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.....

last day of april

ok, so.....i have enjoyed a rose blooming on the last day of april for as long as i can recall.....but not this year......a curious year for gardeners, by the way......we have been treated to a bumper crop of lunaria (money plant) which blooms tall and purple........yet i only count 12 or so iris out of 50 plants that look like they might add to the purple show...no idea why so many iris plants appear thick and robust, yet show no signs of shooting up an actual flower......maddening.....the louisisana iris that languishes in the pond has doubled in size from last year....even after i gave a huge cutting to another pond person at work.....i can count 3 potential blooms out of a plant that could easily produce twice that number.....ah well.....the star of bethlehem wild flower is a mass of white in the middle bed......and there are a handful of poppies that will burst forth red in the next few days......i just love this time of year......

it is well with my soul

ok ,so... i attended the funeral yesterday of the recently retired board chairman.....and an amazing tenor sang this baptist classic:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

Refrain.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Refrain.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Refrain.

Just lovely...........

my child is horrified that i _______.

ok, so.....i was amused at a hallway conversation this morning...during which my female comrades were bemoaning the many reasons they have recently given their children to roll their eyes.....one mother admitted to following her son to walmart to picture him meeting with his dad (who is not married to my coworker) in his prom outfit over the weekend....another was enumerating the throng of family she was busing up to lexington to see her daughter graduate from UK on sunday.....and how she was unsure if she could keep them all quiet during the ceremony....this is a first-generation graduate crowd.....and everybody is coming......and yet another mentioned how she had approached a car in the back lot as she was leaving work on friday to ask if they had come looking for condoms...it was horrifying in that they were friends of her son- a high school junior.......the things that i do that horrify my own children did not make this list...and i kept them all to myself.......

an april rose?

ok, so for the past 20+ years i have been in an informal competition with my brother-in-law over who has the first blooming rose.....he generally wins....as he has so many roses.....but i have the southern-facing slope.....and this year i have a contender......if the sun shines bright on my old ky home tomorrow, stanwell perpetual may bloom......her buds are bulging enough to show me the color that awaits....cream....this rose is set bloom with a record number of buds......nearly 12.....some years in its past,unsuitable location it was lucky to see 3 open blossoms.....thankfully it has taken well to transplanting......in other less hopeful news...the county has mowed down the luneria (money plant) lady's mantle just about to bloom ,and wild phlox.....yes...these plants were stirring things up in the selvages as we drove in and out of our road.....but another week and the show would have been all over......i am curious about the sort of person that would mow down blooming wildflowers......is it just another owing assignment, or did this person actually notice the purples and blues go under the blade?......

the lord's larkspur

ok, so.....there is an idyllic ravine beside the lower door to the education building of my church.....the collective owners have allowed it to remain as nature intended....and this time of year it is abloom with purples and yellows and white.....it is separated from the church property by a fence tall enough to keep out wildflower buffs......today i was walking into church, and admiring the view, when my prayers appeared to be answered....there was a celandine (wood) poppy blooming yellow and lovely on the church side of the fence......in an area that could be weed-whacked by an un-knowing groundskeeper.......and as an added bonus, there were a few larkspur blooming at the church ended of the ravine.....down a rather steep slope...but reachable......and so after the lunch dishes were finished......i changed into my stealthiest gardening clothes.....and headed back to church with some empty pots and a digging fork to liberate those wildflowers before the mowers could do their worst.....i was practicing that little speech in case the police showed up to make their call on the fine line between liberation and downright theft.....and so i edged slowly down the steep slope ......but not slowly enough....and i slipped and slip and came down hard on my right arm.....gentle readers.....this is the lord's day so i will spare you the words i used as i ascertained the injury.....not broken!....but sore and probably bruised.....and i was getting off easy.....as if i had broken it i would have been in a ravine, out of sight.....and were it broken i could not have driven my stick-shift car to the e.r......i'd have had to walk the 3-4 blocks or so.....ah well.......and so i managed to dig up three of the dozens of clumps of larkspur.....and the single poppy plant .....and to crawl back up out of that ravine......i may have blogged that a co-worker in lincoln had already given me a few clumps of larkspur liberated from a county over.....and it could be said that i was being greedy adding more than my share of this lovely blue flower to my collection of native plants.......i will contemplate that possibility at least until my arm stops hurting....

pyromania.....

ok, so...the three of us sat on the terrace by the pond and gazed into the fire in the copper grate until...well....after 9....we are wimpy go-to-bed-early folks..... but the short time we did spend by the fire was peaceful and almost camp-like.....

george vs clara

ok, do...i have just gotten off the phone with my mother...who has not moved from her chair since getting the news that there are 4 pages of things wrong with her back........none that can be treated.....just 4 pages of data......and my mother has taken this like her mother clara would have......she is in a lay-down-and-die mode.....unlike her father...george would have taken this news like any other news...as just news....and he would have gotten up the next day as if it were a new day....and gone on.....i could call this man from columbus, or cincinnati, or d-ville...and ask him how he was.....and he would say.....pretty good.....despite the obvious otherwise...like being blind....my mother has chosen to see the world like her mother...and i am determined to see the world as pretty good even if i should be blind......any day you wake up is a good day.....worthy of praise.......

oriole

ok, so.....on this day i planted seeds inside (in peat pots), outside (in clay pots) cleaned out the gardening section of the garage, watered, weeded, washed the clothing worn during these tasks, and then settled into a glass of white wine and the rick steves book of italy on the deck.....not that i am going to italy......just in case my eldest who is going on a grand tour (21 days +) might want travel tips....such as stay in sienna and take the bus to florence.....sounded like sound advice to me.....as i sat peacefully...an oriole landed on a branch close enough to take in the splendor of this vibrant bird......wow...and its call is rather sparse.....a few notes rather than a string of notes.......we have seen the beginnings of an oriole nest....hanging rather than....nesting.....but it looked much too fragile for actual service.....maybe the bird has found another resting place.....i also cleaned out the pond, and fed and watered the crab that my youngest child conveniently forgets is hers......

a good story....

ok, so.....i was at our doctor's office yesterday afternoon, and as we were checking out i had an opportunity to chat with our semi-neighbor.....her family owns the party-central lake house 2 doors down....we were just enough older than this woman and her siblings that we recall them partying on summer nights....and now her eldest son has taken up partial residence there....so far no disrupting noise.......and so mentioned to her that we had not heard a peep out of her boy despite seeing several cars on both weeknights and weekdays.....and though she was glad to hear that, she assured me that our neighbor across the street would certainly have called if there was anything raucous going on....and she told of an evening in the not-too-distant past whereupon the neighbor called her at 2:00 am, and told her she and her husband better get on out here as there were cars everywhere and he didn't want trouble out our way......she had to wake up the rest of the household, as she was watching her sister's children...her sister being at a class reunion.....and so the posse arrived to the circle...only to see cars that were clearly not her son's crowd.....BMW's,Mercedes, high-end SUV's......seems her sister's reunion had moved out to the lake house for old times sake,......and it was a mid-life crowd rather than kids carrying on.....just too funny.......

8 antique rose bushes

ok, so.....i arrived home to a shipping parcel tenderly packed with bare-root own-root rose buses......some antique climbers, some english-bred-to-look-old....all to be just lovely.....the own-root descriptive is essential.....most commercially grown rose bushes are grafted....a desirable top grafted onto a hardy base.....which is usually a boring red rose named dr. huey, or worse....rosa multiflora...a rose that is such a pest in my home state of ohio that the osu school of agriculture has an office dedicated to it's eradication.....i now have rosa multiflora in my own yard...and every year i dig it up...and every year it pops in in more places than before...it suckers underground....and must just love our limestone base.......as i was digging up adequate places to plant these treasures....my across-the-street neighbor's gardener stopped to talk on his way home.....he and i are on waving basis......i wave to him as i go to work, and he waves to me as he goes home.....no clue what he does in between.....but my neighbor now has massive tulip plantings and his grass is picture perfect.....but on this day....as i yelled across the road about my new roses.....it dawned on me that he spoke no english....and so i waved toward my arbor rose.....and waved my arms to indicate that i looked forward to this year's bloom....and he waved his arms in return....letting me know that he looked forward to it as well.....ah well.....i did not get around to planting the wild larkspur......a co-worker liberated 9 plants from somewhere in lincoln county.....i am keeping them moist, but opted to wait until the cool of the morning to plant these tender plants.....i so love spring.....all is possible.....

the check is in the mail....

ok, so i read with glee that the treasure will soon send my $300...which i will turn around and spend on something for one of the children......but for the few moments it is in my hands i will wonder why our tax structure is such that we pay out only to get back...seems like a costly waste of time and money.......

matching outfits

ok, so...i enjoyed rereading about my dream from last evening.....especially the part about the matching outfits.....i freely admit to submitting my sons to matching outfits for major occasions like easter or christmas eve.....the most memorable ones were purchased in paris......blue chambray button-down shirts with squirrels embroidered on the pockets....i may actually still have one or both of these shirts, which i found simply charming......they wore these shirts with navy cotton cardigans (also purchased n paris) for montessori school photographs....school pictures are generally solo events...but the photographer immediately caught on to the matching togs and photographed them together on a safe bet for extra profit....yeah...i bought several poses because they were just so darn adorable......for the record, i have never subjected my offspring to outfits with names displayed in bright colors across the front.....as if they might forget and must look down to make sure of the spelling....upside down and backwards......ah well....if my sons keep to their plan and deny me of grandchildren...then i will miss the opportunity to recreate sweet matching garb for the next generation to remember fondly.....

christmas village....

ok, so....in my dreams i was in sunday school, and a clearly cross-dressed man with a 5-oclock shadow, blonde wig, and dress worn over shirt and slacks came in and sat down.....skip to the worship service where the guy kept cruising back and forth behind our pew, and i grabbed him by his collar and told him i'd get a restraining order.... also in the pew were my eldest children- wearing matching black cords and gray pinstripe shirts- a combo i never attempted when they were small and mamma-dressable..... fast-forward to the home scene, where my matching sons decorated the kitchen counter with a christmas village- set upon white fluffy fabric to resemble snow....and furniture had been moved around to suit their holiday residence......the computer table (actually an antique library table) was out in the back room pulled up to the sofa, that was made up as a bed for an overnight guest- no sign of the cross-dresser.....but my sons did sit me down and explained that they had made a pact to have have children until after i have passed on......what a curious dream.....especially given that i intend to live to 100.....which would make my sons really, really old meandaddys.....

feline

ok, so last evening, as i sat in the red lawn chair and took in the splendor of spring in my yard.....the cat stealthily made her away across the lower flower bed....pounced, and came up with a mouse.....and rather than continue on her stealthy way....she assumed that she would find a proud audience up my way.....gentle readers, much as i understand that cats are born to hunt and eat mice, i do not feel the need to be witness to this level of cosmic truth.....and so i left the cat to munch by my chair.....and i went back into the house....

yellow dog....

ok, so...since the neighbor dog passed away the big yellow dog that we call yellow and the neighbor calls butter has been spending more time at our house......he was waiting for me to let him in for breakfast when i went out to get the newspaper this morning.....and he often waits for me to come home in the evening...presumably hoping for a little snack to tide him over.....til he goes back next door?.....last night he hung out in the back room while the youngest watched house....and swear that this big yellow dog doesn't smell near as much like cigarettes.....which means he is not spending much time in the sidestream of our neighbor's wife....who smokes inside rather than outside.....the poor beast has not lost any weight....so it is clear that somebody is feeding him more than he can burn as he spends his workday lounging on the neighbor's porch.....

up early....

ok, so....i have to drive myself and a few coworkers to l-ville this morning for a meeting that starts at 9......our alarm clock starts playing the news at 6:30 am.....not enough time for me to get out of the door by 7.....so we set the manually-wound alarm clock for a 6:00 am wakeup call.....i am unused to the sound of a ticking clock, and so i woke up at odd times during the night to make sure that i had not overslept through clock error.....and when one suffers through fitful sleep....one fails to awaken refreshed......well.....from poor sleep and from manual labor....i tilled and sifted out weeds from my vegetable planting bed.....about 20 foot of planting space......and so my back and my wrists are in pain......i ought to be in great humor for this drive to l-ville....tired and achy on a monday morning...what a combo....

the big give.....

ok, so....we sat and watched the finale of oprah's big give this evening.....mostly to see what it was all about, and to see who won...and i must say that we decided right off the bat that female beauty queen contestant was an idiot..and if she won we would be disappointed..and the dot.com guy was a self-serving weasel..and the father figure guy was hands down the best of the bunch....so we were excited that he ended up winning the whole enchilada....he was the only one not playing it to win....but playing it to give.....having said this....i think i can happily go another couple of years without reality t.v......

ondayone

ok, so this was posted ondayone a blog where anyone can post their dreams for what the next president should do one his or her first day in office.....it was part of an article about home vegetables gardens in the nytimes...

Eat the View
Roger Doiron at 2/7/2008 3:56PM

Announce plans for a food garden on the White House lawn, making one of the White House's eight gardeners responsible for it, with part of produce going to the White House kitchen and the rest to a local food pantry. The White House is "America's House" and should set an example. The new President would not be breaking with tradition, but returning to it (the White House has had vegetable gardens before) and showing how we can meet global challenges such as climate change and food security.

taking notes

ok, so.....i sat through the sermon alone today, as my spouse and youngest were taking their turn watching the under 5's in the nursery.....but i entertained myself by taking notes in the margin of the bulletin, much in the way our middle child used to take notes or draw buildings......my personal goal on this day was to take down the numerous country names that would be dropped by the annual guest speaker for a group that gives out bibles.....as per usual, the speaker asked us to pray that his group be allowed into muslim countries so that these folks can be 'saved'.....which seems a rather intolerant message in an age when we need to accept those who believe differently that we do rather than expect those people to change their fundamental beliefs....for the record, he mentioned 20 countries, though i think i missed a few as he rattled toward the close of his message....i should emphasize the his part, as only men can belong to this group....their wives may belong to the auxiliary......a curiosity that women are somehow not equipped for the passing out of bibles....

sunday morning....

ok, so...i got an baby shower invitation today in the mail....no news there.....but it is the time and day that struck me as incredible....sunday morning at 11.....gentle readers....folks in our neck of the woods are in church in that time slot.....or should be, as the locals are apt to comment....We are in church in that time slot unless we have a really good reason not to be....and the weekend in question boasts several good reasons to think about our options.....our middle child will be home for a brief interlude between college classes and a francophile internship.....and there is the possibility that the eldest will be home as well.....not a chance that we would drive north several hours for a baby shower on such a day.......better send a gift with my regrets now and move on.....

fake muenster....

ok, so.....i am proud to live in a cheese family....the collective we just love cheeses of the world....and would have a difficult time narrowing down the list of favorites...both everyday cheeses and special occasion cheeses.....i happen to prefer meunster melted on meat.....or eggs....it gets nice and oozy, yet clings where-ever it was placed....muenster had a supple texture...just the way cheese should be.......and so imagine my surprise when i opened up a newly purchased package of muenster...and the slice crumbled as i lifted it off of the stack.....gentle readers....muenster doesn't crumble....and then there was the tart taste....what?...muenster is mild not tangy.......and then it dawned on me.....this was not really muenster...rather sliced cheddar with the edges dyed to make it look like muenster....a travesty!.......not that i have anything against cheddar.....it is still CHEESE.....but when i buy muenster i expect the cheese to be muenster.....i may write q quick note to the aldi people to let them know that some of their customers are not so easily fooled.....

the fire pit.....

ok, so....last father's day i bought my husband a copper fire pit- the kind that is a copper bowl of sorts that is held up by a 4-legged castiron ring. The fire can be contained somewhat by a castiron mesh handled lid....the whole contraption looked really neat at the store.....but as these gifts go.....we were experiencing a drought and a no-burn rule came along soon after the gift was given...and so the gift has languished unassembled in the garage for all these months.....i did decide yesterday that i could figure out how to assemble something so simple.....and after i placed it on the terrace by the lilypond.....i had no choice but to drag out the chairs and table that occupy this space seasonally....and while i was in the mood i dragged out a few more chairs that allow a tired gardener to sit and contemplate the majesty of carefully cultivated nature....but i digress from the firepit.....i gathered together quite a pile of sticks and small logs...and not only built a respectable un-lit stack inside the pit, but a reasonable stack beside it for backup....and after dark i made my way out there armed with newspaper, matches, and a glass of wine.....i managed a lovely fire after only a single match, and sat back to enjoy the peaceful surroundings, the stars.....and waited for my family to join me.....but the youngest was distracted by network television....and my spouse was mowing my mother's yard on the riding mower that had headlights.....and so by the time i had gone through both the first stack and the backup sticks....and the fire had burned down to embers.....i opted to dip my empty wine glass in the pond, put out the remaining coals....and go back into the house.....only to find that the deck door was locked....so i ambled around front...to find that the front door was locked as well...seemed my spouse had walked in the kitchen after mowing and looked out toward the terrace ....after i had put out the fire, and had figured that if i wasn't there that i had gone to bed.....how funny......next time we will coordinate our fire for a non-mowing evening.....

rodents in polyester suits....

ok so i heard the npr review of this book awhile back....and i was unable to locate the particulars on google because i was searching for squirrels in polyester rather than rodents in polyester....my mistake....the book itself deals with sex....but it was not sex per se that was so intriguing about this book review, but about the research done into sexual matters by an egyptian scholar, who was especially interested in how polyester enhances sexual pleasure......and given that he was doing this research in a muslim country, he opted to use rats wearing polyester rather than humans wearing polyester for his experiment.....i would say.....only in america but i cannot because this happened in egypt.....

reichter unknown....

ok, so i was awakened this morning by what felt like a burdensome beast bounding across the back deck....the house shook, and the drawer pulls rattled back and forth for a bit....and then it was over, and i went back to sleep......and thought nothing more about it until the lead radio piece was about the earthquake in central ky....no reports on the reichter scale.....could not have been much more than a few points....but enough to count.....

grass

ok, so.....we were forced to mow our grass this evening despite all the tender new shoots, because the established patches were tall enough to be seen from space if not by car-traffic who take note of neighbors with un-mowed lawns.....and now that the playing field is even....the new shoots look so shabby and thin and wispy compared to the grass that somehow survived the drought......my spouse contends that the new grass will fill out as it matures.....but that knowledge does little to diminish my prevailing sense of failure at the art of grass-growing.....i suppose what i really wanted was to dig it all up and lay sod....the cheater's lawn...the already green and full and lush roll-it-out lawn.....but given that i still have children in college and a travelers addiction to feed.....i am in the grow-your-own mode...no matter how long it takes.....

word twist

ok, so......my first email message of the morning was from my new zealand connection on facebook, letting me know that she had challenged me to wordtwist...yet another intoxicating on-line word game that features words i have never heard of which makes me feel bad about myself on some days....but do not feel badly for me just yet, as i managed to find a word that used all of the letters (expects- or something close to expects) and i scored a 25 point bonus....wow!......as for my other passion scramble....i am daily humbled by my lack of obscure words.....and have broken 100 only once.....and given that my current band of local scramble playmates are basically brilliant folks, i can either quit playing or put up with frequent losses.......line on-line has its ups-and-downs....._

the mourning dove

ok, so.....the mamma mourning dove was gone from her platform when i got home from work....and the broken egg shells remained on the pavement below her arbor roost.....seeing the 'nest' without her sitting upon it was troubling.....doomed to failure.......and as i strolled my planting beds...i could hear the mournful cry of the mourning dove....i am certain that the mamma mourned the family that was not to be.....

broken eggs....

ok, so....when i went up to the road through the rose arbor this morning to retrieve the newspaper.....i was saddened to see 2 tiny eggs splattered on the concrete below....and surprised to see mama mourning dove still sitting on her platform....possibly unaware that her task is now futile....there simply was not enough nest to contain eggs.....poor bird.....

pope-on-a-stick....

ok, so.....i can remember another time a pope came to washington dc.....i had just finished graduate school (1980), and a dental intern and i drove to d.c. to see the sights....we slept on the floor at my old high school boyfriend's apartment....and his new girlfriend (being catholic) had recently dragged him downtown to see the pope.....and people were selling popes-on-a-stick.....and i regret not asking at the time exactly what that gift-item actually looked like.....must have been the template for bobble-head pope.....those who keep track of these things may recall that this same dental intern was a rabid u of l fan....and we spent a lot of time in d.c. in sports bars watching u of l play on the 'big screens'......big for 1980.....u of l did come through that year, by the way.......and i recall that aspect of the trip with much more clarity than i remember the pope being in town.....

37 degrees....

ok, so the temps reportedly dropped to near-freezing last night.....this low is not an issue form of our blooming trees....in that they have already bloomed and it is too late for the emerging bloom to burn off.....the lilac is just emerging....and i am a bit concerned about that bush/tree....which has bloomed poorly for years due to late freezes.......and then there are the boxwoods, which literally freezer-burned last year to the point that all new growth had to be trimmed off to get rid of the unsightly dead plant matter.....ah well....the daffodils and grape hyacinths looked un-phased by the cold-snap.....

money

ok, so....i spent an entire work day in f-fort learning about how one budgets public funding......and i must say that i am still a bit glazed-over .....the dropping of dollars into specific slots on a spread sheet is something i must do, or i would not subject myself to such torture......or rather....pretend to drop dollars....as the actual allocations will not filter their way down to me for a few more weeks....so i learned what to do when the funds arrive weeks before they arrive.....the time gap large enough to essentially erase any memory i might have of this day.....business of usual, i am told, when one works for the state.....the best part of the day was the drive to and from.....my assistant who traveled with me knew a back road route that avoided the main f-fort traffic...and the winding road down toward the kentucky river was aglow with the white of dutchman's britches on the right hand slope.....a spectacular display of wildflowers.....

missing wildflowers...

ok, so i came back yesterday from the wildflower walk at the refuge eager to look around our wood lot to see just which wildflowers are blooming in our little habitat.....i was somewhat surprised at how few overlapping species we have in common with the south-end of the county.....yes, we both have toad trillium, and dutchman's breeches, and stonecrop sedum....but we have a profusion of shooting star that was nowhere to be seen in forkland, as well as wood hyacinth, star of bethlehem, money plant (lunaria) and saxafragia......there are a few more that i have failed to look up in the books after all of these years....a white flower with a cut-leaf of some sort that seems to bloom early enough that i miss it almost entirely.... a curious disparity for such a short distance bewteen

wildflower walk

ok, so.....my daughter and i rallied to get ourselves up and dressed and down to the wildlife refuge for the wildflower walk.....and were stunned to have a crowd of 40 souls also in search of flora....to manage the throng the organizers wisely split us into two smaller groups, and we set out on opposite ends of the trail......i found myself trailing directly behind a woman that i did not immediately recognize, but identified before i said anything callous...and i found myself editing my commentary.....making certain i did not mention such key words as husband, mowing, neighbor, gunshots, skunks or extended courtroom drama for example.....we were looking at the toad trilliums that were along and in the path.....and i almost mentioned that i have to remind my husband when he mows the woodlot to be careful not to mow them down where they have spread from the stand of trees.....this dear woman's husband was gunned down by a neighbor while he was out mowing the lawn, later to claim he was trying to shoot a skunk......this incident happened several years ago, but it is not something easily forgotten......she brought up her late spouse as we walked, at a stopping point i noted a buckeye tree, and she mentioned that her spouse had lived in ohio for a time......but i digress from the wildflowers.....we saw lots of wild phlox, and wild ginger, and a yellow poppy that i have never before seen....and dutchman's britches......and twin-leaf that flowers white......and false rue anemone....which i voiced was a mean name for a flower....to call it false...and suggested that we call it alternative rue anemone instead......i lovely outing, that ended up lasting 2 hours......and now out to my personal wildflower refuge to mulch more beds.....

buzzards

ok, so.....my spouse and i walked three laps around the loop after supper....and amused ourselves by the buzzard-count......at least 18 if we take both our counts and average them between those we saw in trees and those we saw circling above.....18 buzzards?!.....are they passing through or here to stay?....we see no sign of actual carrion.....thankfully.....but the specter of weeks and weeks of buzzards is troubling with or without a decidedly dead food source.....

rain

ok, so....s mighty storm blew through sometime in the night.....i resisted the temptation to look at the clock to check the time.....if it were nearly time to get up i would have a hard time going back to sleep.....the plants i moved need this rain need this rain....yeah, i did spend significant time laying down the seep hoses....only to find that water in seep hoses either doesn't run uphill very efficiently, or i have kinks that keep water from making it to the end of the line.....trying to convince my spouse that we need a spigot that comes out of the ground just below where the water line comes in from the road......hooking seep hoses up to a spigot at the top of our property will allow the water to seep downhill.....brilliant idea, i say......for days when there is no rain.....

birds....

ok, so there is a mourning dove who has nested in my rose arbor....and i have taken to walking out to the road for the morning paper by way of the driveway so as to avoid disturbing her.....she is platforming rather than nesting, i suppose, because what she built appears little more than a flat matting of organic matter...but she seems determined to sit there.....and i will give her due distance......we have an unusual number of turkey vultures in the area......it is not unusual to gaze across the creek and see a dozen or more birds in a single tree......a bit ominous......as if they know something we do not.....i was in the habit of checking on the cat, just in case....but i have yet to see them engaged in actual carrion activity......as for the rest of our little bird friends....we keep the feeder well-stocked so they can catch up nutritionally after a harsh winter......the goldfinches appear to be especially vibrant this season.....there is a single bird that may be partially deaf, blind or other wise disabled.....as we see other birds force it off the feeder....and on a recent occasion my spouse was able to walk right up to the feeder when that bird was eating without the bird moving a muscle....poor thing....life is tough enough without your friends keeping you from a good meal.....

6 years.....

ok, so...the following paragraph began this blog 6 years ago today.....

my middle child has a chant that he utters from time to time- mean mamma, mean mamma..... there is a certain cadence to it that defies description, and sometimes a little dance as well. i think that i will make up my own chant and dance to be done in tandem with his performance. i will ponder the details and get back to you tomorrow...

i never did come up with that chant and dance sequence....i figure i still have plenty of time....

grass!

ok, so.....i arrived home early enough this evening to water the grass and my new planting bed......and lo...there were fine threads of grass emerging ever so tenderly from the soil underneath the straw......life is good.....

b-ball.....

ok, so i stayed up til 11:30 pm watching the last b-ball game of the season.....i knew when kansas hit a 3-point shot with 2 seconds to go to tie the gamer that memphis would lose in ot....so i went on to bed.....i had grown kinda fond of memphis in the round of 8......especially with the hyphenated fellow douglas-roberts....one rarely sees hyphenated anybody in the sports world......a nice touch.....but sadly neither that poor fellow nor his teammates could hit the broadside of a barn last evening.....

unbloggable.....

ok, so the details of my last 72 hours are, alas, unbloggable........not even recorded in the secret blog for posterity......somebody smart once commented that the better part of life is just showing up.....sometimes showing up can reap rewards.....and sometimes showing up can get a person in trouble.....enough said....

places to go; people to see.....

ok, so....yet another week in public health......lots of small projects that i must get out of the way before i tackle the budget.....all work and no play for the mm these days....

expecting the unexpected...

ok, so...today was a day of the unexpected....though as a semiprofessional worrier i contend that there should be nothing unexpected......just that which i failed to anticipate.....the day started out with the snake in the grass......not exactly grass......more like grape hyacinths....but still...one does not expect to see a snake in 50 degree overcast weather...it was thicker than my thumb....and though striped did not strike me as a garter snake....yeah, well....it did not strike me at all because i leaped backwards to the walk.....the snake did not move.....it just slithered into a comfortable coil....and stared at me through the single visible eye.....yikes.....these days even the snakes have attitude..... i ceremoniously moved the pile of coiled seep-hoses from the porch to my planting bed after retrieving the youngest from town mid-day.....and the most embarrassing surprise was in store.....coiled hose does not easily UNCOIL.....and so with audible cursing i resorted to pinning down the conundrum hose with rocks and bricks in places where there was not enough ready soil to dig it under.....quite the laughable scenario......followed by the next of my failings....i under-estimated the number of bags of mulch required to bury the hoses......by this time i was in no humor to drive back to the lowes knee-deep in mud to buy more.....will swing by after church and before lunch with grandma to buy more mulch...at least those bags that will fit inside the trunk of my car.....my garden is a money-pit when it comes for mulch.....one can never have enough of the lovely brownish/black stuff......and so i dragged my sore and sorry body inside to clean up and start the rest of my day afresh.....and think about supper.....pasta salad sounds good....and while the water came to a boil, i started in the slicing of the vegetables....and....gosh-darn...i tried to cut off a finger slicing up baby carrots....never saw that coming.....i am losing my touch.....

hard work

ok, so.....i did go back down the road with my digging fork, and selected 6 sweet rocket plants growing so close to the road (in the public right-of-way) that the cars would have eventually smashed them down.....and i slipped them into a plastic shopping bag, and strolled innocently back around the circle with my fork over my shoulder.......and 'all the sudden' our neighbor (who has been working on his house for years and years) came ambling out from his porch and laughed as he asked me 'what on earth have YOU been stealing?"......and i showed him my ill-gotten plants.....and suggested he do the same before they are ruined and useless to no one.....it was a good laugh....this morning i moved 12 rose bushes from questionable locations to my new bed....most lacked adequate sunlight, or were in overgrown spots.....i have just gotten back from the lowes, where i bought 5 bags of mulch- the limit to what can be shoved into an accord trunk that is not quite empty......and i am heading back outside to lay down the seep hoses in the new bed, then mulch over them......i have a long list of garden projects, but i will be happy if i can get this one job done this afternoon.....so that i can shower, and sit back and enjoy what remains of the day.....

up early

ok, so....i tried to sleep in and did not manage to sleep past 7:15......figured i had best get up and get something done.....after a few cups of coffee walked out the road and back with my spouse.....a lovely morning for a walk, and well-timed.....lots of wild flowers coming up on the right-of-way that banks up toward the farm.....i plan to head on back there with my digging fork and a few plastic bags in a little while.....mostly sweet rocket.....which would look really nice in my new planting bed.....which appear to be perfectly positioned in front of the bay window in the guest room/retirement suite. I cannot say that i planned this, but at some point i will live in this room and be grateful for the lovely show of color....

restless nights

ok, so....the storms that came through every hour last night really through a wrench into my sleep cycle......up at 2...up at 3....up at 4 and again at 5.....no dreams to recall because i doubt that i slept deeply enough to activate that part of sleep.....no worries....the storms were mostly rain, with thunder far enough off to be a backdrop rather than a focal point.....so at this very moment it is all i can do to muster the gumption to go on upstairs and get dressed for work, because what i would rather do is to go back to bed.....and get some uninterrupted sleep....

it was a dark and stormy night.....

ok, so.....the rain has been steady all last night, and all of this day....and all of this evening, and appears destined to go another night before heading on......my first remark to my loved ones, as i dragged my sorry self through the door this evening going on 7:45 pm that i had earned my keep from all whose deep pockets pay my meager salary.....each county (3) and each university (1)......a tremendously productive day.....my diabetes class...scheduled over the lunch portion of the day ....had 14 persons...remarkable for a pre-registration that listed only 2 names....and my thursday clinic had kinda forgotten that i cannot see clients while i am teaching a class...and they kept paging me as to having a chart ready while i was in the midst of a 2 hour presentation in the conference room.....a class that staff actually ushered people to in person......ah well.....we did drugs and tobacco in my eku class.....and i did share all of my good stories about both.....sorry....no lsd flashbacks to disclose......but i did have the horror of dropping by an apartment in college on a date where an entire bale of marijuana was being cleaned and repacked for distribution......seems my date WAS a distributer.......i suspect he is in prison somewhere at this very moment, as he was unapologetic about how he was working his way through college.....ah well....nobody asked about the inhale thing......so we will never know if bill and i have anything in common......so......i am fed and bathed, and drinking my decaf tea...and wishing i did not have to go to work tomorrow.....the rain is beating against the window....should be a great night to sleep long and hard.....

nearing a major milestone....

ok, so...now that april is in the air.....i realize that i am nearing the anniversary of this blog , which began on a whim in april of 2002....i have just searched back to that first entry.....i have it pasted in a safe place until the big day.....it was this first entry that set the name of the blog in ....stone?......not quite the word i am searching for......i stopped to read a few random blogs from the winter, and then the fall, and then the summer and spring of 2002.....i was catering then.....so many blog entries related directly to cooking/transporting/serving/whining.....hard to believe that anyone could start a blog and not keep it up.....i find typing out my thoughts so cathartic.....ah well.....april 9 is next wednesday.....might just have to crack open dome bubbly......just don't tell my baptist friends.....

satallite radio

ok, so.....i learned today that we have a sat phone/radio.....and i learned how to use it in an emergency.....wow.....i also learned that i have to make some sort of plan as to who gets immunized (prioritized) against whatever in case of an epidemic.....this is huge for the queen of worst-case scenarios......these folks have me totally outclassed in terms of just how bad they can envision......i may never sleep again......but then again.....i have found that the worst things that i imagine never happen...it is the things that never crossed my mind that come along and i deal with them as they arise....and all turns out adequately.....and so i will not devote too much worry time toward the depths that evil could sink........

no fool like an april fool....

ok, so.....it is getting late and i really need to get on with my morning rituals and attempt to make it to work on time....but it just occurred to me that this is april 1st....and i had an overwhelming wish that i was in paris, and buying those little chocolate april fool's fish......or maybe i was just wishing i was in paris, and the fish make it a safer story.....

scramble.....

ok, so.....i have fully admitted that i play scramble with my eyes half shut in the morning... with my coffee.....the urge to take one's turn is just too great.....and alas, the discovery that some brilliant foe has beaten you by one single point is hard to take, even with one's coffee at hand.....realistically, this person could have beat me with more than that one point...why show off it with more than it takes to win?....ah well.....a game disappeared overnight because the player teaches school (out of d-ville) and has obviously been very busy...i am playing with my bro-in-law and his 2 sisters all at the same time.....which is like herding cats as the youngest sibling lives in new zealand and plays at very odd times.......and i am in the midst of play with a far-flung friend.....and i am very much hoping that her brilliance with language does not otherwise transfer to finding english words on a 5 x 5 screen!......i need to win on occasion to keep hope alive......and given that i cannot play during the day.....facebook is still blocked by the state o'ky......i have to get my thrills in before and after work.....at this point i have only broken 100 once, and only made it to the leader board on a game that lacked players......i so enjoy this game because it feels as though it has the potential to keep my brain agile......and this may come in handy when my brain decides to follow the lead of my aching/aging bones......