RIP

There are final bills, final destinations, final exams, final notices, and final frontiers, but nothing is as final as death. You know it will come someday, someway, somehow. It will be there for you, for your spouse, for your children, for your parents. It will be there for everyone you know and for everyone you don’t know. Death is ugly. Death is mean and often painful. Death will be a part of all our lives. We all know it’s coming, but most of us don’t do a lot, if anything, to prepare for it. It’s our final and longest trip and we must go empty-handed, taking nothing with us on this solo journey. Death doesn’t wait for us to finish what we've started. It doesn't always wait for us to say our last goodbyes. It has no schedule and honors no timetable except its own. The finality of death triggers other finals like arrangements and respects.

The above can be reduced to just two words: DEATH SUCKS!

Death became an intimate part of our lives today. We are realizing a deep and painful void. Now my husband has no father. My sons have no grandfather and I no longer have my dad-in-law. Good bye, Charlie. Adieu. Farewell. Oh, how you'll be missed.

photo by Diego Cupolo

NOT SO DANDY LION

Spotting a dandelion taking up residence in his lush green carpet was a personal insult to my dad. Taking great pride in his lawn, he hunted down those lawn lions with a vengeance. Little did we know back then that this nuisance of a weed could in any way be beneficial.

My rabbits are little fertilizer factories for my garden. Several years ago I read that dandelion leaves are a superb food source for them. Having a lawn of more weeds than grass, strangely I had no dandelions, not a one. So what's a good bunny mama to do? I transplanted one from the wild into my orchard. There it stood, one lonely little dandelion flower, but not for long.

That was four years ago. Since then they've multiplied, well, like rabbits, and now I literally have dandelions growing on top of dandelions. Will my bunnies eat them? Only a little nibble here or there. They're really not all that crazy about them. Someone must have told them that they're good for them.




Since we don't use poisons on our grounds and with all this abundance, I'm thinking I should try dining on this tooth leaved plant. It's actually a vegetable that's often used in traditional Mediterranean and Asian diets. With health claims of being good for the liver, kidneys, and gall bladder, how could I go wrong? It also has anti-inflammatory properties, is a natural diuretic and digestive aid, is rich in potassium and lecithin, along with vitamins A, B, C and D. Dandelions are also used as folk remedies for warts and age spots. Like, who knew?

This underrated plant hugs the ground and has a tap root that seems to go all the way to China. The leaves are most tender in early spring and to avoid bitterness should be harvested before the fist flower buds appear. Due to that low growth habit they must be washed and rewashed thoroughly to remove all sand and dirt particles that like to cling to the ridges in the leaves.

Let's see, what if I combine some of those tender leaves with a chopped apple, some walnuts, a hit of goat cheese all topped with some honey-mustard dressing. Sorry, dad, I'm thinking these dandelions could be mighty dandy.

photography by Gaetan Lee and Warren Brown

AH, SPRING!

Officially spring is just one week away and I can hear the curmudgeons among us mumbling, "Yeah and now we're just that much closer to summer." Bah-humbugging heat, humidity, mosquitoes, sunburns, weeds in gardens, grass to mow, and rows to hoe, I can't say that I'm totally out of their camp. Summer is my least favorite season mostly because it's just plain rude. You know, like the way its heat encroaches on spring and then extends itself too long in the fall. I suppose that's more a symptom of where I live so I'll curtail any thoughts of complaining because I'm happy to be in North Carolina and don't plan to more to Minnesota anytime soon.

With spring comes daylight saving time, called summer time in some parts of the world. The time change in the United States, sprang ahead four weeks earlier this year. Instead of the first Sunday in April, we adjusted our clocks on the second Sunday in March. The change in time tends to cause confusion and controversy. Parts of the state of Indiana held out until recently, now only two states don't participate, Hawaii and all of Arizona except for the Navajo nation. Daylight savings time was used year-round for 3 1/2 years during WWII. We are used to time adjustments of one hour, but in other locations in the world it has varied from 20 minutes to two hours.

As the first sign of spring, it's hard to beat crocuses. My glorious yellow ones popped up in January through the snow, the purple ones this week. Daffodils and jonquils poked up their pretty heads in mid-February. At the start of March our almond trees exploded in pretty pink blossoms with an echo just days later from their cousins, the peach trees. And now the white beauty of Bradford pear trees. Ah, spring!

While up here in the northern hemisphere, we're welcoming spring, Australia, the southern parts of Africa and South America are saying adios to summer in preparation for fall.

My first spring foray into the vegetable garden this week was bittersweet. We named it "Kesi's Garden" because it was our big multi-shades of brown Maine Coon's favorite place to be. She claimed the bird bath as her watering hole. On hot days she'd lie shaded from the sun under the broad plant leaves in the garden beds or in the shade rim of the tall trees on the northern side. She spent cooler days stretched out on one of the cement benches. She's now buried there. It's tough enough to lose an older pet who's become a member of the family, but I'm finding it's much tougher when they've just barely reached their prime. I can't even imagine the depths of grief a parent who loses a child must experience. I shed many tears this week when I transplanted the artichoke plants from the greenhouse into their permanent garden bed. Kesi cat with her strong will, big body, and even bigger personality and presence liked to be wherever I was either indoors or out. She'll never see another day, another season, another year. I miss her tremendously and feel like I always will. I'll be spending much time in her garden this season. I'm sure I'll feel her spirit and someday be able to smile instead of cry.

VALENTINES DAYS LIKE NO OTHERS

2009
Valentine days come and Valentine days go. Unless you were proposed to or married on that date, after you've eaten all the chocolates and smelled all the roses, the memories begin to blur. However, I won't be able to say that about my Valentine days this and last year.

When I opened my front door this past Feb. 14, I was greeted with an awesome surprise. There across my porch, spelled out beautifully in pastel candy hearts was "HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!" But that wasn't all. A woven paper basket next to the perfectly formed letters, contained Peppermint Patties, a heart shaped box of chocolates, and a poem from THE VALENTINE BANDIT. Valentine Bandit? I'd say that's a misnomer because nothing was taken. Well, nothing except maybe a little piece of my heart. Candy hearts were strewn across the stairs and down the front walk where red heart-shaped lollipops stood at attention in parallel rows down the sides. It was later that I discovered little candy hearts marching across the top of my mailbox, scattered on the ground around the post and some tucked inside.

POEM PRELUDE EXCERPT - "Everyone has heard of Santa Claus and how he comes on Christmas Eve to deliver toys and goodies to all boys and girls that have been good that year. . . . But few have heard of the Valentine Bandit. Each year she chooses homes filled with love and good deeds, and on the night before Valentines Day she leaves little hearts outside their doors to greet them the following morning."

SELECT PASSAGES FROM POEM - "She spoke not a word, But continued her work, When she placed the last heart, She turned with a jerk. She tiptoed away, To her fast little car, And silently started it, But before she went far, I heard her exclaim, As she drove out of sight, For being loving all year, You've been hearted tonight!"

Ahhhhhh, being 'hearted' really melts my heart. Am I a softy or what? Who did this for us? Who gave us this great honor? Who can I thank for this amusing act of kindness? Who can I do this to next year?

2008
My dear husband never forgets Valentines Day and for 28 of the 29 years we've been together he's always delighted me with a heartfelt gift. February of last year was crazy. In addition to his day job he was gigging three and four nights a week and, as usual, was booked for Vday. Our foster-son totaled his SUV that week. He rides bulls, so him getting roughed up in an auto accident was no big deal, but he was left without transportation. I was sick and had been for a couple of weeks. We couldn't risk him losing his job, so I drove him back and forth which took a four-hour chunk out of my day. Since we wouldn't see each other on Vday, my husband and I agreed to have our own personal Vday at a later date.

It was almost dark when my foster son and I arrived home from his construction site. I went in immediately to whip up a fast supper for us. Shortly thereafter, he comes running in with a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons. While asking him where he got them, I'm thinking, 'Oh, that sweet husband of mine, he didn't wait like we agreed.' The balloons with a gift card attached were hovering just at the edge of our pond. Apparently this was a case of misguided love because the card was addressed to "Adilene Sanchez" and it was from a florist in a neighoring town.

Being Valentines evening, the florist was still in the shop when I called. She was surprised to know that the balloons traveled ten miles before being found. I didn't want someone to end up in the doghouse because of Adilene's missing bouquet, but that wasn't the case. Ironically the person they were meant for lived one block from the floral shop and a gust of wind pulled them from the delivery person's hands just as she reached the destination. Adilene got her bouquet and so did I.

The strange part of this story is that this isn't the first, or the second time that we've found balloons on our property. Two years prior, I found a huge deflated butterfly shaped balloon draped across tree branches. Shortly after we moved here one of my sons found a single balloon that contained the address of someone in a far western state, may have been Oklahoma. We wrote to let them know that the balloon was found in NC. Does everyone find balloons in their yards? Or do we live on something akin to the Bermuda Triangle, maybe the Balloon Triangle?

GROUNDHOG OVERSHADOWED

So who gave the groundhog even a single thought on February 2? His annual big gig arrives and the wary marmot gets overshadowed by the Super Bowl. Don’t beat yourself up if you forgot about Punxsutawney Phil because this year’s Super Bowl was a doozie and if you're a football fan, certainly worth talking about well into the week. Phil and his wannabes will get the full wattage of the spotlight on February 2 in 2010. Next year's Super Bowl Sunday falls on February 7, once again in Florida. It will be played at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens. No excuses for overlooking Groundhogs Day next year. Punxsutawney Phil’s counting on you.

WHEN IT SNOWS, MAKE ICE CREAM

I love a snow-day. I love the sound of it - silence. Silence near, silence far. No school, no work, no traffic. Being snowed-in is a time when time truly stands still, or at least slows down enough so I can catch up with some stuff or stop everything to enjoy the right-here-and-now moments without guilt.

My husband took this photo of our backyard on Obama's day, January 20.

Snow takes me back to my childhood days on the farm when my mother would scoop up snow and magically turn it into ice cream. You can too. I'll share the magic. It's so easy you won't believe it.

Snow Ice Cream
Super fast, super easy, super yummy

½ cup half & half (whole milk or evaporated milk works too)
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla (or more)
dash of salt
2 cups fresh, clean snow, packed

Combine all ingredients and enjoy immediately.
Makes two servings.
NOTE: Eat it all because it doesn’t store well in the freezer or anywhere else.

RACE TO YOUR FORD DEALER

BUILT FORD TOUGH were the words across the hoodie I gave my foster-son for Christmas. Two weeks later that proved to be a lie.

He was crazy about his 2000 Ford Explorer. It fit his cowboy demeanor and got him where he needed and wanted to go. That night after he and his girlfriend returned from the gym, he parked it in her driveway behind her car. This picture shows what happened four hours later.

He received a recall letter around Thanksgiving. After calling the 800-number on the letter and being placed on hold too long, he hung up. He didn't follow up. The holidays came and just barely went when there was a banging at the door telling them that a corner of the house and the cars in the driveway were ablaze.

He couldn't afford comprehensive insurance so now his cowboy boots are doing the walking. Thanks to Ford's toughness, he has no vehicle, has no means of buying another and still owes us $1000 for this burned one. Thanks Ford. Thanks a lot.

This recall is massive and must be taken seriously. These fires can occur while the vehicle is being driven or when the power is off, and in some cases, idle for days. The speed control deactivation switches are the problem. They have been used for many years in many models of the extended Ford family. Run, don't walk, to your Ford dealer to see if your car or truck may be in danger or check on a recall link such as the one below.

http://www.ford-trucks.com/recalls/recall.php/m-FORD

ANOTHER CANDLE ON THE CAKE

Some say that time marches. If it marched I'm sure I could keep pace. I believe it dashes, darts, and races with me just barely hanging on. Some say that time flies. Now that I can agree with.

I celebrated another birthday yesterday. How did I get to be this old already? I demand a recount. Time is definitely my enemy. Not just because it gives me sagging jowls and grays my hair, but because it robs me of the many things I want to do and don't seem to have time for.

Maybe I want to do too much, maybe I have no direction or maybe I'm just slow, or is it all of the above? I find it very unsettling. Does anyone else share these feelings or am I alone in my mid-life frustrations?

Birthday Candle Photo by juliaklarman

A.S.S.

I would call it the Aunt Sally Syndrome, but saying all those words is so twentieth century. Think how much time can be saved by using the acronym, A.S.S. Probably before the calendars are flipped to the next century, we’ll forgo words completely and communicate by spouting off only clipped letters.

Well, back to Aunt Sally and her syndrome, actually she doesn’t have the syndrome, it’s my husband who does. Aunt Sally won’t be familiar to you unless you’ve visited or lived in New Orleans. There she is famous (if you’re skinny) or infamous (if you’re fat) for her pecan pralines, a delightful confection made of a buttery, sugary syrup. Before I go any further, let’s get one thing straight - the pronunciation. Unless you want to sound like a complete Yankee or a Brit, you must say PRAH-leens, not PRAY-leens.

It all started when my born, bred, and schooled in New Orleans husband, who just happens to be the second smartest man on Earth, was planning to concoct a NAWlin’s specialty for a dinner party. My idea for dessert was pecan pie or Breyers praline ice cream. Remembering that my best friend has a microwavable praline recipe, he said, “Why not go for the real thing?”

After the nightmare experience of making candy canes with my boys and the neighbor kids many Christmases ago, I'm convinced that candy is something to be bought, not made, so my response was, “I have a house to clean. If you want pralines, you’ll need to make them.” Right there and then, without a doubt, is the moment my husband caught ASS. The first batch came out so perfect that he made more, many more. Only running out of ingredients made him stop. Our guests loved them. Everyone wanted the recipe when he went on about how easy they were to make.

The next day, he sent me out for more supplies and containers. He wanted to make enough for one of our son's teachers . He also thought they'd make great Christmas gifts for his business associates. This shopping trip rubbed the cheap side of me the wrong way. Paying full price for something when I’d normally get it on sale and with coupons was not my MO.

Apparently the praline gods had somewhere else to be whenever he entered Round Two. It was disaster from the get-go. They were too runny, some stuck to the wax paper like Super Glue. Each batch seemed to have unique ailments. How can something that was so easy one day, be so impossible the next? Calling upon his science and physics background, he was Googling to find out where he was going wrong, why and how to fix it.

Only because he was too tired to scrap the whole bunch, and went to bed with bunches of sticky wet globs still stretched out on the wax paper (and everyplace else that he touched) did he have any to show for the additional batches he attempted. The next morning he found that some had dried and he was able to lift them off the wax paper and into the containers.

The teachers got pralines, but less than he’d planned. WWASD in a situation like this? Well, if Aunt Sally is anything like my husband, she'd remember how easy they were to make the first time and she'd wake up two days later and ask me to buy more ingredients. This time I opted out of doing the shopping. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle this painful experience a second time. When I returned from a church activity Sunday night, ASS had commandeered my kitchen again only this time he was smiling. Apparently the praline gods had returned.

Prauline Photo by Stormy Sleep

DREAM VACATION

When most people think of a dream vacation, they have mental visions of palm trees swaying in ocean breezes or musky cobblestone streets separating shadowy European buildings, but for me, I can't think of a better vacation than the one I returned from last fall. My trip to visit with family members and friends that have been so close to my heart but so far away in time and distance, brought me more pleasure and joy than I can express.

It had been from eight to thirty-eight years since I last spent time with some of these wonderful people. Where do the years go? I definitely don't get “back home” often enough. Thanks to each and everyone of them for the love and the time they shared with me.

My solo 2000-mile road trip was quite easy thanks to accessible directions on the Internet, an ample supply of books-on-tape and good weather, except for the five-minute deluge when I couldn't see beyond the windshield en route to my cousin Mary's house.

Map Quest directions were accurate all but once. I can't tell you how many trips I made up and down St. Charles Rock Road in St. Louis searching for my sister's street. Map Quest hadn't let me down before so it didn't occur to me that it could actually be wrong. Just for the record, Rex Avenue in St. Louis does not intersect with St. Charles Rock Road.

Gateway Arch Photo by geodesic

ONE & ONLY FRUIT SALAD

So fast! So easy! So delicious! You can chuck those other fruit salad recipes. This is the only one you’ll ever want.

Mix together canned crushed pineapple and sweetened condensed milk, add some or all of the following ingredients (canned, fresh or frozen) cut to bite-size pieces. Drain most of the juice from canned fruit except the pineapple.

1 can crushed pineapple (don’t drain)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
fruit cocktail, tropical or regular
pears
peaches
mandarin oranges
strawberries
bananas
apples
any other fruit that you like
marshmallows
nuts, unsalted (pecans, walnuts, almonds)

Devouring the sweetened condensed milk with a spoon, right from the can, makes me a happy-camper, however, I keep my dignity by adding the fruit.

Thanks to Burgundy Olivier, cookbook author and my sister-in-law, for my adaptation of her fruit salad recipe. This gal knows food. She could knock Paula Deen right outta the ring. Check out her I LOVE SPINACH COOKBOOK. It’s a fun read, even if you dislike spinach: www.ilovespinach.com/.

Fruit photo by ultimcodex

AILING AND WAILING

A satellite ER is closer to us, but several weeks ago when I suddenly became ill, my husband, the second smartest man on Earth, and I, headed to the emergency room at the big hospital downtown. We wanted to avoid the expense of being transported from one facility to another by ambulance as happened a few years ago.

For what that cold miserable ambulance ride cost us we could have hired a fleet of limos with a police escort and I could have ridden in comfort with some style thrown in. The ER personnel insisted upon ambulance transport then because I was under observation due to possible heart attack symptoms. Under observation, my buns!!!! I remained alone in the back of that dark, frigid, noisy ambulance while the attendant rode shotgun with the driver. I was frickin’ freezing back there trying to make do with the thin sheet they tossed over me. My weak voice, pleading for warmth couldn't be heard above the roar and no one came to my rescue during my 20-minute ride for life.

My traitor of a mind started playing tricks like trying to convince me that I had already died. "Of course it's cold in here. Corpses are always kept cold so they don't start stinking. Why would the attendant waste her time giving you any attention since you’re already dead." I became obsessed with trying to remember if that sheet they'd thrown over me had initially covered my face. If only I could remember that key fact, then I would know for sure if I were dead or alive.

I figure that being dead is akin to childbirth or something momentous that you've never personally experienced. But unlike childbirth and most other stuff, with death you don't get the chance to build on your experience. As my ambulance skidded into the entryway of the big hospital's admittance center, I realized I hadn't given up the ghost just yet, because I knew that medical personnel would never hustle like that if I was already a goner.

There was one observation from that experience a few years ago that should have made us wiser, but obviously didn't register right away during this recent trek for medical care. Second Smartest Man On Earth and I waited five hours in the standing-room-only ER to be told at midnight that the wait would be at least three more hours.

Thankfully, early on a security guard brought me a wheel chair and a throw-up pan when he sensed that I was probably going to slide off the counter I had draped myself across. But with the pain in my chest, the skull splitting headache and pressure, the nausea and the violent coughing, I wanted nothing more than to be horizontal. The cold hard floor looked so inviting except then I’d surely have more ailments from people stepping on me.

It finally occurred to us that the only way to be seen in a timely lifesaving manner at this place was to arrive by helicopter - the heliport was so busy it reminded me of O'Hare Airport on a Friday afternoon - or by ambulance. If you got there by your own transportation, there had to be blood and lots of it. We struck out on all accounts and since so many hours had passed, we made our own medical decision that since I was still alive, I probably wasn't having a heart attack or a stroke like my husband feared, so we returned home.

I’ve seen three different doctors over the past weeks. The first one said it was the flu, patted me on the back and sent me on my way. The second hit me up with antibiotics for bronchitis and the third gave me a stronger and longer round of antibiotics for a sinus and ear infection. I returned to the last doctor again last week. He took another stab at it and prescribed allergy meds and steroids and sent me for sinus and chest x-rays. He said he may need to refer me to the ENT specialist. He wants to see me again tomorrow.

Well, this is far too much whining about my ailments. I hope you and yours are managing to keep healthy during this time of high susceptibility to the winter crud.

Ambulance Photo by Uberzombie

FROM RUSSIA WITHOUT LOVE

A huge battered trunk and a picture of her in her casket at age 49 were the only tangible remains of a grandmother I never knew. Her first name was either Tenki, Tonya, Tatiana or Tatyana. Her last was Charney, but I don’t know if that was her maiden or first married name. She arrived at Ellis Island in 1911 from Russia to begin a better life, leaving behind an older man, her husband through an arranged marriage, who mistreated her.

In 1913, without a divorce, she met and married Michael, also a Russian immigrant who came to America in 1912. They settled in Madison, Illinois. Having six children over a span of fourteen years, my mother was their fourth-born. Their home was a small two-bedroom house. My grandfather worked as a carpenter for the railroad while my grandmother labored at a typically male job in a slaughter house and meatpacking company all the while they raised their children, burying their two oldest daughters when they were barely out of their teens.

As a child and now as an adult, I long to know more about her. My mother was tight-lipped and often changed the subject when I sought answers, although she did tell me that my grandmother saw a mermaid from the ship when she crossed the Atlantic en route to America. Through the years I learned that my grandmother raised goats and geese in their small backyard, played the accordion, made root beer, and sent her children to the movie theater every Saturday when she did housework. I was told that she was very artistic, but no one in the family kept any of her work. Both my mother and her younger brother were talented artists. My uncle was a cartoonist for major magazines before he became an aeronautical engineer. High intelligence and its oft-downside, mental illness, also passed down through the genes.

I like to identify with my grandmother because she was a risk-taker. My mother who never went far from her home in a tiny town, who chose to never drive a car again after her first fender-bender and who wouldn't hear of my father leaving his $90 a week factory labor job to start his own business, was about as far from being a risk-taker as one can get.

Russian was my grandmother’s first and only language, unless you count “whatchamacallit” her often used word in English. She died of a heart attack when my mother was 19 years old and three months after I was born, leaving a 16-yr old daughter and 14-year and 22-year old sons. Three years later a heart attack claimed my grandfather's life. Being their first grandchild, it was expected that I would be a boy. It seems she never got over her disappointment. Instead of calling me Peggy, she referred to me with Russian words meaning “worthless, no-count.” Apparently I didn’t matter to her, but she has always mattered to me.

I only knew her through my mother’s view. My mother insisted that the only picture she had of her mother was the one taken in her casket. After my mother’s death, among her possessions we found snapshots and studio photos taken through the years when my mother was a child. My aunt recognized a photo of my grandmother (shown above) as the one taken when she was age 19, shortly before leaving for America.

I longed to know my grandmother’s mind. I wished for a letter or something she had written, but nothing was found. That’s why Tom Barker’s poem, Tempus Fugit, is so meaningful to me when he speaks of bringing back memories, writing it all down to let someone enjoy. It’s too late when they’ve gone to the grave. Thank you, Mr. Barker, for saying it so beautifully. You have motivated me to write this blog so that my grandchildren, whom I may never know, will have a chance to know me.

TEMPUS FUGIT (Time Flies)

Tempus Fugit - Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Tom Barker, Joondalup, Australia, 1970

Write what you feel, and let your mind steal, o'er green fields and memories of childhood.
Or sit and day dream by a gurgling stream, while birds' sing in yonder wild wood.
The corn in the breeze bends with such ease, while white clouds across the heavens go racing,
And wild roses grow in hedgerows so low while the old oak the sky is embracing.

The child on the swing and the church bells ring, all bring back memories divine,
Of seaside trips and the crab that nips at your toes as you walk alone in the brine.
The misty gray dawns and the loud morning yawns as people prepare for work,
But the morning mist clears and the warm sun appears and makes all the flowers smirk.

So don't sit and frown but write it all down, and someday let someone enjoy,
and be not distraught for it cost you naught, and don't get all uptight and coy.
There are lots of memories never put down, and people don't bother to save,
So the young that follow miss out and holler, it's too late, they have gone to the grave.


Clock photo by macinate