A Christmas Miracle

The cardinal rested for a short time

in the middle of the holiday greenery.

 This post is by my husband.

Christmas Eve. we're on the front porch and it's getting dark. Our older daughter, having brought over gifts, has just left. I reach to take off my mask and open the door to go in. As I enter, a bird flies into the house with me.

The bird, what kind I can't tell, flies pell-mell around the living room, confused by the indoor lights.  Dilly Dog dashes after it, equally pell-mell.  What to do? A dead bird would break my heart.

I call to Cynthia. First we turn off the lights to calm the bird. We shut bedroom doors to keep the bird in a small area of the house. Then I open a few outside doors, hoping the bird would fly out.

But I don't see the bird anymore. Flashlight in hand, I look around.  I even look on the floor, fearing the bird had knocked itself out. Nowhere.  Maybe I inadvertently shut him into a bedroom. Not there either.

So I go back to the living room and carefully scan the Christmas tree. Nope. A little to the left of the tree, I direct my flashlight beam along the fireplace mantle. There, amidst the Christmas greenery perches a real-life red cardinal.  My Christmas Miracle.

The bird flies to a nearby window, where I am able to get it open and guide him out. He flies off.

The Last Straw Plus One

The house and its minions are getting out of hand because of the coronavirus. The drawbridge has been up since March 2020 to deny entry to plumbers, electricians, furnace and A/C technicians, cleaning ladies, and concealed-carry gun nuts. So "things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the house."

The list of annoyances has grown since last spring. Both faucets in a bathroom sinks drip. An electrical outlet in the kitchen quit. So did another important outlet in the addition. The wood veneer is peeling away from the laundry-room door. The dishwasher door crashes down with a bang! if you forget to lower it carefully by hand. The device that prevents this has worked loose and fallen out. We had to let our pair of cleaning ladies go, even though we knew they needed the money. We've been cleaning the house ourselves, but we miss the two ladies very much and hope to hire them back sometime in 2021. 

But then the vacuum cleaner quit. It shouldn't have. We'd taken it to the shop for a tune-up a little over a year ago and hadn't used it that much after that. (It's a stubborn beast to push around, for one thing.) There's no excuse for a broken belt, but that's what happened. Because the belt is difficult to access, the direction booklet advises you to return it to the shop to get the belt replaced.  To heck with that. We're going to replace more than the belt. As soon as we can, we'll take it back and trade it in for a light-weight model.

And then the bathtub refused to drain after my shower. The lever that opened and closed the drain was frozen, leaving an inch of water standing in the tub. I pictured weeks, months with no showers in that bathroom. Fortunately, the resident handy man was able to unscrew the plate and free up the mechanism, but it will probably have to be replaced.  

Everything in the house seems to be in a state of near rebellion. We need the services of professionals, and soon! 

We've Been Through This Before

I recently read Lincoln on  the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington  by Ted Widmer, a historian. It's the story of Lincoln's 13-day train trip  from his home in Springfield, IL to Washington, DC  in February, 1861, prior to his inauguration. The country was as divided then as it is now. Instead of "Never Trumpers" there were people determined to assassinate him before he took office or to leave the country and form a new one before his inauguration. In fact, Jefferson David was sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America XX days prior to Lincoln's inauguration on March 2nd. 

The country was a house divided. The South had had things its way for decades in Washington, DC, but many in the North, which was beginning to industrialize, were now determined that slavery would not be allowed to spread to new territories and states.  The Southern planter class was not about to let its way of life disappear. The South would form a separate country. It's president, Jefferson Davis, was inaugurated in mid-February, while Lincoln was en route to his own inauguration.

Pinkerton detectives traveled on train, providing security and seeing to the removal of suspicious devices on the tracks. Their intelligence gathering indicated plans to kidnap or kill Lincoln in Baltimore.

A Pink Wool Skirt

This photo of my sister and me was taken when I was six and she was four. She's the one with the braids. I think maybe it was taken before our parents were divorced, in January 1947. 

Mother made those pleated skirts for us in soft wool. They were identical, except for color. Mine was pink and my sister's was blue. I wore mine to school, where I was in first grade. We were learning to read from a "Dick and Jane" reader. Sometimes I got so confused. One of the stories was about how a group of playmates made a train out of cardboard boxes. They called it "our train." In our family, we pronounced "our" like the letter "R". For all I know, so did everyone in northwestern Pennsylvania. However, Miss Barrelle, our teacher, insisted on pronouncing "our" like "hour." So I would sit there all befuddled. The kids in the book would have called the train "R train", wouldn't they?  Whoever heard of an "hour train"?

Unable to make sense of the difference between "our" and "R", I zoned out. I soon made a thrilling discovery.  By pushing a pencil through the soft pink wool of my skirt, I could make a satisfying black dot.  In fact, I could make 25 or more black-dot stars in a pink sky. 

Mother was not pleased. 

 

A Covid Death

 

Afternoon Sunshine

 Dilly Dog is six years old, which makes her middle-aged.  She loves to nap in a sunny spot on the couch every afternoon.  

Three weeks after her annual visit to the vet in early September, we noticed that the fur on her tail and hindquarters was getting sparse. So back to the vet we went. Of course I read everything beforehand that I could find online about fur loss in dogs. I was afraid the vet would blame food allergies and that we'd be in for a long period of trial and error.  Instead, the vet immediately ordered a pricy blood test. Verdict: low thyroid!  You would expect to get such a diagnosis if you owned an expensive dog with a persnickety pedigree. But surely not with a sturdy mutt of uncertain parentage such as Dilly. We paid an Amish farmer $20 for her. He owned her mother, but said he had no idea who her daddy was. 

Fortunately low thyroid is easy to treat and not too expensive. She takes a pill twice a day.  Her tail still looks rat-like, and her fur loss is now apparent all over her body. She might have been suffering from low thyroid for some months before we first noticed the problem. It may take awhile for her fur to grow back. 

Another Puzzle

 

A Poem: Sled Ride

I wrote this poem about a childhood memory nearly10 years ago. Mother's second husband-to-be lived on a street parallel to our own, separated by Shady Brook Park. On snowy days Mother would often pull my sister and me through the park on a sled. One day we just happened to meet up with a man we didn't know.

Two tiny girls

capped and mittened,

snug on a baby's sled,

Mother's boots squeaking

in the crisp, new snow 

as she pulled us along, 

down the hill

and through the park, 

across the creaky wooden bridge.

The stream trickled slowly

as water stood freezing in the pond.

Bare branches rattled in the ice-blue sky,

clutching at winter as if to hold it close.

Spring was stirring in our mother's frozen heart.

Who was this man we didn't know?

Her smile was warm as April,

her laughter, dazzling as crystals.

Who was this man out walking in the snow?

 

Pearl and Oliver, Part 2 of 2

 Oliver and Pearl in 1943, holding my sister, Barbara

That might be my grandfather's DeSoto coupe in the background. He always called this particular car "my machine." As in, "Where did I park my machine?" 

____________________________________________________________

Then one night, sitting on the edge of the bed before his shift began, he angrily threw his blackjack against the wall. Police work apparently didn't suit him either. Next, he opened a pool room. Sometime around World War II, he became the manager of the local Eagles Club.  Among his jobs was tinkering with the slot machines to adjust their payout. The coins would get dumped out on a big oaken table before the tinkering began. Any nickels or dimes that rolled onto the floor were mine. I looked forward the tinkering sessions. I also eagerly anticipated visits from the "otter" (auditor) until I found out he was just an ordinary man. 

Kids weren't allowed to watch the floor shows at the Eagles Club, with the exception of the Christmas show.  As manager, Grampy also had to hire performers through a booking agent in Erie, PA.  I was seven years old and living with my grandparents when I finally got to see a show. There I was in the Big Room, sitting at a table with Grammy, drinking Nehi orange pop and watching a blond tap dancer in a brief, spangly costume. Everything was fine until she tap-danced over to Grampy, plopped herself down on his lap, wrapped her arms around him and planted a big "show-biz" kiss on his forehead.  Everyone else laughed and applauded. I burst into tears. I was outraged. How dare she?

Why was I living with my grandparents?  When I was two, my sister, Barbara, was born, but our parents' marriage was already in trouble.  Often, I would stay with Pearl and Oliver while Mother and Barbara went to White haven, my maternal grandparents' farm. It so happened I was with Pearl and Oliver at the Eagles Club when I caught spinal meningitis at age 3.  The other case in town was a taxi driver, who'd also been at the club. He died. I was in a coma for several days and lost the hearing in my right ear.

Over the next few years, until our parents' divorce, Barbara and I spent part of our time at our parents' house and part of our time at our grandparents' houses. Both of us might be together at the farm, but often I would be by myself at Pearl and Oliver's. By the time I was five, I probably began spending more and more time with them, so that someone could drive me to Mrs. Smith's house for kindergarten. After the divorce in 1947, Mother and Barbara took a train to Miami, FL, where Mother married Charles. I moved in with Pearl and Oliver and lived full time with them until my dad's remarriage in 1949.

Pearl and Oliver, Part 1 of 2

 This is a photo of my paternal grandparents taken the Christmas of 1956 at my dad's and stepmother's new house.  Grandmother would have turned 64 in January, 1957, and Grandfather, 67, in February. 

Pearl Miller and Oliver Rice grew up on neighboring farms in Crider's Corners in Cranberry Township, PA. Oliver was the youngest of nine or ten children. Pearl was the oldest of three. She had a sister, Ruth, and a brother, Jay. Pearl and Oliver left school after 8th grade.  Pearl worked by cleaning, cooking, and caring for children in the neighborhood.  She and Oliver were married on November 2nd, probably in 1911. Oliver chose the date to coincide with the opening of deer season. Pearl was 18 years old. 

After Kenneth (my dad) was born in Ambridge, PA in January 1913, Pearl went back home to her parents (14 miles away). Oliver came to bring her back. She said she didn't want a houseful of children.  Oliver convinced her to return. My Uncle Dale was born in May, 1914.  There were no more children after that. My maternal grandmother told me it was much easier to get an abortion back in those days, if you knew which local doctor to approach. 

Pearl and Oliver were determined that both boys would go to college. Pearl claimed that Kenneth always wanted to be a lawyer and that Dale always wanted to be a doctor. Dale made "candy pills" as a little boy, she said. However, when the boys grew up, both claimed they'd had other ideas.  Kenneth said he'd always wanted to be a businessman. His high school year book characterized him as "a wee business man." During a holiday dinner at Pearl and Oliver's house, I clearly remember Dale saying he had always wanted to be a teacher. 

The young family settled in Meadville, PA, a small town 90 miles north of Ambridge. Oliver tried running a grocery store, a small "Red and White." He lost money until he began making a little during his going-out-of-business sale, but by then it was too late. He tried life as a fireman, but he was a small man who had trouble managing the fire hose. He tried life as a police man. His happiest moment came during one cold night during Prohibition. Patrolling West Street, where the Blacks lived at the time, he entered an abandoned house through a jimmied window to get warm. Inside he found bottles of bootleg liquor, which he quietly took home. 

Driving with Carrots

The local supermarket, where someone "hand picks" the items in our order and someone else delivers it to our door, has claimed for three weeks now to be out of 2-pound bags of fresh carrots. Let me say right here I am grateful for this service. However. Instead of normal carrots, they've provided what they think passes for an acceptable  substitute: a two-pound bag of baby carrots, peeled and cut into egg shapes.  To me, these "eggs" look like they've been laid by a sinister reptile. 

Now an 8-ounce bag of baby carrots is probably OK if you have school-age children. They're great for school lunches. But wait! At least around here, kids have not been eating in the school lunchroom for months. See, the trouble with a 2-pound bag of baby carrots for a couple of old folks is they start changing (and not for the better) after a day or two. I'm talking about the carrots. A whitish "skin" blooms on the surface and they start tasting weird.  (It could be my sense of taste is off because of a medicine I take.). I was very unhappy when a second bag of baby carrots showed up the next week as a substitute for regular carrots.

We went to the family cabin in Knox County, OH two weeks ago. We carried all our food in coolers because of the corona virus. I thought maybe I'd cut up the carrots  for vegetable soup, but once I got to the cabin, I got lazy. My husband gamely chomped away on them day by day, but I wasn't having it. Came the day to go home and too many carrots were still hanging around. 

"Oh, just get rid of them! Toss them out for the rabbits."  

"Haven't seen any rabbits around here for years."  

"Well, maybe the chipmunks will like them. Or the raccoons."

Well, he didn't toss them all out because he knew Dilly Dog would immediately gobble all 20 of them up.

So here's what he did. He put them on the top of the Subaru. "They'll fall off on the way home," he said. We could hear them rolling around when we went up hills or around corners and we could see one or two fall off now and then. 

It was very discouraging to drive through rural Ohio one week before Election Day. For every Biden/Harris sign, there were twenty Trump/Pence signs.  It looked like 2016 all over again, back when the President was running against Hillary. We saw only one Confederate flag this year, so that was encouraging, but we also saw a sign that said "Pro God, Pro Life, Pro Gun", and that wasn't. 

We drove in to Washington, PA, just over the line from West Virginia. A billboard  invited us to "rent a machine gun" from Washington County Machine Guns. Well, that got our attention! When I got home, I looked the organization up on line and it turns out to belong to a company that provides individuals and groups with supervised access to the latest in military weaponry and vintage World War II weaponry on the company's shooting range.  Check out their amazing inventory of guns and rocket launchers on line. If you want to fire one of these babies, you have to be at least 16 years old and accompanied by a parent or guardian if you are 18 or under. 

We started our 9-hour trip with a dozen-plus carrots rolling around on the roof of the car. We reached Laurel, MD with two. They'd gotten stuck in wind deflector. 

The Hoarder, Part 4 of 4

On Tuesday, Beatrice and Bunny showed up again and undid most of the meager progress Milton had made.  Bunny retrieved the gilt mirror frame from the truck because she planned to enroll in an oil-painting class after the move to the condo. She'd put that frame to use someday. The twins' scope of "things we might use in the condo" widened to include treasures from every room in the house. The items they declared off-limits in order to "think about them some more" included:

• Bookshelves, still crammed with moldy books,
• a turntable
• a collection of 78s that "might be valuable someday",
• curtains that never got hung, still in their vinyl packets,
• Aunt Veronica's collection of Beanie Babies and her novelty salt-and pepper shaker sets, and
• 12 perfect place settings of their grandmother's ugly wedding china.

The truck had been hired until Wednesday and was still less than a quarter full. That afternoon, the cleaning crew found a desiccated feline skeleton in the basement, buried under an avalanche of old newspapers.  When she saw the pathetic remains, Martha began to cry. "That's Topsy!" she shrieked at Milton. "You told me you saw her climb the fence and run away. Liar!"  Martha swung at him ineffectually with a broken umbrella. As Milton backed away, Emily moved in to comfort Martha with a hug. "Don't touch me!" screamed Martha.

On Wednesday morning, Emily and Dr. Thimble commended Milton on his progress and announced that he was now "empowered" to finish the project on his own. The truck left at 4:00, with room to spare. The dumpster was collected at 4:30. The cleaning crew left in their van at 5:00.  Milton was alone, because Martha had gone to her sister's on Tuesday to grieve for Topsy. She told Milton that he "had finally done it" and that she might never come back. 

Milton savored the silence, surrounded by his old friends, his things. He found a forgotten bottle of beer in the emptied refrigerator.  He ordered a pizza. While he waited, he dragged his ratty old recliner close to the TV and lay back. He'd find the remote later, he told himself as he dozed off.

Life was good. 

The Hoarder, Part 3 of 4

By mid-afternoon, the green vinyl of the kitchen floor was beginning to show through. The refrigerator was nearly empty. "How am I supposed to get dinner for Milton tonight?" barked Martha crossly, as containers of spoiled Chinese carry-out, stale pizza and frozen blocks of ancient casseroles were being heaped in the dumpster.  Emily waved a gift card for "Farmhouse Kitchen" in Martha's sullen face. "Didn't I tell you?  As a reward for all your good work today, you and your husband will be eating out tonight."

Martha grimaced.  "We've been there. The food is greasy and they gave me a dirty fork once."

Emily sighed. Her blouse was spattered with green spots and something--a wad of school glue?--was stuck in her hair. She was alone with her intractable clients and she was already tired of them. Dr. Thimble had left this morning after only an hour, promising to check in at the end of the day. To Milton, almost every item was a "maybe." So far the truck held only the sagging frame of a shattered mirror, a ripped-open cushion where a mouse had birthed a litter of mouslings, a dozen mildew-spotted books and a baseball camp that said "Sparky." The front yard was cluttered with broken chairs and non-working lamps, but Milton would part with none of them, saying he'd fix them when he found time.  Martha told the crew to return the chairs and lamps to the house because it looked like rain.  As if Martha's bossiness wasn't irritating enough, Beatrice and Bunny arrived.

"Mom!" Beatrice exclaimed. "Why are you doing this now? You said you'd wait until the condo was ready. We need time to decide what we're taking."

The twins, who had just turned 40, wanted their old bedroom furniture for their new place, which was still under construction. 

"It was your dad's idea, not mine," said Martha.

"Geez," said Bunny, "I hope you didn't throw out my dresser lamps. I'll die if anything happens to those pink organdy shades."

"The crew is not going upstairs until tomorrow," said their mother.

The Hoarder, Part 2 of 4

 Milton hung up, gloomily picturing the oaks in his front yard coldly evaluating all the stuff in his house in their new role as "decision trees."  Monday was too soon. "Dr. Thimble isn't even giving me time to get organized," he moaned.  He pictured a corps of masked aliens in green jumpsuits, swarming through his house with a prurient interest in his things, while the trees in the front yard waited to be called upon to render decisions. He felt panic, then fury.

"Well?" asked Martha, brightly.

"Guess they'll be here Monday morning," he said, keeping his voice even.

Monday came and things didn't go well.  Martha eyed Dr. Lessing warily. Why did Dr. Thimble think they needed her anyway?  They were already paying him plenty. His job was easy enough. He was supposed to tell Milton what to do and then see that he did it. Here was this naive young thing trying to take charge. Martha didn't like the way she asked Milton's permission to tour the house, as if the house belonged only to him.  After poking around longer than Martha thought necessary, Dr. Lessing hugged them both and said, "We can do this!  Let's gather everyone out in the driveway."

As soon as everyone, including the clean-up crew (wearing orange jumpsuits) was standing in a circle, she explained the rules. Three bins stood in the yard, marked "keep," "toss" and "maybe." A curbside dumpster stood ready for trash and garbage. At the end of her speech, she had everyone, including Dr. Thimble, join hands and chant, "Let's do it! Let's do it! Let's do it!"

Milton looked as if he were about to cry.  Dr. Lessing, who now wished to be called Emily, hugged him and said, "Remember, Milton, it's a process.  You always have the final say. 

The Hoarder, Part 1 of 4

 About five years ago, our younger daughter suggested we both write a short story. She'd found an online site that provided opening lines of stories to help you get started. That day's opener is in bold print below.  I don't know what became of her short story, but I hung on to mine. I'm sharing it now, in four parts.  I hope you'll like it.

He looked at his phone, turned pale, then quickly left the room. She watched him, smiling.  She felt a small ping of happiness at the sight of his distress.

"Lighten up," she called after him cheerily. "It's only Dr. Thimble. There's nothing to be upset about. Just answer the damn phone."

They had been seeing Dr. Thimble for nearly three months.  It had been her idea. Milton wanted things to stay the way they were.  During their sessions, he often felt cornered by the two of them.  The previous week, Dr. Thimble finally asked Milton if he wanted to save his marriage. Milton appeared to be lost in thought until he sensed Martha's wrathful glare. He mumbled, "Uh, yeah, sure."  He sat up straighter in his chair and tried to look amenable, all the time picturing how much fun it would be to stop at the "Fifty-Family Yard Sale" on the way home.

"So you agree that the condition of your house has become unmanageable," Dr. Thimble was saying.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," replied Milton.

"And you say you are ready to get help in managing the problem," Dr. Thimble went on.

"Uh, yeah, probably."

"Then let's get started.  I'll contact a company I work with and get back to you.  How does that sound?" asked the psychologist. Milton saw that Martha was beaming and shifted uneasily in his chair.

"Yeah, sure, OK."

So now Dr.. Thimble was phoning to say that he had hired "The Junkers" to haul unwanted clutter away.  They would arrive at 9 AM on Monday morning. Dr. Emily Lessing, an expert on "decision trees," would accompany them.

"So we'll see you early Monday morning," chirped Dr. Thimble brightly. "Have a good weekend." 

Dances with the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles

                                                                 

 

• I recently danced a crazy fandango with the MD DMV.                                  August 3, 2020:  MD DMV sent me application for my 2022 registration sticker renewal. I filled out application and mailed it plus a check for $155.                   

• August 10-August 24:  Where's my sticker? It should be here by now. I checked my bank balance on line daily to see if check had cleared. DMV had not cashed check. I think the application and check could be lost. I don't put a "stop payment" on check because. with the pandemic, who knows what's going on at the DMV? My current registration will lapse on 8/31.                                                         
• August 25: DMV sends me new application. So the first application and check must have been lost.  I mail another application and check. 

• August 31:  sticker and registration arrive at the very last minute.                                     
• September 8: I routinely check my bank balance. I see that a check for $155 has been cashed, but this is odd. It's the first check I wrote. I look at a photocopy, front and back. The DMV deposited check # 1 on August 13th.  Why didn't they send me my 2022 sticker in mid-August?  I assume the DMV will soon return check # 2 to me.                                                                                                                                                                                                          
• September 10:  the DMV cashes check # 2. I send a letter to the DMV, asking them to refund the second check.                                                                                  
• September 11: I receive a letter from the MD Department of Transportation admonishing me that "it is too early to renew this vehicle. This vehicle may have already been renewed at a branch, kiosk, or online." They will refund the second check, but it will take 3-4 weeks.                                                                                           
• October 9: refund arrives from DMV. 

 

Obnoxious Suburban Wildlife

This summer the squirrels began chewing the welting on our porch furniture. We've had this furniture for 20 years. Mom must have brought it with her when she moved in with us in late August, 1999. I had them reupholstered in white vinyl. The squirrels left them completely alone until this year, which has been a mystery to me. Why are they destroying them now? 

I realize that Phil has increased the number of bird feeders on the porch, and feeders attract (and often frustrate) squirrels. Some of them never stop trying to figure out how to access the seeds, but it's not that easy. Perhaps they're venting their anger on our furniture. 

Weird Suburban Wildlife

Do you see the window bird feeder attached to our patio door?  One dark night not long ago, the patio door was marked by the tell-tale silver trail of a slug, which was crawling up the glass, making his way to the feeder. How did he know that his laborious journey would pay off with a feast of birdseed? Who knew that slugs even like bird seed?  After the slug had been feeding for awhile, Phil removed him and put him on the grassy hill beyond the patio to continue his slugly life. (You wouldn't say that such a determined creature lived a "sluggish" life, would you?) A few days later, he crawled up to the feeder again for more seeds, but after that, we never saw him again. 

Which reminds me of a cartoon I saw in The New Yorker magazine. A snail climbs slowly up the exterior of a house and rings the doorbell.  The man who answers the door is pretty annoyed when he sees it's just a snail that's brought him to the door. He snatches him off the doorbell and flings him as far from his house as he can.  The snail picks himself up and begins slowly making his way back to the house. Once again he climbs and rings the bell. When the man answers, the snail indignantly asks, "What was that all about?"

This is an unusual bug we saw on our porch furniture. 

Suburban Wildlife

 For the first summer in several years, we had a resident toad. He hung around in the back yard near the water faucet and under the Joe Pye Weed. 

From May until the middle of September, hummingbirds visited our feeders. We had a feeder in both the front and back yards. I made hummingbird nectar myself and changed it every 3 or 4 days. 

We planted milkweed in our front yard. It's an aggressive plant. It looks reasonably attractive as long as baby monarchs don't nibble on it, but why would you plant milkweed if you weren't interested in attracting monarch butterflies?  For the longest time this summer, there was no sign of egg-laying monarchs. Late in August, we saw a few. Then the milkweed began to look raggedy and soon we spotted a caterpillar or two crawling up the walls of the porch. Chrysalises began to appear here and there. Some were in unusual places, such as under this bench.  Phil saw these two emerge from their chrysalises late one chilly summer night. They stayed under the bench like this all night. The next day, when it warmed up a bit, they took off. I hope they made it to Mexico. 

Ironweed and Autumn Crocuses

We have an ironweed in our backyard, transplanted from our place in Ohio. It's OK. It's "native" to Maryland as well. 

Our back and front yards have autumn crocuses. They probably aren't native to Maryland, but they're so beautiful I'm not going to fret about that too much. 

Back Yard Wild Life

Peaches

 My sister started art lessons late in life. First she tried pen-and-ink drawings. Then she did botanical sketches in colored pencil. After that, oils. Now she's in her pastels period. 

About this picture she said, "Peach fuzz makes it difficult to capture the roundness of peaches because peaches don't shine."  Who knew? 

Jumping to Conclusions

 Can she bake a cherry pie?  Well, yes. It'll taste fine, but it'll look funny. 

Once I decided to go back to making pie crusts from scratch instead of buying a ready-made crust, I opened the door to madness. I followed the instructions for a double-crust 9-inch pie to the letter, but the crust always came up short. Now, shortness is a good thing in pie crusts when you're talking about flakiness, but not when you're referring to coverage. 

I was convinced that I was working with 9-inch pie plates. I measured the ingredients precisely. I rolled out the dough as thin as I could. There was never enough dough to go around. I double-checked the measurements. I added more water. I rolled the dough chilled. I rolled the dough warm. I blamed the humidity. The gap remained. Never quite enough dough. 

As a last resort, I measured the pie plates. Both are 10-inch plates.  I'd had them for decades, and just assumed they were standard 9-inch plates. Turns out the flakey one was me. Next time I will use the recipe for a double-crust 10-inch pie. 

I Finished a 1500-Piece Puzzle

 I started this puzzle at the end of July.  Our daughter didn't want to tackle so large a puzzle, so she passed it on to me. I'd already given up on another 1500-piece puzzle several years ago. It had a ship passing through a fjord lined with thousands of identical gray rocks. Before long, fearing for my sanity,  I boxed it up and gave it away. Looking at the wisteria blossoms and thatched roof of this one, I anticipated similar trouble, estimating that I'd finish by Halloween if I stuck with it. 

The blossoms and roof came together faster than expected. To my surprise, I finished the puzzle four days ago. Maybe I'm getting better at this. However,  I think a 1500-piece puzzle is just too large for me. I really prefer the 500-piece Ravensburger puzzles with large pieces. They're challenging enough!   

Dilly Goes to the Vet

 

Dilly had a vet appointment this past Thursday for a check-up and to get all her shots. We wanted her to smell nice for the visit and also to wash off the bits of food stuck to her head because of P's penchant for letting her lick bowls, plates and empty yogurt cartons. Bath Day was Wednesday. She wasn't pleased. She bolted from the tub and splashed water all over her parents. 

Our daughter is very protective of us. Because of our advancing ages and the prevalence of new cases or coronavirus in our area, she forbad us to take Dilly to the vet. Dilly's crazy about her and trustingly jumped into the car. Off they went with a list of typed questions and a stool sample in a plastic margarine container. P thought it was really funny later that day to open the refrigerator and say, "Oops, sent the wrong container!"  In many ways, that man is still in eighth grade. 

An hour later, Dilly was home.  The vet was pleased that she'd lost a pound this past year and pronounced her a "delightful dog."  Here she is on the way home, smiling  because she can now cross the vet visit off her "to-do"list.

Happy Birthday to Me and Two Others

 We met last weekend at our daughter's house to celebrate our family's August birthdays. We met on the back patio, maintained social distance and wore masks most of the time. We celebrated my 80th birthday, our son-in-law's 51st birthday and our grandson's 18th. I got to wear a sparkly crown with an "80" on it. It was obvious that our six-year-old grand daughter coveted the crown, so she got to take it home.

All of us have been more or less stuck in the house since mid-March because of the pandemic. My husband and I, both at high risk for bad outcomes if we catch the coronavirus, take all kinds of precautions. I would love to have short hair again, but I wouldn't feel safe going   to my salon, so I'm stuck, for now, with witch hair. I would love to go to the grocery store, wander the aisles at my leisure and pick out my own produce. Instead, we order groceries and they are delivered. Most of the time it works out fine, but I wasn't happy when we were charged the "sale price" of $2.50 for a rotting cantaloupe. I complained, but got no response.

I haven't been blogging because (1) our lives are pretty much contained within our four walls, and (2) I have been taking an online course to improve my quality of life despite having a chronic lung disease. The Pulmonary Wellness Foundation (PWF) in New York City offers a challenging 6-week pulmonary rehabilitation  course free of charge. (Donations are accepted.) The daily sessions require a commitment of close to an hour. There are two motivational talks by Noah Greenspan, the  PWF director,  a "breathing, balance, flexibility and strength session" led by a variety of practitioners (instructors in yoga, tai-chi and qigong, physical therapists, and a Bollywood dancer) and finally a daily "walk" which starts out at 4 minutes and gradually increases to 30 minutes by Day 42. I have stuck with it. Tomorrow is the beginning of the sixth week. I can honestly say I feel more energetic since starting the course and plan to maintain the habit of daily exercise once the course is over.  

Our 58th

This is a bouquet our older daughter and family gave us for our 58th wedding anniversary.  We've had 58 years to roam about seeking new adventures as we pleased, but lately our lives--like those of so many--have some to resemble the titles of novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez--"One Hundred Days of Solitude", "Love in the Time of Coronavirus."  Today Phil asked, "Are we going to be confined to the house for the next two years of our lives?" Thanks to the fumbling efforts of Agent Orange to "control" the virus, it looks like that may be the case.  Both of us have "underlying conditions."  He has high blood pressure, and I have IPF, a chronic lung disease. Nevertheless, it's going to be a happy anniversary.

I see that Dilly-dog managed to get into the photo.  Well, I more or less captured the bouquet. I can concentrate on only one thing at a time.

Poor Lonely Li'l Fishy

You probably can't see the tiny molly in the nursery. He's in there for a reason. The four terrible tetras want to eat him up.

The tetras were the first to move into the new, spacious aquarium. They loved looking at their reflections in the glass walls and hanging out in the weeds and near the bubbling pump. It soon seemed like the aquarium could accommodate a few more fish, so my husband bought two mollies. 

When one of them became pregnant, we realized we had one of each. As soon as the babies were born, the tetras gobbled up all of them, except for one. The Founding Father Fish soon died of a broken heart, but not before impregnating the female once again.  This time, Phil was ready.  As soon as the second batch of babies was born, he sequestered them and their larger sibling in a plastic Dream Whip container, which he anchored precariously to the top of the aquarium. This was a temporary arrangement at best, as the container was always threatening to tip over. 

Then our older daughter saw an ad for a nifty baby-fish nursery--made of course, in China. Phil ordered it, assembled it, and anchored it securely (he thought) to the side of the aquarium, near the top.  Alas, he woke one morning to find the nursery at the bottom of the aquarium and the baby fish at large. What remained of the second batch, that is. About six of the twelve were left, plus Big Brother. 

He corrected his anchoring mistake and this time the nursery stayed put.  However, the near-death experience must have traumatized the babies, which began dying one by one.  The mother fish died too.  "I, alone of my kind, am here to tell the tale," says the survivor from the first batch, swimming about in his netted enclosure. 

St. John's Wort

Our weedy Saint John's Wort blossomed nicely this year, just in time for Saint John's Day, June 24th. From the Wallander crime series on TV, I learned that Saint John's Day is close to the Summer Solstice.  Northern Europeans, such as Swedes,  celebrate the longest day of the year by staying up all night and having picnics, parties, and bonfires.  And, in order to keep Detective Kurt Wallander from beginning his summer vacation, a celebration can get a little out of hand and end up with a murder.  Why bonfires?  Pagans believe that the boundary between the spirit world and our everyday world becomes permeable during the solstice. The bonfires are meant to ward off evil spirits. 

"Healthline," an internet information site, notes that Saint John's Wort has been used for centuries to treat depression. It also notes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies Saint John's Wort as a nutritional supplement and does not recognize it as a treatment for depression. For those inclined to self-medicate, the writer warns of some unpleasant side effects:  vomiting, dizziness, anxiety, panic attacks, aggression and amnesia.  Whoa! 

Drunk White Kid Falls Asleep in His Car

My 81-year-old husband shares a "white privilege" memory. This happened in Cleveland, OH in the late fifties. 

Rayshard Brooks drank too much and fell asleep in his car. We know what happened to him. As a young man, I also drank too much and fell asleep in my car. But today, here I am, able to write about it. Unlike Rayshard, I am white, blond and blue-eyed.

Here’s what happened. During the summer between high school and college, my friends and I decided we’d go bar hopping. I had a car, so I was the driver. We did what we planned, and it was time to go home. I drove my friends home, one by one.

Next thing I knew, someone was rapping on my drivers-side window. It was a policeman waking me up at a traffic light. He said I needed to go to the station.

“OK, Officer, I’ll follow you.”

“You aren’t driving anywhere. I’ll get someone to drive your car in.”

At the station an officer said to blow into some kind of a tube. He then appeared to read a number off a machine, and said, “You’re not drunk”. Of course I was. “Here are your keys. Your car is in the front lot. Go to your car and take a nap. Then drive home very carefully.”

I didn’t wait as long as I should have before driving home. It was around two AM. I remember biting my lip to stay awake the whole way. I made it home, but I didn’t make it to my bed. I was on the sofa mid-morning, with my mother looking down at me, silent but worried.

So, I got a bit of a different outcome, didn’t I?

81st Birthday

On Saturday, we had a porch celebration for Phil's 81st birthday.  Our younger daughter and family, including their beagle, Roscoe, came up from Burke, VA. Our older daughter came over from North Laurel. (Her husband and son were picking up the camper for next weekend's camping trip.) We sang happy birthday, he opened his presents, and we had cake. 

Dilly Dog and Roscoe were happy to see each other. It's a love match. Both refused to wear masks. 

The Dog Ate It

We worked for two or three weeks to finish this challenging 1000-piece puzzle. It's a Paris street scene. As usual, once I'd put together the border and laid out all the pieces, I was sure that there weren't nearly enough pieces. Halfway to completion, I knew there were most certainly enough. In the end, however, three pieces did turn out to be missing. 

Dilly-Dog was the suspected culprit. Since we couldn't pass this puzzle on to someone else, Phil put a piece on the floor and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough, our "starving" roly-poly dog scarfed it up. Phil had to pry it out of her mouth. From now on, no unchaperoned pieces! All unattached pieces must be sequestered in designated waiting areas (tray, box lid, plastic compartment) so that none wander afar and fall off the edge of their world.

Creativity and Kindness

This morning we found this adorable "daisy" under a tree in our front yard.  We don't know who put it there, but it made our day.  We love it. 

A Fearsome Fight with a Glue Trap

We live in a one-story house without a basement.  Crickets feel free to come and go as they please and I don't like it. In December, we put a pricey air cleaner in our bedroom.  The other day I thought it had begun to squeak.  How annoying! "Doesn't anything work right anymore?" I muttered. I was afraid I'd have to box the bulky thing up and ship it back to the manufacturer while it was still under warranty.  Fortunately, I turned it off and the squeaking, or chirping, continued.  Yay! It was "only" a cricket. How annoying!! And in our bedroom too. 

The glue trap under the dresser was already full of dead crickets. So I opened a box of four new glue traps. Two of the traps are pictured above, joined by a perforated line.  I should have used scissors at this point, but none were handy. I impatiently tried to tear the traps apart, only to get my fingers firmly stuck, first in one trap and then in the other. Several minutes ensued in which I yanked and got repeatedly stuck while yelling bad words. Finally, I managed to extricate myself from the traps. Generous applications of "GooGone" got the stuff off my fingers.  I slid a fresh trap under the dresser. It didn't take long for the poor cricket to find it.

I felt sorry for the cricket. Usually if we see a spider or other bug in the house, we trap it in a glass with a piece of cardboard and put it outside. Have you ever tried this with a cricket?

Mothers' Day

On Sunday, we had a surprise visit from our younger daughter and her family. My husband was in on the surprise.  In the late afternoon, he said, "Go to the front door." There stood Nate, Mariel, Becky and Tom beside their home-made "Happy Mother's Day" poster.  They also brought us home-made enchiladas, the first meal we have not cooked ourselves since the pandemic shut everything down. 

We maintained proper social distancing. I would have liked to have gotten closer to take the photo, but of course I was too distracted to use the close-up feature on the camera. (As you can see, I have not yet figured out how to change the date.  I think I might have to remove the battery first.)

Anyway, they drove up from Northern Virginia, about 45 minutes away.  Tom said traffic was light. We haven't seen them since Christmas. Becky mentioned that before I came to the door, they had seen a man walking up our street, wearing a mask and lugging an accordion. He was part of the Mariachi band that was just tuning up for a backyard fiesta across the street.  We could hear joyful yipping.  It was probably a belated Cinco de Mayo celebration. I can only hope that the guests were maintaining social distancing.

Our older daughter, who lives ten miles away, sent flowers and a box of chocolates on Saturday.  She sent them via our son-in-law, Michael. Although at high-risk himself for serious complications if he catches the virus, he nevertheless picks up extra items for us when he does grocery shopping for his family.  He's one of those intrepid types who hates being stuck in the house and is determined to be helpful to others. 

So funny!!

https://www.google.com/search?q=roy%20zimmerman%20the%20liar%20tweets%20tonight

An Eco-haiku

Many neighbors' yards,

Dotted with dandelions,

Help to "Save the Bay".

This is a salute to neighbors who allow weeds and wildflowers to take up space in their yards.  "The Bay" is the Chesapeake Bay, a National Treasure that's in danger of dying from pollution and "dead zones", brought on in part by the over use of herbicides and pesticides in pursuit of lush-looking, weedless, green shag-carpet lawns.  The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has tried for years to educate Marylanders about the dangers lawn chemicals pose to the health of the Bahy. 

My mother unknowingly hit upon a truth about lawn care back in the seventies, when she hired a lawn service called, of all things,  "Chem Lawn."  Several large maples died. One hot and dry July, her lawn looked parched and withered.  So did the lawns of other lawn service clients on Maple Lane. "Only one yard is still green on this street, and it''s full of weeds!" she complained. 

Love of Puzzles in a Time of Coronavirus

Yes, it's another puzzle. Other people are performing random acts of kindness. While they're delivering groceries to housebound neighbors, donating blood, and running up cloth masks on their sewing machines, I'm joining together the pieces of yet another jigsaw puzzle. 

This one will be much easier than the last, which had all those teensy-weensy villas on an Italian hill side. This one is called "Cat Nap". It shows eight sleeping felines in a bedroom decorated by a Crazy Cat Woman. It is full of cat stuff--cat lamp, cat clock, cat figurines, cat bedroom slippers, cat portraits, cat bookends, books about cats, stuffed-animal cats, paw-print wallpaper and a potted plant labeled "catnip." This puzzle also seems to have one missing piece and another from a different puzzle. How did the piece with the angry rooster get into the box?

Reading is another hobby that I'm doing more intensively these days. We've collected too many books over the years. I can't go to the library, which is closed anyway, so I'm methodically reading through our collection. I'm going to donate a bunch of them when this is over. Why hang onto them? Right now, I'm reading Ron Chernow's Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller.  I bought it at a church book sale five years ago for 75 cents. The book is in near mint condition because the original owner bailed out on page 49. So far, it's held my interest. Chernow is a lively writer. If it turns boring, I will just put it in the donations box and choose another. 

Portrait of a Great Composer

This portrait of the renowned composer,

FRANZ LISZT,

was created by our five-year-old grand daughter.

I don't know whether this vision came to her

in a dream or whether she saw it in a book,

but I think she got it right. 

Puzzle Me This

This week I've been working on a puzzle. The first day or two,  I am always totally convinced that I have bought a defective puzzle with quite a few missing pieces. As I struggle, I mentally compose an angry letter of complaint to send to the manufacturer, together with a photo of the "completed" puzzle with missing pieces.

 This puzzle was supposed to be easy!  It has only 500 pieces. It is a "large-piece-format" puzzle, with pieces that are "easy to see and handle." But why are so many pieces missing???  This puzzle was not cheap, so there should be better quality control!

Several days pass and I begin to clam down.  Half the puzzle has been completed and all the "missing" pieces have been hunted down and put in place. But now comes the real test of my patience.  Have I told you that patience is not my long suit?  See all those Italian villas on the hillside?  "Large" though the pieces may be, making out the architectural details--itty-bitty shutters, miniature door ways, tiny plants, miniscule windows, barely-visible balcony furniture--is going to be a challenge. It may take me more than a week to conquer the hillside. I have time, plenty of time. 

Messing Around in the Kitchen

Being elderly and at risk for having the coronavirus arrange for us to meet Mitzi, Wilbur, Joey, Arlo, Ramsey, Miss Kitty, Orville and Reuben on the Rainbow Bridge, we are not leaving the house to shop for groceries. Peapod, the delivery service of our local Giant supermarket, will deliver our order next Tuesday between 4 and 10 PM. We placed the order last Monday.

Meanwhile, I'm trying, really trying, not to waste food. So when I found an ancient zucchini moldering away in the vegetable drawer,  I sauteed it and added it to a medley of frozen corn, canned diced tomatoes, canned black beans, and cheese. I  topped my creation with seasoned bread crumbs, but just before I popped it into the oven, I was seized with doubt.

Was that really a zucchini or was it a cucumber?

I summoned Himself and asked his opinion.

"What are my choices?" he asked, guardedly.

"It's either a zucchini or a cucumber. I'm hoping it's a zucchini."

He sampled a piece of the vegetable in question, looking somewhat like a lizard savoring a bug. "I'd say it's a cucumber."

"Guess again!" I commanded sternly.

"But it could be a zucchini. Yeah, that's it. It's a zucchini," he conceded, wisely.

He could see I wasn't convinced.

"Whichever it is, it'll be good," he said. He meant it, too. He's not fussy.

But I am. I'm not happy that I went to all this trouble for an aging cucumber.

Keeping Busy

We're in the age group that's been told to stay home no matter what. This sounded like fun on Monday, but it's Wednesday and it's already getting old. 

The weather had been beautiful and the neighborhood is a riot of blooms, so we've gone on walks every day this week. I'm happy to say that, despite my recently diagnosed chronic lung disease,  I can still climb a rather steep hill without undue distress. The hill comes at the beginning of our 1.8 mile walk. Actually, my husband avoids the hill. He and Dilly-Dog meet me down at the corner. He's still recovering from knee-replacement surgery three months ago.  He has a tendency to overdo it, and so he's overdone the walking and bike riding recently and his knee has told him about it. So, for now, he's skipping the hill.

Yesterday we filled out the 2020 census form on line. It took less than 10 minutes. Our ever-nosy government originally tried to include a question on citizenship, but the courts wouldn't have it. Still, the form asked way too many questions to my way of thinking about various racial and national origins--especially Hispanic. 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today's walk took us through a mile of pink or white blossoming trees and clusters of yellow forsythia and daffodils.

The occasional pink-blossoming tree is probably a flowering cherry. Or maybe a flowering plum. The ubiquitous white-blossoming trees arching their malevolent arms over the streets are the loathsome Bradford Pears. The arms are "malevolent" because the trees are brittle and fragile. The older they get, the more likely it is that one of their clunky branches could flatten you or your car. Windy weather brings down branches all over the neighborhood. They are a junk tree, a "Frankentree", according to my husband. They stink. Literally. Walk beneath them and you get an unpleasant whiff of something fishy. The county has recognized its error in the wholesale planting of this tree 50 years ago and is gradually cutting them all down.

Before the coronavirus made us all afraid, my husband and I used a "grabber" to pick up trash along our route. We started collecting just cans and bottles for the recycling bin, but after awhile, we began collecting trash--paper napkins, fast food containers, sales slips, etc--for the trash can as well. (I love the Spanish translation of the "trash only" phrase that's on the cans provided by the county:  "basura solamente." This is a phrase melodious for something malodorous, wouldn't you agree?)   Anyway, since the country is in crisis mode, we have stopped our two-person effort to keep Maryland beautiful. Like the coronavirus outbreak, the trash pileup will get worse before it gets better. Someday, when life returns to normal, perhaps we can restart our beautification project.  Hope springs eternal.

QUARANTINED

My husband is 80; I am 79. We are elderly and we both have an  "underlying condition" that makes us vulnerable to the coronavirus. What elderly person doesn't?  Mine is IPF, a chronic lung disease.  

We have decided to self-isolate for at least the next two weeks. How hard can this be? We are both introverts, although I must say my husband is becoming more like his gregarious dad these days--striking up conversations with strangers he encounters here and there. Still, being confined to the house should be a minor problem for both of us. We can still take walks around the neighborhood, we like to read, we have Netflix. He does an online Spanish lesson every day and I'm thinking of getting back to my on-line Algebra 1 course.

One thing I could do more is blog. I've gotten out of the habit.  The past year has been difficult, not only because I lost my claim to be a healthy geezerette but also because we have a couple of close family members who suffer from chronic anxiety and depression. Unfortunately, I let their problems--about which I can do nothing--take up too much room in my brain, leaving little energy for anything else. This is a bad habit. I need to blog more and fret less. 

Tomorrow there was to have been a memorial service at our church for two lovely ladies, former parishioners, who moved to Tennessee and whose ashes have now come back to us in a couple of small boxes. They were an 89-year-old British war bride and her daughter, who had Downs Syndrome and lived at home her whole life. She was either in her late 50's or early 60's. I would have learned her age tomorrow from the service bulletin, but the service will have to be rescheduled.  This past Thursday, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington closed all the churches for the next two weeks. 

Maryland schools have also been closed for a couple of weeks. Our younger daughter, who lives in Virginia, fully expects to have the kids home with her the next two weeks as well. 

A Hat of Many Colors

On December 4, I got some coal in my Christmas stocking. I was diagnosed with a chronic lung disease,  called Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. (IPF). I don't want this to take over my life, but it probably will, sooner or later.  IPF causes scarring in the lungs. There is no cure, but several years ago two medicines that slow the progress of the disease became available. I'm on one of them (Ofev). Here's hoping.

When my sister got the news, she wanted to come to visit immediately to see how close I was to death's door.  She came on Valentine's Day and left for home (Chicago) three days later somewhat reassured that I'm all right for now and probably will be for some time to come.

She is 77, two years younger than me. Never one to just loll around, she held up her end of the conversation all weekend while checking periodically on the progress of several on-line Scrabble games that she plays. She also knitted.  She used a thin circular needle with multiple bobbins of yarns of varying colors. It looked complicated. On the morning she was due to leave, she finished the mysterious project and said, "Here's a hat for you, if you want it."  Of course, I did. 

I admire anyone who has the patience to knit. Out of curiosity, I almost visited a website today entitled "How to Knit on Circular Needles: 13 steps (with Pictures). I wisely went no further. 

BTW, the date on the photo is wrong. My husband took the photo today, so it should say 02/24/2020. (Sigh)  Not only do I not knit, I don't do cameras either.

The Incorrigible Mr. Zig-Zag

He looks so innocent. And mostly, he is. He can be affectionate and cuddly. Put him on a leash, though, and he turns into a monster.

He's our daughter's dog. A beagle. When she, her husband and two children flew to California to spend Christmas with Tom's family, they left Roscoe with us. My husband had just had knee surgery, so it was my job to walk both dogs every day. I had two daily routes mapped out:  a long one and a short one. In the interest of fairness, I planned to take one or the other on the longer walk every other day. That didn't work out. I soon found that Roscoe was just too much dog for me. Even taking him on the short walk just wore me out.

The dog dragged me along, constantly zig-zagging from side to side,  apparently following a scent.  He'd become breathless with excitement, emitting little yips.  Every few minutes--or so it seemed--he'd erupt into a full-throated bellow, trumpeting the news to his imaginary pack that he had scented a squirrel. It was embarrassing! How could a slender 25-pound dog make such a racket?

On New Year's Day,  his people returned. It was none too soon. His leash and kibble were packed before they even got here from the airport. "Oh, he was no trouble at all," I said as they all piled into their car for their journey home.