....Signing On

Dave and I have a goofy anniversary "tradition".....we "sign on" for one more year. I don't know when this started but we have been doing it for as long as I can remember.

Looking back I guess I never really had a "long range" plan....or a five year plan or any kind of plan. Life just happened....good and bad. And somewhere along the way we began to tease each other about signing up for "one more year" as we'd celebrate our anniversary.

We had a winter wedding, and married very young. We were both still in college. And as it turned out, we had so many family birthdays starting in October and then lots of Christmas shopping to do in December. For years, by the time we got to our anniversary, we couldn't even go out for a burger. At one point I remember we asked each other "Whose great idea was it to get married on December 29th?!"

Now, with the kids grown and gone and completely independent, we can and will go out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. And.....sign on for one more year.

Many more "ups" than "downs".......so on we go.

Morning Sounds......

Fenway and I bundle up and go for our first morning walk about 7:00.....winter means we really bundle up because he hates cold weather. So our morning walk is usually quite abbreviated....he does what he has to do and wants to come in for breakfast immediately.

But still our few minutes outside often provides us with a surprise. Sometimes the sun is still coming up over the lake from behind a low layer of clouds...so we see pink, yellow and blue. Morning rainbows. Sometimes the temperature over the land combined with temperatures over the water provide us with ghostly smoke out toward the middle of Lake Michigan.

And today I realized that we are greeted with special good morning noise every day.  There are hundreds of Canadian geese that winter in Port Washington. They gather in the evenings and land in the water at the marina and behind the breakwater. Quiet all night....but as I begin my walk in the morning I realize that I always start to hear them waking up. At first it's just a few geese who begin the honking....then others join in. During our ten minutes outside the noise grows and grows......amidst winter silence.

And then the flock begins to take off in groups as they leave the water and head to area farm fields to forage for their food. We see them during the day as they search for left-overs in area cornfields.

Late afternoon they begin to come back - v formations heading toward the edge of the lake and landing in the water. Again the noise......getting louder as more and more of them head in for the night.

A daily ritual.....and I like the fact that they greet me as I begin my day. Their ritual accompanies one of mine...walking the dog.

A Walk Through Our Woods.....

The wind is gone.....for today. Although the skies are grey, it feels almost "warm" at 37 degrees. It was a good morning for several long walks with Fenway. We took the bike path up along the stream and through the woods because it's pretty well cleared of snow and ice.

It was very quiet.....just a few birds zipping back and forth and a few squirrels bounding from bare branch to bare branch. I heard the sound of our stream.....very soft as much of it is frozen over.

A narrow band of cold water runs between the banks.....background music for my walk.  So I made my little dog stop with me....he must have been curious as to why I take out my phone and tell him to not tug on his leash so I can try for a clear shot.

Walking home I began to remember a poem......and found it on the internet. I wasn't riding a horse through the dark woods at night....but somehow the tone of Whitman's poem seemed similar to my morning experience. Enjoying Port Washington's winter woods .... white, brown and grey beauty everywhere I look.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening - Poem by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though; 

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep. 

....Additional Worms

It's still happening.....and now two in one night!

1:30 a.m. I woke to Gene Autry singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and at 3:00 a.m. it was Josh Groban' beautiful "Oh Holy Night".

I was only awake for about five minutes each time......but now I'm thinking it's a "battle" between the spiritual and the commercial. One lyric beckoning me to church....the other to a mall.

I think I'll stay home and celebrate in my own way.

Tra la la.......

Invasion of the Christmas Worm.....

We are in the final countdown to Christmas....and we are looking forward to it. We've gone to parties, had friends join us for an open house, traveled down to Chicago to see my sister and her family and now we wait for Christmas Eve at our daughter and son-in-law's home.

But frankly, right about now, I will be glad when the holiday music begins to disappear off the radio stations and slips out of my brain.

Every night for the past week I've awakened about 3:00 in the morning and find I am silently singing a Christmas melody. Yesterday was "White Christmas" (yes....we have one), the night before was Maria Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" and then before that it was "Feliz Navidad"!

Happily I seem to fall back to sleep pretty quickly and the song doesn't interfer with my rest for more than a few minutes. But I find it interesting that this is happening to me this year.....I never remember a holiday season where every night's rest was interrupted by a different song.

Sort of celebratory.....yawn.

Good Book Weather.....

It's official.....we now have wind chill that makes outside feel like we are living in a sub-zero climate. Ugh. I don't mind cold weather, and the snow is lovely.....it's the wind I can do without.  A good day to do some quilting and then finish a very good book.

I've read Pat Conroy's novels before and am now finishing South of Broad. It's an excellent read and an interesting story about friendships spanning two decades and set in the beautiful city of Charleston.

But what I enjoy most is Conroy's mastery of the language. His phrases.....his descriptions....the words he chooses to use. He seems to assume that his readers will enjoy stretching their vocabularies....and perhaps grabbing a dictionary. It struck me on page 190 that he had such a purposeful choice of every single word.....a perfect word that exactly fit the situation. I have to wonder how many re-writes before he was satisfied?

Reading "...their languorous drift...", "...disseminating the stereotype." "...the portion of darkness he carries inside, like a rumor of bad weather." "...faintly liturgical smell....", "...responses are brilliant and disputatious..." (disputatious!)

Later in the novel he states "The West is both a great thirst and a dry, weatherless curiosity." And describing a run down hotel in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco he colors it well..."It smells of the kind of mold that grows on expensive cheeses, but also of a darker variety that has metastasized in dampness and air shafts and crawl spaces, untouched by disinfectants."

I enter this book's world every time I pick it up. And even though much of the story is tinged with sadness it is a great read. So much to think about, to digest.

Disputatious.......love it.

Missing........

While we lived in New Castle, Delaware she was one of my best-est friends. We met at church and quickly moved from acquaintance to friend. We'd meet almost every morning for our talk/walks along the Delaware River. We met her husband and the guys became good friends too. We'd share meals together as couples. We traveled together.....she and her husband joined us on our first trip to London and Paris. They were the experts....having been to both places many times and happily showed us the ropes.

We laughed together, we cried together, we shared good books and movies. We had a tradition we called "Cheap Dates" where we took times planning excursions to see how much we could do for how little. The best involved a car trip. We toured a power plant for free, ate a picnic lunch, got free hot potato chips right from the assembly line at the tour of a Pennsylvania potato chip factory.....and drove home to New Castle. The only cost was the gas for the car. It became a monthly "contest" to see who could come up with the most fun ideas.

She was so bright....a Cornell grad. Her career involved teaching and computers. She was the consumate hostess and great cook. Her table was often set for friends and gatherings at their house were always fun. She had a great laugh....and so did her husband. They still do.

But things began to change after Dave and I moved away. We tried to stay in touch and did take a great trip to Belize to snorkel in 2002. They came to stay with us for a few days in Milwaukee and we celebrated a wonderful New Year's Eve. Whenever they came to the Chicago area to visit their son and his family we would try to get together. But the last few years conversation became more difficult....and one-sided. She was as friendly and smiling as ever.....but almost silent. She responded to comments....but did not seem to initiate the four-way talk.

The last time I called her must have been about six months ago.....a warm conversation except for the fact that every few minutes she'd ask "Who is this again?" I could hear the smile in her voice....but also the puzzled tone. I knew.

Yesterday Dave had a nice long talk with her husband.....I heard Dave's side as he described what we've been up to. I could tell that my friend's husband was still teaching classes at Wilmington's OSHER program and they were planning on a couple weeks in Mexico to flee winter this year. But when Dave asked if my friend was still active in the community I could tell that the conversation had taken a sadder turn.....for the first time her husband confirmed that she no longer knew who anyone was. She was still going for walks with him everyday and attending classes to sit with him and doing a little traveling.....but her memories were gone.

It hurts. Knowing just what an amazing woman she "was" it's hard to think that so much of what made her special is "gone"......and if I walked in their front door she would greet me with a smile but wouldn't know who I was.

We lost our close friendship because Dave and I moved away.....but I still "had" her as a friend. I don't anymore. That's hard for me.....but so much harder for her family.

Dementia in any form is such a thief......it steals your past and robs you of your future. And it hurts all the people who love you. Shit.

A Morning in the Kitchen......

I wish I could say I loved to cook.....but I don't. Basically, I spend as little time in the room with the appliances as possible. And I stopped baking a long time ago. Certainly when our kids were young we had lots of holiday traditions that revolved around Christmas cookies....and I did have fun creating them with my two appreciative participants.  But once they grew up, moved away and began their own traditions I happily dropped cookie baking from my to-do-list.

Until I met Janie. We were living in Delaware and she and I met while attending Newcomer Club functions. She and her husband moved to the area from Seattle and we "found" each other while I was living in New Castle.  We felt an instant connection, a recognition.....and decided we'd been sisters-in-another-life.  Janie was an excellent cook! So we decided to get back into the swing and for the years we both lived in the area it became our new tradition. She'd come over to my kitchen and we'd put together multiple batches of Christmas cookies.....lots of different kinds. Christmas carols playing on the radio and laughter bouncing off the walls. Baking with Janie was fun....and the results delicious!

So here we are in 1993......busy mixing, baking, icing and sampling the finished results. Such fun memories.

The years pass....and lives change. Janie and her husband, Phil, moved aboard their sailboat and spent more than ten years circumnavigating the globe. We worked a few more years, then we too moved aboard our smaller sailboat and spent two years exploring. There was no baking going on while we were afloat!

But yesterday I found a really easy four-ingredient recipe on the internet.....Almond Joy Cookies. Today I baked them......fast, easy, pretty good. Yes, the carols were on the radio and they went together easily....but I missed the friendship, the laughter and the cookie variety! I missed Janie!

She's now a phone call away.....living in Alaska. So I picked up the phone and we shared a few memories and some laughter. Signing off with "I love you"..... my-sister-in-another-life. I sure wish she lived nearby!

So Who "Owns" December.....

This controversy seems to come up every December....the discussion about saying "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to friends and neighbors. Facebook is already full of postings. I decided to check my December calendar.

December 11th is the Prophet's birthday, beginning at sundown.  Hanukkah shares Christmas Eve on December 24th. Christmas Day is the 25th and the first day of Kwanzaa is December 29th. So apparently there are many faith traditions that "share" December. Then my curiosity sent me to the internet and I found some interesting information.

Apparently the first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25th was in 336 and a few years later Pope Julius I decared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on that date. When you examine the Bible there seem to be two basic reasons why Jesus couldn't actually have been born on that date......if you like the story. The tradition states that shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks....but shepherds would not have been in the fields in December....wrong season, wrong weather.

And then there is the part of the story that has Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem to register in a Roman census (Luke 2:1-4)...."but such censuses were not taken in the winter when temperatures and weather were very cold and roads were in poor condition. Taking a census under such conditions would have been self-defeating."

So.....Christians celebrate Christ's birth on December 25th as a matter of tradition and faith. And saying Merry Christmas on the 24th and 25th is perfectly appropriate. But does that mean that the whole month should be given over to celebrate this one special religious holiday?

Why do Christians feel it's such an insult when someone says "Happy Holidays" during the month. Why do they feel all greetings should be repectful of their traditions over everyone elses?

So who "owns" December? In America I actually think it's the malls.....they put up their holiday decorations in October and start playing Christmas carols in November and start advertising Black Friday Sales....and now Cyber Monday Sales.....and special Christmas coupon sales.

Don't kid yourself......the "meaning" of Christmas often gets buried under all of the brightly wrapped gifts piled under a decorated Christmas tree....until, on December 24th or 25th many people drive off to church to be reminded of one man, who had so little, and gave so much.

Do you honestly think he would be offended by people saying "Happy Holidays!" to others?

And Then Really 70......

So what would you do to celebrate a milestone birthday? My actual birthday was on Thanksgiving this year.....and when that happens I like to imagine that the whole country is celebrating with me. This year, turning 70, Dave arranged for a very special adventure.

We flew to Atlanta on the 23rd and stayed overnight at a nice hotel overlooking the Atlanta Aquarium. It was a beautiful day, temperatures in the 60's and an amazing sky. We enjoyed a walk through the park and a delicious dinner at Legal Seafood.....the best crab cake since we moved away from the Chesapeake Bay.

And then, on Thanksgiving morning, we went to the aquarium to go swimming with the whale sharks! On my "bucket list" and what a fantastic experience. We love to snorkel and have been lucky enough to look down at fish in many places throughout the Caribbean. We've seen parrot fish, rays, sea turtles, yellow tangs, pufferfish, barracuda, squid, eels....and so many more I can't remember.

But to be in the main tank at the aquarium with four huge whale sharks was simply amazing. And giant manta rays doing ballet moves around us, the school of jacks enveloping me for a moment, the sea turtle exploring the bottom of the tank way below us.....it was just mesmerizing. I have to admit that when we first started to swim, following the dive master, I started weeping into my mask. I was just so excited! But I quickly realized that I would not be able to see the fish very well if I didn't get myself under control.....so managed to stop.

Turning 70 while swimming with sharks.....this birthday will be hard to top!