroom only needs crown molding to be complete. At the rate we are going with our decorating, the house will be finished just by the time we are ready to sell.

So today I’ll take my not very good poem about scanning to the Poets Group. I’ll brave high winds, cold air, and a bad poem to see friends. Isn’t that really what it’s all about?

30 Final NoMoJo

2011-11-30T06:23:00.000-08:00

The truck museum in Campo California.

It’s the last day of NoMoJo. I set out to tackle NoMoJo with certain goals. I faded….but it doesn’t matter. I posted every day tho the photographs weren’t especially memorable. I shrank into myself and my words grew shorter every day…but that too doesn’t matter.

What does matter are all the wonderful people I meet here on Open Diary at Day Tripper, and at Postcards on Blogger. You all make my day. Every day.

As of today, I have a replacement point and shoot Power Shot A650 IS Canon. The dearest Geezer found it on eBay for my Christmas gift. My old one, out of focus since the neck strap snapped and the camera broke on the cement floor, is still at the shop. We will get it back and use it for parts for this one…for perhaps one day I will need parts.

“You’re back in business,” the Geezer told me. I cried.

He makes my day too.

29 Limits

2011-11-29T06:55:00.001-08:00

Scanning. It wasn’t as boring yesterday. No, I don’t have to scan every photograph thats out of focus, blurred, or with unrecognizable contents. That helps with the pressure I put on myself with this project. I liked finding Lenora, here on the bridge of mother’s yacht with mother’s husband Bob, looking so vital and wonderful. There’s a long period of Lessa where she certainly looks less.

There I see long ago friends that now have diabetes or prostate cancer. There I find an image of another friend young, vital, and drunk now today a swollen caricature of himself after heart surgery that went wrong. I scan these and smile at the old memories not thinking of the now.

Sometimes my old scanner burps and makes duplicates. Or is it the computer. Norton continually tells me that another Trojan Horse has been defeated. I think the reality is that antique piece of hardware doesn’t like the modern Firefox. I’m continually grateful that I own a scanner and computer that are compatible. I persevere…rather doggedly.

28 A Blue Tree

2011-11-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

We dashed off to the multiplex to see “Hugo” leaving all our projects scatted about as if they were confetti. The joy of getting there early this day was to get our favorite seats. We suffered through the endless children’s movie previews finding one that might interest us later. Once they were over, we found the movie magical.

Paris in a 1920’s winter, a homeless boy, and a magic fairy tale. I shall tell you no more.

We both liked it. Home to bake our Sunday cake….vanilla this week with vanilla frosting. While it filled the house with wonderful smells, I finished over decorating our tiny tree with some of the huge variety of blue ornaments we own.

“I like to see a little tree,” G said as he went off to finish the lights.

27 Comedy of Errors

2011-11-27T07:51:00.000-08:00

Once we found Aaron and his insurance company check, we came all the way home to find the only branch of his bank open on Saturdays. They wouldn’t release the money because he didn’t have enough in his account to cover the insurance check in case it bounced. Tuesday, they said.

We took him back to base….the long way. Miles of beautiful rolling hills much like my neighborhood when I was a kid. I thoroly enjoyed the hour long ride. We discovered there was a gate just a couple of hundred yards away from us. He hadn’t known. In minutes we were back on the freeway headed south after arranging to do this again next Saturday.

Costco did have the Zyrtec replacement as Cetirizine for sixteen dollars a year versus 36 over-the-counter per month. Jackpot. On the other side of the coin, I brought home chocolate muffins. Did I say that?

Late afternoon with a half decorated tree under my belt, the Geezer announced he needed more outside lights. Back to Tar-jay we went. By the time we left the store, it was pitch black and I felt eight-thirty-ish. The tree was still half done.

We are off this morning for the earliest showing of “Hugo.” The tree is still half done, the lights are half up, but I feel optimistic anyway.

26 Christmas Past

2011-11-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

I love this holiday. I love the caring, the love, the sharing, and as an artist, I love the color.

Today we are to run out and car shop with grandson Aaron. If he has the cash. Later I’ll decorate the tree….blue this year, again. G wants blue. I like letting G have his turn. Probably that blue tree from 2009 was the best ever, but I will try to equal it this year.

In years past, I would finish my finals and immediately start decorating the big tree we found at an estate sale. The harder the finals, the longer it would take to decorate the tree. As the tree biodegraded, the time it took to decorate took even longer because I had to fill in the empty spots with balls.

I really miss having the big tree, but I do not miss the time it took to decorate it. Perhaps this year I will have the blue tree done in one evening over a cup of hot tea with kibitzing from the Geezer. He’s a good kibitzer, and sometimes he even helps….thank you dear Geezer.

25 Magic

2011-11-25T06:48:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a lovely day….how ever you spent it.

Here it was the laziest day ever. I did read all your posts tho I didn’t comment on each one. I read, I ate a simple lunch, and I took a bath in my own home. That’s important to me. For a long time, I didn’t have the upper body strength to get out of the tub on my own. Yesterday I did. Most importantly, the Geezer had time all to himself….he needs that.

Dinner was magic. Lovely vistas out the wrap around windows of Mr. A’s. To never forget “mac and cheese with truffles” for the Geezer. His braised beef short ribs vanished faster than my traditional turkey dinner. I shan’t ever forget that colorful beet salad.

We did spend a while mid-day making Leaning Towers….those chocolate cookie and whipped cream magic deserts. Thirty of them, enough to fill a cake pan. They have to be made a day ahead, and we will take them with us tonight to celebrate G’s anniversary. Sometimes, there are whole magic days too.

24 Gratitudes

2011-11-24T07:39:00.001-08:00

A Thanksgiving gathering at the cottage, 1980.

This year, I have an overabundance of things to be thankful and grateful about.

That I’m not in charge is the most important thing of all.

Then there’s life, we are alive, and my children and grandchildren are all alive. Just today we are warm, have food, and have shelter. The mother of five grandchildren had a lumpectomy yesterday and is ok today. Lessa drove to AZ and arrived in fine fettle. Lenora called and now knows how to bake a fancy squash. Tomorrow we celebrate a special 27 year Geezer birthday. What more could we all want.

From the big book of AA, the promises suggest that: "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them."

I wish you all a wonderful promise filled holiday today however you spend the day.

23 Patience

2011-11-23T06:54:00.001-08:00

Lenora and Lessa looking not quite joyful to pose once again for their father. 1971?

I’m being very sentimental this holiday of Thanksgiving…tho not very patient. It’s exciting to find pictures I didn’t know existed while I bore myself with the endlessness of scan, crop, scan, crop. The patience to run these old pictures through my Blather gifted scanner gives me a look at my kids I’d not seen before. I’m so thankful to have these imagess, and doubly thankful to have both my children alive after their more than tumultuous teen years.

22 Smiles

2011-11-22T06:59:00.001-08:00

Mrs. Hartson Gillette Barnum, Mary.

Mrs. Margaret Millicent Hyde.

I’ve begun, and despite a dirty scanning glass, a crotchety elbow, and a slow computer, I’m happy.

Of course there still is a pile of loose images. Although I am sure the last of these have been scanned, I know that the probability that more will creep out of boxes from the garage is high. I scanned the loose images first.

There I found bits of my past, bits of George’s past, and bit’s of my cousins past.,,,who called just as I was scanning two ladies of the Civil War era. Mary is my grandfather’s mother; and is MM her mother? Confusion. I have to look that one up.

Just before I started on those yellow Kodak folders, I found an image from the 1980’s. There are three old friends from my first college with daughter’s in tow. Just seeing this picture again made me smile. Smiles leave no confusions and bring only joy to the day.

Old college friends at an Art Department Reunion: Lia, daughter Lessa, Don DeLlamas, Timothy, and Daughter Lenora.

Random Thoughts on Dinners for the Week

2011-11-21T07:03:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving 1985 L to R: Mother, G's dad, The Geezer, and G's mom.

Sunday we donned good clothes and grabbed a Jack in the Box hamburger for dinner….cake after the meeting. I’m amused that 12th Earl of Sandwich has good business acumen and has started an unusual chain of Sandwich Shops. Why not capitalize on the 4th Earl’s invention indeed.

Monday it’s that delicious squash soup again. Microwave apple slices, pop them in with the squash, and thin with a small can of chicken soup or veggie broth with a dash of ginger. Run it all through a blender or boat motor…..you know, one of those long things with a propeller on the end. I’m eternally lazy, and the blender is one flight down. Corn muffins wait in the freezer and a tossed green salad on the side. Good simple stuff.

Tuesday I’ll run a hunk of meat through the slow cooker and serve it with small red potatoes and a carrot raisin salad. Why that 1950’s treat…with all the luscious and fattening mayonnaise too? Because I hate throwing away food, and there are week old carrots just waiting for me in the veggie keeper. And too, I confess that I like that salad. It brings back homey and comforting warm memories of an old WPA school cafeteria.

Wednesday I’ll grab some extra cheese for the bottom of a Stouffers Mac and Cheese. I confess, I like that stuff too. Perhaps I will serve it with knockwurst or a kosher hot dog or two. Nothing WW about that dinner. Thursday is Mr. A’s. Yes indeed. Now if I have salsa over the Friday baked potato instead of all the butter I can eat. Perhaps that will be a shade more WW approvable, and I will feel less guilty about the weekly aberrations.

20 A New Adventure

2011-11-20T08:05:00.001-08:00

The Robson family: L to R: Gracie, Maude Amy, Father Charles, Mother Sarah, Minnie May, and Eunice. My grandmother was Maud.

After we hit two estate sales yesterday, I helped him haul the sewing table upstairs to be used for the scanning project. He had to take the top off, brought it up, and popped the top back on. Easy. After I finish this note, I’ll haul out the oldest box of photos out to see what I have.

I’ve already scanned the family photos that were in folders. Now I tackle those that are piled in boxes. Later, I will deal with G’s family pictures that live in albums downstairs. The newest adventure begins.

Grandma Maudie with her great granddaughter Margot.

18 Movin On Up

2011-11-19T07:49:00.001-08:00

Two previous style America’s Cup boats the “Abracadabra” and the “Stars and Stripes” for hire on San Diego Bay.

We have a half day together this morning. He wants to hit estate sales; I want to get the underpinnings for the scanning project up the stairs.

We have had breakfast and are now arguing over a note that must be sent. He’s stalling in people pleasing mode, and I am in a get it done and over mode. However we send off the note, it has to be sent.

There’s hunks of blue skies out there surrounded by wads of grey rain clouds. The last of the bay regattas for the America’s Cup will be held today and it looks like the Oracle boat will be going against the French. There may be no parking down by the bay, so I’m thinking I may end up setting up the scanning project instead.

With only ten days left of NoMoJo, I thought I would forward a message from my friend Kay for those who live in Washinton State. She writes:

"The University Book Store Press of the University Book Store, Seattle, Wash., will publish the best novel written by a Washington State author participating in National Novel Writing Month. "Obliterate the Empty Page" is co-sponsored by the Richard Hugo House, the Northwest Independent Editors Guild, the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

The winning book will be stocked at University Book Store, and the winner will receive 10 complimentary copies and be the featured writer at an author event next year. Participants who finish will be eligible for special pricing from University Book Store Press.

The University Book Store is hosting related events during November, including two evenings of "uninterrupted writing" for NaNoWriMo participants. "We'll have all of your writing needs: tables, power for your laptops, writing references, and coffee. Lots of coffee."

18 Friday Fragments

2011-11-18T06:29:00.001-08:00

He thought he would have to work on the Friday after Thanksgiving, so he planned his weekend around work. His company has now given everyone a week from Friday off with pay. We are thinking we will putter this four day post Thanksgiving weekend.

I’ve been very allergish lately…or sensitive if you want to get technical. The one thing that changed in my life was one med…my hormones. Tho they went from $125 for three months to $30 for three months, nausea and tiredness have cut me back from some of my favorite things….oh, poor me. No coffee, caffeine, and chocolate leave my stomach calmer. Still, perfumes leave me beyond lethargic at work. I remind myself that it’s only two days a week of dragging misery. I’m just going to wait it out and see if my body adapts to the new meds….finally.

The Geezer has been looking up cars for grandson. Grandson Aaron got paid for his rollover and is now planning to go to Vegas. Can you follow the grandparent thinking. Grampa Geezer is sending more links to cars and including total costs for purchase, registration, and insurance et al in hopes he doesn’t take all his cash with him. I just have to remind myself that they think they are going to live forever.

The quilting stuff is ready for storage. The quilt table can come up to be used in the scanning, or it can go down into storage. G understands I need a surface to work from that I won’t have to clean off every night. Yes, it will get in the way up here, but the quilting table has wheels and that’ll help get it out of the way when not in use.

The dining room table can come up to the living room and get used instead of stored. We need to sit down over food instead of sitting in front of the TV. That won’t last long tho as the Christmas tree will sit on it.

I took a nap yesterday.

I discussed watercolors and water coloring with Bee yesterday in light of an opening at the college where she teaches. Lovely thought, and I would qualify, but no thanks. Going back to painting is next on my agenda tho.

17 Reading

2011-11-17T06:37:00.000-08:00

I’m taking a few days off. Oh, not from exercise, blogging, appreciating your notes, or the Discovery shop, but from projects and work. Lazy me, indeed.

I’ve been spending money wantonly. Three nice jewel tone shirts from the thrift store today. A stocking stuffer for the daughter and granddaughter also. I purchased three books also…from the Mystery Guilt…a slip of my fingers to be sure. The mountain of things to be scanned sit right over there being ignored while I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time. Tiny type for my old eyes, but wonderful content.

Goodwin is quoted in a Wikipedia article as saying that, “those of us who write history is to understand how citation mistakes can happen.” After publication of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys there was a great furor over the large sections of other authors books she quoted with no attribution.

“Slate magazine also reported that there were multiple passages in Goodwin’s book on the Roosevelts (No Ordinary Time) that were apparently lifted directly from Joseph Lash’s Eleanor and Franklin, Hugh Gregory Gallagher’s FDR’s Splendid Deception, and other books.”

I loved her writings before this disaster, I understand there was a settlement, yet I find this book a fascinating gathering of historical information all pulled together in one place.

If you want me, I’m right over there reading.

16 The Blue Quilt

2011-11-16T06:32:00.000-08:00

I’m not a quilter, but I got conned into quilting by one of my biology professors, Dr. Harriette Schapiro. Perhaps she thought I would improve mathematically if I quilted. I know she sensed my love of color and of fabrics. Love and passion do not help when you have learning disabilities and can’t add two and two.

I picked the pattern for this quilt from a book of scrap quilts and began to choose my fabrics July 27, 2010. Just today, I was telling someone that it had been two years since I started, but it’s been one year and four months instead.

About a month later, most of the blocks were cut out, and I ground to a halt.

In July of 2010, I also converted my photography blog to quilting Blog I titled “Quilt-O-Tropic….notes on a few quilts.” By March 2011, I’d begun putting the blocks together but also begun to develop a dislike of the quilt itself. Boring. Endless. The colors didn’t excite me. I wrote about every bit of agony I felt. Not light at all.

In of 2011, I found a blue and white quilt top at the American Cancer Society Thrift store, and grabbed it. Stirred at last to do something with this quilted weight on my mind, I got the “Blue Quilt” jump started at last.

Pinned in one week, it was tied the next week, and the week after that it was first stitched in the ditch by the yellow. The following day childlike sea creatures were drawn on the blue border in a two day sewing stint. On the fourth day, It was finished with a bit of self binding, the pins taken out and photographed.

I actually like it now. The yellow perks it up, the several major errors aren’t glaring, and it’s comfortable when draped across your lap. What more could one want. Perhaps if I had understood measurement, it would have been a lap quilt. Perhaps if someone else does the measurements for the next one, there will be a next one albeit vastly smaller.

My ability to draw with a needle is much compromised by my lack of hand eye coordination. That's what I do....draw. Now days, my quilting looks more like a child did it, but in the past it had more accuracy. On this quilt, I started not knowing what I was going to do. One corner now has an amorphous flower shape, but just a few inches into the border, I drew a fish, and the design is set. Three corners have conch shells, and the remainder of the borders have sharks, fish, octopus, and other denizens of the deep marching around the edges.

15 A Cleaver Kind of Day

2011-11-15T06:45:00.001-08:00

It was a clearly split day. Unusual. Groceries in the morning and quilting in the afternoon. It was as if a cleaver had whacked the day in half.

I set out, with grocery list in hand, to pick up what we needed for the week. Since Ralph’s was offering all sorts of new-store-opening bargains, I stuck my head in there to see what they had. I’ve got to say, they had more yogurt than I’d ever seen in one store before. Not one brand we eat tho. And the store looks just like the revamped Von’s across the road. So…..

I went next door to Target’s brand new food section. These two stores are in one building, mind you, back to back. They have the Greek yogurt G likes. And they had a Rapps-berry yogurt too. That’s all we needed there. Target won’t make a fortune from me.

Our local grocery store, once an Alpha Beta, supplied everything else, and I came home to quilt. Amorphous leaves turned into surf which turned into fish, and shells among rolling waves. A blue theme for a blue quilt. Then digging through my quilting reference books, I discovered the quilt pundit Mr. James says it’s all right to self bind a quilt. We have progress rather than perfection.

14 And Sew On

2011-11-14T07:01:00.001-08:00

After puttering then seeing the “J Edgar” film, himself came home to touch up paint. I stitched here and there. The quilting on the blue quilt is like, but a very lite version, of this quilting on the “House Quilt.”

J. Edgar Hoover, as portrayed by Clint Eastwood, was a very righteous and selfish man. Eastwood gives us a slow and darkened painting of Hoover unmitigated by any good he might have done as founding director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Wikipedia says, “Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.” My opinion is that the Hoover FBI reign also echoes with paranoia, irrationalities, secrecy, lies, hatred, and back stabbing.

Both G and I will go see the reflective “The Way” again, but not this film.

13 A Day of Dough-Mess-Ticity

2011-11-13T08:50:00.001-08:00

The Geezer had one of those “A-ha” moments yesterday. There in the paper was the perfect tiny chest. 20x16x 35 in height. Made of recycled, used pallet pine, the newspaper showed a cupboard with four small drawers, one big drawer, and a pull out shelf. Of course, being green, it was very expensive.

On weekends, we have been looking in every thrift store, every yard sale, and every estate sale within driving reach for almost a year. We loved the cupboards we was at the Chinese stores, but not only were they far beyond our budget, they were badly made. I had hopes we would find something reasonably priced that would fit in with our mish mash styled bedroom before the cheap Tar-Jay piece dissolved.

So I we came home with the new piece, and when himself went to work at the museum I moved in to the new cupboard.

Moved the bed to move the old piece to move in the new piece then moved the quilts to go on the new rack out and mended the old winter quilt. Twice. I called Lessa who wants the old wicker piece, called Bee to tell her somebody else bought the ceramic she wanted at the shop, and I did laundry while sewing on the blue quilt before having dinner with our old friends the Feasters. Whoosh.

You know…it was a satisfying day.

12 Saturday Snippets

2011-11-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

The USS Stennis accompanied by C Tractor 8 enters port.

The Carrier Classic: President and Mrs. Obama flew into town Friday for the Carrier Classic held on board the active duty carrier, The Carl Vinson. They set up a court on deck and one on the deck below in case it rained. No rain. Magic Johnson discussed politics with the press and tactics with the teams. Number 1 UNC won and basketball greats mingled on the courts with the crew as the President and Mrs. sat courtside. It was good Veterans day stuff here in San Diego.

The Geezer and Mrs. Geezer bravely accompanied Common Cold Captain Poolie to “Sipz” on Clairemont Mesa Friday evening. After a fine dinner of Soy products, they Geocached for an hour or so with himself finding two, and Mrs. Geezer locating one. The Captain obviously let the neophytes find a few….a kindness much appreciated. At home, the Geezer signed up and downloaded the programming to let the Geezers geocache on their own.

For months Mr. and Mrs. Geezer have been looking for a replacement nightstand to go on Mrs. Geezers side of the bed. All the night-time comfort things are kept in her now collapsing wicker cupboard. Part of the problem is the size of the space: 20x16 available. A nice, small, green, used wood cupboard has been found but at an astronomical price. We are thinking about visiting it at its store. Maybe it will be on sale.

The Stennis with her tractors in company, makes the turn near her berth.

11 A Special Holiday Sale

2011-11-11T06:47:00.000-08:00

The first two bookcases on the left are holiday books I’ve been saving all year.

Veterans Day. Today G has to work. I’ll swim and work at the Discovery shop. No time for parades or flag waving today. We are having a special two day holiday Sale at the store, and many of us were there last night from three to six to bring it all out and put it on display.

The food was really good too. I made deviled eggs, and the Geester reported that they were good. I didn’t get one. I can say that the food was really good, but there was a cherry cobbler that was superior to any I had ever had before. I had two helpings.

Today I will get to the store early, leave by one, and hopefully hide from the crush before dinner with the Captain.

From Pat, we have the gift of this poem for the day. John McCrae an exhausted surgeon angered by the slaughter at Ypres and after witnessing the death of a friend wrote:

..........................In Flanders Fields

..........................In Flanders fields the poppies blow
..........................Between the crosses, row on row,
..........................That mark our place; and in the sky
..........................The larks, still bravely singing, fly
..........................Scarce heard amid the guns below.

..........................We are the Dead. Short days ago
..........................We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
..........................Loved and were loved, and now we lie
..........................In Flanders fields.

..........................Take up our quarrel with the foe:
..........................To you from failing hands we throw
..........................The torch; be yours to hold it high.
..........................If ye break faith with us who die
..........................We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
..........................In Flanders fields.

10 Unmentionables

2011-11-10T06:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday and Today Himself: They give him 16 wrecks and tell him to do five. Every day he gets all they give him done. It’s all a matter of planning the drive, he tells me.

Herself: Today is the busy day and I am skipping swimming. No guilt. I spent long hours confusing folks about the books, and today I get to help set up for the Holiday Bazarr. Bill is giving me a ride to, and G is giving me a ride fro.

Family: Lessa continues her monumental struggle on with math while getting really good grades everywhere else. Lenora has a test for a job interview today. Granddaughter Sahara got her first portfolio to show her work to her new art teacher. I picked up an art history book that brings me into the 21st century. Progress all around.

Over dinner he said, “You want a topic to write about, try nose hair. Ear hair. Eyebrow hair.”

“Ewwww; Nobody wants to read about that.”

“Growing older. All sorts of things happen,” he retorted. “There are these long white hairs growing out of my ears. I never expected that.”

“I lost my eyebrows…at least the far ends,” I said. “The little, tiny, hairs in my nose drive me mad, mad, mad. You can’t just pull them out…that doesn’t work. Now I have that nice little machine that shaves them away and the incredible itches that make me swipe at my nose all day long too.”

“It’s a ticklish situation there.”

9 Discards

2011-11-09T06:38:00.001-08:00

Now that the quilt is almost done, the me-caused-cacophony in the corner of the living room can be tidied away. That isn’t just fabric and threads, there’s also the confusions caused by my inhabiting that corner for so long. The photo albums grew apace and spilled from their miserly shelves into the room. One shelf of sci-fi got pushed back against the wall. Cookbooks were unusable. Fashion took over Architecture, Architecture sat on Architecture, and Art slogged its way everywhere.

Yesterday I waited to finish tying the quilt until G gets home to help. Thinking I won’t hurt my hands or eyes as much as I would by tying, I begin sorting through the cookbooks. Do I use this? Are there duplicates? Do I remember it with great fondness?

That last is an excuse. No fair even thinking of how much I used to like something if I don’t use it.

I pulled out piles of cookbooks to take to the Discovery shop. Some are so tired they will go straight to Father Jo…or is it Sister Tricia now. I gathered two nice full bags of cookbooks to discard. “That’s not enough, not near enough,” I said to myself, and turning back to the book case, I packed another five bags.

Then I moved the photo albums…discovering that we have three empty ones just waiting for the next three trips. Ours and Mother’s now on two shelves. I pulled the sci-fi out so that corner would look neat again. The fashion volumes went with the quilting and sewing stuff. Oh, there’s another mess just waiting for my attention.

With a truck load of cookbooks, I descended on the thrift store only to discover the shelves in our workroom bookshelf had collapsed. There waits a mountain of books for my attention later today….I added mine, pulled out the holiday volumes. And started home.

On one shelf, just near the door were discards that caught my eye...plates. Lovely rich, burgundy and gold bordered, with a happy flowered center, these were plates that came in boxes of powdered soap during the depression. We ate on them every night when I was a kid.

Resolutely, I didn’t bring these charming plates home. Tho I talked out loud to them, even patting them before I walked away. I left them behind, doggedly.

8 Memory

2011-11-08T06:32:00.001-08:00

That memory which I still have lies in rows of grey acid free archival boxes. Year after year of them. Downstairs. In the hall bookcase. There they sit.

Each year I make files in these boxes that hold my medical records, my travel adventures, the cards folks send me….for I love cards, and a Miscellaneous section that takes in all the other orts in my life. Most importantly, now that I know how, I add a CD of my journals and photographs plus my paper appointment pages.

The Geezer has been going out to a Monday night meeting, but nowhere on paper or disc does it record this. I only remembered last night when we were settling in to a little television with the last of the Halloween M&M’s. Unless I write down our daily schedules, I forget what’s happening in the ease of the evenings. No Weight Watchers again this week. I forgot.

Bee’s birthday was the 4th, and she was in Paris and the beaches of Normandy. For some reason, I did not forget either her birthday or that she was returning. Yet the Memory of Weight Watchers flies out the window on streams of chocolate, fat, and sugars. There needs to be a change of some sort.

Doggedly last night I wrote everything in the paper appointment book. The meetings, the swimmings, the hours I’m working Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at the store this week.

This Thursday, I swim, pick up Cat at the trolley and do poets, and I have a ride to the store at three to help set up for the two day Holiday affaire. G will pick me up in the dark. We will be all set up to open on Friday to a delightful cacophony of shoppers. This is all in the book as well as the fact we will be having dinner with treasure hunt afterwards with the Captain. Even Weight Watchers meetings are now in the book.

Maybe my memory will hold this thought and I will remember to look in the book..

7 Rain Rain

2011-11-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

Rain again. We are not used to rain here, and no one is used to driving on the oil slick roads the rain brings.

The Captain drove to “Salvation Mountain,” out in the back country this week. They call it outsider art now, but I used to love the term “naive art.” I thought that described the passionate untrained art that some folks make. She drove home in fog and light rain extolling the magic of it all.

No magic for the cops. Three hundred some accidents a day….always, it seems. No magic for grandparents either. We kept straight non-judgmental faces as the eldest grandson Aaron called to ask for assistance. He’d rolled his car. His first car. Pictures of it are on Facebook and caused the expert grampa G to say it was totaled.

Roses like the rain tho.

6 Tying

2011-11-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Tied African American Quilt from the quilt show at the Mingei, 2011.

Sunday Smalls
Very sad about Andy Rooney’s death.

Could I even remember the coding for bullets. NO. Grrr.

Cool movie, “Tower Heist!” Got there early and the theater was full of delighted patrons.

Cake made…continuing this for the 7PM meeting till the end of December. My old 1938 Mixmaster keeps on working.

Tying

Tying 1: Paid close attention to Seedy’s instructions. Found enough of the same colored blue embroidery thread down in the garage to do whole quilt. Found threader.

Tying 2: Looked up how to tie a quilt online. Tried the first technique which was twice through one spot, cutting, then knotting. Very correct. Very time consuming. Very difficult with a king sized quilt when you are short on hand eye coordination and own tiring eyes.

Tying 3: The next video showed the needle going through one spot and coming back right next to it….then without cutting the embroidery thread, moving on to the next spot. When you are done with a line of stitches, cut in the middle of each stitch then knot.

Tying 4: Combine this method with rolling the quilt to keep it out of the way. Control the rolled quilt with bicycle clips, and you have a go. Slow but a go with the knots on the back yet the focus on the join of the blocks on the front.

5 Thinking Ahead

2011-11-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

An aubergine front window at the store.

No one was home in my head yesterday.

I suppose that’s ok if you don’t mind not being home. I minded a lot.

I looked forward to working, I enjoyed sorting, and I enjoyed coming home a lot. I wiped the rain off the truck with a smile. Gotta take care of my ancient truck.

Whoops, only when I got upstairs did I notice that I forgot my seat cushion back at the store. I can’t work comfortably, go to meetings, or type on my own computer without the extra chair padding. I went back. While I was there, I took pictures and teasers of the upcoming stuff….the Holiday Special is almost here. I was supposed to do that the first time as one of my jobs is posting to the American Cancer Society’s Point Loma Discovery shop Facebook Page.

There was a little framed sampler quilt I’d been eyeing. I bought it. I went home. This time it wasn’t raining, so I didn’t have to wipe down the truck.

I discovered that I’d left the quilt sampler back at the shop. Yeah, I did that. So back to the store I went. Again. I know they all thought me crazy. I smiled, grabbed the piece, and ran for home.

I made it before it started raining again. Which it did. Pouring. Whipping winds, flying leaves, and dearest G out in the deluge.

Today will be cold but filled with double rainbows.

4 Thinking First

2011-11-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

At seventy with arthritis and a non-functional brain, I gotten down on the garage floor yesterday to pin the blue quilt. Just because I could do this easily at fifty, and do it but uncomfortably at sixty, doesn’t mean it was a really good thing to do it at seventy when you even have trouble walking. But I did.

About one third of the way into the project, I began to berate myself. Arthritis and cold cement floors don’t really combine well. Sometimes unthinking idiocy beats all my other talents, I told myself. Inching my way around the sides, I talked to myself pretending I was talking to my old truck. The laundry going round and round offered a homey sound to keep me company. The truck said nothing.

Over two hours into it all, I was done. Before picking up the quilt, I went upstairs to take two Aleve and grab the camera.

If I ever do another quilt, I shall pin it on a board that's been placed on saw horses. Sitting comfortably. I have hopes that I’ve Now learned to think before I act, but I don’t count on it.

3 Wake-up Calls (EDIT)

2011-11-03T06:42:00.001-07:00

My neighbor drove in a slight curve, right square into the back of a small car parked across the street. I cringed as she yelled and screamed and ranted loudly. I couldn’t see if her small child was in the vehicle with her. It really upset me. My daughter, Margot, knows about stuff like this, so I called her.

“Maybe it will be a wake-up call for her,” Margot told me. “If the damage is more than 500 bucks, they have to call the cops.”

Someone did call the cops…then two cop cars arrived, then three. Her little girl wandered out into the street. Someone pulled her back onto the sidewalk. The cops walked our neighbor around the corner away from the wrecks. My husband, George, came home, and we both watched the drama.

If she was drunk or breathed on the cops, they would take her away, I thought. She had just purchased this used SUV, and it would be off to an impound yard. The daughter would either go to family or intake somewhere. George told me that if the air bags went off, the SUV would be totaled.

Crowds gathered. I felt guilty squatting down to peer through leaves and tree trunks hoping she had nothing to drink. The afternoon seemed on hold.

After a long pause, the officers handcuffed her and put her in the back of a patrol car. One officer attempted to find someone in the building to take the daughter. No one was home. We didn’t count. Slowly quiet came back to the neighborhood. Someone swept up the broken glass. All of us crept back to our dinners, or news, or what other acts we do at dusk.

“Then again, it might not be a wake-up call,” I told George. “After I went to jail for drinking and driving, all I did was stop driving. I didn’t stop drinking.”

“I feel so sorry for her,” I said watching them tow her SUV away while I stirred my dinner.

2 Anticipation

2011-11-02T07:22:00.001-07:00

I’ve been passive about the holidays the last few years. Whatever The Geester wanted to do was fine with me at Thanksgiving. Christmas? I let him decide the color of the tree….which is about it on decorations around here.

When Lessa’s pop said he’d give her gas money to come out for Thanksgiving, she said yes. At that point, I told the Geester that we could do a Von’s take out dinner here or make reservations. Selfishly, I wanted a real, sit-down turkey dinner perhaps shared with a few friends.

For years we have taken part in a pot luck at a nearby recovery club house. Lovely stuff. Caring, loving, and not too organized with the turkey arriving whenever it arrived. We would eat before going. Yesterday, when I went off to the gym, he rejected the Von’s idea and looked up reservations online. As I drove in to the gym and he out, he told me, mano y mano - car to truck, that he’d made reservations at Mr. A’s.

Goodness.

John Alessio, "Mr. San Diego" of the 1960’s is cited as the namesake of Mr. A's restaurant and as a past owner of the Hotel Del Coronado. He constructed the 12 story building in the 1960’s, and he topped it with his crown jewel restaurant Mr. A’s. Featuring a truly wonderful view, Mr. A’s served the usual foods of the fifties and sixties such as Lobster Thermador.

I’d always wanted to eat there. Once I’d gone in but not been dressed up enough.

Bertram Hug, the owner of upscale “Mille Fleurs” in Rancho Santa Fe, bought Mr. A’s. He upgraded the décor and the menu while keeping the friendliness. That made me want to dine there even more.

Last night, just reading the Thanksgiving Dinner Menu over G’s shoulder made my mouth water. Today the anticipation leaves me smiling. What a lovely gift from the Geester.

1 November Journaling Month

2011-11-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

I don’t know the history of NoJoMo, but my educated guess is that it began in reaction to NaNoWirMo…November Novel Writing Month. I can’t even manage to make a decision on the Thanksgiving meal much less write a novel. I will attempt to post an entry a day here just for the fun of it. I write most every day anyway, I said to myself, so why not.

This year I will post some of the better photographs I’ve taken in the last year. If I find myself wordless, there will still be a photograph to fill the space.

Yesterday after the pool, I actually worked for a while on the blue quilt while picking some of the images for NoJoMo. A good balance because lots got done. Much of the year my camera lived in the shop, so I have far fewer good images to share this year. But I found a few.

Yes, I will be reading all of you. Thanks to the Captain, I’m plugged in to Google Reader. Just as Open Diary has its “Favorite’s” List, now the rest of the world has the same option with Google’s Reader. I may not note you every day as I have set myself a deadline to finish the blue quilt, but I will be reading you every day.

Bon NoJoMo to you all.

The Way

2011-10-31T06:50:00.001-07:00

Emilio Estevez has put together a deeply moving film called The Way.

The teaser says: "The Way" is a powerful and inspirational story about family, friends, and the challenges we face while navigating this ever-changing and complicated world. Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son (played by Emilio Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Rather than return home, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage to honor his son's desire to finish the journey. What Tom doesn't plan on is the profound impact the journey will have on him and his "California…Life."

What I did not plan on was how clearly I could identify with Martin Sheen as the doctor. He wanted his only son to live life the way he lives his….finish his doctorate, go on to work and live a California life of golf, love, and work. The son announces he’s not going to finish school and is off to walk the Camino de Santiago, The Way.

Despite the fact that we had to chase this film down; limited release means just that here. I highly recommend seeing it.

Richard

2011-10-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

Halloween 2011

2011-10-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

...only a few images for the unwary.

A Doctor and a nurse. Yes, we had fun. The guests trickled in, the food trickled in, and we had fun. The place got jammed, a conga line moved through the eaters, and the World Serious was on the tube for those who were interested. G the Doctor, the most distinguished among five, and I the only nurse. Our doc found the circuit breakers while the host was getting dressed to restart the music lights and game. There was a wide variation of costumes, and a lot of folks showing a giant sense of humor.

Everyone had a grand time while the distinguished doc admitted to eating two pieces of cheesecake.

Naomi Judd, and she looked just like the singer, with a newly employed computer programmer as “Identity Theft,” with a 4077 Mash Doctor at his best.

These two didn’t arrive together but were often photographed together.

House and Roots graced us with their presence too.

Private Rail Cars

2011-10-28T06:53:00.000-07:00

....not for the faint of heart or pocketbook, but oh so much fun!

Original California Zephyr cars, once jointly owned by three railroads are now popular as private rail cars. Here the Silver Solarium and the Silver Rapids are seen in the Portland Union Station. Photos Copyright: The Geester. 2011.

Today, American businesses send their Presidents to various parts of the world in their private jets. At the turn of the 19th century, the corporate jet was a private rail car. From individual cars to business cars, the companies kept their staff on the rails. Each Railroad had their favorite builder, but many of the cars we see on sidings today were built by Budd or Pullman.

Most cars today are owned by very rich people and to pay their fees are leased or rented. The top link below has many glorious photographs of private rail cars at a 2002 convention.

With apologies, poor quality photograhs of the Gold Coast. Photos Copyright: The Geester. 2008.

One of the most memorable of the rail historians was Lucius Beebe. He, with his partner Charles Clegg, bought and restored two rail cars in a most flamboyant fashion. In blurred photographs above, you can see the living room and the kitchen of the Gold Coast now in the collection of the California State Railroad Museum.

Private Railroad Car Links

Photos of Private Railcars Attending the 2002 Convention

Patron Express - Friday on 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters; Video clip here

California Zephyr.Org

California Zephyr Virtual Museum

Wikipedia on Private Railroad Cars

Washington Post Private Railroad Car article

aaproc

Colonial Crafts Railcar.com

California Zephyr Charter

Rail Journeys West

Cincinnati Railway Dinner Train

Flickr Private Rail Car photographs

Private Car Ownership

Out of Focus

2011-10-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

It’s not a shot of a hazy day nor is it a blurred piece of minimalism. It’s out of focus.

I’m determined to take part in NoJoMo this year tho my thought processes seem dried up a bit. How I think is definitely tied to how I feel. Determined to work around stuck parts and fading humor, I may just stick photos up in lieu of words.

Speaking of photos, my camera made it to the photo shop yesterday thanks to the Great Gee-dini.

“The pictures are out of focus,” he told the counter person. “It’s a nice camera; if it worked right.”

She looked at what was on the screen. “It’s out of focus,” she agreed.

She took it to the expert in the back room. He too took pictures and agreed. “They’re out of focus.” They kept the camera and gave The Gee-dini a Zero receipt.

Here I had thought that perhaps I was out of focus. It’s nice to know I’m not.

Four days. NoJoMo, November journals month, was originally begun as an alternative to National Novel Writing Month, nanowrimo. I'm never ready to write a novel or finish the unfinished, but I should be able to put some small thing here daily. Are you ready……

Cars and More Cars

2011-10-26T07:20:00.001-07:00

Dan Aykroyd’s private rail car “Patron Tequila Express” was attached to our train.

There are those moments. Yesterday I couldn’t write worth beans, and after a day of producing gar-bage, the moment came when I deleted everything I’d struggling with….kapow. It was all a pedantic and emotionless string of words in the guise of poetry. Nothing worked. Instead, I pulled up and adapted a blog entry that you all had liked. It works.

Then I made nacho’s. I’ve never made them before. Don’t laugh. I can say with all honesty that I’m not a successful nacho maker. And I can add that leftover nachos are a soggy, sorry mess. We can eat out.

Five days. That’s all. Just five days. Are you ready……

Heroically

2011-10-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

A private car on a siding in Milwaukee. We saw a lot of private cars in our travels this year.

Heroically, I finished the train trip album in two half day stints. This is really good stuff. I sent off three poems to the Writer’s Digest Poetry Contest. That’s a truly monumental step in overcoming uncertainty. Today I need to write a new poem.

Of course, I need to send my other Kay a note saying thank you for the magnet from the Stan Hywet Gate House. She was in Akron and hadn’t realized that Ohio wasn’t all education and farming, it’s also the home of AA. Bob and Bill, the founders of AA, first met at that gate house.

I also need to say no to my book club selections. Yes book clubs still exist, and yes I still belong to the Mystery Guild and the Sci Fi Book Club. I bet if I put Book Clubs into Google, there would be a lot of them. I won’t. Just for you.

Maybe later.

Something in one of my feet is stuck too. It works if I walk on the side of it. Perhaps I should call my neighbor, “Elbow of Death.” Last time she unstuck it by standing on it. Gotta make sure I laugh at myself all day. That’s the best pain med around.

A Day of Traveling Things

2011-10-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

A barn from the fast moving train. Photo Copyright RGB 2011.

Already on the seat of the truck is a pair of newer black pants. I dumpt another desert on them. Face down, of course. A new, used, virulent pink pair of shoes needs to go to the shoe repair shop. A little elastic bit on one sling back is slung beyond usage.

“Hello, Darlink,” he will say while his wife glowers and his dogs snore.

Then to the cleaners where I have a good sized pile to pick up while dropping off the gloppy black pants.

Menus? What shall we have for dinner. It’s a nice beef stew sort of day. I can hear my vegetarian friends going, “Ewwwwwwwwwww.” Perhaps Judy Nicolaides pot roast. She always added a dollop of sour cream at the end that created melt in the mouth perfection.

The trip album is half done half halfheartedly. I’ve included the blog posts, and all the jpgs are on discs in the back. Who knows if anyone will ever look at its pages and its incomplete roster of prints. But it will get done today.

Bee and Mikey are off to Paris. She’s packing now. Dee is back from Prague where she will be teaching this year. G is out there checking out wrecks. The world seems to be traveling around me while I nest this grey day. Submitting three poems to the Writers Digest Annual contest is my big thing for the day. Even if I’m not traveling, my shoes, cleaning and poems are. That will do nicely.

A Kay Kinda Day

2011-10-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Photos from the celebration used without permission.

I know everyone is tired of my Kay writing, but yesterday we three had a Kay kind of day. I need to write about it so I can remember it.

The ballroom was almost full half with Red Hat ladies and the other half with AA sponsees and family when we got there. Loud toe tapping music was played while family, friends, and folks who loved her spoke of how wonderful she was. And she was.

Pictures were shown, food was served, and the Red Hat ladies waded in the waterfall in memory of their off-the-wall friend. No chocolate was served….her favorite food group, but a good time was had anyway.

We grabbed Lessa, and we took her on another favorite thing of Kay’s, “retail therapy” which is second only to her “clothes folding therapy.” Lessa remembers proudly when Kay took her to try on her first bra. I was a member of the no-bra generation and never thought to do this. Kay did. This day, in JC Penney’s, Lessa picked out PJ’s, and in “I can never afford to shop here ma” Coldwater Creek, she found a shirt as did I.

We spent a lot of money. Oh, Kay would have laughed at us.

After the shopping and window-shopping, G took us down to Godiva. We indulged in rich, fattening, chocolate truffles and talked of Kay. Laughed a bit too. She would have loved it all.