moving (back) in

ok, so one of my children moved back home this day....in preparation for an extended time traveling and living and teaching abroad.....and i must give this child major credit....for downsizing prior to this transition......unlike my mother who moved from ohio without bothering to downsize....and is still struggling with throwing away committee minutes from clubs she can no longer recall because there is a cute saying/quotation/picture on the piece of paper.....in order to make room i went through my aging collection of tablecloths that hung in the spare-room closet....and jettisoned those that i cannot remember ever liking.....hows that for memories?!...change can be good.....

deleted posts.....

ok, so.....there was a post here for a few hours...one that has been deleted....ironically.....i actually forgot to include the ok,so part.......suffice ti to say that i was upset......but i am feeling much more optimistic now.....having handled the curve-ball with speed and precision.....it is now out of the park....so to speak......

a rose by any other name....

ok, so.....the roses i moved into my new bed are blooming.....and i am embarrassed to admit that i know few of the names......i know by name all of the roses planted prior to say.....the mid-1990's, and the roses planted in the past 2 years.....which still have tags attached....it is the middling roses that are nameless.....i can still recall the exact circumstances which set the stage for such name-forgetfulness.....we were beginning to have our youngest child over for visitations....and the weekend after we had brought back a large sampling of young rose bushes from my brother-in-law the rosarian......our child-to-be presented me with a bouquet of name tags....all just-plucked from the roses in question....omg.......it was all i could do not to raise my voice let alone disclose that this was no sweet gift.....and so.....i have about 12 lovely but nameless roses....i sit on the front porch each evening with eh big rose book, trying to identify them with the pictures and descriptives....but as most of the roses i can name are not int his book.....i am not surprised that i have come up empty on this endeavor......not to worry......i enjoy these mystery roses just the same....

friday.......

ok, so......that 5 letter word that means so much......too bad i cannot stay home and enjoy my friday.......work seems to get in the way of my good time.....but for a few moments i will go out and take in the fresh mixtures of morning and roses and hopefully gain enough resolve to get myself dressed and in the car.....

belated memorial day blog

ok, so....seems my paternal kin asked my family for a picture of my dad, to be shown along side his 3 grown brothers, as well as my brother and my cousin who also served...in a display in the little country church next door to the house my grandmother moved to after she left the family farm/homestead......i have never seen this picture before...taken in 1947....about the time he was in japan.....i do have a lacquer box he brought back from japan, as well as a silk scarf made from a contraband parachute.....and 2 sets of sake cups.......but this photo trumps my collection of memorabilia.....for my own record....my dad lost his eldest brother to the spanish flu epidemic in 1918, and his youngest brother to a brain aneurysm in the 40's......

safe and sound

ok, so i got the confirmation email this morning...that my boy was safe and sound in paris.....mammas always want confirmation.....

teary-eyed....

ok, so.....i spent an emotional day planning for, and then meeting with folks i am required to meet with in this interim world i now inhabit.....and much as i believe i handled it all well....there still looms the possibility that someone else will be hired to do this job......and as i pushed my cart morosely through the kroger..... i was abruptly brought back to the real world by a woman who blurted.....i know you don't recognize me ...i have lost 50 pounds since i came to see you.....my blood sugars are almost normal.....i made sure the doctor knew who had helped me do this...... gentle readers.....i nearly burst into tears.....mostly because i cannot seem to help myself lose half that amount of weight.....but also because i needed this little interjection of good tidings........to soften whatever bad vibes come from my board members who have strung me along for nearly 4 months with no hope of a future......i did buy a lottery ticket....at the kroger...just in case the lord has other plans for me......

happy trails

ok, so my middle child flies back to france for an internship ......he has been home so few days since he started college that we have become used to his comings and goings....and are satisfied with the precious time we have to spend with him.....wishing him traveler's mercies on this day.....

work

ok, so...i must rally my weary bones.....get dressed and go back to work this morning....i am just too tired to contemplate that notion at 7:07 am....might think differently in 10 or so minutes...but not right now....

rain, rain.....

ok, so....i had invited a good friend out to see the roses this afternoon...she has never noticed that i had roses when she was here before......and as fate would have it....the rain was pouring down when she arrived.....so we got out umbrellas to look at my roses....and then sat back on the front porch in the red rockers to drink champagne and talk about roses.....among other things.....i have been to paris with this person......which makes her dear to my heart......and though saw no roses blooming when we were visiting in january a few years back....we were able to pick out places where roses would have been lovely......a good way to end my 5 day vacation....champagne and rain.......i'll think on that when i drag myself out of the bed tomorrow at 6:30.....

there and back again.....

ok, so.....we drove to cincinnati and back today...to attend a family gathering.....we missed the actual baby shower.....that was scheduled during the same time slot as our church service......go figure.....but we were able to get there in time to visit a while before dinner.....i had not been int he door for 2 minutes when my younger sister-in-law suggested we make a run to trader joe's.....the cincinnati location being 2 minutes down the road.....i had quite forgotten that the sister-in-law who hosted the event is notorious for barebones entertaining.....which means if we want enough to eat we had better run out and buy a few things to fill out the menu.....and so three of us purchased cheese-platter fixings, some lovely white bean hummus to go with rye bread, and some fresh salsa with organic chips.....i had never been to any trader joe's.....so it was an unexpected pleasure.....and i did indulge in some pesto filled tortellinis, 2 kinds of figs for my spouse, and some shelf-stable vegetarian indian food for my middle child.....and a couple of random bottles of inexpensive wine.....i had a glass or two of the gewurztraminer (not bad for $4.99) and saved the fume blanc for another day.....such an oddity to shop for wine on a sunday......but i digress from the gathering.....lots of babies and pregnant nieces and cars with osu window decals.....

sunday....

ok, so... sunday is the day when i intend to sleep in....but i can never seem to sleep past 7:30 or so.....i did manage to water my flowerbeds without interruption from missionaries.....we are driving to cincinnati after church for a family gathering.....several of my spouse's siblings will be there..... i would prefer to stay home and take my sunday-after church nap.....but one does these trips for one's spouse....and i still have monday off for whatever leisure activities remain on my to-do list....

overcoming death (and destruction)

ok, so....as i was strolling in my garden this morning, clutching my coffee and making my mental list of chores for the day.....a unfamiliar car pulled in the driveway......we get very little traffic on our circle, let alone actual random visitors that i was a bit stunned.....especially given that i was wearing my typical saturday morning garb: pajama bottoms, a tshirt and a fleece vest......a woman got out of the backseat, in a sunday dress clutching her purse....she introduced herself, and explained that they were going out to meet their neighbors, and she wanted to ask me a question....was i discouraged by all of the death and destruction i see lately?.......gentle readers......as a sunday school teacher i knew where she was going with this conversation, and i made the split second decision that i wasn't going there.......at least not yet......i replied with a broad smile that i saw only promise and reason for hope, now that barak obama is about to get the nomination and bring us all together......the woman replied that even barak obama cannot save us from death and destruction....only a personal relationship with jesus christ.......i countered with my belief that barak obama does have a personal relationship with jesus christ and i feel very hopeful and inspired to a better future for us all.....and then she asked me if i didn't think that the earthquake and the cyclone and the death and destruction was not a sign that too many people have turned away from god.....and i pointed to my yard...to the trellis rose with it's 1000 creamy blooms, and to the beds beyond.....to the blur of pinks and reds and white....and asked this woman how i could believe that god did not still wish us all well, having such a glorious spring morning to behold.......i did use the word behold.....i added that special touch of biblical reference.....we were at that moment in the direct path of the trellis rose's lemony aroma.....it is quite intoxicating, by the way....and i see the addition of fragrance to my argument as my own personal sign that there is a god...but i digress......i knew that the only way this woman and her friends would leave was by admitting that we are sunday-school attending church-goers.....i fully understand that these folks look around and see nothing but pain and suffering, and they feel that if we all believed the way they do that we would all be better off.....it is this single-belief system that many christians cling to.....there are as many references to god loving us all in the bible.....which implies tolerance to me.......but enough of this.....the day is just too lovely to spend arguing salvation.......

vultures.....

ok, so....we have witnessed an alarming visitation of turkey vultures in our neighborhood this spring.... as many as 8 at a time can be seen perched on the dead tree across the creek...or in a well-branched tree at the end of the circle on the main road....they circle above, and sometimes get as close as the tree by the deck....i was reading middlesex this afternoon, sipping ice water...when one briefly perched not 20 feet from me...vultures are decidedly ugly birds......one doesn't quite appreciate just how so until one is that close.....no idea why they have remained..i do check on the cat's whereabouts just in case when they come too close to the house.......at one point we wondered if they were migrating north to such buzzard towns as hinckley, ohio....which celebrates their return every year......bur for now our local flock is staying put...

marriage in california....

ok, so i had an email in my box this morning from extended family asking me to sign a petition against the california's supreme court's ruling on marriage.....and i was amused that these emailing kin know so little about me that they would presume i would sign such a petition......it is absolutely none of my business who marries who(?) and long as they are faithful to their vows.....which further amused me to watch john mccain on ellen talking about gay marriage.....as if he is the expert on hetero marriage.....he who has been married two times..his wikipedia bio alludes to his relationship with wife #2 as preceding the divorce from wife #1........ ellen asked him if he would walk her down the aisle.....i do not believe that mccain answered her question.....

constance spry

ok, so.....the english rose constance spry is now beginning to bloom......not yet peak, but enough of a show that i was delighted by the changes in the show even since yesterday evening......this rose was named after a real person...seems constance was the martha of her day....famed for her flower arrangements in royal circles....i am trying to rally my weary bones enough to go back out to weed.....on this my second off-day....in the back of my mind is the notion that i could weed another day.....but as we have plans for sunday and monday...that only leaves saturday.....i have already read the paper on the deck.....drank a few cups of coffee....read my favorite morning cyber-sites.....and now i really should do something constructive....speaking of which...i finally figured out why i could not get google-reader to subscribe to my blog...for re-reading it at work purposes.....i simply had not allowed it to be a feed...now that i have changed that pulldown box on my settings....i am good to go.....i can refresh my memory of what i blogged at work without the reading showing up on the web-trail that is occasionally monitored by the state folks....but enough about work...i am on vacation....

clarification

ok, so...i am collecting an ensemble of dressy clothes, should ever i get the opportunity to interview for the job i have been doing nearly 4 months....if ever the chance comes up...i will have something special to wear.....

contagions...

ok, so.....my middle child and i made the short round of goodwills today, with a lunch at j-beth midway for good measure......lots of great buys....including a moss green linen dress that matches my beads from last week.....and a pair of black kitten=heeled slingbacks that look like they were barely worn.....it was not until the beaumont plaza store that we saw the girl with a visibly contagious viral disease.....could have been measles...could have been chicken pox...but this child was clearly unimmunized against what we used to call a childhood disease and was now paying the price......she looked no more than 7 or 8....hispanic...which only partially explains the lack of immunization....now that school systems require certain milestone shots at the beginning of school and again in the 6th grade.....objector-parents simply home-school.....which leaves their children vulnerable.....and though i can say that having the chicken pox, the measles and the mumps when i was young did not scar me for life.....those children with compromised immunity sometimes do not recover from these infections.....having just read the wikipedia version of measles...i learned that measles is actually a respiratory virus that affects the lungs more so than the skin......who knew?.....i felt sad for the parents, who either do not know that this is a contagious disease, or have no options...given that many clinics will not treat non-residents......we are already seeing a resurgence of tuberculosis.....another contagious disease most likely to infect the underfed/underimmunized/vulnerable population .....driving these folks underground is not the answer....

eleanor of aquitaine

ok, so....we have a genealogical trail, prepared by our semi-resident genealogy buff, that traces my known ancestor that came to ohio in the early 1800's through the Shenandoah valley from maryland.....solomon c......back in time through eleanor of aquitaine to charlemagne.......our expert had explained all this to us several years ago, but it was not until he retraced these steps to prove his own scottish ancestry for scholarship purposes that i was moved to take a fresh look at these kinfolk......eleanor of aquitaine is forever frozen in time as portrayed by katherine hepburn in a lion in winter......and though i have taken the time to read her wikipedia installment.....i prefer katherine's image of a strong, witty, and wily soul......had i needed to prove scottish ancestry i would have taken a different tactic....through my grandmother c's line rather than my grandfather's.....on occassion, when asked to tell me about her family, she mentioned that she had a grandmother who came to america as a slavegirl from glasgow.....she must have meant an indentured servant....and that her family had ties to aristocracy......that is not quite the word my grandmother would have used.....and being a humble woman she would only have mentioned such a detail if it were not matter-of-fact.....i so appreciate the hard of work put into this family tree by a child who leaves no stone unturned in finding out essential details......

a lovely evening....

ok, so....for my spouse's birthday we (collectively) decided that mere goods and wares were not enough...so we opted for a family bike ride....and a lovelier evening could not be found......crisp, clear.....windless......we rode out past burgin and turned around at the duck pond on north 1st street....where we spotted a mamma duck and her hatchlings following her along the bank.....so very precious......and when we returned we feasted on an enchilada casserole made with TVP, and spanish rice, and corn on the cob.....and birthday cake.......life is good....

any day.......

ok, so....my rose arbor will burst forth any day into 1000 lovely specimens of city of york...there are a few buds that have come out completely, but most are in that transition phase where you could look away for a moment, only to turn back and see each bud fully bloomed...the aroma has undertones of lemon......i just love this time of year.....

8 babies in 2 days....

ok, so.....npr brings me to tears more often than not...but the piece that ran as i was driving to l-ville to pick up my middle child was extraordinary.....one of the non-melissa block china commentators was being interviewed by melissa.....and she asked him about the stories he had come across in this horrendous week....and he said that his personal story of the week was about a police woman he came across who was breastfeeding a baby.....and when he spoke to her about the baby it turned out that this was not only NOT her baby, but that her baby was at home...and that she had fed 8 babies not her own over the past 2 days....in her words....a hungry baby is a hungry baby.....i was reminded tragically about a preppy woman somewhere i also heard about on npr.......who had left her baby with a friend, and was so horrified to discover that this woman had breastfed her hungry baby when she was late in returning that she sued her friend in court...and won.....only in america would we sue someone who was generous enough to feed our hungry babies....and yet there is a wondrous woman somewhere in southwestern china who would feed all the hungry babies.....

full house.....

ok, so we will be five at supper this evening....six when you count grand-ma......i drive to l-ville this afternoon to fetch the middle child fresh from finishing up a 10-page paper and lugging his non-storage stuff to the airport via the train. .....his visit will be brief, as he heads back to france....and this internship-driven trip will be so short that even i have made no plans for a visit to coincide.....there will some overlap in the summer when both boys will be home again.....just before the eldest flies to berlin to start his grand tour.....his taste of the greater continent before he settles into a school year teaching english in austria.....i am making mental plans to visit at least once with my spouse and once with my daughter.....and maybe sending the middle child for the holidays.....we shall see......so many comings and goings.......isn't this what we raise our children up to do....to leave home only to visit then and again?......but for tonight, i will savor the full membership of our c-dub clan.......

roses

ok, so.......i have 24 buds on my stanwell perpetual bush...a new record for a rose that has traditionally only had a handful of blossoms....moving the bush from the side of the deck was a big help...as it gets lots more sun and has much better soil conditions now.....it is a precious rose.....

unnatural color.....

ok, so.....i stopped into tuesday morning on my way home from my (last) frankfort training.....and lucked into a precious necklace...greenish taupe beads that may or may not be stone....maybe heavy glass..cannot tell from the color whether this is real or pretend.....with matching earrings.....marked in european pricing- both euros and pounds.....the necklace was 39 euros and the earrings 29 euros....and i bought each for $7.99....you do the math.......gentle readers.....i do not, as a rule, covet jewelry...i have my pearls, and i have my amber necklace....and a faux gold chain necklace i bought for $1 at a goodwill......and if those pieces don't do justice to the outfit then i don't wear jewelry.....my youngest is feeding cattle and horses on a friend's farm this weekend.....and so i dutifully drove her over there last evening.....i enjoy these occasions because i get to look for eggs...the chicken section of their barn reminds me so of my dad's mother.....the smell and general look of chickens roosting on nesting boxes.....i ended up finding 4 eggs....3 in far-flung corners of the barn where hay had spilled....and so this morning, before we drive back over there i treated myself to a small pan of fried potatoes and a fresh scrambled egg.....for those who are not so lucky as to have day-old eggs....the yolks are unnaturally yellow.....a version of neon....quite disturbing to the senses at this hour of the day.... except that the yellow IS natural for really fresh eggs.....and for the next few days i will enjoy every bite of my vivid scramblers.....

bookclub

ok, so.....i was disappointed that my bookclub was forced indoors by rain.....days of rain....the deck table was saturated....and so we managed to fit all 15 of us around my grandmother's table with its five leaves.....my eldest led a spirited discussion of slaughterhouse-five.....a great evening with good friends.....the event was a bit more difficult that in past years in that i have driven to frankfort for trainings most days this week....and did not arrive home the night before until 8:00 pm.....which pushed back food prep quite a bit.....i have always offered a thematic meal to go along with the book when it is my bookclub turn.....sadly...this book did not lend itself to a menu....so i made 4 salads and offered a nice selection of desserts.....and so it goes....until my next turn...when the rain will hopefully pass us by for just that one night....

no more than 15 feet away....

ok, so...the nytimes recently ran this article about 2 practicing Buddhists who live in a 22-foot wide yurt in arizona..... who have not only promised to keep their relationship celibate, but also that the couple would remain no more than 15 foot apart day and night.....the 15-foot space limit is what would eventually drive me crazy.......

babies

ok, so i dreamed last night that i was somewhere on the c. farm in mid-ohio......and trying to deal with a baby that had just been born......not clear if it was my own.......it was in a crib in the back upstairs bed-room at the farmhouse.....no actual memories of my babies every being in that house.....as grandma had already moved to town and then to a nursing home years before i had babies......andrew made his debut at grandma's funeral when he was 2 weeks old....but there was a baby......a hungry baby.......go figure.....

only children.....

ok, so......i have to avert my eyes when i see photos of the mothers watching over their dead, shrouded....and only children......one forgets that these women are given one single shot at motherhood....and there are no more little ones waiting at home to soften the devastation.........

the senator from ky....

ok, so .........Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a likely preview of the Republican line of attack in the general election, said Democratic leaders and Mr. Obama "get up every morning with three things on their minds: more taxes, more regulation and more litigation."

"It's pretty clear to me that the Democratic agenda is to turn us into France," the Kentucky Republican told The Washington Times in an unusually blunt interview at his office in the Capitol. "Americans may want change, but the question is, what kind of change?"

the dems want to turn us into france?........worse could happen.....

logistics....

ok so....yesterday at our mother's day luncheon.....my eldest sat down, and put his arm around my shoulders and whispered the words that a mother longs to hear......'as my gift to you, i'll let you plan my 3 week grand tour....'...gentle readers....i live to plan trips.....and before the day was done i had already figured out that he was better off flying into berlin, and working his way down through the required sites of dresden, munich, vienna, venice, florence/sienna, rome before heading north to paris through milan.....a railpass limited to 4 countries and 8 legs was cheaper than most......and 4 overnight trains maximizes travel time and saves on hostel fees......so now comes the big question....do i hook him onto to his brother's end of june/chunnel to london from paris trip......or take the less risky choice of flying him back from paris as his required itinerary dictates......i use these inflexible terms because the trip he has won has multiple stipulations to which even the widow of the donor still holds firm.....despite acknowledging that the gift does not cover the reasonable cost of a 21 day grand tour.....ah well.....that is what meanparents are for......to fill in those gaps left by life's uncertainties.....

rain, rain.....

ok, so.....the wind and rain that overshadowed this day have yet to let up....and i am beginning to be concerned that my outdoor bookclub may have to be my inside bookclub.....and this cannot be....as we read slaughter-house five....and in keeping with the plot line we must sit out in the yard (the deck counts) and sip champagne while we wait for the spaceship.....

s.d.s.

ok, so...when asked about the tribute my loving family could offer up on mother's day.......i had an immediate answer...not tawdry things like breakfast in bed....or diamond-chip jewelry......but something much more useful....a replacement s.d.s........those of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's might think this to be a radical group...but i refer to....a solar drying system....aka: clothesline....we used to have one that pulled out from the side of the house to a pole that could be set into a hole by miss lulu's cabin door.....but after we added the second floor to the house, and resided with cedar.....we switched to an actual dryer and nobody can quite recall what happened to the clothesline.......the actual square-footage where we used to air-dry clothes is now....roses and perennials.....so we are looking invest in a single post that holds 5 sides of upright clothesline space......a tower of drying power......and i am so very pleased to be able to air-dry towels and other heavy items that take lots of time in the electric dryer.......30 years ago i saw this as work...now i see this as progress......

the other side.....

ok, so....every year there comes the time when the last of the gardening chores require a trip to the other side.....the other side of the fence....the other side of the hedge...the other side of the deck.....and given the these design elements are in place as a shield to the precipice beyond......the untamed portion of our property lies just beyond....and it is only when the undergrowth gets in the way of my view or appears to be choking my plantings that i must arm myself with the heavy-duty shearers....by the time i get around to other side, the honeysuckle has become thicker than ones thumb, and small trees have sprung up in the middle of the American Pillar rose that spreads around the corner of my deck......and all nature of shrubs are peaking through my boxwood hedge............i had a little mishap this year, in that when i stepped between the boxwood and the stone terrace where Shailer's Pink Provence rose is in full bloom beside the base of the deck.....there was no there...there....only a tangle of vines, and i thudded backwards on the stone ledge.....which was better than careening forward and over into the abyss.......now that i have tied up all the wayward limbs, and trimmed back ivy from the brickwalks, and cut back the hedge behind the garage, i am due a hot bath followed by a nice little nap to recover from all of this hard work......yeah, i have big clay pots to fill with either annuals or tomatoes.....but they can wait.....

youth minister.....

ok so.....i have blogged already about the folks who blew off my final, and/or my wellness project......one of my students actually showed up to take the final, but promised he'd email his project by lunchtime today.....yeah, right......sad that one cannot take the word of a fellow who described himself as a christian youth minister, and who missed 2 classes while he was on a mission trip to central america.....so much for honesty......

calling all dogs....

ok, so yesterday at my thursday county, my workmate nurses entertained themselves by calling home on their cellphones...and talking to their dogs on the answering machines......hmmm.....one could not hear the pooches from our end...one could only imagine those pets howling giddily....their names 2 out of 3 that i can recall are...eddie...and killer....both very small terriers.....i am trying so very hard to remember the name of dog number 3...also a very small terrier.....hard to forget names when one keeps a part-time yellow lab named yellow/butter than can barely get up to come in or go out......poor thing.....

writers almanac

ok, so.....on my way home from my last class of the semester i was cheered up somewhat by garrison and his writer's almanac.....i needed cheering up because 2 students not only blew off the final, but also blew off the 4-page wellness project.....and i know that i must grade them according to undone work, and not to my suppositions about mitigating circumstances for non-traditional students.....neither called, emailed, nothing.....but i digress from garrison....whose soothing voice can smooth over the roughest of days......i especially liked this portion of his broadcast.....It's the birthday of novelist and critic Edmund Wilson, born in Red Bank, New Jersey (1895), the son of an attorney who succumbed to mental illness and a woman who went deaf shortly thereafter. He went to Princeton and then worked for The New York Evening Sun, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. Wilson wrote all sorts of opinions about major writers of his day. He was an early appreciator of Hemingway, and he said in 1922 that "F. Scott Fitzgerald has been left with a jewel which he doesn't know quite what to do with." He wrote that Yeats, Proust, and Joyce "break down the walls of the present and wake us to the hope and exaltation of the untried, unsuspected possibilities of human thought and art."

He said that "Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals" and that "No two persons ever read the same book."

no two people ever read the same book.....true words.....as i look forward to bookclub.....and i ponder whether to drag out the white twinkle lights to string through the oak tree above the deck....so that we can imagine ourselves as billy pilgrim, drinking flat champagne in his yard while waiting for the spaceship......there will be those who didn't recall that part of the narrative.... as well as those who will remember the silver-painted army boots and think that billy wore them while waiting for the spaceship.....and i will become unable to try on goodwill coats without feeling for 2 carat diamonds in the lining......just in case.....

thursday.....

ok, so....my class ends this evening....and i have 3 folks who have yet to turn in their 4-page papers....and who have not attended class since the papers were due......i have no plans to sit and wait til 8:30 for them to show up to take the final....hopefully everybody will turn out to take the test, and i will be home by 6:30.......the rain is to continue through tomorrow.....i am involved in a major activity tomorrow for all 4th graders in my work county....an outdoor event that will be canceled if it rains.....i have plenty i can do with my work time should the rain come.......but sadly, if it rains, i cannot get caught up on my pre-book club home projects...like repainting lawn furniture......speaking of bookclub.....my menu was decided yesterday at the krogers by virtue of the manager's specials.....packages of fresh whole wheat raviolis were marked down to $1.75....and marinated fresh turkey loins that appeared to weigh 1 pound each were $1.98 after the clerk took off the $100 off coupon that was on each one....wow......go we are having grilled turkey loin and pasta salad......sounds like a plan to me.....now all i need is the champagne.....in slaughterhouse-five billy pilgrim sits in his yard after his daughter's wedding, drinking champagne and waiting for the spaceship.......

1st wednesday....

ok, so...i was off this morning taking back time worked in anderson county, as my diabetes support group meets the 1st monday of every month....and i was off this afternoon taking back time worked last night attending a meeting....and i did work for 2 hours in between.....attending yet another meeting.....i stopped at the kroger on my way home.....at 2:30 pm, and was stunned to find a throng of shoppers.....halting one's way in every aisle.....ogling the produce, thumping the meat.....and when i had finally made my way out to the parking lot, i chanced upon a nurse i used to know way back when....she she was startled that i did not know why the store was crowded.....seems the first wednesday is senior citizens day, and all purchases are 10% off.....who knew.....one of the first times i was a bit sad not to be over the age of 65.....

yesterday

ok, so as i was driving home from a meeting that ended at 7 i was delighted to hear garrision keillor and his writer's almanac......i meant to go straight home and blog this, but being hungry, i opted to cook supper instead....and being old and forgetful, the notion passed....so here it is today...the part i wanted to remember.....On this day in 1862, Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis. He was 44. His aunt asked him if he was at peace with God. Thoreau said, "I was not aware that we had quarreled." The last clear thing he said was, "Now comes good sailing," and then two words: "moose" and "Indian."...i liked that response- when asked if he was at peace with god he responded...i did not know we had quarreled.....i hope i am that witty when my time comes.....

poppies....

ok, so......i knew that at least one poppy would be in bloom when i arrived home at 8:30 from anderson county...because several yards along my route had a full cadre of poppies abloom.....mine has just the one so far...but that single burst of orange stands out like.....an explosion of contrast color amid the sea of greenish hues.....i count at least a dozen potential blooms....on a par with the iris i have counted....yeah....a more obsessive gardener would have depleted the unopened bag of perennial fertilizer on the porch by tossing a little bit here and a little bit there....i did apply the rose food....which explains their (expected) banner year but i digress from the poppies...which remind me so of the wizard of oz.....and the poppy field......yeah...those were not real poppies....my emotional connections require no stake in reality....and this is a theme that will fall dormant until poppy season next year.....i will enjoy every minute of it...........

night shift

ok, so in my dreams i had sprayed some sort of cleaning product, and was on my knees scrubbing down grimy baseboards....no idea what event had caused the filth, let alone my urge to tidy up......and as it goes with so many dreams...there was mayhem all about.....some sort of baby kept crawling off of the bed and i was reminded that i was supposed to taking care of this baby....except that it was not my baby and i kept trying to figure out why it was in this room with me and my dirty baseboards.....and i woke up this morning with my joints stiff and achy and my neck sore from my right ear down- the joint pain must be from the extra night's worth of work..... no accounting for why my neck and ear hurts......

may 4, 1970

ok so....it has been 38 years since the shooting at kent state, when national guard shot down viet nam war protesters...this music video is from crooks and liars....crosby stills and nash's ohio is always appropriate for days such as these....

one down

ok, so.....we got up early and drove to lexington for a reception honoring the gaines center fellows on the day of their graduation.....and it was a lovely affair......but then any event that features a hot breakfast buffet with hash brown potatoes and bacon is right up there regardless of the reason to get together in the first place.....there were only 2 that came with actual robes....i suspect that most had opted to skip out on the peacemeal graduation rituals...the institution in question being too large to graduate in one place at one time....yeah...they do have a football stadium, but then one risks rain.....and so graduation is done at the basketball arena...in shifts...starting at 8 am and going on in the afternoon and early evening.....we had lovely chats with his friends, including those he intends to visit in nyc, and london....the fellow who will spend the summer in a monastery near hong kong had already left town.....our gathering ended around 11:00 am.....and though there was another event at 4 this afternoon, we opted to head on home and leave our eldest child to adjust to life after college.....

horror

ok, so....we watched in horror as the commentators announced that 8belles had been put down just after finishing second in the derby...both front ankles broken....and in horse terms...that means death...not casts and time off....so sad an end to an animal that gave her all......

nostalgia

ok, so this is a reprint of my mother’s day marathon, circa May 9, 1999……….as printed in the Danville Advocate Messenger, along with pictures……yeah- mamma is feeling nostalgic......

Subtitle: kathy C-dub spends her Mother’s Day finishing Cincinnati’s first Flying Pig Marathon


What kind of idiot spends a perfectly lovely Mother’s Day on a 26.2 mile walking/running tour of Cincinnati?

The answer: 6100 well-meaning idiots, including me, made the trip to Cincinnati for the Flying Pig Marathon Sunday.

Runners who opt for the ultimate challenge do so for reasons that seem perfectly reasonable to the runner and perfectly insane to everybody else. For a non-runner like myself, the decision to enter this race was met with utter shock and dismay.

‘Kathy, how far have you run before this? Only 3 miles?’ they would say as they silently questioned my sanity. “I thought you didn’t run.”

That much is true. I prefer walking to running, but that does not exclude me from completing a 26-mile event. I often walk 6-7 miles at a sub-15 minute pace on my treadmill and on weekends I have been known to load and unload rocks in the building of walks and walls for longer than the 7 hours allotted for completion of the Cincinnati event. I have the stamina and the resolve to finish what I have started when it comes to grueling home gardening projects. Why can’t I transfer these attributes to a 26 mile tour of Cincinnati. I may not be a classic runner, but I am certainly an athlete in search of her event.

Race Day 7:00 am Fountain Square. I am, overwhelmed. I try to remember all the reasons why I am here. I had once commented that I would run a marathon when pigs flew. They are flying today in Cincinnati. All my friends have done a marathon, and I feel left out. Oprah has done a marathon. I have trained enough to lose 7 pounds and 1 dress size. Mostly, I am here because at 43, life is too short not to take risks in challenging the who I am and what I can be. Yes, this is Mom’s Midlife Marathon.

Mile 1. Somewhere on Ezzard Charles Drive. My watch says 12 minutes and a few seconds. Too fast. I will have to slow down. There are scores of runners wearing purple shirts, signifying that they are have raised money for leukemia research. They wear hospital bracelets bearing the name of their ‘training partner’ who has leukemia. I am not running for anyone except myself. I resolve to make a donation to the leukemia society. I start walking with Debbie, a grandmother from Newport. She, too, plans to walk some and run some.

“I did the math. If I walk a mile, and run a while, I can do this thing in less than 7 hours.” She insisted. I am relieved to hear that someone else has come up with the same plan. I am both relieved and validated. I am not thirsty, but I drink a cup of water anyway.

Mile 5. I am in Newport, heading across an Ohio River Bridge. I look at my watch. It is just after 8:00 am. I am on track with my plan. I have walked some, but run more. The route so far has been lined with well-wishers who shout encouragement. Each water stop is like a carnival, with volunteers dressed up in zany costumes. Everybody is upbeat. On the bridge, a barbershop-like group is singing God Bless America, with the Cincinnati skyline in the background. I take their picture with my disposable camera. I am too choked up to breathe for a few moments. I walk again to conserve energy.

Mile 9. Eden Park. 9am. Still on track with walking up hills and running downhills. I am familiar with this area of Cincinnati, as I lived near here for 2 years. I know that there are some long down-hills coming up. I feel really good. I jog for awhile with Joan, from Anderson Township in Cincinnati, who is running today in memory of her mother who died last fall.

She tears up. I tear up. Again, I am so choked up that I cannot breathe. I didn’t plan on this being such an emotional journey. At the water stop, a man from a local TV station hands me a carnation in honor Mother’s Day. I decide to use one of my tissues to wipe away the tears.

Mile 13. Somewhere on Erie Avenue. Not yet 10:00 am. I am elated, because I know that I am halfway through, and I am on target to finish before the 2:00 pm when the finish line will be dismantled. I have met up with some old friends of my husband’s that live on the route. I stopped to take their picture, and they in turn take mine. The water stop has been done up with a pink Cadillac and girls in black felt skirts with pink pigs instead of pink poodles……….

I marvel at the creativity on the part of volunteers. Along the way I have seen people dressed up as pigs, as masked crusaders, as cartoon characters. There has been music, too. I tossed $1 in the donation cup of a teen band playing ‘Free Bird’ somewhere along Madison Road. In O’Brienville, the mood was reggae, with the beat of steel drums to move us along.

Mile 16. Not yet 11:00 am. I give up on running. I have 10 miles to go. I resolve to walk the rest of the way. I feel hydrated, as I have drank one or two cups at each water station. I have fueled up on Skittles periodically, my sport food of choice.

I am concerned about my feet. I feel hot spots. Blisters never crossed my mind until now. I try to put them out of my mind. I am walking now with a woman from California, who has flown in to do the run with her daughter who lives in Cincinnati. She is concerned that her daughter is somewhere behind us and may have given up. I try to reassure her, and in doing do, reassure myself that I could finish.

Mile 20. Noon. I have 2 hours to walk the final 6 miles. I do the math. I can still do this. My hips are numb, and my legs are sore, but I still feel good from the waist up. I have taken off my left shoe to get out a pebble. My sock is bloody. I thought that I must be getting a blister. I resist the temptation to check the other foot. I get up and start walking again. I meet up with a mother-daughter team from Chicago. They are supported by a second daughter riding a mountain bike.

The biker offers to get me some water. I am grateful, as the water stations are being dismantled and the water bottle I am carrying is getting low. I see an EMS crew helping a fallen runner into a rescue van. I try not to think about the possibility of injury or medical emergency. I run through my checklist: hydration, fuel, legs, feet. I don’t feel bad enough to quit.

Mile 24. There is no longer anyone manning the mile markers. I see the mileage spray painted on the pavement. 1:00 pm. I can still finish with 30 minute miles. I am absolutely miserable. I cannot ever recall ever being this miserable. Except during childbirth. Now that was an ordeal.

Nothing that has happened today can compare with the physical and emotional toil of labor and delivery. I think about the encouraging notes that my children including in my Mother’s Day card. I tear up, and plod on.

Mile 25. 1:30 pm. There is a cheerful man running an impromptu water stop. He has tapped into the fire hydrant, and apologizes for the taste of the cool water. I see in him the face of God, for still being out on the course at this late hour. I begin to walk with a woman who has at least 20 years and 100 pounds on me. I foolishly ask if this is her first marathon, too. She is quick to point out that this is her 56th marathon, and that she always finishes this slow. I am humbled, and grateful to be finishing at all at my size. Fitness does come in all shapes and sizes. That was one fit woman. I am reminded of Pheidipiddes, the Greek who ran from the Plains of Marathon to Athens to proclaim the good news of the Greek victory over the Persians. The first marathoner dropped dead after he delivered his message. I put aside this thought and move on.

Mile 26.2. The Finish. I look for Ernst. I know that he will be there, somewhere. He gently takes the camera clutched in my hand to take my picture. It is over in something shy of 6 hours and 48 minutes. Someone hands me a medal: a bronze flying pig. It is something to hold onto whenever I want to remember this day. I know that the memory of today will be glossed over in a few short days, just like the memory of childbirth dims next to the glow of parenthood. A Mother’s Day well spent. But next year, I may opt for breakfast in bed.

Box- Other local finishers in Sunday’s Flying Pig Marathon:

Ernst C-dub 3:24
Rick H. 3:27
Jamey G. 4:12
Joni M. 4:40
Sarah H. 4:41

robins

ok, so....i have spent so much time in my yard pulling up wild onions, and yanking out dandelions, and moving roses, and digging up clumps of dead grass.....that it never occurred to me to look up rather than down .....after i returned from the rainy-day 5K at shakertown, i opted for a few inside chores.....and when i was changing the sheets in the guest room that our eldest child uses when he comes home...i chanced to look out the big plant window to see a not only a nest in the redbud tree straight ahead....but two hatchling robins being fed by mamma robin...wow....just like on pbs......so very sweet......so very springlike

a minor beating.....

ok, so....earlier this week my Facebook home page popped a notice that the outlaw brother-in-law who got me started in this Facebook mania had a birthday coming up....so i sent a global email to all of our extended kin...as is our custom to start a email to encourage others to get us all up-to-date on our happenings.....i mentioned how pleased i was that i now had the opportunity to pass my spare time with scramble and other word games, and how i was pleased to have gotten to know his sisters through Facebook.....and how much i enjoyed playing word games with them.....and.....then i got an email from yet another of the siblings that an actual sister of my spouse shared the same birthday....and that i had committed a faux pas by mentioning one and not the other...who knew?.......and i am still angry over this.....as i have been in this family for 26 years with meager remembrance of my own birthday......not at 30, or at 40......and when i got flowers from my youngest outlaw at age 50 I was tearful because this was out of the blue........thankfully my extended family-outlaw/scramble partner just sent around a global response admitting that she was also unaware of the dual celebration....and she has known this core family longer than i......i am thankful for small favors.....as my feelings are quite tender at this time in life.....

working for the weekend....

ok, so......friday is one of my favorite days...so full of promise for a relaxing weekend away from work.....the derby is tomorrow.....hopefully the rain will pass through quickly and the track will be ideal for this run for the roses....i'll be pulling for the filly....sunday we travel to lexington for some graduation festivities.....the education of my first-born has gone by in a blink.....

worries and woes.....

ok, so i have taken to waking up about 3:30 am...and worrying until the alarm goes off at 6:30......some worries are valid, some not, and each appears to be out of my control.....such details do not stop a parent from worrying, especially since said parent may have to play clean-up later on.....