85 And Change!

Memorial Day...

Memorial Day……..an American holiday to honor our dead, killed in the armed forces. I imagine a great many of you celebrated this day with family get-togethers, barbeques and the like. I saw some touching scenes on TV depicting families, gathered together at Arlington Cemetery, to remember their family members killed in action. The saddest part of this program was the fact that since the Iraqi war and the war in Afghanistan, the numbers of our dead are increasing at such a rate that new ground is being prepared for an additional cemetery. We keep on killing our young men, even though it’s pretty obvious that all these years of war have accomplished little. I don’t argue that WWII was necessary, but perhaps Hitler and Mussolini would not have come to power were it not for WWI and its aftermath. We know that violence begets violence and yet it goes on. Man is still convinced that war is the way to get his share of the world’s goods. Pretty discouraging that so little progress has been made, after all these eons. The Muslims hate us, the radical Israelis hate us, in fact, we are probably one of the most despised nations in the world. Perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves, ‘why?’

When we celebrate Memorial Day, how many of us actually remember the ones who died for our so-called freedom. How many of us think about the mothers/fathers and their children who have been denied a parent because of war? I see nothing to celebrate. All the flag-waving parades signify nothing to me but unnecessary deaths, not only of our soldiers but of the countless civilians who are also killed in a war.

I have been pursuing pathways to peaceful solutions ever since my granddaughter was in the fifth grade and I started a group at her elementary school, called Peace Club. Because she attended a public school, I had to present impartial views. I could not pursue an anti-war ideology, unless I also presented a case for war. We even traveled to Washington and the members of the club were invited into the Soviet Embassy (this was at the height of the Cold War). We also met with our Congressman on the steps of the Congressional Building and our pictures were taken. Our only accomplishments were some press coverage and publicity for the Congressman and for the Soviet Embassy. So where are we now? I’ve grown old and the children in the club have grown up and have their own families. Will they remember the things we discussed in our club, or will they be sending their children blindly off to be killed/maimed? Maybe we could revive the Peace Clubs in our schools as a place where we could have an honest discussion about war and peace. It’s up to all of you. I’m running out of steam at the age of 86, so I hope you will carry on.

Post Easter Blog...

This was to be posted shortly after Easter, but since I still need my granddaughter's assistance in getting my entries posted, it was a little delayed. I am happy to say, her business has been keeping her quite busy. In a short couple of months, I will be heading back to the east coast to stay with her and my darling grandson-in-law and she has assured me that I am more than capable of learning how to post these myself. I look forward to that challenge! Anyhow... read below if you are interested in my Post Easter entry.

I hope you all had a joyful and fun Easter. I had all of the above, plus an adventure. My daughter and I roused ourselves at 4:30 A.M. to attend a sunrise service, high on a hillside, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Our view was incredible and added to the spirituality of the occasion. On one side of the site, we viewed the waves breaking on the sand from high above, much as one would view it from a low-flying plane. On the other side, the sky changed from dark blue to bright and brighter orange as the sun rose and broke through the mist. An open-air church, surrounded by the beauty of mother nature, adds another dimension to the worship of a deity, making it even more inspiring. And for us, well worth the narrow, curving climb in my ancient but loveable, stick-shift Honda, vintage, 1990, My husband and I bought her in Virginia and christened her “Honey Child” because she is southern and the color of wild clover honey.

When my daughter and I left the service, faithful “Honey Child” would not move. Her gear shift refused to budge out of neutral. Finally, with a great deal of effort and a few tricks, known only to me, I managed to shift into first. Afraid to attempt another shift, we retraced our winding path back down the curving road and on to home. We had a long following of cars behind us, a virtual Easter Parade, although none of the entries were voluntary. When possible I pulled to the side to let our entourage pass, but I kept the car slowly moving along. In this fashion, we made it home

In my daughter’s car we joined the family for a wonderful family brunch, complete with children and the inevitable hunt for eggs. My Great-Granddaughter, Ella, was as gorgeous as ever in her Easter outfit (see photo below). She wasn’t too interested in the hunt, but humored her mother who followed her around, pointing out eggs and putting them into Ella’s basket. Ella was more interested in driving her toy car and bouncing on the trampoline. Ella’s parents joined her bouncing and this was our entertainment for the day. Really fun to watch, although I feared for Ella’s life. She is 14 months old now and walking everywhere, or should I say waddling? Isn’t it interesting that we begin our walking adventure by waddling from side to side, and as our walking days begin to wind down we come full circle as we waddle away from life? I find that I am waddling more and more at 86 years and that my beloved Honda at 20 years of age is beginning to stiffen up in her gears. Poor baby is still incapacitated while the mechanics operate on her. 

“Honey Child” was in fine shape before her sudden breakdown, similar to the onset of severe arthritis. As proof of this, I drove to the post office just before Easter, only to be confronted by a shocking sight. Two picketers were walking up and down with crudely lettered signs that read “Impeach Obama”. Something within me could not ignore such blatant disrespect. I approached them and pointed to their signs, “Why?” I asked. This was a simple question but was greeted with a torrent of abuse which ended in “If you have to ask you’re an idiot!” My response was my usual in this kind of situation, “It takes one to know one!” Whereupon, I got into my ancient chariot, shifted into first gear and gunned the motor as I triumphantly yelled out the window, “I bet you idiots can’t even drive a stick shift.” Shocking behavior for an 86-year old Great-Gramma, but I’m sick of all this nonsensical abuse. Bad behavior just breeds more bad behavior and I guess I should have told them in my best lady-like voice, “I’ll pray for you”, or something equally ineffective. Anyway, how much do you want to bet they can’t drive a stick shift as well as this 86 year-old great-gramma can?!?! The metaphor I find in this is as follows: sometimes it is the loudest, most screeching problems that give us the biggest headaches and embarrass us the most, but it is the quiet, harder to diagnose problems that can cause real problems. And it takes an intelligent and patient person to handle those problems.

And Another Year Has Passed...

Two events from last year stand out in my mind: attending the inauguration of President Obama and the birth of my first great-granddaughter in February. These were two really awesome events for me. I can still remember being chilled to the bone as we made our way through the crowds in our nation’s capital, but I can also remember the spirit of good will that prevailed  on that day, which warmed our souls if not our feet. I can only hope that the nation will try to remember how excited and uplifted we all were then. Unfortunately, a lot of us may have expected our president to make good on all of his campaign promises in the first year of his leadership. Much has been accomplished, but many of his electorate are becoming impatient as they wait for the economy to improve and for jobs to be created. I say, hang in there before making a judgment and let’s see what happens next year. It does look as though we are going to pass some sort of health care reform and this will be a huge accomplishment. Although the reforms will not be as sweeping as some of us would have liked, hopefully the system will be much improved and many will be able to finally purchase health insurance.

The birth of my first great-granddaughter was so thrilling to me that I can’t begin to describe the feeling, but Carl Sandberg expressed it beautifully. “The birth of a baby is God’s opinion that the universe should go on.”  Little Ella has been a joy and a blessing to our whole family, as well as a photographer’s dream. And, she is indeed proof that there is still hope for our weary planet, in spite of wars, natural disasters and mortgage foreclosures.

The rest of the year has had many other wonderful moments as well as confusing ones, too numerous to enumerate. With each passing year, life and its learning experiences never cease to intrigue me. I have lost some dear friends and it is sometimes a lonely feeling to be one of the last trees still standing. I miss them all terribly and catch myself as I pick up the phone to call them. But, then I talk to them anyway, even though they aren’t here………. just in case they are listening.

I trust you all enjoyed your various Holiday celebrations with family and friends and that you didn’t overdo on the gift-giving aspect of the holiday. I, for one, had the most wonderful experience in that department. For five years I have stayed in touch with two little Native American boys whom I tutored for several years. Their guardian and I decided to surprise them with bicycles as an early Christmas present. We took them shopping and let them pick out their bikes, so they would fit them and so they would get the ones they wanted. The look on their faces was one of complete amazement and pure pleasure. The whole experience made my Christmas one of the most enjoyable ones I can remember.

And now it’s time to make all those resolutions we almost always forget and to start another year. Let’s make it a good one in our hearts and don’t forget to laugh and to love.

Happy New Year from the bottom of my heart to all my family and friends and to all of my faithful readers who are my new friends.  My two resolutions are: 

1. To be less critical in my thoughts as well as in my speech. I have done pretty well in the biting my tongue department, but my thoughts need a lot of cleaning up.
   
2. My other resolution is to finish the novel I have been working on for about twenty years! Good heavens, it’s about time. I’ll keep you all posted on my progress.

Again, Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday to Me...

Today is my birthday - I am 86 and still changing! However, I will remain 85andchange.com. Simpler that way.

We celebrated the other night with a delicious family dinner. It was a delightful affair, complete with two homemade cakes made by one grandson and decorated by his wife. They were delicious and beautiful! . My other grandson brought a stunning bouquet of fall flowers, wine and an elegant salad and my daughter made my favorite entrée, Pizza Rustica. I will try to pry the recipe out of her so you vegetarians can try it. Believe me, it’s worth the effort. We were once more completely entranced by great granddaughter, Ella. She is growing fast now and seems to be more and more enchanting as she matures. She is making all sorts of amusing noises as well, so I am sure she will be talking soon.

Guess what the main topic of conversation was as we enjoyed our dessert? Health Care Reform? The War in Afghanistan, or even the state of our economy? No, it was the inevitable Xmas Gift Exchange which is always with us no matter how we try to surmount it, avoid it or try to solve it. Like death and taxes, it is inevitable. I suppose this custom can be attributed to those three Wise Men who first brought gifts to the baby Jesus. In any event, we all feel an obligation to give gifts at Christmas time, not only to those we love, but also  those we really don’t give a fig about (after all, they always give us something, don’t they?)  This incessant gift-giving pervades every corner of our lives……..gifts for teachers, hairdressers, nannies and babysitters and our housekeepers, all those to whom we pay a stipend for their services. Then there is the gift exchange in the workplace, the cookie exchange, and there are stocking gifts…….on and on it goes. I strongly suspect that we all  secretly love the process of unwrapping all these packages so carefully and beautifully crafted. Even though many of us hate to wrap these gifts, we sure do love to rip ‘em apart, don’t we?

Three years ago our family devised what we thought was a clever scheme to end the Xmas angst of running around trying to find the Perfect Gift for everyone in the family. We had tried the Favorite Charity bit and picking a Xmas family, and finally came up with a drawing of names for gifts in three categories…..a substantial one with a max. of $100.00, a medium priced one of $30.00 and a gag gift. The gag gifts always livened up our family gathering, but some female members proposed to be offended by some of these offerings, even though they could hardly contain their laughter. I must confess I discovered a whole underground world I had never known existed! Apparently, there is a whole genre devoted to certain natural and sometimes uncontrollable bodily functions. I discovered that flatulence has been a source of humor ever since the days of Ben Franklin who devoted a whole book to the subject. Why is this act so amusing? I confess it is, even to those of us who are also offended by it. Of course, there are other amusing categories in the line of “gags” but our male family members seemed unaware of them.

As Granny Gobama and the matriarch of the family, I was in charge of the drawing. My main duty was to make sure that no one received the same name year after year and to also make sure that no one was left out. These duties became more and more time consuming, but I was unwilling to relinquish this sense of control, although there were many offers of assistance. Personally, I thought the system worked well until this year, out of the blue, I received the following e-mail, “Can I just give a gag gift this year?”(Ironically, this was the same family member who had originally suggested the addition of the $30.00 gift and the gag gift.). Naturally, I submitted this idea to the entire family. And, since most families operate just like Congress, my e-mail opened up a whole can of worms. E-mails flooded the internet with suggestions. Apparently, the family had grown weary of our drawing, but didn’t realize it. We had all been living in the dark.  Nothing was solved until the west coast contingent gathered at my birthday dinner. We finally brought the matter to a vote, but it was tough going. Poor Nancy Pelosi. How does she ever keep those guys on track? Of course she does have a gavel with which to restore order. I only had a table fork to tap on a crystal goblet and I must admit, no one was very interested in what I had to say, except my grandson’s wife. We kept plugging away and finally forced a vote! Wow! No wonder its taking so long to push a Health Care Reform Bill through Congress and the Senate. And, like that bill, our plan is far from perfect, but its SOMETHING!

It is so modest that it basically leaves us all financial wiggle room to do as we please. We will give each other favorite snapshots every year, a modest gift for those who convene in California and nothing will be sent through the mail. In other words we are all now free to do and give as we please.  The objecting family member feels that Xmas is for children and intends to give only to little Ella and I like that idea too. So we’ll see how it all works. I for one will be thankful this Thanksgiving to be shed of my duties... but grateful for such a wonderful family!

Hope you all remember to give thanks this year to someone for something. This year let’s try to forget the “Might Have Beens” and give thanks for “What’s Left”.

Happy Thanksgiving.

There is Nothing Like a Babe...

Especially if it’s an 8-month old baby girl who happens to be my great-grand daughter. Our family recently made its annual trek to Vermont for our leaf peeping adventure, which is called Fall Foliage weekend by the New Englanders. My son and his wife are always the greatest hosts imaginable. This year our numbers expanded to twelve, all housed in various structures on their beautiful lakefront property. For the first time in twenty years, the western division of our clan all joined the easterners and mid-westerners. My daughter-in-law prepared gourmet dinners every night for five nights! Every bed was made up and waiting for our arrival, every kitchen was equipped with fruit, coffee and all the ingredients needed for a hearty breakfast. Such planning and preparations were most appreciated by all of us. She is a wonder.

The fall color was spectacular and grew brighter every day as we toured back roads, some uncharted and barely navigable, thanks to my son’s adventuresome spirit. We attended day time feasts of major proportions. At a pancake breakfast with real Vermont maple syrup, I learned something new about this special syrup and all its grades. Fancy is the top grade, is very light in color and taste, is the most expensive and can only be purchased in Vermont. It is never shipped to other areas. Personally, I prefer the top two amber grades because I like a more robust maple taste. We also attended a high tea in the local church and enjoyed every imaginable kind of tea sandwiches and all sorts of desserts, prepared locally by the church members. At every event there are wonderfully made crafts for sale and a New York designer even brought her stunning clothes and sold them for almost nothing. Skirts and jackets, originally priced at $400 were marked to $35. My granddaughter and daughter found some great steals. I bought a new concoction called Ice Cider. It was fantastic. Expensive, but well worth it.  A very unusual taste experience for you and your more sophisticated friends. We found it to be addictive. The website is www.edenicecider.com. We served it as an aperitif with Vermont Cabot Cheddar Cheese…….another learning experience. The Cabot store has tastings of over twenty cheddar cheeses, all delicious, making it hard to choose one. Most of these are never seen in our mid-western stores and they vary in creaminess and flavor. While the guys played golf, we gals also tried to tackle the famous Ben and Jerry’s. Not a good idea during Fall Foliage weekend. The tours were sold out and the lines and crowds were unbelieveable. We gave up and didn’t even get an ice-cream cone. By the way, have you tried their crème brule flavor? Fantastic!

We celebrated my grandson’s 29th birthday, and played all sorts of amusing games at night, just as we used to do when the “kids” were actually kids and not grown up ones. We even managed to squeeze in a family photo for my Christmas card this year. But, the highlight of the whole adventure was The Babe! She entertained us all, 24/7 with her antics. She clapped her hands on cue, she laughed out loud, she rolled over and smiled and smiled and smiled. She never cried…..well a few times but only when she was hungry, or needed changing. Feeding her with a spoon really brought back memories for me. I could hardly shove it in fast enough. I know I’m prejudiced but she is one of the most responsive and happy babies I’ve ever known.

The whole five days was a family experience I shall always treasure. I feel so fortunate to be a part of such a congenial, fun-loving family. We rarely stopped laughing. A summer home is such a wonderful addition to a family’s enjoyment of each other. These special places that we return to year after year can never be forgotten whether they remain in the family or not. There is a wonderful memoir on the subject, called The Big House by a young man who spent his summers on Cape Cod in a wonderful old family house. My family recently had to sell their share in a similar place in Virginia and it was a heart-wrenching experience but necessary due to financial considerations. These wonderful second homes are truly “money pits” and your pockets must be very deep to justify the expense of vacationing for two or three weeks out of the year. But, more on that subject later.

Now, I am back in sunny California and my summer visit is over. It has been a glorious time seeing old friends and a part of my family I treasure. I’ll return next year and for as long as I am physically able. I’ll soon be 86, rather than 85, but I’m still willing to change. It just takes me longer.

Decking the Halls...

It’s that time of year again when we are all inspired to give in order to show our love to those we care about. The other day I saw a wonderful slogan in a newsletter published by an organization where I volunteer, called Project Understanding. It made me stop and think about my usual holiday frenzy.
“Live Simply that Others may Simply Live.”

How appropriate for this time of year and for this particular year! I don’t know about all of you, but as a grandmother and about-to-be great grandmother, I tend to go overboard….not only on the giving, but on the wrappings, the decorating and the cooking. This year I have tried to restrain myself so I can give more to those who have lost their jobs, their homes and in some cases their self-respect. In many parts of our country, things look pretty dismal. I am fortunate that I still have enough to share with others, but it is necessary that I live more simply, so I can give a little more to those who need it more than my immediate family. So, this year I’m decking the halls with just a few less boughs of holly, still remembering to be jolly!

I hope you all have a wonderful and thankful Christmas season. What a blessing to be living in this country, in spite of all our problems. A place where we can enjoy the company of family and friends without fear of bombs or bullets crashing through our walls. Yes, our country is facing huge problems but nothing lasts forever, except our memories, so make good ones this year and always. Good memories can carry us through a lot of hardships and sad times. Whenever I’m feeling down because I’m missing my husband or the way things used to be, I pull out my photo albums and renew the wonderful life I’ve had. Then I don’t feel so bad. Or when I’m trimming my Christmas tree, each ornament reminds me of a family member or a favorite friend. My best friend and I had a wonderful tradition…..each year we would have a Christmas lunch together and give each other a meaningful ornament, commemorating an important event in our lives. I have a tiny typewriter from the year I took a part-time job, a knitting basket and needles, a ballerina from my dancing days, or a line-up of the Rockettes actually kicking, this one gift from my daughter in remembrance of a performance we attended together. The list is endless and so are the memories.

Another favorite holiday tradition that can be shared with a friend……cookie baking. I had another friend with whom I made Christmas cookies. We traded off  houses each year and turned a chore into a fun, memory making occasion. Now, I bake cookies alone, but I think of her and all the joy we once brought to each other. One more tradition was the Christmas Club my friend and I joined at our local bank. When we both quit smoking as a joint project, we faithfully went to the bank once a week and deposited our savings in our Christmas Club account. In that era, cigarettes cost about $1.50 a carton so we managed to accumulate what we thought was a lot of money to spend on Christmas. Today, the savings would be considerably more! We were very proud of not going into debt for the holidays. These are just a few of my old-fashioned holiday traditions that I look back on with fond remembrance. Perhaps you have some memory-making ones you would like to share. Send them in and we will post them.

In the meantime, let’s all remember to Live Simply so that other may Simply Live. In the meantime, if you simply must buy one more gift for someone, go to CafePress.com and check out the new shirts with their post-election slogans. America’s BA raCK ! Or visit our links page for other great Obamapromotional items. I needed a new hooded jacket and they are really cool!

Merry Christmas to all my new friends.