Making Assumptions.....

We spent Friday night camped in a big open field near a reservoir just outside of Yosemite National Park. Frankly, since it was the start of the long Memorial Day weekend we were lucky to find a spot. Hundreds of campers were flowing into the campsite. Big rigs, smaller pop-ups and lots and lots of tents.

We were in an area where there were no reservations and no specific sites......you just drove around until you found a spot that worked for you and set up. Just below us, closer to the water, were several dozen families with tents, shade tents, picnic tables crammed with coolers, kids with bikes and soccer balls. Teenagers swimming in the reservoir, adults popping cans of beer......music wafting on the breeze. Hispanic music......Hispanic families. And us.

American flags flying, the sound of air mattresses as they were inflated, a kite in the air. Conversations. Laughter. More cars and trucks arriving......more tents set up. Were were surrounded by friends and families ready to enjoy each other's company and celebrate Memorial Day. We were surrounded by Hispanic families......a two person "white" island in the center of smiling Hispanic families.

It was an interesting flip.....to see yourselves as the minority. We waved to our neighbors as they set up tents and they waved back. But that was the only real interaction. I suppose we could have walked over to say hello.....but everyone seemed so busy as "Happy Birthday" banners were hung from some tents and food was prepared. So we just sort of stayed in our site and read our books and walked our dog and ate our dinner.

As it was getting darker kids were getting a bit louder and lots of chasing games wound between the sites. Kids weren't being "naughty"....they were having a blast on a pre-summer evening.

But the mom's were in tight control....suddenly I heard a loud mother voice yell "Gregory you come right back down here right now!" And Gregory did what she asked.

Not Carlos, or Juan or any other name I might have assumed I would hear......it was Gregory acting up. Gregory.

Welcome to the melting pot.....welcome to America.

Twenty Miles.....One Carcass.....

My turn to drive, Dave and Fenway resting and reading in the back. Not much excitement out the window, this part of northeastern Arizona is pretty flattish and bleak. But it's a good two lane road and I find Red Neck Wednesday's on the country station so I am good to go.

I like to just drive and listen to music and "ponder" whatever pops into my head. I've always enjoyed "interior time".....just me and my brain. So for instance, the yellow sign that warns me to watch for free range cattle for the next five miles. Just how does that work? I can see that cattle would have to roam for acres and acres just to find enough grass or whatever for lunch....but what about when the owner needs to round them up? To count the new calves? Castrate the young bulls? Send them to market? It's a lot of territory to cover trying to find them all. They probably use ATVs now.....and I never have seen a free range cow anywhere near a road.

People of a certain age would be amused that we are driving parallel to the old Route 66 and might remember the TV show as I do....or get a whiff of a memory when they see the sign for "Peggy Sue's Diner."

Then there is another yellow warning sign reminding me to watch for animals for the next twenty miles! That seems pretty broad but I do....my eyes sweeping left and right as I hum along with Keith Urban. Wonder just what kind of animals would be out in this desolation....oh, a coyote carcass just before the twenty mile mark. Sometimes I think those yellow signs are a sort of magic that actually keep the animals away. We've driven for miles and miles watching and hoping for moose sightings in some parts of the country.....hah!

And suddenly there is a really interesting sign....dinosaur tracks just ahead! I don't stop for that tourist attraction but it does make my imagination whirl. Consider being at the wheel and seeing a velociraptor come over the rise!

Passing the miles....my turn at the wheel.

Eavesdropping.....but Hard Not To.....

A small hospital in Colorado.....me sitting on a bed in a "room" in the ER. The kind of room that has no real walls.....just curtains that slide on tracks separating one patient from the next. The curtains do provide visual privacy.....but talking, or weeping, moaning, or coughing passes right through the fabric. Can't be helped and really, I wasn't there for any serious concerns. Others were.

It was pretty quiet when I checked in and everyone I encountered was more than nice and very professional. X-rays were taken very quickly, nurses took measurements, therapists came and went......and then I waited for the results and information for about three hours.

In the beginning of my stay I could tell a very elderly gentleman was in the bed next to mine. It was obvious in his voice, his wife's and his daughter's. After a few hours he was sent off via ambulance to a rehab facility and the room was cleaned.

It got much busier. The nurses' station was just outside and suddenly I could hear a nurse talking in a very soft voice.....I believe she was talking to the hospital's chaplain or social worker. Not a direct quote but basically she was saying " He came in by ambulance from the gun range and was dead on arrival. So if you would please go notify the family."  I didn't listen on purpose, but fabric doesn't block much sound.

Then a young man arrived to occupy the bed next to mine....the story drifted across the curtain rod.Sixteen years old, skateboarding with a friend on the first day of his summer vacation, took a bad fall....fractured collarbone. His mother and step-father arrived, several buddies and his girlfriend. I never saw anyone.....just heard the comments.

Then I heard that nurse on the phone again, calling a local funeral parlor and asking them to come get the body, take it to their facility and the family would be in contact.

And then.....I guess this was the conversation that bothered me the most.....the skateboarder's mother was going on and on about her faith and how important her church was to her  and how the Bible's teachings guided her life. Right before launching into some of the most vile, un-Christian like comments about immigrants and those who do not share her faith.  Conversation directed at four high school students.

I closed my eyes and practiced deep breathing and went back to my book. My test results finally came back, and some instructions and I was free to go.  For me it had been a blip on the radar, spend with some free WIFI time and a very good book.....and a little unintentional but couldn't be helped eavesdropping.

Life in a small town hospital......unexpected changes bringing three local families to the ER that day. Some would heal quickly and get back to normal activity, some might get to go home from the nursing  home.....one family suffered a permanent loss.

And one lady proved to me, once again, that there are Sunday Christians who interpret the Bible in a way that supports some pretty ugly behavior. And passes it on to the next generation.

Flaming Marshmallow......Part Two

So the night before last when I went to bed I turned on the ignition to close the driver and passenger side windows and forgot to turn it off. Battery completely dead in the morning. Luckily Dave had some kind of jumper "equipment" and was able to start it up.

Then it was off to the walk-in clinic I mentioned in the last post where we sat in the parking lot for an hour until it opened. That PA took one look at me and my list of symptoms and sent me across to the ER at the small hospital across the street.

Two chest X-rays, an inhalation therapy treatment and a breathing analysis and a long talk with the Respiratory Therapist and a very calm and thoughtful ER Doctor and we were back to the campsite.....five hours. Seems my asthma complicated by the bronchitis complicated by all the little airways in my lungs being irritated so my blood oxygen is low......but none of it needed to end the trip. Yet. Just need to take all these test results back to my specialist in Milwaukee and tell him that Colorado thinks this all may be a result of my problems with reflux.

Rested and enjoyed the beautiful campsite for the remainder of the day.....and after dinner I went down to the bath house to take a shower. (This is the part where most of my friends say no way....The Hilton, a spa, a cruise or a resort. NO campground bathrooms for them. But I don't mind.....if they are clean.)

Anyway....a private shower so I put in my four quarters and enjoyed the hot water and a good shampoo. Stood under the water to use up my time. It suddenly occurred to me....what is probably the MOST important item to bring to the bath house with you. Shampoo? No...if you have a bar of soap that works. Bar of soap? No. You can always just rinse off really well and make do til the next time. Hairdryer? No.....can towel dry......oh.....that would be it.

A towel.  There I stood, squeaky clean. Dripping. No way to connect with Dave with no cell phone on me and no cell service anyway. Hmmmmmm.....what would YOU do?

What did I do? That's my secret and it goes to the grave with me.

The Flaming Marshmallow....

When our son was four we took a tent camping trip to Little Pond in New York. It was the long 4th of July weekend and tent camping fit our young marriage budget.

I am not going to describe just how horrible this experience was.....but I will say that after enjoying a lovely first evening, we had major car problems and had to be towed to a far away VW dealer leaving a four month old puppy in the tent, we bounced checks, our son threw up in the car after a long day eating candy bars and soda from the vending machines and I managed to attach a flaming marshmallow to my nose.

Suffice to say....I refused to ever tent camp again.

This time it's our fourth RV exploration of the Western states.....just Dave, Fenway and I in our comfy little camper. But little is the operative word here. I start to feel sick in Iowa, cold-y and coughing and sinuses draining. So we stopped at a clinic in Atlantic, Iowa and the nice PA was very thorough....taking my history and treating everything very aggressively......new inhalers for my wheezing, antibiotics for the sinus and a descending dose of Prednisone.

Then Dave started to cough....so we were keeping each other up at night.....see where the really small space becomes problematic?

And I wasn't getting any better and even added laryngitis to my list of complaints. So here we are, in Delta, Colorado waiting for the walk-in clinic to open. We'll challenge a new PA or doctor to wave a magic wand and get rid of this stuff.

So I guess we are in the middle of a sort of "woe-is-me" feeling....until we look out the window and see the beautiful mountains surrounding us. The beauty helps.....along with plenty of Kleenex.

A Dream Deferred......

Our first grandson is graduating from high school in early June. Can't figure out how we can be old enough for this to be happening...but it is! Sadly, for all of his life he and his mom, dad and brother lived far away from us and we didn't get to share as much time as we would have liked to. But he's happy and the whole family loves living in Washington State.

I don't know when he started to play soccer....but he was in early grade school. The first experience was probably similar to when we watched his dad learn the game many years ago. A hoard of little kids, legs pumping, ALL running after the ball and no one holding position!

But he learned and practiced and as he grew it became evident that this young athlete was an exceptionally good soccer player. Junior high schoo, traveling teams, high school, tournaments around the state, summer soccer camps. His skills with the ball increased and coaches took notice. College coaches.

So then there were the trips to visit campuses and determine which school would have the majors he wanted and allow him to play and maybe (hopefully qualify him for scholarships to help with expenses). Everything was falling into place....the college he selected wanted him to play starting freshman year....no warming the bench. And the scholarship was tied to his academics.....all good.

Until the last game of his high school season as a senior. I wasn't there....but he was hit by a player from the opposing team and went down. His knee. Both the ACL and the MCL would need to be repaired surgically. The surgeon offers hope that since he is young, and determined, he may be able to start playing again as a sophomore...and the college coach is on board with that.

But what a life-blow for this now young man we love so much. He went to prom on crutches and if he goes to graduation we'll see him in a wheelchair.

Not what he dreamed of. And deferred dreams are hard.....especially when you are 18.

Altitude Adventures....

Wisconsin is pretty close to see level.....Denver is not.

Our little RV means we are self-sufficient as we travel and this is our fourth western exploration. You would think we'd be pretty "good" at this by now. Yet there are always new surprises awaiting. Today's involved liquid and semi-liquid food stuff.

First it was my juice, a combination of lemonade and orange juice is one of those sports bottles with the plastic straw that goes through the top. I grabbed it from our little refrigerator, brought it up front, sat down, buckled my seatbelt and reached for the bottle. As I rotated the straw up so I could take a sip the juice came flying and bubbling out of the top....all over the dashboard, hitting our cell phones, running down onto the rug. Dave's response was "Damn! That's the stupidest design for a bottle ever...throw it OUT!" as we used lots of paper towel to clean up the mess.

About noon we stopped at a lovey lookout next to the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon. Dave took Fenway out while I made sandwiches to eat at a picnic table. Pulled the meat and cheese and bread out onto the countertop, found the honey mustard and cranberry relish and started the process. No biggie....how many times have I made this sandwich? Until I opened the mustard and it "flew" all over the countertop?

It wasn't until fixing our salads for dinner and having salad dressing quickly jump out of IT'S bottle and all over my hand that the lightbulb went off......ahhh.....it's the ALTITUDE!

So, for the rest of our time in the Rockies or anywhere else higher than Wisconsin I will open ALL bottles in the sink wearing a protective garment.

I'm no dummy.

Bird Spotting.....

Just outside our condo building, along the bike path, we have two comfortable benches and several bird feeders. Our upstairs neighbors fill the feeders and the rest of us enjoy watching the activity as birds flit back and forth.

It's a sign of spring when we see the baltimore orioles and the bright yellow goldfinches grab a bite and then zip off to sit in a nearby bush. Robins and cardinals join the parade.

I'm not an educated bird watcher, but it is fun to notice something new as Fenway and I walk down the path. And it wasn't until earlier this year I discovered that the cardinal's winter feathers include a lot of yellow - absolutely beautiful bird!

So beautiful she inspired a little quilt......I'll never look at a cardinal quite the same way ever again. What a lovely gift from Mother Nature.....especially on a grey day!

Bring Your Birth Certificate......

OK - there are just so many amazing things in the news right now. My head spins. But recent ongoing coverage about public bathrooms and why some individuals apparently can't use them tops the list.

All of the fuss seems to be concentrated on transgendered individuals, born into the wrong body......and while they try to live their lives in the way that meets their needs, it means they can't go into the bathroom that reflects their non-birth gender.

This amazes me because guess what folks.....you have been using public bathrooms with transgendered individuals for years. You just didn't know it. Because what goes on in the stall is private  and doesn't affect anyone else in the facility. You wash your hands at the sink standing next to people using the facilities, you dry your hands, you check your hair in the mirror or pick the piece of broccoli off your teeth and you leave the room. Business finished.

Sometimes there is brief conversation or comment....but often not.

And if you think you don't have any LGBT friends or acquaintences you are wrong......they are just afraid to tell you.

So......with this latest tempest in a teapot I wonder just how this will be "policed"? Every bathroom in every public area.....restaurants, museums, airports, stores, office buildings etc....will now need someone to provide bathroom security? A person, probaby in uniform, who will ask to see your birth certificate??? Or maybe a penis patrolman who asks you to drop your trousers to prove your gender before you can enter the bathroom? Really?

Then again the United States does seem to need to create new jobs to replace some of those heading overseas....so maybe this is one way to solve that problem.

But would it be minimum wage?

It's Here.......

We've had a few nice days since spring officially turned up on the calendar....but even more cold and grey and windy non-springish days.

But today it's here! Fenway and I found it as we took our long morning walk up the bike path. Of course an abundance of dandelions show happy yellow faces, but now forsythia is in bloom, beautiful dark blue-purple violets are tucked close to the ground and Mayapples are just beginning to open their umbrellas! And beautiful bunches of marsh marigolds in the wetter areas.

And "our" deer, much harder to see now with trees beginning to leaf. But we found some. Three were very helpful because they crossed the path just as we came walking up and we could watch them graze amongst the trees. And cardinals and chickadees and one beautful bright-yellow-on-back goldfinch flitting from branch to branch.

We left the pavement and walked into the woods following a deer trail/off road bike path. Just a few yards in and quiet descends. I could hear the small stream trickling over the rocks, branches way up in the trees clicking as the wind forced them to meet. Dancing in the breeze. 

And two more deer resting on the far side of the stream.....ears cocked, watching us carefully as we passed. Back through the woods we re-discovered the first mini-herd but went back to the paved path rather than spook them.

We used to live in New Jersey and Delaware and in that area of the country we enjoyed a lovely long spring lasting maybe six weeks or so. Here we joke that Wisconsin spring arrives on a Wednesday.

Well this year it arrived on a Sunday, on Mother's Day. What a lovely gift. Thank you Mother Nature.

Reverse Mother's Day Card.......

This week I was wondering if Mother's Day was just a "Hallmark" holiday - so I googled it and found:

"Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring motherhood that is observed in different forms throughout the world. The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialization and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. While dates and celebrations vary, Mother’s Day most commonly falls on the second Sunday in May and traditionally involves presenting mothers with flowers, cards and other gifts."

For some reason, Mother's Day has been "bothering" me this year. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the commercials on television, maybe it's wondering about my own history as a mother. Maybe it's the two new babies we welcomed into our extended family this year. Maybe it's missing my mom and my mother-in-law, knowing that Dave and I don't have mothers to call/send gifts/appreciate anymore.

But tonight I began to reverse the equation and think about my "kids". The two who made me a mother. Our son, who came home from the hospital with two very young parents way back in 1969 - a mom and a dad who, frankly, didn't have a clue about what they were doing. And later a daughter who came home with more "practiced" parents in 1974 to be welcomed by her big brother. 

I look back and wonder, what kind of a mother was I? Did I do a "good" job? Was most of it "good" and only some of it "bad"?

I had coffee with my daughter today and we had a nice conversation. I looked across the table and saw a very accomplished woman. A good woman. A talented woman. A loving mother and a wife who supports and loves her husband. We hugged goodbye at the end of our visit and it felt good.

I don't get to see my son very often because he lives across the country. But he's a good man. A loving father and a supportive husband.

Our daughter drew with her crayons and sometimes the crayons drifted off the paper and onto our painted walls. Today she is an artist.

Our son wandered Nashotah Park and explored nature.....today he is Director of the Department of Natural Resources for the Samish Indian Nation.

Both are independent, accomplished and I am so very proud of them. 

So maybe, just maybe, I can take a little credit for doing most of it "right". Mothering is an adventure, an exploration and it is different for each child welcomed into the world. 

They say "once a mother, always a mother" and, on one level I think that's correct. But on another level, I don't feel like an "active" mother anymore. I raised them and then turned them loose.....and they created their own lives.

Good job Todd and Megan.....I feel priviledged to be your mom.