Life in Merlin

Heavy Metal

2012-01-27T12:31:00.005-05:00

Last night I visited my psychiatrist to get my prescription renewed. She's in a group practice. At 5 PM, the waiting room was jammed.

I saw a woman wearing a bib comprising as many as 35 necklaces of varying lengths and metals over a pastel T shirt. She had at least three rings on each finger, including her thumbs. She was one of the receptionists.

Outrage at the Eagles Club

2011-12-24T16:18:00.004-05:00

Kids weren't usually allowed to watch the floor shows at the Eagles Club. The exception was the Christmas Show. Grampy was the manager of the Eagles Club. It was his job to hire the performers through a booking agent in Erie, PA.

I was six or seven years old and living with my paternal grandparents. So there I was at the floor show, sitting at a table with Grammy, drinking Nehi orange pop and watching the blond tap dancer. Everything was fine until she tap-danced her way over to Grampy, sat on his lap, wrapped her arms around him and planted a big "show-biz" kiss on his forehead. Everyone else laughed and burst into applause. I burst into tears. I was outraged. How dare she?

Our Last Christmas Together

2011-12-20T23:25:00.011-05:00

Mother got remarried on February 15, 1947. My last Christmas with her and my sister was in 1946. We spent it with Grandmother and Grandfather at the farm.

It was a Christmas fraught with anxiety. I was pretty sure that Santa would skip Grandmother's house because my 4-year-old sister and I had been so bad. We had kept Grandfather up every night for a week because of the noisy game we played after being put to bed. Every so often, we'd hear the swish-swish of Grandfather's slippers as he shuffled wearily up the hall from his bedroom. Subject to migraines and "face pains," he often went to bed early. "If you girls don't settle down," he'd call through the door, " I'll give you the heeby-jeebies." We had no idea what the heeby-jeebies were, but it was enough to quiet us down for awhile. Before long, our noisy game would resume and we'd hear the swish-swish of his slippers again. Finally, he played his trump card: "If you girls don't go to sleep, I'll tell Santa not to come!'

On Christmas morning, we stood at the top of the stairs staring doubtfully down at Grandfather in the hall below.

"Well, aren't you coming down?"

"Is there anything down there?"

"Come and see."

Down we went! Santa had come after all. The tall tree stood in the living room, with two of nearly everything underneath. Two dolls. Two sets of plastic dishes. Two sets of roller skates. Although there was only one doll house, my Meadville grandmother, whom I'd been living with since my parents separated, promised that I would have a doll house of my own.

The toy factories had not yet recovered from the war. The Betsy Wetsy dolls cracked apart at the seams after a few feedings. The doll house had come in the mail, unassembled. Years later, we learned that part of the house hadn't even been painted. Aunt Jean, who was in art school, had to mix up some paints and finish the job.

The skates were the clamp-on kind that were tightened with a key. Before my mother and sister left for Florida, I brooded about that key. If Barbara took the key, how could I skate? When it was time for me to return to Meadville, I made sure that the key was hidden in my pocket. Sometimes I'd feel guilty, thinking of my sister in Florida, sitting forlornly on her porch steps with her skates and no key. I'd quickly push that picture out of my mind.

Some years later, I got up enough nerve to ask her if she'd ever skated in Florida.

"Yes," she said. "Why?"

Dress Code at the Pool Hall

2011-12-17T14:30:00.003-05:00

We went up to Erie, PA the day after Thanksgiving to visit three of my four sisters. (Cis and her husband were with their daughter in Virginia Beach, but Cis let the out-of-town sisters, Barbara and me, stay at their house.) Margaret lives in Erie, as does Evie, who has been confined to a wheelchair for the last ten years because of MS. Her husband, Gary, is her caregiver.

Barbara, Margaret, and I planned to take lunch over to Evie's house and spend the afternoon. Barbara, who is a wonderful cook, made a beautiful salad and baked two pies. The brothers-in-law were to take Gary out for lunch and come back later for dessert.

Off they went to the pool hall. They got back sooner than expected. After having lunch, they decided to shoot some pool. When Russ tried to make arrangements, the guy in charge told him he and his friends couldn't play.

"Why not?" he asked. The bar was half empty and a pool table was free.

"We have a dress code," explained the guy. "You can't play pool if you're wearing sweat pants." Gary was the only one wearing sweat pants. Sweat pants are what he wears around the house, caring for Evie, and it never occurred to him that he had to dress up to go to a pool hall.

SLED RIDE

2011-12-10T10:08:00.001-05:00

Two tiny girls,
capped and mittened,
snug in 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?

April Day Ohio

2011-12-04T16:14:00.005-05:00

After Thanksgiving, we spent a few days at our cabin in Ohio. The weather was miserable. Cold, drippy, grey and dreary. Not the kind of weather that inspires pretty poems, so it seems like a good time to recycle April Day Ohio from Free Verse and Worse, one of my two other blogs that I'm closing down to keep things simple.
-----------------------------------------------------------

The stubbled fields are brown and bare,
the daffodils wrapped tight.
The cat-tailed pond displays a hundred downy tufts.

A woodpecker wraps on a distant door,
a groundhog ducks through a hole
in the abandoned kennel.
As we come near, the blue heron rises clumsily from her spot
by the stream and wings away over the cornfield.

Near the crest of the pebbled hill,
on the way to town,
we edge round an Amish buggy.
Three deer stop grazing to watch us pass.
A lone turkey crosses the road ahead.

At Reuben's farm,
white sheets tug at the line.
Denim pants and jackets
dance in the wind
with the goats in the field.
We soon reach Reuben's one-room school.
It's noon. He's playing second base.
A black-bonneted girl in an aqua dress
tags the small boy who hoped to steal a base.
A batter in a blue dress thwacks the ball--
a homerun for sure.

At Malabar Farm,
white-painted gourds atop a pole
invite the purple martins to summer there.
A white duck paddles on the pond,
his tail a saucy curve.
The Clydesdales turn away,
but Drifter, the quarter horse,
nuzzles my hand at the fence.
----------------------------------------

Whenever we're in Danville, I always pick up a copy of The Vendor at Miller's Hardware and turn immediately to the ads for Amish buggy and draft horses. This time an ad for a "10-year-old Belgian mare" caught my eye. "Well broke single or double," the seller wrote. Her height was 16.2 hands and her weight approximately 1800 pounds. "Too much horse for me," he added.

WinterHaven

2011-11-16T19:56:00.003-05:00

I'm still recycling poems from Free Verse and Worse, one of the blogs I'm closing down.

This poem is about 15 years old. It's a composite of stories I heard from a couple of homeless men who were guests at our church during "WinterHaven."

WinterHaven is a cold-weather shelter operated by 20 congregations in and around Laurel, Maryland. For nearly twenty years, these congregations have taken turns keeping homeless men and women from freezing to death during the winter. The guests stay with each congregation for one week. They receive a warm bed, dinner, breakfast, and a bag lunch. Sometimes during his or her time in the shelter, a homeless person will decide to give up life on the street. He or she embarks on a difficult journey that may eventually lead to sobriety, sanity, and a permanent place to stay. An impossible dream for too many.

This poem reflects the kind of guest we usually saw in the early 1990's: male, middle-aged or older, alcoholic. Since then, the typical male guest has gotten younger and is often addicted to drugs as well as alcohol. Some are veterans. Ten years ago, Winterhaven began welcoming homeless women. While the number of male guests ranges from 20 to 35 per night, we usually see no more than a half-dozen women all season. Typically they suffer from severe mental illness.

"WinterHaven"

The judge asked me,
"Why did you go there
When you knew..."
And I said,
"But Judge, she's my mother."
That other woman there,
she turned my ma against me.

I was born on Christmas Day,
had just two Christmas trees
my whole life.
Called my ma and told her,
"Ma, its gettin' cold
and I need my sleepin' blanket."
She said she'd leave it on the porch,
but that other woman there,
she turned my ma against me.

Drives her to the store
Drives her to the doctor
Drives her to the bank
I said, "Ma, I'd be glad to do that,
only you know I don't have no car."

That other woman,
she wants to get my house.
I said, "Ma, you didn't sign no
paper giving her my house, did you?"
and she says, "No, Son, I didn't,"
but that other woman there, she
turned my ma against me.

Another woman, friend of mine, said,
"Don't go over to see your ma no more,
because that woman will kill you."

No one likes that woman.
Her old man, he don't like her.
Her kids, they don't like her either.
That other woman there, she
turned my ma against me.

Arrowheads

2011-11-08T06:20:00.001-05:00

We may buy us an A-frame

on Jericho Road,

where few that pass by are strangers,

near that little clutch of houses

called Greer, for those who farmed

the land 200 years.

In the bottomland by the Mohican,

the corn shocks stand dry and mute.

They used to hunt here, but they are gone.

We now and then kick up an A-shaped flint.

Sometimes at dusk

it is easy to think

that the shocks are silent,

ancient watchers,

but they are gone now

who once walked this land

and took the deer

with bow and arrow.

There once was a man

who hunted on our posted lands,

and when another came,

his license on his back,

this man complained.

"He seems to think,"

laughed Alice Greer,

"that in Knox County

all the deer are his."

Who Knew?

2011-11-06T08:50:00.001-05:00

Robert Schumann wrote a song called "Samurai." I heard it on the radio yesterday for the first time. It sounded quite a bit like another song he wrote called "Traumerei."

A Few Haiku

2011-11-01T22:21:00.002-04:00

In the cold spring rain

The woodpecker never stops

Rapping about love.

Joe-Pye weed in bloom
Monarchs light on purple clouds
Floating on the breeze.

Tall green canopy,

Flattened grass in midst of pines:

Deer's four-poster bed.

Godspeed, tiny bird.

Hurricane time on the Gulf.

Via con Dios.

Autumn's beginning.
A solitary firefly
Beams "hello" in vain.

The Cows' Chautauqua

2011-10-21T11:58:00.006-04:00

Shredded wheat--the Breakfast of Champion Milkcows--
Is laid out on a meadow-green cloth.
But where are the cows this August morn?
They're off this week to Cow Camp
At Lake Chautauqua
To meditate on the Bovine Mysteries.

How was it that they came to be
The nursemaids of the world,
The foster mothers of so many
Ungrateful children,
Who never call,
Who never visit,
Who never say thanks,
Who just speed by
Without a wave or a glance,
Tossing beer cans
Into their roadside gardens
Of clover and Queen Anne's Lace.

All week long they will celebrate Cowhood
In story and song,
Hearing about Babe and the Blue Ox,
About Elsie and Elmer,
About the First Astronaut
Who cleared the moon in one leap.
About prejudice
And Intolerance (lactose)
And the myth of contentment.
Not to mention the Terrible Truth
About the Bull Market,
And why so many sons and lovers
Were never heard from again.

On Tuesday they will view a slide-show
On India, where cows are sacred.
On Wednesday, they will elect
A new president named Bossie.

Each night they will dine by candlelight
And moo-ed music,
Then retire to write in their journals.
("Dear Dairy," some poor spellers will begin.)

Camp will end on Saturday
In the sixth week of August.
Just before milking time
A cavalcade of cows
Will head back to their barns.
Silently, invisibly
They will go
Right PAST YOUR EYES.
Holsteins
Herefords
Guerneys
Jerseys
But none of us will see or notice them
Until school buses roll by in September
And all the cows are out
Standing in their fields.
__________________________

I've decided to simplify my blogging. I'm keeping LIfe in Merlin and deleting And Deliver Us from Meadville and Free Verse and Worse. This poem is from Free Verse and Worse. I couldn't let this one go.

Haiku

2011-10-17T12:34:00.000-04:00

Yellow Jacket, no!
A dip in my coffee cup
Won't keep away sleep.

Am I Being Stalked?

2011-08-31T09:02:00.003-04:00

I think I am being stalked. Electronically. Yes, I know about cookies, and maybe this is just a coincidence, but hear me out.

The Tree Hugger keeps his aquarium stuff on a low, square table. It's a flimsy, wooden thing, over 30 years old, veneered with deteriorating white plastic. This table fits the available space perfectly and it "works," but still, it's ugly and it could collapse tomorrow. I searched the internet for a possible replacement, typing the words "end table" in my browser window. I didn't find anything I liked, so that was that. I thought.

Ever since then, ads for end tables have been popping up everywhere. If I visit a blog that displays ads, I'll see "Sale on End Tables", no matter what kind of blog it is otherwise. On August 3, I printed a map of Germany off the internet. I just noticed the tiny print at the bottom of the page: "End Tables on Sale 20%-50% off All End Table Styles Lowest Prices + Free S/H HomeFurnitureShowroom.com/EndTables.

This Just In . .

2011-08-30T09:24:00.001-04:00

We heard on the radio this morning that the "School Without Walls" was closed due to earthquake damage.

Sister Bay

2011-08-27T12:51:00.008-04:00

While our daughter and family were visiting my sister and husband in July at their vacation house on Lake Michigan in Door County, WI, Becky made this whimsical collage for them as a thank-you. Our three-year-old grandson, Nate, looks out a bedroom window. Lucy, Barb and Ron's Golden Retreiver, lolls in the flower bed. The Swedish flag fluttering on the porch hints of treasures within, including an antique bride clock and a red-painted Dala horse. The single swan on the water stands for the flotilla of swans that passed by during the week. And the goat on the roof? He's advertising Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant and Butik (boutique) in Sister Bay, where a herd of goats enjoys salad on the roof most every day.

.http://www.aljohnsons.com/

Just an Earthquake

2011-08-24T09:25:00.003-04:00

Andrew and I were in the gift shop at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, when suddenly the glass trinkets and jewelry began to dance. Unlike many Washington-area residents, who automatically thought "terrorist attack" when the building started shaking, my first thought was "earthquake." It was only a few seconds later that I began thinking that maybe a plane had flown into the Aquarium's glass-pyramid top or that the building had been rammed by a ship. Whatever. The staff told everyone go outside immediately. The quake was certainly a conversation-changer between Andrew and me about buying a $35 amphibious shark that goes "anywhere you want, on land or in water."

Once outside, we passed a cluster of Aquarium employees, probably from food service. Some of the women were crying. I said, "Don't worry. It was just an earthquake."

"Just an earthquake?!" laughed one.

"Well, yes, " I said, "It could have been a plane."

One of the women continued to sob. "Don't worry," I said, "We're going to be OK."

This morning I realized that perhaps she was crying because she thought her job was in danger. The glassy Aquarium looks like the world's most fragile building. For all she knew, the Aquarium might have to close for weeks or months. Everyone was kept out of the building for 45 minutes while it was checked for structural damage.

The building appeared sound, so we were let back in. Some interior glass shattered in the "Australia" exhibit of the Glass Pavilion, so that exhibit was closed. Andrew pressed the staff person at the cordoned-off escalator about the safety of the fruit bats in the exhibit. The man assured Andrew that they were probably all right, but I could see that the question made him uncomfortable. He quickly changed the subject. "I was talking to the people down at the dolphin tank, and they told me that the sharks began swimming around like crazy just before the quake hit."

Australia is Closed!

2011-08-23T20:35:00.004-04:00

We were in the gift shop at the National Aquarium in Baltimore this afternoon when the glassware and jewelry suddenly began rattling as the building shook. We were all told to leave the building immediately. My grandson and I joined the crowds milling around the Inner Harbor. Cell phones were out. Everyone was talking about the earthquake.

After a quarter of an hour, the Aquarium was open again. Andrew and I wanted to see the jellyfish and the fruit bats. The fruit bats are housed in an area called "Australia." We got to see the jellyfish, but the escalator to the Glass Pavilion was cordoned off with yellow tape. "Sorry," said a staff person stationed at the escalator. Australia is closed. We've got shattered glass, and we're afraid more could break if there are aftershocks." We'll have to see the fruit bats another time.

Angry Birds

2011-08-19T11:20:00.001-04:00

The hummingbirds visit the feeders more often these days, getting ready for their autumn migration. They're so feisty. You'll see a tiny, green warrior perched on a branch, keeping an eye on "his" feeder, ready to drive off any rival: mother, dad, brother, sister, cousin. Funny how the first-cousin-once-removed keeps coming back for more.

He's a Cribber.

2011-08-10T08:38:00.006-04:00

I've already told you about how much I enjoy the horse ads in The Vendor, a biweekly publication for "plain people." Sometimes the ads mention a horse's pedigree. That means nothing to me, but it's fun to see some of the other details:

"A boy's horse."
"Can take girls to singing."
"Women can drive."
"Not for seniors."
"Traffic-safe-and-sound."
"98 percent traffic-safe-and-sound." (!)
"Shies some at large trucks." (! !)
"Up-headed."
"He's a cribber."

At the Amish vegetable stand, we asked Mr. Weaver about two descriptions we didn't understand. One was "up-headed." Every buggy horse we'd ever seen certainly looked "up-headed" to us. Mr. Weaver replied that an "up-headed" horse had an especially proud bearing.

Well, then, what's a "cribber?"

"Oh," said Mr. Weaver, "you don't want a cribber. That's a horse with bad habits, almost like an addiction to cigarettes. A cribber is a horse that gnaws the wood in his stall."

Temptation, Bodacious, and Incredible

2011-08-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

"Temptation," "Bodacious," and "Incredible" are all varieties of corn.

The corn stood tall and glossy-green when we were in Ohio the weekend of July 23rd. Our neighbor, David, hoped for rain that weekend. When the corn is tasseled, it needs moisture to carry the pollen from the tassel to the strands of silk. Each strand forms one kernal on an ear of corn.

There was more than enough rain that sultry weekend. We stopped at an Amish produce stand and bakery. We bought zucchini bars at the bakery and corn, tomatoes, and green beans at the produce stand. Mrs. Weaver told us that the two-color corn we bought that Saturday was "Temptation," but that "Bodacious" would be available in a few days, and after that, "Incredible." When we went back on Monday (the stand is closed on Sunday), her husband, Atlee, said that he picks the corn for the day's sales every morning. If any is left at the end of the day, he feeds it to the horses!

I almost howled in dismay, like that dog in "Ultimate Dog Tease" on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw

At the Hen House

2011-07-29T18:16:00.004-04:00

The Tree Hugger and I drove to our cabin in Ohio last weekend. Halfway through our nine-hour drive, the temperature hit 103.

No threatening tornadoes during the weekend, as we'd had in June. Just several end-of-the-world rainstorms. On Saturday afternoon, we stopped at Roman's house. Roman is the Amish man who built our cabin six years ago. A falling branch ripped a hole in the cedar siding last February, cracking the wallboard and knocking a kitchen cabinet askew. After assessing the damage, Roman sent an estimate to the insurance company. The check arrived just before we left for Ohio. We needed to tell him about it, but he has no phone. So we stopped at his farm.

Roman's family was about to have a cookout to celebrate Gary's birthday. Gary is their "English" neighbor. He, or more often, his answering machine, takes messages for Roman. Roman also uses Gary's phone for occasional calls. Roman was in the shower. Two small boys, each pushing adult-size mowers, were cutting the grass. One of the girls had just laid a rack on the grill, which was ready for dozens of hamburgers. Esther, Roman's good-natured wife, chided her duaghter gently for placing the rack upside down. Then she said, "Oh, well, I guess we'll just use it like that."

While Phil was waiting to talk with Roman, I watched ten or eleven red hens strut around in their grassy pen, pecking at bugs. The air was heavy. Three little brown birds flew out of a small opening at the base of the hen house. Could any of these plump dowagers squeeze through that narrow door? What would happen if they panicked and all tried to get in at once? Lightning was flashing in the sky and thunder was muttering in the distance. Suddenly, directly overhead, BOOM!

One of the larger hens registered a brief look of surprise. She stopped pecking, stood upright, elongating her neck. Her beady eye widened momentarily. The others kept on pecking. There was no hoped-for squawk!, no scramble for the henhouse. What a disappointment!

Then it was time to go. All eight of Roman and Esther's well-behaved children lined up quietly on the porch, watching us drive away. We were a few miles down the road when the cloudburst hit. I wonder what the chickens did then.

Ganbatte!

2011-07-18T10:34:00.003-04:00

If there's one word that captures the Japanese spirit, it's "ganbatte." Pronounced "gahn-baht-tay," it means "persevere!', even when things are going against you. People say it to a student studying for exams, to an out-of-breath cyclist struggling to reach the top of the hill, to a figure skater who's fallen for the 20th time while perfecting her double axel. The Japanese admire a the person who just keeps going, no matter what.

The Japanese women's soccer team displayed the spirit of "ganbatte" yesterday. During the first part of the match, the Americans looked strong. But the plucky Japanese team came from behind. I am happy for them. After the earthquake, the tsunami, and Fukushima, they needed something like this to lift their spirits.

We had a neighbor, a native of Japan, a medical doctor who researched retroviruses at Walter Reed Army Hospital. He was a gentle person, very shy and reserved. Every day he'd take his scruffy-looking mutt, "Whiskers," for a walk. He held his head high and moved with quiet dignity, as if he were leading the Emperor's horse. My husband would say, "There goes the 'samurai dog-walker' again."

Tatsuo admired perseverance. Long after our daughter grew up, he'd marvel at her determination in learning to ride her two-wheeler at age seven. "She'd fall off, but she'd get back on again and again."

Hope-to-Win Situation

2011-07-14T08:45:00.002-04:00

Just read a fascinating interview with Ira Wangler on the blog, Amishamerica.com. Mr. Wagler is the author of a memoir called Growing Up Amish. Six copies of the book are being given away. My chances of winning a copy are said to increase if I mention the book on my blog (done!) and mention it on Facebook. I don't really like Facebook, but I guess I can get on long enough to mention the book and improve my chances.

Win-Win Situation

2011-07-09T12:21:00.009-04:00

Thanks to our community listserve, I was able to recoup some of the money we spent on the "costly mistake" I wrote about on June 7th. I advertised my special-order room-darkening honeycomb shades online. Within a few days, I had a buyer! She travels a lot on business and sometimes needs to sleep during the day. "Room-darkening" was just what she wanted. Meanwhile, we ordered new shades. I got the "airy and cheerful" look I was after and she got better daytime sleep.

A Little Extra Excitement at the 50th Reunion

2011-06-21T11:22:00.009-04:00

So we went to my husband's 50th reunion at the College of Wooster, or at least to part of it. The big dinner on Saturday night was supposed to be a formal affair. The Tree Hugger said, "No way." So we settled on the late-Friday-afternoon patio picnic. We met up with a couple of old classmates and were having a great time at our table in the big, white tent when a woman came up and said, "Please pick up your plates and follow me."

Over 100 members of the class of '61 and their spouses crowded into the basement of the nearby Lowry Center to wait out a tornado warning. The TV weather map showed tornados threatening to touch down here and there north of Wooster. The sky grew black and the wind blew. Buckets of rain fell. We were down there for about an hour, until the danger was past.

The storm continued after the warning was over. Phil and I headed back to our cabin in Knox County, certain that Ramsey and Violet (two elderly dogs) were in a state of panic. Lightening flashed across the sky all the way. The dogs seemed fine, although they had unmade our bed.

Phil spent most of the rest of the weekend planting three American chestnut seedlings, which he received from the American Chestnut Foundation. The weather turned from muggy to cool after the storm, which should give the seedlings a good start.

Phil and nephew-in-law, Pat, planting a chestnut tree

A Costly Mistake

2011-06-07T07:35:00.002-04:00

We just spent some money on new siding and a new roof for the house. I decided I could not go up on a ladder to deal with the mold on the bedroom ceiling, so we had our bedroom and bathroom painted professionally. "Antique white" turned out to be a warm, peachy color. Love it!

Next we ordered honeycomb blinds for our two bedroom windows and two windows in the guest room. Here's where the house-project train, which had been rolling along smoothly, jumped the track. At the last minute, something or someone (the devil?) whispered "room-darkening" in my ear. So that's what I ordered. Room-darkening honeycomb shades in pearl white. Except that when they were installed, they looked grime-grey. I wanted "airy and cheerful," but I got "doom and gloom".

HIDEOSO!!!

I can't live with these things. They look like a sooty Russian town near the Arctic Circle in February. Archangel maybe? They's bought- n-paid for. I hate them. What to do?

My sister says to just get rid of them. I think she's right. First, I will try to sell them, and if there are no takers, then I will give them away.

Helga the Horrible Goes to the Reunion

2011-05-20T08:56:00.003-04:00

In a matter of days, we attend the Tree Hugger's 50th reunion at the College of Wooster in Wooster, OH.

Some people try to lose weight before a reunion.

Others lose teeth, without even trying.

I am going to feel like Helga at that reunion. I had to have a lower front tooth pulled on Tuesday. I'm still pretty self-conscious about it. I'd had two root canals on this tooth, so it was fragile to begin with. I really shouldn't have held that pillow in my mouth while changing the pillowcase. Anyway, the root cracked and the tooth is gone.

I'll have to put up with a gap in my grin for at least four weeks. It's not pretty, but eating and talking pose no problems. I think I can have a good time at the reunion anyway.

A Hearse of a Different Caller

2011-05-17T11:21:00.004-04:00

Sorry. That's the punch line of a lame joke, a play on the words "horse of a different color."

It's just a workings of a sick mind, that's all. Because yesterday, I really did see a horse of a different color. Two of them, in fact.

I always thought that the Amish could have any color of buggy horse they wanted as long as it was dark brown or black. That's what you usually see: a buggy drawn by a single dark horse. The horse may have white socks, a white star or blaze on its forehead, but the rest of it is always black or brown.

Driving along Route 62 near Killbuck, in Holmes County, OH, we passed a buggy drawn by a team of cafe-du-lait horses with cream-white manes and tails. We've never seen such a thing before. Perhaps they were being driven by a teen-aged girl, because the rules are relaxed a bit for young people.

We had a pleasant weekend in Ohio. The wild dogwood is everywhere in bloom. We also saw ragwort, spring beauties, phlox, dames' rocket, and trillium. Near our creek, we saw a deer, three blue herons, and a hawk. It rained a lot. The rivers are high and I am sorry to tell the folks downstream that more water is on the way.

Second Wind for the Birthers?

2011-05-02T12:03:00.000-04:00

Just when we thought the birthers had finally been proven wrong, Fate throws them another bone to chew on. How long will it be before the conspiracy theorists accuse Obama of lying about the identity of the guy now sleeping with the fishes?

Best Possible Scan Results

2011-04-10T13:08:00.004-04:00

Our daughter had a scan on Thursday to assess how well the Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment worked. The residual radiation showed up in the area once occupied by her thyroid; there was none lurking here or there, where it shouldn't be. This means the cancer was contained in her thyroid and hadn't spread.

The RAI she received is the same type that is causing all the grief at the Fukushima reactor in Japan. Nuclear power plants have always given me the willies. The damage from accidents seems so hard to contain and radioactive waste so difficult to handle. Even the threat of unwitting contact with RAI, which has a half-life of eight days, is a problem. For instance, you're not supposed to spray surfaces with cleaner, because the RAI could become airborne. (We're to stay out of the "isolation ward" for two months.)

Sometimes I think it would have been better if mankind had not opened this Pandora's box, and yet, without atomic medicine, where would our daughter be?

Payment Waived

2011-04-02T09:05:00.001-04:00

Last Tuesday, our daughter received her radioactive-iodine pill at the Greater Baltimore Hospital Center. They told her not walk through the hospital to get back to her car. She'd have to exit by the nearest door and find her way as best she could to the parking lot. This turned out to be quite a hike. Finally, she was in her car, approaching the payment booth. She was wearing a surgical mask and had ticket-plus- payment in her blue rubber-gloved hand.

The attendant took one look and waved her through.

Little Iodine

2011-03-25T23:28:00.022-04:00

Does anyone else remember this cartoon from the forties and fifties? Little Iodine was an imp of a girl who was always getting in trouble and always getting spanked by her feckless father, Henry Tremblechin.

I guess I know why this little pest has been intruding on my thoughts lately. For the past two weeks, our younger daughter has been on a low-iodine diet, getting ready for her radioactive iodine treatment on Tuesday. One Saturday morning in early February, she and our grandson came for breakfast. "I don't want you to worry," she said, "but I have a growth on my thyroid. The doctor thinks it's probably benign."

Well, it wasn't. That was the bad news. The good news was that she has "papillary" thyroid cancer, which is highly curable. Her thyroid was removed on March 1st.

The low-iodine diet has been a bit of a challenge. It allows no dairy, soy, egg yolks, commercial baked goods, seafood, potato skins, certain kinds of beans or anything with iodized salt. Becky found a low-iodine cookbook* on line with over 100 pages of good recipes. Yesterday, I spent the morning in the kitchen making a pasta salad and a fritatta. I baked a loaf of low-iodine bread and a coffee cake. I had to make the coffee cake twice, because I accidentally omitted the cinnamon from the streusel topping the first time. So much for trying to follow four recipes at once.

After her radioactive iodine treatment, our daughter will have to stay in isolation for 5-7 days. She can have no contact whatsoever with her three-year-old son and limited contact with everyone else. She'll stay at our house, in the "apartment" my mom once occupied. She wants us to get a pizza on Wednesday night, but we'll have to wait and see about that. The information sheet suggests hard candy on the second day to avoid nausea.

One of her friends from work e-mailed the following today:

"September 2010 (As stated on Snopes website), Dr. Oz had a show on the fastest growing cancer in women, thyroid cancer. It was a very interesting program and he mentioned that the increase could possibly be related to the use of dental x-rays and mammograms. He demonstrated that on the apron the dentist puts on you for your dental x-rays there is a little flap that can be lifted up and wrapped around your neck. Many dentists don't bother to use it. Also, there is something called a "thyroid guard" for use during mammograms. By coincidence, a friend had her yearly mammogram this past week. She felt a little silly, but she asked about the guard and sure enough, the technician had one in a drawer. She asked why it wasn't routinely used. Answer: "I don't know. You have to ask for it." Well, she thought, if she hadn't seen the show, how would she have known to ask? ... Please pass this on to your friends and family."

* Here's the link to the wonderful cookbook from the Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association: http://www.thyca.org/Cookbook.pd

Cars and Planets

2011-02-28T14:33:00.000-05:00

The other day Nathaniel and Tom were playing with Nathaniel's toy cars. Before I go any further, you have to know that one of the main decorations in Nathaniel's bedroom is a solar-system mobile. Anyway, Nathaniel picked up a toy car and asked his dad, "What's this?" Tom replied, "Looks like a Mercury." Nathaniel picked up another and asked, "Is this a 'Mars'?"

Rush to Judgement, or Who Asked Him?

2011-02-23T08:39:00.007-05:00

The Great Fathead recently weighed in on the subject of the First Lady's sparerib dinner. He accused her of choosing clothes that hide her real waistline. At least she has a waistline. Did you see the photo of Mr. Blimpbaugh in an oversized pastel blue T-shirt that barely concealed his pot? Someone should clue the pignoramous in on the slimming effect of darker colors.

A Love Story, of Sorts

2011-02-14T19:49:00.003-05:00

It was the autumn of 1933. My mother, Mary, had just started studying piano at a college in Kentucky. Grandmother received a phone call from the dean's office. "Your daughter's been taking the bus to Pittsburgh every Friday evening. We think she's meeting a man."

Grandmother had a good idea who the man was. Mary was being pursued by a young law student she'd met at a picnic during the summer. Grandmother and Grandfather left for Pittsburgh in the middle of the night, driving over 100 miles from their farm near Cambridge Springs, PA. They reached the bus station at dawn. Just as expected, they found my father waiting for the bus. Grandmother said, "Are you by any chance meeting the same person we are?"

Both sets of parents were furious. Kenneth still had a year of law school at Pitt; Mary was barely out of high school. The young folks assured their elders that they were already married. No matter. They had to be married again by the Methodist minister.

The marriage lasted thirteen years. Kenneth wanted to build a successful law practice, enter local politics, and make lots of money. He thought Mary would be perfectly happy working at his side as his secretary. Mary wanted a family; Kenneth, not so much. Mary liked to read and play the piano. Kenneth liked to go to parties. Mary hated all the drinking and flirting that went on at these parties. If there was a piano in the house, she would sit and play until Kenneth was ready to go home.

In 1940, I was born, despite my dad's plans to put off having kids indefinitely. Although I was a surprise, he seemed delighted to have a baby daughter. He told Mother, however, that he wanted no more surprises. He was therefore not pleased when my sister arrived in 1942. Our parents were divorced in 1946. Dad asked Mother not to leave until after New Year's. He wanted to have one last party at their house. She agreed.

Mother and my little sister moved to Miami with Mother's second husband. I lived with Dad's parents until he remarried in 1949. I'll say this about him: he never said one mean word about Mother. Nor would he allow his mother to criticize his "ex" in my hearing. He'd say, "Mom, don't say that. She's Cynthia's mother."

When I was seven or eight, he took me to Hunter's News Room to buy Mother a valentine. He found a card with a satin-covered sachet, shaped like a heart. "Why don't you get her a card that smells?" he suggested slyly, knowing that the pretty clerk was listening. She laughed and said, "Watch out what you say about our cards, Kenny."

Still the Year of the Cat

2011-02-02T08:05:00.001-05:00

When I told the Cat of Cats that the Chinese calendar's Year of the Cat would end tomorrow, she coldly replied, "Every year is the Year of the Cat." Here she is with her hapless and clueless pitbull brother, Ramsey.

Georgie has found yet another way to tease him. He has a chair. This stained, broken-down orange monstrosity is over 65 years old (I'm talking about the chair here) and should retire, but Ramsey loves it. So it sits in our family room. I've hidden its bulky presence under a light-weight fawn-beige "throw." Twice this week, Georgie has weasled her way under the throw, creating a small lump in the corner. Ramsey is completely flummoxed. He puts his feet on the chair, nudges the lump, and whines. After a moment or two, she hisses indignantly and shoots out from under like a rocket. He looks vaguely guilty.

Do you think she's deliberately tormenting him?

Frankentree

2011-01-29T17:24:00.007-05:00

If your true love gives you a partridge in a pear tree for Christmas next year, you'd better check it out. If the tree is a Bradford Pear (BP), stay out from under. These trees are dangerous!

We have them throughout "Montpelier," a community of 750 Levitt houses built nearly 50 years ago. BP’s are fast-growing, showy trees, which were once the darlings of landscapers. They bloom spectacularly each spring. Other than that, they smell bad, provide no food for birds and crowd out native trees in the wild. Worst of all, they are brittle.

The taller and older they grow, the more fragile they get. They shed branches with little provocation, dropping them on parked cars or strolling people. Sometimes a tree will split right down the middle, falling across a driveway or blocking a front door. One neighbor, who defended the BP for its beauty after my husband called it a “junk tree,” woke up the next morning to find half his tree lying in the street.

This week, we had three inches of heavy, wet snow. BP branches and half-trees still litter the landscape.

The BP was developed in 1963 as an ornamental tree by a scientist at the USDA station in Glen Dale, Prince George’s County, MD. It was adopted as the “county tree” by the County Council of Prince George’s County in the 1970’s. A resolution to disown the tree was introduced in 2008. I can't find anything online that tells me the resolution was passed. My guess is that the County Council just wishes the whole problem would just go away.

Noodled to Death

2011-01-25T13:59:00.000-05:00

The shelter is full. The Winterhaven Board has decided that 30 men is the upper limit. Most congregations just don't have space for more. When the number approaches 40, trouble begins. People get edgy. Fights break out. We're now at 32.

Which brings me to the problem of "Clarence." He shows up every night with his "admit slip," has dinner, then retires to his van to sleep. Why is this a problem? Having been accepted as a guest at the shelter, he is entitled to a bed. By refusing to sleep in it, he literally "freezes" someone else out of a bed.

He could eat at the local soup kitchen, Elizabeth House, before bedding down in his van. When Winterhaven was at our church a few weeks ago, I asked him why he didn't. He waved his hand dismissively. "Elizebeth House!" he snorted. "They noodle you to death there." I guess he just doesn't like pasta.

Finally, a Normal Christmas

2010-12-24T10:53:00.001-05:00

In 2008, Mom died on December 20th. Last year, I was hobbling around with a walker at Christmas, recovering from a fractured femur.

Things didn't look too promising for this year's Christmas. After two months of worrisome abdominal pain, our daughter had surgery yesterday at 4:30 PM. It was no emergency, but the doctor wanted to get it over with before Christmas. She was able to come home last night and says she is "happy as a clam" today.

Our grandson's two-month-old health problem has also resolved itself. After an ultrasound and a visit to a pediatric urologist, he's been told to drink more water and pee more than twice a day.

I missed choir practice last night, because we didn't leave the hospital until 7 PM. I'm going to sing at both the early and midnight services anyway. I think I know the music well enough.

Tomorrow everyone's coming to our house for dinner.

"Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

You Better Not Laugh

2010-12-22T07:33:00.003-05:00

. . . because Santa Claus has already come to town and left Ramsey this beautiful winter coat. Who says a pit bull can't be a fashionista?

(I'm sure he'll grow to love it.)

End of the Larry King Era

2010-12-15T08:38:00.005-05:00

Mom loved Larry King. Until macular degeneration left her nearly blind at age 97, she watched him faithfully. She loved the way he dressed. One Christmas she asked me to buy a shirt and a tie for her to give to Phil. I didn't buy the tie, because Phil rarely wears them. I bought him a nice flannel shirt, his winter work uniform.

Mom took one look at the shirt and sighed with disappointment. "I wanted him to start dressing up more for work. He should wear shirts and ties like Larry King." Well, even if I'd understood what she wanted in the first place, it was never gonna happen.

Christmas in Prince George's County

2010-12-14T09:05:00.007-05:00

It's not that I have nothing to write about. I have a long list of topics for another day. Another day when I don't feel plowed under by family health problems involving our daughter and grandson. Problems both physical and mental. Our daughter doesn't handle stress well. Neither do I. I'm frayed at the edges.

Even so, life has its moments. Mom died two years ago this month, right before Christmas. She was a forlorn and cantankerous old lady, living (she thought) with strangers. At least she had Georgie. Here she is, napping with the Cat of Cats. We adopted Georgie from a shelter a few months after Sadie died, even though Mom had said, "I don't want another cat." Georgie became her live-in Teddy bear.

Georgie was 3 or 4 years old when we got her in early 2007. No longer a kitten. Sometimes she'd chase a laser light, but mostly it was, "Ho-hum. Why don't you chase it?" Yesterday, out on the screened porch, she suddenly noticed a tiny stuffed mouse she'd ignored for months. She stalked it, pounced on it, tossed it in the air, dashed madly about. She put on a great show for two minutes. Perhaps it was her way of saying, "'Tis the season to be jolly."

Thanksgiving in Knox County

2010-12-03T10:13:00.006-05:00

I haven't blogged recently because of our daughter's and older grandson's health problems that began in mid-October. Nothing life-threatening, but they require a lot of care and concern all the same.

On Thanksgiving Day, Phil and I drove (9 hours) to our cabin in Ohio. We celebrated on Friday. When the rain stopped, we raked a ton of oak leaves over the space of a few days. We visited with neighbors. Phil's sister and husband came up from Marietta and stayed Saturday night.

Life is different in Knox County. We encountered an Amish buggy on Route 514. We've never seen one on that road before. Most of the Amish live in neighboring Holmes County, but many more Amish are buying farms in Knox Country than they did a decade ago. At Miller's Hardware, I picked up a copy of The Vendor, a biweekly paper serving "plain folk everywhere" and turned immediately to the ads for buggy horses. All the horses were "traffic safe and sound" except for one that was "sound, but not quite traffic safe." An ad for an 8-year-old black Morgan standardbred mare stated that she was an "excellent traveler" that "some women can drive." Asking price, $1200.00. I fondly remember the recent ad that warned, "Not a horse for seniors."

The sign on the door of Dale's Cardinal grocery store in Danville said, "No tobacco or snuff chewing in the store." Who knew that you could chew snuff? A notice on the bulletin board offered "cur" pups for sale. What kind of dog is that?

The week-long gun season for white-tail deer began on Monday, the 29th. While raking leaves, we heard shooting in the distance. Phil allows deer hunting on our property. (His sister doesn't allow it on hers.) Phil likes to plant trees; the deer like to eat them. They also damage mature trees and shrubs with their relentless browsing. Although Phil feels ambivalent about deer hunting, he realizes that, with no natural predators, too many deer are competing with each other for food.

This year many newcomers asked for hunting permits. One man even researched land records at the court house in Mount Vernon and called us. He is interested in securing "good hunting land" in the future for himself and his son, who is now just two years old. Phil keeps a calendar showing who is hunting on which parcel on a given day. He certainly doesn't want the hunters shooting one another.

The local fire chief apologized for requesting permission at the last minute. He said he'd been involved in the investigation of the recent murder of two adults and a child near Mount Vernon.

Wee Halloweener

2010-11-08T09:23:00.005-05:00

Our 2-and-1/2-year-old grandson, Nathaniel, went around the new neighborhood with his daddy. Many of the houses looked just like their own house, which they'd moved into last June. It was dark by the time they got back. Nathaniel apparently didn't realize he was home, because he seemed surprised when his mother came to the door. After he said "Trick or Treat" and was given his candy, he asked plaintively, "Can I come in?"

More Rudeness from the Cat of Cats

2010-11-06T07:08:00.000-04:00

"Yes, I know it's the dog's bed. What's your point?"

FDA Press Release on Risk of Femur Fractures

2010-10-14T09:31:00.002-04:00

At last, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is saying what its European counterparts have been saying for the past two years. On October 13, the FDA issued the following press release:

FDA: Possible increased risk of thigh bone fracture with bisphosphonates

Labeling change adds warning about possible risks of long-term use of osteoporosis drugs

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm229171.htm

All we can say in the Femur Friends support group (over 50 members, including one man) is, "About time!"

Last May, some of our members met with FDA officials to voice our concerns. Looks like we made our point. Just for the record, we do not think that femur fractures are all that rare. Some thigh-bone (femur) fractures are erroneously classified as hip fractures, which they are not.

HAIKU 7

2010-08-31T14:46:00.002-04:00

Jelly left on plate.

Pit bull in the china shop.

CRASH! Good-bye, dear lamp.

Grand Mart

2010-08-13T16:38:00.018-04:00

A "blue runner" purchased at Grand Mart

We used to have a Giant supermarket in our neighborhood. No more. The corporate fathers decided that our Giant was not profitable, so they closed it. We now have to drive three miles to downtown Laurel to the other Giant, which has a dangerous, hanky-sized parking lot.

Soon huge floral arrangements appeared on the sidewalk outside the abandoned store. Grand Mart was open for business. And a fine, albeit strange, store it is. Although Grand Mart appears to be owned by Koreans, over half the aisles are devoted to Latino foods and many of the cashiers are Hispanic.

The vegetables are, well, different. My husband, an adventurous eater, will try anything once. He buys something, often asking another customer, if he can find one who speaks English, to tell him what to do with the thing. If he can't find anyone, he'll bring it home and look it up in his book, Exotic Fruits and Vegetables. We've decided we don't care for jack fruit and that coconuts are too difficult to mess with.

Little stalls line the perimeter of the store. You can buy almost anything: kitchenware, underwear, bathing suits, shoes, watches, rice cookers, teapots. There's a bakery and a Korean/Chinese carry-out, owned by Mr. Sweet, who usually looks sour and grumpy. Mr. Sweet sells noodles, vegetarian sushi, "shredded squids" and several varieties of kimchee every day of the week. A sign advises: "No Chines Food on Wednesday!"

Other signs also mystify and delight. A month or two after Grand Mart opened, a sign appeared on the front door: "Special-move the tofu to the dairy section." Another sign still warns, "No flip-flop. No pet." My 7-year-old grandson spotted a customer leaving the store in the forbidden footwear. "Hey!" he yelled, helpfully, "She's wearing flip-flops!" Yesterday, a new sign has appeared---in fact, about 2 dozen identical signs were posted on the plate-glass window and in the entryway--offering a "$100 reward". It pictures the alleged shoplifter wheeling his cart brazenly out of the store. Some innocent shoppers are also caught in the camera's eye. The "perp's" head is haloed so that everyone knows who the bad guy is. No other information is given, such as what you have to do to collect the reward.

My grandson loves Grand Mart's huge seafood section, with its tray upon tray of whole fish. One day, he begged me to buy him a "blue runner" to take home. He wanted to cut it up himself, with Grandpa's help. The non-English-speaking man behind the counter offered to clean it, of course, but I said, "No, thanks. We'll take it home as is." Too many words. He looked puzzled. I said, "No clean." Still looking somewhat mystified, he nodded and wrapped it up. Once we got it home, Andrew and Grandpa slowly dissected it, both marveling at the intricacies of fins, guts and gills. Then we baked it and minced it to order for Her Majesty, Georgina, the Cat of Cats.

Not This Again!

2010-07-24T10:24:00.004-04:00

My sister--

the one who broke her left femur last November, two weeks before I broke my right femur
the one who never had osteoporosis, but just osteopenia
the one who was treated for her osteopenia with Fosamax
the one who was subsequently found to have a hairline fracture in her right femur
the one who had her right femur "rodded prophylactically" in December

yes, that sister

well, yesterday she fell while walking in Newport Park in Door County, WI,

and turned her hairline fracture into a "completed" fracture. The pain was
excruciating. It looks like the hairline fracture never began to heal after the rod was implanted.

OY VEY
OY VEY

What she and I and all of us in the Femur Fracture Friendship Group have to remember is that after a rod is implanted, healing takes a long time. It may even be delayed for months. If and when new bone forms, the new bone bonds with old, brittle Fosamax-built bone. Furthermore, Fosamax stays in your system for 10 years. Some of us will not live long enough to be rid of bones-by-Fosamax.

OY VEY

A Bulldog Named Margaret

2010-07-21T13:49:00.003-04:00

Back in the day, dogs ran all over the neighborhood. A cute French bulldog often came visiting because Mom gave treats to all comers. I called her "Margaret."

My dad asked, "Is that dog's name really 'Margaret'?"

"No, " I said, "we just call her that."

"But why 'Margaret?'"

"Because she looks like Margaret E.," I said, naming a well-known dowager-about-town.

"Oh, she does not!" exclaimed Dad, rather indignantly.

I saw him look at the dog again and suppress a smile.

Ai yi! Fate pays us back. Now I am a "dowager-about-town" and worried about starting to look like a French bulldog.

Earthquake!

2010-07-17T13:13:00.001-04:00

Around 5 AM on Friday, a minor earthquake (magnitude: 3.6) woke some people in the Washington, DC area. I slept through this one.

I was awake (well, propped up at my desk, anyway) when another small quake shook nearby Columbia, MD in 1993. My chair rolled slightly. Later, the office comedian yelled over to our Branch Chief, "Hey, Keith! Your wife called. She said the earth moved and you weren't there."

New post on "And Deliver Us from Meadville."

2010-07-16T10:03:00.002-04:00

Read about "the Dreary Erie."

"Departures" (Japanese movie)

2010-07-02T08:56:00.001-04:00

Last night we watched a movie recommended by my sister, Margaret, about a young cello player who loses his job when the orchestra is disbanded. Desperate, he returns to his rural hometown far from Tokyo and reluctantly takes a job as an "encasketer". What is an "encasketer," you may ask. For all my knowledge--albeit superficial--of Japanese culture, I have to admit that I've never heard of this practice. It entails the reverent preparation of the body for burial in full view of the mourners and placing it in the casket, at which point the funeral directors take over.

Watching the elaborate ceremony, I said to myself, "But I thought everyone in Japan was cremated." Surely they wouldn't go through all this and then cremate the body, but that's just what they did.

Although I'd never known about this old custom, I was proud to have guessed that the "boss," the apprentice encasketer, and the secretary were observing a new one. One scene shows them digging into a bucket of fried chicken with gusto. I said to Phil, "I'll bet it's Christmas." Sure enough, the camera pulled back, revealing a small Christmas tree with twinkling lights. It's the custom in Japan to order Kentucky fried chicken at Christmas because Colonel Sanders looks like Santa Claus.

Here's my guess about why the husband keeps his job a secret from his wife and why she freaks out when she learns the truth. The Japanese don't like to talk about it, but Japan retains the vestiges of a caste system. Members of this caste are called the "eta," or untouchables. No one knows how they came to be set apart, but some think they long ago took on the task of disposing of dead animals. The native religion, Shinto, makes a big deal out of ritual purity. Shoes are not allowed in the house, and a separate pair of slippers must be worn for trips to the bathroom. My guess is that anyone who handles a dead body is considered "unclean." When the wife finds out about her husband's work, she screams, "You're filthy!" and runs off to Tokyo. But that's not the end of this story, which is told with love and tenderness.

Femur Fracture Friends Meet with FDA

2010-06-05T08:40:00.044-04:00

On May 24, seventeen members of our on-line Femur Fracture support group* met with eleven key officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Silver Spring, MD. We came from as far away as Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Virginia to tell our stories and ask the FDA to put a black-box warning on the packaging of Fosamax and other bisphosphonates about the side effects and risks of these drugs.

All of us suffered low-energy fractures or stress fractures of the femur (thigh bone), which is one of the strongest and least fracture-prone bones in our bodies. All of us had taken Fosamax or similar drugs for at least four years. Most of us had been put on Fosamax by our doctors for osteoporosis, but some had been put on it merely for osteopenia ( thinning bones, not actual osteoporosis). Most of us had to have surgery after "completed" fractures, with placement of a titanium rod. Most of us are still in pain several months or years post-surgery. A few have fractures that refuse to heal after a year or more.

Each of us made brief statements about our situations. The organizer of our group, Dr. Jennifer Schneider, reviewed the research that establishes an association between bisphosphonates and femur fractures. She also pointed out flaws in the research that finds no such association. Dr. Toby Morgan, the husband of one of the victims, noted that the FDA, unlike its counterparts in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, was still maintaining, as late as March of this year, that no association has been proven to exist between bisphosphonates and femur fractures. He also observed that the drug manufacturers have buried the information about the risks and side effects of these drugs in the finest of fine print on roadmap-sized enclosures.

The FDA officials listened for over an hour. They seemed receptive. We hope that they will act.

PS. I am second to the left in the back row, the one with the gleaming white hair.
*Our group has doubled in size since the beginning of 2010. We now have about 55 members, including one man.

Serpent of the Lord

2010-05-30T12:35:00.001-04:00

Life in an Extended Family Commune

2010-05-17T11:25:00.005-04:00

Welcome to the Commune. There is no guru here, just four quasi-adults, one two-year-old, three dogs and two cats.

Tom, Becky, our daughter, and Nathaniel, our grandson, moved in over the weekend. That is to say, they brought their three dressers, clothes on hangers, and a half ton of food. Our freezer is crammed full. Ditto the refrigerator, and there is still food in their College Park refrigerator. We are going to consume all this in the next three weeks. I am having frozen organic samosas for lunch.

Two loads of laundry will be done today. We will dine on a $14 organic chicken tonight (Becky was afraid it would be "spoiled" because she started thawing it on Friday.)

Tom leaves on Wednesday for a 4-day concert tour. In early June, the army band will go to Hawaii for 10 days. Tom will be gone on June 7th, the day they are moving into their new house. Becky is a bit frazzled. She just called to ask me if the blue plastic container containing Nathaniel's breakfast was in the driveway or the street. She had put it on top of the car and driven off.

It wasn't.

Yesterday the two cats had a chance encounter before being properly introduced. It wasn't pretty. Somehow Clarence (their cat) got out on the screened porch where Georgie was holding court from the penthouse of her cat condo. The next thing you know, she stretched her neck over the side of her perch to get a better view of the stranger. Then she flew at him and grabbed him viciously around his middle. Clarence fled into the "apartment" in terror and later threw up on the bed.

Jake to the Rescue

2010-05-04T22:36:00.007-04:00

Last week the house up the street was destroyed by fire. A gas-line leak is suspected because two explosions rattled the neighbors' windows before the fire broke out. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but what a heartbreak to lose irreplaceable items such as family photos and heirlooms.

Nearly three years ago, my husband's sister also lost her house to fire. She and her husband escaped unhurt, along with their three dogs and about half of their fifteen cats. (A faulty extension cord in the four-season room caused the fire.) Their dog, Jake, nudged them awake around 5 AM, moments before the smoke alarm went off.

Jake is the big dog in the picture which we took during our first visit to my in-law's new house. Ramsey, our pitbull, seems to be anxiously wondering how Phil and this other dog came to be such pals.

Phil and Jake met several years earlier, when Jake was a mere pup. At that time, Phil was busy with our cabin-building project in Ohio. He accepted an offer to stay in a neighbor's cabin for the weekend. Arriving after dark, when everything was pitch black, he was startled to hear ferocious barking from the direction of the darkened cabin. It sounded like a dog to be reckoned with, but when Phil beamed his flashlight on the porch, all he saw was a scrawny little mutt, no bigger than a fox.

That's what he called him: "Fox." Fox was guarding the cabin with fierce loyalty. He might have been abandoned, dumped out of a car on Route 514. Somehow Phil managed to slip through the door without being attacked. He spread some stale bread with mayonnaise and tossed it out on the porch. Fox inhaled it. He then wedged himself into the tiny space between the window grille and the glass to be as close as possible to the his new friend inside the cabin.

The next morning Phil drove six miles to Danville for dog food. Fox gobbled it up and stayed close to Phil all day. On Monday, Phil had to return to Maryland. What to do with Fox? He could hardly come home with Phil. At least not that day. We already had a crotchety, old beagle, Arlo. Plus my Mom. Mom was very protective of Arlo's rights as a senior citizen. She would certainly have objected to "upsetting" him by introducing an energetic, new puppy. Mom also had an ancient cat that couldn't stand "too much noise and confusion."

Phil discussed the situation with his sister, who lived in Marietta, OH. She and her husband already had two dogs and about a dozen cats. Nevertheless, they agreed to keep Fox temporarily. Fox rode all the way to Marietta with his chin resting on Phil's knee.

A few days after Phil got home, he called his sister for a report on Fox. His sister said that they had changed Fox's name to Jake and that he was doing just fine. He was getting along well with his four-footed siblings. So Fox had found his new family. But he never forgot Phil.

Hair-Raising Portrait of Grandson

2010-04-22T11:08:00.001-04:00

Uncle Earl

2010-04-19T17:20:00.006-04:00

This morning we went to The Diner for breakfast. Through the window, we saw the cook step outside to smoke. To our surprise, he proceeded to roll his own cigarette. I didn't know people still did that. He poured just the right amount of loose tobacco into a thin, white paper. Jiggled it around to even things out, rolled it, licked the edge of the paper, sealed it deftly and settled down for a few moments of bliss. Many a time I watched Uncle Earl do this very thing when I was a kid.

Uncle Earl.

What a character.

He and "Cousin Carl" lived at "Whitehaven," the farm my natural mother's parents bought during the Depression. Aunt Nancy said, "I never thought anything about it. I thought everyone kept a couple of freaks around the house."

Freaks? That seems a bit harsh. Earl and Carl both drank. My grandfather took them in, hoping to keep them out of trouble. It didn't work for Carl, but Uncle Earl did fine, as long as he didn't go to town.

Uncle Earl was a frail, little old man with a fringe of white hair. He slept in a monks' cell of a bedroom on the first floor near the kitchen. He'd spend hours in his room, playing solitaire on a rickety, blue table with scorch marks along the edge, where he'd set countless hand-rolled cigarettes. He never had much to say, other than to good-naturedly call my sister and me "a couple of bad eggs." Sitting on the covered radiator in the "breakfast room," smoking one of his cigarettes, he'd churn butter in a gallon-sized glass jug fitted out with a crank. He'd crank and crank until butter began to appear on the paddles. One thing that Uncle Earl took great pride in was his beautiful vegetable garden. He wouldn't pick the corn until Grandmother had the water boiling.

Grandmother said that Uncle Earl was awfully smart. She told me that, at Allegheny College, Uncle Earl often took exams for a lazy classmate who later became a judge in Crawford County. Unfortunately, Uncle Earl didn't graduate. Something about getting drunk and putting a cow in the bell tower of Alden Hall. I wish now that I'd listened more carefully to Grandmother's stories.

Who knows how close he came to ruin before he tried a "geographical cure?' What happened to Uncle Earl when he went to town? One time he accompanied Grandmother to Cambridge Springs on a grocery-shopping trip. He was supposed to drop off the vacuum cleaner at the repair shop. Not only did he drop it off, but he also dropped out of sight for two or three weeks. That's what could happen when Uncle Earl went to to town.

The Angel Wore Flip-Flops

2010-04-07T10:18:00.005-04:00

Click on photo to see angelic flip-flops.

We're back from a week in San Miguel de Allende. We happened to be there during Holy Week. We saw three magnificent religious processions. Here is the beginning of the second procession that took place on Good Friday, an hour-long re-enactment of the crucifixion.

The procession began at La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel (The Parish of Saint Michael the Archangel), a most unusual church that dominates the Jardin Principal (town square), if not the whole state of Guanajuato.

I don't have much more to say right now. I fell in love, that's all.

It's been chaotic, in a good way, since we've come home. Our younger daughter, husband, and two-year-old "house-sat" while we were away. While we were gone, a major leak developed in the bathroom at their house. They've had to extend their stay. The repairman expects to be finished in time for them to return home tomorrow night. Meanwhile, the refrigerator is so full of stuff I can't find a thing. Laundry baskets and suitcases are stacked up everywhere. I've been to the supermarket a few times and done some laundry, theirs and ours. Sophie, their dog--the one I fell over when I broke my leg--barreled through the porch screen, creating a portal to the Great Outdoors for Georgie, our indoor cat. Georgie didn't go very far, but she looked all too pleased to have "escaped" for a few moments.

I still have one foot in Mexico and vague plans to take Beginning Spanish.

Off to Mexico

2010-03-26T15:54:00.000-04:00

We're going to Mexico for a week (not Jaurez). We're meeting three of my sisters and their husbands. We're all sharing a villa--the former vacation home of President Santa Ana, who led the Mexican troops at the Battle of the Alamo.

Childlike Defiance

2010-03-18T10:04:00.002-04:00

Now that I'm recovering from a broken leg, I get scolded every time I stand on the step-stool to reach something on the high shelf. "Mom! Get down! Ask Dad to get that for you!"

This brings back a memory of Mom and me. Two or three years ago, Mom came out in the kitchen while I was on the step-stool.

"Oh," she said, "I need to borrow that." A frail 97-year-old lady needs to borrow a step-stool?

"What for?" I asked.

"If I tell you, you won't let me borrow it."

True enough. She eventually confessed that she wanted to clean the tops of her kitchenette cabinets.

"Mom, I can do that for you. I don't want you getting up on this thing."

"Why not?"

"Because you could fall and break something."

"Anybody could fall and break a bone," she countered.

True enough.

"Besides," she went on, "I have never fallen." She forgot she'd already told me about the time she landed in the rose bush while cleaning the garage window, back in Meadville.

To demonstrate her agility and superior sense of balance, she stood on the lower step and flapped her arms defiantly. She looked like a bird about to take flight.

"Mom, get down!"

She got down, pleased to see that she had riled me up.

She did not get to borrow the step-stool

Games Our Minds Play

2010-03-17T16:25:00.003-04:00

This is just crazy!

Yesterday morning I was reading about Mrs. Clarence Thomas and Liberty Central, her new political-action group. As a former employee of the federal government, I remembered that we employees had certain restrictions on our political activity. (Not that this has anything to do with Mrs. Thomas, mind you. I'm just saying.) I asked my soon-to-retire husband the name of the act that limited our politicking.

He couldn't remember.

Then the strangest thing happened.

The mental image of a guy I knew at work floated into my mind, but I couldn't remember his name either!

Just then, my husband hit on the answer. "The Hatch Act!"

Yep. My mental image was that of a guy named David Hatch. I ask you: why must our brains play hide-n-seek like this?

Toddler Endears Himself to His Cousin

2010-03-01T11:54:00.003-05:00

(Nearly Two Years Ago)

Margaret with 2-month-old nephew, Nathaniel, and son, Andrew, 5

This weekend we celebrated our son-in-law's birthday with a family dinner at our house. Our two little grandsons were there, of course. For the first time, they appeared to play together, despite the age gap. Andrew is 7 and Nathaniel will turn 2 on March 10th.

Christmas was the last time the cousins saw each other because of colds and major snowstorms. Andrew looked very happy when his little cousin called him by name for the first time on Sunday. Nathaniel is building his vocabulary day by day. How sweet that one of his first hundred words is "Andrew."

Did Vivaldi Have Red Hair?

2010-02-26T09:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I could have sworn they (WETA-FM) said, "And now a concerto from our favorite redneck, Antonio Vivaldi."

They must have said "redhead."

Or did they?

If not "redhead," what DID they say?

My Last Word on Femurs and Fosamax

2010-02-20T11:02:00.034-05:00

I don't want to give people the wrong impression. I just don't know that Fosamax is wrong for everyone. It might even have been good for me, at least for a short period. To sum up:

*Some doctors now advise patients on Fosamax to take a "vacation" after they've been on the drug for 5 years. Reason: Fosamax has a half-life of 10 years. This means it stays in your body after you stop taking it. It looks like you derive no additional benefit from taking it longer than 5 years.

*However, 5 years is not a magic number. Some femur fractures occur earlier than 5 years, but most femur fractures occur in women taking bisphosphonates (Fosamax, Boniva, Actonel, etc.) for 8 years or longer. (I took Fosamax and alendronate sodium, its generic, for nearly 10 years.)

*A blood test after 4 or 5 years can determine whether your bone-turnover markers are normal or whether the bisphosphanate you've been taking has shut the process down.

*Complain loudly to your doctor if you have persistent thigh pain.

*Be very wary of taking Fosamax for osteopenia. For an alarming report on the agressive marketing of Fosamax, see How A Bone Disease Grew To Fit the Prescription on NPR. My sister took Fosamax for over four years for osteopenia and ended up with a fractured left femur and a hairline crack in her right femur, which was "rodded" before it could break completely.

*Don't take my word for it. Search the Internet using the terms "Fosamax" and "femur," and you'll pull up oodles of press articles and notices of lawsuits galore. Also, check out a report called Drugs Causing Bone Breaks? on http://my.msn.com/.

'Nuff said. It's been nearly three months since my fracture. I'm doing well, with minimal pain and stiffness. I waddle all over the place and climb stairs, albeit slowly. I plan to continue physical therapy for another month. I now have an exercise bike. The surgeon tells me it takes a year for my type of fracture to heal completely, but I think I'm on track.

Now on with the rest of my life.

Enough, Already

2010-02-11T15:50:00.013-05:00

On Saturday, January 30th, we set out for "the far-off province of Ohio," as they call it in The King and I. We knew there'd be some snow, but we didn't think it would amount to much. Silly us. It fell mainly in Maryland, getting heavier as we headed west. More than once my husband asked, "Do you think we should turn back?" We both wanted to keep going, so we did. On the other side of Uniontown, PA, the snow stopped. Once we were at the cabin, we could see that it had snowed there sometime during the past week, but it wasn't as deep as it is in the photo. The photo was taken on February 7th by a Knox County neighbor, after we were back in Maryland.

We went to our cabin in mid-winter so that we could attend the 66th annual Raccoon Dinner sponsored by the Danville Lion's Club. It's a major community fundraiser that's always held on the first Monday in February. As I said to Phil, "I come for the cake." For dessert, you can pick out your own piece of homemade cake. Every year they give a prize to the person who has traveled the farthest to feast on raccoon. We've never won. Last year, the winner came from Russia. This year, from Egypt. How can anyone who drives a mere 385 miles from Maryland compete with that?

On Tuesday, we started home. Just over the Maryland line, we ran into another snowstorm. The road (I-68) all but disappeared at times. The trip took 12 hours!

On Friday night, the Big Snow began. It snowed all night and all day Saturday. We ended up with 21 inches from that storm. Church was canceled on Sunday. Sunday morning, Phil began shoveling. Our daughter, Becky, called, complaining of a cough, pain in her chest, and a high fever. She'd been sick for several days, as had their nearly-two-year-old son, Nathaniel, He was getting better; she was getting worse. She needed to go to the emergency room. The ambulance could not go up their street, so a fire truck came instead, to take her to the hospital. Nathaniel put on his "I-don't-know-you, but-even-if-I-did, I-don't-think-I'd-like-you" face when he saw all the firemen. When they all trooped out to the porch to discuss logistics, Nathaniel firmly shut the door behind them. In spite of that, they took his mommy away.

At the hospital, they said she had pneumonia and gave her a prescription. By this time, I had hired some men to finish shoveling the driveway. Phil drove to the hospital in our 4WD Subaru on barely-cleared roads, took Becky to pick up her prescription, and drove her home.

Every thing was shut down on Monday. On Tuesday, Phil drove me to Silver Spring for a long-overdue dental appointment. The roads were a mess, rutted and slippery. It took us an hour to get out of Laurel, but once we were on I-95 and the Beltway, there were no problems.

The snow started again (this time it was a major coastal storm) Tuesday night and blew and blustered all day Wednesday. It finally stopped last night. We've had a total of 3 and 1/2 feet from both storms.

It's Thursday. Choir is canceled tonight, and maybe there will be no church again on Sunday. Phil hasn't been to work all week. He is once again shoveling the driveway. The sun is shining. Our son-in-law picked up a few things for us at the store and dropped off Andrew, our 7-year-old grandson. He and his grandfather will go sledding this afternoon. Who knows what the roads will be like tomorrow?

Oh, to be more like Georgie, our cat! Although blowing and drifting snow kept her from pursuing her favorite activities on "her" screened porch this week, she quickly found a new way to have fun.

If You Can't Build Your Bones, Build Your Vocabulary

2010-01-29T16:54:00.010-05:00

Ladies, did you know that you can no longer build bone after menopause? Once you reach that splendid milestone, you've stuck with the bones you've got. Oh, sure, I know that ads for drugs such as Boniva promise that you can stop and even "reverse" bone loss, but you'll never get back the bones you had when you were a giddy young thing in your twenties.

I was diagnosed with osteoporosis in April, 2000, when I was 59. I was put on Fosamax (10 mg/day) and stayed on it for nearly 10 years. The day my sister fractured her left femur in mid-November by bumping into a wheelchair ( it was parked by the door to be returned to the rental store two months after her foot surgery), I vaguely remembered a report I'd read in the summer of 2008 suggesting that long-term use of Fosamax appeared to be associated with "low-energy" femur fractures like my sister's. As soon as the anesthetic from her femur surgery wore off, my sister was sitting up in bed with her laptop, busily researching femur fractures on the internet. When I fractured my own femur two weeks later, I became just as interested as she was in finding out all I could about Fosamax and femur fractures. Fortunately, my sister sent me about a dozen articles by doctors who are researching the Fosamax/femur-fracture connection.

The most notable quote from the stack of articles: "Their physician had them on Fosamax believing it was a relatively benign drug used to treat osteoporosis," says Dr. Lorich. "What we found was that the patients having these fractures had been on the bisphosphonate for several years, and it was turning their bone off from healing." From Orthopaedic Trauma Today, Premier Issue, Spring 2008.

My industrious sister also found an on-line support group of 30 women and 1 man who had all taken Fosamax for at least four years and who had all all sustained low-energy fractures of their femurs (some bilateral). One unfortunate person experienced both bilateral femur fractures and osteonecrosis (jaw bone death), another suspected side-effect of long-term Fosamax use.

Anyway, medical dictionary in hand, I have carefully read all the articles and the stories provided by the members of the online support group and have learned many new words:

bisphosphonates: drugs such as Fosamax, Boniva, Actonel

bone turnover: the breakdown of old bone (by osteoclasts) and the creation of new (by osteoblasts). Bisphosphanates are thought to interfere with this natural process.

comminuted: a fracture in which the bone breaks into many small pieces

cortex: the outer layer of the bone

diaphyseal: refers to a fracture of the shaft of the femur

femur: the thigh bone

hypertrophy: overgrowth, thickening (of the cortex). The bone may appear strong on a bone scan, but actually be quite brittle.

IM rod: intramedullary rod. Metal rod implanted surgically that replaces the marrow of the femur and stabilizes the bone

low-energy fracture: a fracture that occurs from a standing height or less, which normally would not happen unless the bone were severely diseased or very brittle

osteoblast: cells that build up new bone

osteoclast: cells that break down old bone

osteonecrosis: bone death. In the bisphosphonate context, jaw-bone death. Merck, the maker of Fosamax, has been sued by dental patients who took Fosamax and whose jaw bones collapsed or developed open wounds after dental procedures.

osteopenia: the thinning of bones that occurs naturally with aging, which may progress to osteoporosis in time.

stress reaction: a microscopic disruption in the bone that is not repaired, eventually resulting in a fracture

subtrochanteric: refers to to a femur fracture occuring below the lesser trochanter. See trochanter.

trochanter: bony structure(s) on top of thigh bone shaft, close to the hip. There are actually two trochanters, the greater and the lesser.

Bone Pome

2010-01-24T16:28:00.002-05:00

Femur, fyemur, foemur, fummer,
Hope I walk OK next summer.
If I can't, then what a bummer!
Femur, fyemur, foemur, fummer.

Six Weeks' Check Up

2010-01-16T15:33:00.001-05:00

I saw Dr. Alam yesterday for my six-weeks' check-up. The x-rays show that the bone is mending nicely. The doctor was pleased with my mobility, but he said I should hold off on driving for another two weeks. :-(

When I mentioned that I needed a "left-handed" cane, he looked puzzled. I showed him the cane I'd been using. It had belonged to Mom. She picked it out because it did not look like an "old lady" cane. At age 97, she was not about to go out in public looking like an old lady. Instead of a crook, her cane had a molded handpiece of black simulated wood, making it look more like an Irish walking stick than a cane. It was her idea of a compromise, because she didn't "need" a cane at all and was only getting one to shut me (and her doctor) up. Since it was molded to fit her right hand, it was all wrong for me. Here's a bit of "arcane" knowledge: if your right leg is injured, you hold your cane in your left hand, and vice-versa. Dr. Alam gave me an "old lady" cane and I went home happy.

On Monday, I will start outpatient physical therapy, three times a week for four weeks.

Progress (of sorts) Report

2010-01-09T14:32:00.000-05:00

Next Friday I have an appointment with my surgeon. It will be six weeks since my surgery to "rod" a broken femur. I hope he gives me a green light on driving. Starting the week of January 18th, I will have outpatient physical therapy two or three times a week for four weeks. I would like to be able to drive myself rather than imposing on Phil.

I've definitely turned the corner on pain. It's now a "one" on a scale of one-to-ten, with ten being the worst. Although there were times when, even on morphine, the pain seemed more like a "fifteen," those days are over. Now my complaint is stiffness. I feel like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz after a cold, drenching rain. Does anyone have an oilcan? I have all but abandoned the walker around the house. I get around by holding onto things if I need to. Otherwise I just hobble along, looking like a drunken sailor on a tossing ship. It would be nice to walk more or less gracefully again.

Like a Yeti

2009-12-28T11:27:00.002-05:00

Finally, a break from the constant, severe, unrelenting pain. The visiting physical therapist told me that the pain usually lets up three weeks after surgery and he was right. I'm getting along fine on a few Tylenol a day and have actually enjoyed several pain-free moments.

Just as we were about to leave for our daughter's house on Christmas Day, my hearing aid "stopped listening," as my son-in-law said. The on/off switch had been acting funny for a few weeks, and finally it just quit. So I was pretty out of it during the festivities, except when my live-in hearing aid (Phil) was in the room.

This morning I got an appointment for Wednesday morning with my audiologist. He'll give me a "loaner" until my new aid arrives. I am so happy to be able to even get an appointment between Christmas and New Year's, but here's the thing:

I was already 2 weeks overdue for a haircut when I crashed to the floor on December 1st. Regular haircuts are a must with hair as short and fine as mine. I look like a yeti! I will scare old men, young women, small children and little dogs in oversize handbags as I clank along with my walker on my way from the street into the audiologist's building. But, as the Japanese would say, "Shikata ga nai." ("It can't be helped.)

My haircutter is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so I can't even call for an appointment until Wednesday.

Fun with Closed Captioning

2009-12-24T09:19:00.000-05:00

This morning I watched as the Senate passed the health care reform bill 60 to 39. After the bill passed, there was a lot of milling around on the Senate floor, some handshaking and back-slapping. The commentator said that after weeks of acrimonious debate, shouting and name-calling, this display of good will and friendliness perhaps showed a willingness to "restore what is called the 'comity of the Senate.'"

Good ol' Closed Captioning! Sometimes it doesn't get it quite right. Closed Captioning made this "restore what is called the comedy of the Senate."

Snowy Day

2009-12-19T10:49:00.002-05:00

Today deep snow is blanketing the Baltimore-Washington suburbs. There's even a possibility of canceling church tomorrow--not that I'd be going--but tomorrow is "Greening Sunday," the Sunday before Christmas when the congregation always decorates the church with fresh evergreens.

It's 16 days after the surgery to repair my fractured right femur. Some days the pain is nearly overwhelming. Unfortunately, I'm near the end of the road with Oxycodone; I seem to have developed a tolerance for it. The good news is that the staples came out two days ago. I get around pretty well with a walker. They tell me I won't need the walker after New Year's. I find that hard to believe.

The visiting nurse will come once more next week to discharge me from home nursing care. I'll have about two more visits per week from the physical therapist and will then continue therapy on an outpatient basis. I can't imagine when I'll be able to drive again, since the fractured leg is the gas pedal/brake leg. We'll see.

Last night, Criminal Cat (the one who knocked down last year's Christmas tree) jumped on my lap and tried to settle herself on my poor leg. When I screeched, she dug her claws into my thigh before jumping off. I bled a lot because of the blood thinner I'm taking to prevent post-surgery blood clots. Phil washed the wounds, slathered on antiseptic ointment, and applied a dressing. I'll probably live.

Naughty Georgina

2009-12-18T10:42:00.002-05:00

Georgie tipped over our tree last Christmas.

She didn't seem sorry at all.

In fact, here she is, returning to the scene of the crime to gloat.

Home Sweet Home

2009-12-17T10:45:00.001-05:00

Today is two weeks post surgery. The visiting nurse will remove the staples this afternoon. I am told it's simple and painless, but I've had my doubts after seeing what a staple remover does to a piece of paper.

I had surgery to insert a hip-to-knee titanium-alloy rod to stabilize my fractured right femur on December 3rd. I was due to be transferred to the hospital's rehabilitation department on Sunday, December 6th, but no bed was available. On Monday, the physical therapist asked me if I would be willing to continue therapy at home. YES!

We didn't get home until around 8 PM. I was ready to fall into bed. Brushing my teeth for the first time in a week with my beloved electric toothbrush, I was surprised that the toothpaste tasted so awful. "Oh, well, " I thought, "maybe the Oxycodone I'm on is making it taste funny." The next morning I saw that I had brushed my teeth with hydrocortisone cream. YUK!

WAH!

2009-12-09T08:59:00.001-05:00

During my week at the hospital, I spent a lot of time contemplating my wrist band. Name, admission date, admitting doctor's name, birth date. Over in the corner: "WAH." What was this? An indication of my emotional state at the time of admission? On Day Six, the light dawned. WAH = Washington Adventist Hospital.

Freaky Femur Fractures

2009-12-08T12:17:00.002-05:00

As you might have read in "Bone of my Bones," my November 19th post, my sister tripped over a wheelchair (she had just recovered from foot surgery) and fractured her left femur. After surgery, an x-ray showed a hairline fracture in her right femur. She is scheduled for more surgery tomorrow.

Not to be outdone, I fractured my right femur a week ago today. Tuesday is the day I spend with our 20-month-old grandson so that his mother (our daughter) can work at home. I'm glad I had already carried Nathaniel upstairs for his nap. Back downstairs, I heard the College Park leaf-vaccuuming machine approaching the great stack of curbside leaves out front. Looking out the window for a glimpse of this leaf-munching monster, I stumbled over Sophie, a huge sweet mutt who had parked herself in the traffic lane. Down I went!

The next week was a blur. Ambulance ride to the emergency room at Washington Adventist Hospital (WAH), x-rays, admission to the hospital, surgery Thursday night, physical and occupational therapy. Happily, I got to come home last night. A visiting nurse and physical therapist will come see me today. Phil has been wonderful, changing the bed, doing laundry, picking up prescriptions, injecting my blood thinner, helping me shower. He was on duty since 4 PM yesterday until 11 AM this morning, when he went to work.

I'm still in pain, but it's manageable. I feel pretty good 20 minutes after taking my Oxycontin. Although the calls and e-mails from friends and the care I received from the WAH staff probably had something to do it, I wonder if my happy mood during the past week was due to the combined effects of my antidepressant plus Oxycodone. I think I will call Rush Limbaugh during his show today and ask for advice on doctor shopping. JUST kidding.

Turkey Eater's Dilemma

2009-11-21T09:47:00.001-05:00

This week we will head for our cabin in Ohio to celebrate Thanksgiving with our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. I've ordered a fresh turkey from "Dale's Cardinal Supermarket" in Danville, OH. I had a choice between "regular" and "free range." Although it cost more, I chose "free range."

Then I got to thinking.

If, according to the animal rights folks, a free-range turkey lives a happier life than a caged turkey, why end its happy little life? Wouldn't it be better to have chosen a cage-reared turkey and ended its suffering? Just thought I'd ask.

I am not ready to become a vegetarian just yet.

Once, when someone asked me when I was going to become a vegetarian, I replied, "I'm waiting for my dog to become one first."

Bone of My Bones and Flesh of My Flesh

2009-11-19T08:54:00.011-05:00

On Saturday, I received a "bad news" e-mail from my brother-in-law. My sister, Barbara (not one of my three half-sisters), tripped and broke her femur (upper thigh bone), She was in the hospital, scheduled for surgery on Sunday morning. Barbara's was a "low energy" fracture, caused by slight trauma such as a bump or a fall, rather than a major trauma, such as a car accident. Still, it was more than a hairline fracture. The bone fragments were misaligned, so she was in surgery longer than anticipated. The surgeon said the bone was "dense, but brittle."

As soon as I received Ron's e-mail, I remembered news releases about fractured femurs in women who had been on Fosamax ("Fossil-max," as Phil calls it) for many years. I've been on Fosamax or its generic form for over 12 years.

Although anyone in the world could tell at a glance that Barbara and I are sisters, we are not clones of each other. Barbara, who is two years younger than I, was diagnosed with osteopenia (thinning bones) about five years ago and started taking Fosamax then. I was diagnosed with osteoporosis when I went off hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on a whim about 12 years ago because of annoying side effects. A bone scan showed advanced osteoporosis at age 57, despite my having been on HRT for seven years! My case was considered so serious that I was urged to resume HRT, so for about 3 or 4 years, I was on both Fosamax and Premarin. Then, in 2002, the bad news came out about HRT and I quit hormone therapy abruptly, but continued taking Fosamax. Two or three bone density scans have shown only a marginal improvement. However, there has been no further bone loss in hip or spine, which is cause for celebration.

A class-action suit has been brought against Merck, the manufacturer of Fosamax, by women suffering sudden "low energy" fractures like my sister's. Barbara is considering joining the suit, not for the money, but to bolster the statistics. She said that the patient-information literature mentions pain as a possible side effect, but does not tell the patient to contact her doctor immediately. Barbara had experienced severe pain in her left thigh for months. When I saw her at our niece's wedding in August, she was limping badly. The doctor could find no reason for her pain.

Yesterday I found this statement on the Internet, from a July 25, 2008 article in the New York Times: "Notably, studies suggest there is little extra benefit in taking the bone drugs more than five years."

ARGGGH. What to do? The slightest ache or pain in my legs is now making me paranoid. Broken hip or broken leg? Broken spine or broken leg? Speak, Crystal Ball.

Mischief by Foxen

2009-11-07T11:08:00.001-05:00

Last week my husband looked out the kitchen window and saw an odd-looking cat under the hemlock. The "cat" turned out to be a very small fox, which trotted to the persimmon tree by the street and helped itself to some fallen fruit. Spooked by a passing car, it retreated to the hemlock.

On a walk this week, I spotted a "dog" crossing the street up ahead. Someone's dog had probably gotten loose, I thought. Then I noticed that this dog had a very pointed nose and a very bushy tail. Another fox!

My husband has fumed for years about pesky squirrels that empty the bird feeders. Now he's noticed that we have far fewer squirrels this fall. Perhaps the foxen and their little ones have been feasting on squirrels.

Oh, PLEASE!

2009-10-30T09:59:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, while folding laundry in front of the TV, I chanced upon The 700 Club. The host, Pat Robertson, was whining that the new Hate Crimes Bill was just another example of the "persecution" of "believing Christians." Why? Because he's afraid that pastors whose sermons condemn what he calls the "lifestyles" of gays and transgendered folks could go to jail. Oh, get real, Pat! Believe me, you and your "believing Christians" are not the victims here. Do you want to know what a real victim looks like? A real victim gets tied to a fence and beaten to death because someone can't tolerate his "lifestyle."

Death of a Tenant

2009-10-23T12:35:00.004-04:00

We received "Norma's" obituary last month from our neighbor in Ohio. "Norma" was never actually our tenant. Our niece inherited the part of the farm where the old house stood. Then again, maybe "Norma" wasn't really a tenant at all. Don't tenants usually pay rent? "Norma" and "Ralph" were living in a decrepit old house down the road when Dad died in 1983. After the funeral, they asked if they could move into the old farmhouse. "Until we get back on our feet" was the way "Ralph" put it.

Somehow they never managed to get back on their feet. Maybe the loss of Ralph's foot to diabetes had something to do with it. Anyway, Ralph lived there--rent-free--for the rest of his life, probably ten or twelve years. Norma continued to live there alone until 1999. The insurance company refused to renew the insurance, so our niece let the local fire company burn the house down as a training exercise in 2001.

Norma and Ralph knew how to live off the land, even though it wasn't their land. Ralph gathered all the wild ginseng he could find and sold it to dealers. He also trapped a wild turkey and broke its wing, proudly explaining to my sister-in-law that he was using it as a decoy to lure other turkeys. My sister-in-law was furious. After she threatened to report him to the game warden, the turkey quietly disappeared. Ralph and Norma disingenuously asked my husband if he had made off with their turkey. Before its disappearance, it guarded the place ferociously. When my husband once rolled down his car window to talk to Ralph, the turkey rushed up and pecked him on the arm.

Which brings me to Joey, who was first their dog and then ours. Joey actually lived with their son, Eddie, who had a mobile home across the pond. Eddie kept Joey tied up outside and threw dogfood on the ground when he thought of it. Eddie had a girlfriend in town, so he wasn't home much. One day he told Dad that he could no longer keep Joey and had taken him to the pound. Dad sprung him in the nick of time and he became our dog. When my husband went out to Ohio to plant trees, he'd take Joey along. On one of these visits, he stopped the car to talk to Ralph. "There's my old pal!" Ralph boomed, reaching into the car to pet him. "Grrrrrrrr," said Joey, backing away.

During the eighties and nineties, no one in our family allowed deer hunting on the farm. We found out later, however, that Norma issued hunting "permits" behind our backs, collecting fees from all comers. My husband never knew about this until the game warden called him in Maryland to ask him if he wanted to press charges against a group of about 2 dozen hunters he caught trespassing on our land. Norma was playing a risky game. One guy--a local legend-- refused to pay her fee. When Norma told him he couldn't hunt, he cooly raised the barrel of the gun and pointed it straight at her.

Even after she moved into an assisted living facility, Norma continued to share ownership of the land with us in her own peculiar way. Our sister-in-law recently asked a group of strangers what they were doing on her land. They said, "Oh, Norma told us that we could hunt for mushrooms here."

Note in a Bottle

2009-10-14T07:00:00.002-04:00

We just got home from a weekend at our place in Ohio. On a walk along the banks of the Mohican River, we found a plastic water bottle with a note scrolled inside. The note-writer's misspelled words are italicized.

Dear Peopel and Things

Im camping.
Im 10 and tomorro is my birthday.
Yes, I can't what.
I love trees and animals.
Hope your having a good cano trip or day wichever.
Bye bye.

Charlie

Last Weekend

2009-10-06T14:55:00.005-04:00

The weekend started on Saturday morning with a bang when I toppled backwards off my stepper. I twisted my left ankle while doing an exercise that was supposed to improve my sense of balance. Lucky I didn't break my neck. I couldn't put weight on my foot for the next two days.

I was able to hobble into Einstein's Bagels, where we had breakfast. I ordered 4 dozen bagels for our church's Help-the-Homeless Miniwalk on Sunday morning. After breakfast, I went to a crafts workshop at church to make items for the Holiday Bazaar in November. There were several projects to choose from---decorating miniature Christmas trees, creating stuffed animals, crafting embroidered handbags, or beading.

I decided to try beading. Everyone in our group, except for the leader, was a rank beginner. I was an "all-thumbs" rank beginner. Arleen showed us how to make a simple pair of earrings. Some of the others were already on their second pair while I was still trying to figure out which way to bend the wire on my first. Arleen was very patient. I spent the next three hours making a necklace in various shades of blue and turquoise. I really enjoyed stringing the beads in a pattern that emerged as I went along. It kept me off my feet.

Back to Ohio

2009-10-02T13:27:00.002-04:00

We're going to our cabin in Ohio over Columbus Day weekend. We'll get off I-77 at Route 39 and head west through Sugar Creek, Walnut Creek, Berlin, Millersburg, and Nashville. On the two-lane highway between Walnut Creek and Millersburg, we'll see lots of Amish buggies. Berlin, in fact, has become a center of Amish tourism; the population of Amish in Holmes and surrounding counties is among the largest in the country, and is said to rival that of Pennsylvania.

One soon notices variations in dress among the various groups. Here goes a young woman dressed head-to-toe in black, wearing sturdy black oxfords, and there goes a gaggle of giggling prayer-bonneted teen-agers in pastel dresses and flip-flops.

Driving through Millersburg years ago, when our older daughter was five, we saw an Old Order Amish woman crossing the street with an identically-dressed toddler in tow. "Look, Mommy," said Margaret, "a baby nun!"

Blowhards

2009-10-01T07:34:00.007-04:00

Our younger daughter is one of those people who can have everyone in stitches just by the way she talks about incidents in her life.

Once, at a party, she told a story that had everyone laughing. Later, an older man sidled up to her and said, self-importantly, "Let me clue you. Men don't like women who are funny."

A bit taken aback, she made no reply. Now she wishes she had cooly retorted,

"Let me clue you. Women don't like blowhards."

17th Sunday after Pentecost

2009-09-29T14:50:00.007-04:00

Next week we'll have the Blessing of the Animals. The priest says that if anyone brings snakes, she'll bless them, but she won't touch them. And they'd better be in cages.

Last week, in keeping with the Season of Creation, we heard Eucharistic Prayer C during the Great Thanksgiving. The husband of the priest we had over 20 years ago called it the "Star Wars" prayer. It's my favorite eucharistic prayer, especially the part about "this fragile earth."

"At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home."

Denise was one of the servers at communion. I remembered getting a wrong number when I tried to call her one time.

"Is Denise there?" I asked.
"No!" barked a very annoyed woman.
I apologized and hung up.
Thinking I had probably made a mistake dialing, I tried again.
The same irate woman picked up the phone. "Yeah?"
"Uh...is Denise there?"
"Look, Bitch, do I sound like Denise?"
"No. Sorry for bothering you," I replied, timidly.

What I WISH I had said was, "No, you don't sound at all like Denise. Denise is nice."

Off to Peek 'n Peak Tomorrow

2009-08-20T14:10:00.013-04:00

Tomorrow I'm driving to Peek 'n Peak, a family resort in southwestern New York state, to attend my niece's wedding. I'm looking forward to a reunion with my four sisters. Three are actually half sisters, but they are all sisters to me.

First stop along the way will be Valencia, PA, to visit BF. She is the sweet woman who boarded a Greyhound near Pittsburgh three times during the past 18 months to come down to stay with Mom while the Tree Hugger and I went away for long weekends. I'm giving her Mom's service-for-six sterling silver.

We won't discuss politics. The last time the TH picked BF up at the bus station (October 2008), he said, "Might as well tell you. We have an Obama sign in our front yard."
"Oh, said she, "he's a Muslim."
"No, he's not."
"Yes,he is."
"So I suppose you're voting for McCain."
"Yes, but I'm not that crazy about him. I really like Sarah Palin though. If Hillary had won the nomination, I would have voted for her."

Since we won't be discussing politics, we won't be discussing health care reform either. BF has private insurance, but she's not happy with it. "They don't pay jackshit," she says.

Then on to Meadville, where I'll visit my 90-year-old Aunt Virginia, who's in the Assisted Living Center at Wesbury United Methodist Community. Aunt Virginia, who's about 90, lived alone until this June, when my cousin, Harry, realized that she was getting forgetful. Pots boiled dry on the stove, bills unpaid, etc. Mom and I used to stay with Aunt Virginia when we came up to Meadville so Mom could visit her friends. I wonder if Aunt Virginia will still recognize me.

Finally Peek 'n Peak. The wedding is Saturday evening. On Sunday, we'll regroup in Erie, PA, at the home of one of the sisters.

On Monday, my sister Barbara and I will visit our mothers' graves at Greendale Cemetery in Meadville. Both our birth mother and my stepmother are buried there. It will be the first time I've seen Mom's grave since her death in December. She's buried beside our dad. Our birth mother, who died ten years ago, is buried beside her second husband.

I'll be home by Monday night. Summer day camp will have ended for our grandson and school won't have started, so he'll be with me all week. Maybe we'll go see the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History.

She Started It

2009-07-29T13:39:00.006-04:00

Our niece and her family were going to Cleveland for a reunion of the Polish relatives on her dad's side. She wrote, "Did you hear the one about the frog who traced his roots to Warsaw? He was a tad Polish."

No way could I just let that go. I e-mailed a reply. "Did you hear the one about the mad scientist who cobbled together a frog-monster out of bat wings, an "eye of newt" and other odds and ends? His name was Dr. Frogenstein."

Almost immediately another pun bubbled up in my sick brain, so I sent a second e-mail: "Did you hear the one about Frogbert McNamara? They made a documentary about him called "The Frog of War."

It's an illness. I'm sorry, but we can't help it.

The CuisinART of Shoplifting

2009-07-21T14:07:00.008-04:00

A recent letter to the editor of our hometown weekly caught my eye. The writer complained that our local Macy's no longer carried replacement brushes for his Sonicare because they kept getting stolen.

Let me tell you what happened to me. The store was having a sale on food processors, so I bought one. Unwrapped it, set it on the counter, and then noticed that the plastic spatula looked a little worse for wear. Comparing my "new" appliance with the picture on the box, I soon realized a shoplifter had put one over on the store. Some jerk had bought a new food processor, carefully wrapped the old one in the carton, sealed it and returned it to the store for a refund. Clever, but slimy.

Fortunately, I had no problem taking it back. I was so annoyed by the whole thing that I chose a refund rather than an exchange.

Tiresome Old Goats

2009-07-15T08:52:00.005-04:00

I love the patient, measured way with which Sonia Sotomayor responds to the needling by Hatch, Sessions, and Graham.

Sampler Madness

2009-07-02T15:15:00.020-04:00

Our niece gave us a framed needlework sampler for our cabin in Ohio. It wasn't exactly a gift, just something she couldn't use and thought we'd like. Wanting to keep the cabin spare and bare, I donated it to a silent auction fundraiser back home in Maryland, estimating its value at $150.00.

A few days before the June 6th auction, I typed "sampler" in my browser window on a whim and was amazed to discover that 19th century samplers were coveted by collectors of antique needlework and fetched prices ranging from $90.00 to $38,000.00. Our sampler was "wrought" in 1836 by Martha Southwick of Dublin, NH, when she was 13 years old. I quickly withdrew our donation from the auction so that we could have it appraised. I sent a few inquiries to online appraisers. This week, I learned from a 1982 New York Times article that our sampler, part of a estate of a serious collector, was valued at $4500.00 over 25 years ago.

"Visions of sugarplums danced in our heads."

Skepticism soon began gnawing away at my euphoria. Yesterday, I typed “Martha Southwick sampler” in my browser window. A picture of “our” sampler came up as an art print or poster available from 35 online dealers. Next, I visited a Southwick genealogy site and found two messages addressed to Martha's descendants, posted in 2001. One was from a woman interested in selling her art print and the other was from a man who had an actual sampler. He thought he might have the original. Silly man.

By now, we had come to the sad realization that we most certainly did NOT have the original either, but I hoped that what we had was at least a reproduction. However, no Martha Southwick sampler showed up on the many websites that sell sampler reproduction kits. Phil was pretty sure that we had an art print. By 9:30 last night, I could stand the suspense no longer. We gingerly peeled back the paper sealing the frame so as not to damage the hoped-for cloth, and found that what we have is--TA-DA-- an art print. It’s a very good print, because it appeared like real cloth and yarn when viewed through the glass.

I think we’ll hang our sampler in the cabin after all.

Rosebush

2009-06-26T09:09:00.005-04:00

It's been six months since Mom died. On the way into the shop yesterday to get my hair cut, I passed under an arbor laden with fragrant white roses. I remembered how Mom, suffering from advanced macular degeneration, always reached out to touch the roses, invariably getting scratched or snagging her sweater sleeve.

Although Mom always complained that "those girls don't know how to do my hair," she enjoyed the fuss they made over her. After last Halloween, they passed out surplus Tootsie Pops. "Sam" asked me if Mom would like one. I was about to say, "No," because Mom was getting very persnickety about what she ate.

"Yes, I would!" she said emphatically.

She really enjoyed it, gooey chocolate center and all.

Not a Fun Fish

2009-06-14T07:23:00.002-04:00

Our 6-year-old grandson was with me this week in the gap between school and summer camp. It was a week of non-stop chatter.

On Friday, he was telling me about an episode he had seen on ANIMAL PLANET.

"This man was trying to catch an alligator gar. It's a huge, monster fish!"

"Sounds like an alligator gar must be some kind of game fish," I replied, absently.

"Oh, no, Grandma!" he protested, "The alligator gar is NOT a game fish. It's a SERIOUS fish."

Domestic Terrorism

2009-06-06T10:06:00.007-04:00

As soon as I heard about the killing of Dr. Tiller, I thought, "Domestic terrorism."

Although I am a card-carrying member of NARAL Pro-Choice America, I always had qualms about late-term abortion. The murder of this man has brought some facts to light about this procedure. Now that I have read stories about what drove women to seek out late-term abortion, I firmly believe that the state has no grounds for interfering in a woman's decision, even in this case. This procedure must remain safe and legal.

I'm ambivalent about abortion. I wish it were never necessary. Like President Clinton, I want it to be "rare and safe," but we live in the real world. It's a necessary safety valve.

I can tell you three stories from my own experience. Both grandmothers and my mother had abortions. My maternal grandmother started married life in Cambridge Springs, PA, which was then a resort town. She and her husband lived with his mother. When grandmother got pregnant, her mother-in-law said, "You'll not have that baby in this house!" I was in my mid-30's when Grandmother told me this story. I pictured Great-Grandmother standing at her front door, sternly pointing out into the stormy night, as the young couple slunk away.

"No, not at all," said Grandmother, "I just went to see this doctor in Cambridge Springs, who performed D&C's all the time." Such things were possible in pre-World War I Cambridge Springs.

My paternal grandmother, Grammy, made no bones about it: "I never wanted children, " she'd say, when she'd had one drink too many. Nevertheless, she bore two sons in her early twenties, 16 months apart. These unplanned pregnancies nearly broke up the marriage. She loved her boys, but she never had any more children. Mother told me disapprovingly that Grammy "got rid of" the others. I'm sure contraceptive devices, such as the diaphragm, were available, if you could somehow get one. The laws of that time made it nearly impossible. The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, spent time in jail for providing women with contraceptives.

During the Depression and leading up the World War II, abortion went underground. My dad, like his mother, did not want children. Mother wanted a large family. Eventually, they had two daughters, and eventually, they divorced. Early in their marriage, my dad convinced my mother to abort her first pregnancy. She said it was a humiliating and horrifying experience, performed in a back-alley room without pain relief of any kind.

I'm still ambivalent about abortion, but not about a woman's right to choose. I grieve for Dr. Tiller and his family and shudder to think of the terror that haunts others who provide this service.

Horse Dollars and Cents

2009-06-02T14:01:00.009-04:00

We went to our cabin in Ohio over Memorial Day weekend. At "Miller's Hardware" in Danville, we always pick up a copy of THE VENDOR, a 50-page bi-weekly newsprint magazine that bills itself as "an Advertising Medium Serving the Plain Communities and Others in Ohio and From Coast to Coast." It features columns by "Aunt Molly," essays, poetry, puzzles, recipes, and announcements of birthdays and anniversaries. Each issue includes several pages of jokes, interspersed with folk-wisdom observations, such as, "Conscience keeps more people awake than coffee," or "Worry amplifies a whisper into a shout."

Then there are the ads, which give us city folks a puzzling glimpse into a different world. Here's an ad for the only "Equine Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber" in Ohio. There's an ad addressed to "turkey growers," advising them to place orders now for large broadbreasted white turkey poults. You can get 100 of these critters for $299.95, but at this price, you get only "day-old unsexed" poults.

Setting these mysteries aside, I turn to my favorite section, THE HORSE CORRAL, which is divided into buggy horses, draft horses, ponies, and "standing at stud." One phrase that shows up in almost every buggy-horse ad is "traffic safe and sound." Others are "women can drive" and "good traveler." Asking prices range from $1200 to $3000.

Some ads raise questions:

"Ten-year-old good-sized bay standardbred gelding. Shies a little at big truck's sound. Needs work." At ten years, I guess so.

"Not 100 percent safe, but women can drive."

"Sound, not quite safe, but women can drive."

"Traffic safe and sound, but not for women."

And finally, "Nice headset and fun to drive. Good old bloodlines. He's a cribber."

Pentecost

2009-05-31T16:24:00.002-04:00

I always liked the playfulness of verses 25 and 26 from Psalm 104:

Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. (New Revised Standard Version.)

(The earth is full of thy riches.) So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. (King James Version.)

Quacked Up Over an Opera

2009-05-13T13:02:00.003-04:00

I thought I heard them say, "The Washington National Opera production of 'Touring Ducks' is coming to the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore."

The name of the opera is actually "Turandot."

Fifth Sunday in Easter

2009-05-10T14:20:00.004-04:00

1 John 4:7

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.