What would Gibbs do? I am watching my annual homage to the US Navy, an Air Show. We may be transitioning to WWII. Oh, I love this guy! Up, stall, twirl, he’s a solo act. Blue Angels are the highlight. Gotta go watch. Dee
Category Archives: Editorial
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Dad taught me so many things. How to lay bricks around a pool, three years in a row. How to get the stones and make a retaining wall. He taught me how to eat an ice cream cone and drink a milkshake through a straw, He told me I could be anyone I wanted to be.
How to think about what kind of resume I would have, before and after I went to college. Having fun in Italy. Opening presents Christmas day. Midnight Mass.
Irish singers, beltway bandits, Iranian royalty, cellists, flautists, tenors, ballet and opera divas, theater a la art elope epiduris, you name it, he brought it.
I just brought the check and roses for the divas that were de-thorned and placed in little vessels to keep them “alive” to take off in time to hand them to him to take on stage, then place them back. College summers. It was a long time ago, I was with Program reading and complying with contract riders, my brother was a sweeper as a kid then Amp Crew. My sister worked gardening and early morning garbage truck after sleeping maybe two hours after she sneaked into our quarters. Baby sister was just a little kid.
Dad had an impact on all of us. We all got together for his funeral, which was lovely but a fiasco for his children. Beyond that we were able to get together once as our family, another brief time with cousins before everyone headed for the airport. It was a sad day, a good day when everyone told stories. I love stories. Art Alone Endures, art elope epiduris, that’s what it looks like above the stage in Erte style. Dee
Sinistre e una Destra
I am left-handed. The left is considered sinister, the right dextrous. Which means the “right” hand as opposed to the bad one.
My father was left-handed. He was reprimanded for being so and forced/taught to be right-handed.
Two of his four children are lefties, including his first, me. I write left hook. No way I can do calligraphy running my hand through the text. Dad learned to be ambidextrous in many things.
I did as well. Golf, well I don’t golf but did a bit of learning and learned that all the action of a right-handed golfer comes from the left arm and swing. Violin. No leftie violin or guitar. The music comes from the left. Softball, I was ambidextrous as a hitter, leftie as a pitcher.
With knives, cooking, I’m a leftie. Most “leftie” cooking equipment sold is useless but flipper, a fish flipper my husband bought me online is leftie and works wonderfully. If I need a Japanese sushi knife (I do not) it only has a blade on one side and they are made for righties. I’d have to special order.
I’ve not played for years but tennis, I’m a leftie, beginner but always had a savage backhand that killed righties. I don’t remember if Dad played tennis rightie. I did beat my brother, who I love dearly, with that backhand. It just hit the corner at an angle that no-one could get.
I am wondering if Leonardo da Vinci was a leftie. Many implements we live with every day, including kitchen peelers, are designed for righties but really suited for lefties. There aren’t that many of us around, but we deserve consideration. Cheers! Dee
Slowing Down
I have due to arthritis, now our dog is doing so as well. Her right front leg is getting a tiny bit lame or shaky during a long walk. My hips are worse so I miss those long walks she takes with my husband when he is home.
Don’t worry, I am not anywhere near to a having a disabled parking spot! I try and do walk seven blocks to my grocery store, 14 total blocks, three times per week. The more I walk, the better I am, even though my legs hurt and I have to lie down for 20 minutes. I can take Zoe around the block early morning when it’s cooler and we enjoy the walk.
My parents are gone and I’m the eldest and most frail so I am next. College friends, professors and mentors have gone. Do I wish to go? Absolutely not. I’ve work to do here and a little arthritis isn’t going to get me down. An old chiropractor marveled at my tolerance for pain… he’s the one that when I said I had a new car wanted to go out to the lot and see it. He wouldn’t let me tell him what it was and guessed it would be a fancy car and picked out a couple of cars. No, it was a new Army Jeep, 4WD, stick.
He was so excited and surprised at me, he asked if he could drive it, “of course!” My tolerance for pain came in when I needed to drive it to a client 100 miles away and back, same day. No A/C, hot weather, plastic windows and nothing with which to cushion my back or butt. Now that hurt. Plus my hair got messed up for a client meeting that usually lasted three hours before I could drive home.
Dad recently died and spent several years flying to cities that had facilities for his cancers. He spent most of his time at doctor appointments and scans and surgeries and other invasive procedures. I do not wish to start this now, or ever. I am young and strong and have work to do. Please, let me do it. Dee
$2.99
OK, for $3.99 I can buy a multi-colored pint of cherry tomatoes. I chose to grow Sweet 100’s, indoors.
It was a tiny plant and I placed it in a 1/2 gallon cement planter with 1/2 stick to tie it to, from the hardware store. It soon reached over the top so I bought a full stick for $2. Two weeks later it was still spindly but taller than me. We self-pollenated and ended up with one to start.
I went back to the hardware store and the owner went out and got me a tomato cage. Right now it looks as if we may have 12 tomatoes sometime this season. A couple of weeks ago I had to re-plant into a 2-gallon container. I had the container and more soil. Free? Labor, plus it was petulant for a week so required extra care.
Now I await several small tomatoes in a few weeks, for over $10 plus labor, plus the plant is in our living room because 15 years ago we had an outdoor tomato plant that had serious bugs and tomato worms. For that one we even bought 1,500 ladybugs and set them free and they stayed two minutes on the plant then went to tastier lodgings.
In the end I could buy better tomatoes for 1/3 the price at the grocery store. If I did so, granted I could not say I grew them myself.
***
It has been very loud and stormy for much of the night. Severe thunder and rain now. The wind changes all the time so I don’t know if it is coming back on us, only that our old dog will not come out from under the bed or go out for a walk. Storm moved off again, but will come back. Who knows where the winds may blow? Stay dry, Dee
Piglet
I came from a small village of 400 souls. Then I had to deal with a high school with 2.500 students.
All I can think of was that we were the geeks. I gave the reference to AA Milne and we voted on names. I was named first, Piglet. I was tiny and a year younger than everyone. Alex was my math mentor on geometry, I was his on Algebra. He was Eeyore the donkey.
I believe that they named me correctly, the young one who would care about people and animals and make a difference in life. New state, strange space, no friends, I picked some good ones, as I always do.
When you think about moving, always think about your kids. They can deal with it if you prepare them. We moved all the time and were sent to a different school. Certain schools had kids that were nasty so we moved schools or homes that was better but not great. At least the guys behind me on the bus no longer put gum in my hair as my first visit to that school was not the best.
As your kids say, I don’t want to leave my friends, you say he/she will always be your friend. I know. I’ve friends from grade school, high school and college and they are loyal. Only a few will survive from your social networks over the years but if you travel through our great country and beyond you will learn, Thanks Eeyore, Dee
Tomatoes
Expensive ones. I’ve been buying heirloom cherry tomatoes for a while now. I decided to get a Sweet 100 plant and had a vessel and soil. It was about 10″ tall and someone had asked the store to cut a stake in half. I bought the other half, then a full stake then the plant got taller than me.
I re-planted it in a 2 gallon container in fresh soil and it was sick for a week. Now I’m trying to get it sunlight and the right amount of water, indoors. It looks like we may get 12 tomatoes this year, the most expensive tomato endeavor I’ve ever undertaken.
We’re consultants. I’m retired but it still costs us time and money for me to tend to a tomato plant that cost $2.99. First half-stick, full stick, repotting, tomato cage. Now I believe we may have 11 tomatoes this year, if they ever ripen. I could buy that in a heartbeat at the grocery store!
Plus the linen twine. They didn’t have florists tape that I always used to trim and grow my mother’s bougainvillea. Now, I used lightly knotted linen twine to the stakes, to get the plant to grow and flower. It is on a cone, covered with a plastic bag to keep it from dust.
People thought I was crazy to get a full cone of linen twine for binding chickens and meat. When you buy it by the foot at the grocery store it costs a lot more. My cost, I said, is that when this cone is gone, I am gone. I lent some of my life to this tomato plant.
I use the cone of linen twine joyfully for my husband and guests. It is kind of fun to have a tomato plant in the house and self-pollenate it by means of a pencil. It does stink and I have to wash my hands twice after touching it. At least we don’t have tomato worms!
We have to hermetically seal ourselves in here because there is a swamp below us, we cannot have screens, and gnats and mosquitos live in that swamp and visit …. me. Years ago I made 15 phone calls going up the food chain and I was told that the 3″ swamp by the old railroad track was governed by the MMPA, as if blue whales and porpoises were living in there. They just don’t want to clean it up.
There’s a porpoise to this note, remember Flipper? He would never wish to live down there. Here’s to healthy tomatoes without tomato worms. Cheers! Dee
Morning Has Broken
It’s a couple hours ’til that here and we were up late due to fireworks displays that are always done on the 3rd big-time. Nice display, not Pyro Paula but close. I think the “big city” lets the little ones have their displays on the 4th.
Leadership. I was twelve. Everyone in class was a year older and I was a teeny girl. The natives started getting restless. I asked them to stack the chairs in the back of our wonderful light-filled, wood-floored classroom and grabbed the first album I saw and placed it on the record player. The former Cat Stevens sang Morning Has Broken. Then I put on Gordon Lightfoot’s If You Could Read My Mind.
I was a dancer and early gymnast. I had everyone stand an arms’ length apart and we did a light stretching session for 30 minutes. The teacher never showed up. We ended up with a very quiet and relaxed class who got along and went on with their day.
That day, thanks to courage and the right music, I became the leader Dad always wanted me to be. I organized and calmed down 30 kids, all older than me, just by playing music and relaxing their muscles. Lean to the right, lean to the left. Try to reach your toes. Stay ten seconds, nine, eight…..
I wish schools now would do that every day, ADHD would be at a minimum! The chaos that is awakening, dressing and eating a toaster waffle and catching the bus impacts a child’s day, especially if it is me, being taunted on the school bus by three bullies down the street. They did it once, and 12 family members (kids), from them and their cousins, addressed the bullies non-violently and the bullies never spoke to me or harassed me again. I remain in touch with those families. Not the bullies.
We lived in the country, outside a small village. At birthday parties we built hay forts at the neighbors’ and ran around in cattle dung. Of course my sister and I had to wear white blouses, skirts, lace anklets and patent leather Mary Janes to do so when everyone else was in jeans or overalls and boots. You wouldn’t like to be me after the first such party at age eight. Oh no, my little sister couldn’t be blamed at all. I was responsible as the eldest.
Leadership is a gift and a burden. Dad would tell you that, may he rest in peace. I believe it is a presence and a sense of purpose, smarts, and knowing who you’re dealing with at the moment.
Years ago the light from the 2nd floor windows, bare wood floors and the music helped calm thirty unruly students when our teacher failed to attend class. At age 12 I had no teaching certificate, but at the end of that “class” everyone talked to each other and got along. That was my certificate. Happy 4th! Dee
Posted in Editorial, Education, job description, Music
Tagged cat stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, leadership, teaching
Primes and Odds
I’ve been a cook for fifty years, mainly in my own home but did graduate from two cooking schools. They call doughnuts “a baker’s dozen” because thirteen looks like more than twelve. OK, there are other reasons from WWI. btw they found out about peanut butter and jelly together during that war, must have been their MRE’s.
Usually, I do food, flowers plants in 1, 3 or five. Remember Diagon Alley from Harry Potter fame? I always place an odd number of candles, plants, erasers (positioned over a knuckle-rapping ruler on The Nun Desk) and even aged chemistry flasks diagonally.
Thirteen chicken wings look like more than 12. Three spider mums look more lush than two, for my father’s memory. Three tiny milk bottles in a metal basket look better for single blooms for my family, than do two, as our old dog Z is a member of said family and has been for nearly 14 years.
My husband is a mathematical and software genius. I’ve never been really good at math, more at writing and literature. As a kid I learned music from my Dad. Music is numbers. Mozart knew that at age five. I’ve been told I have perfect pitch. I’m not a good musician but can sing harmony to anything on the fly, usually in fifths, and look at lyrics to songs I know and play them or sing along without notation.
Before anyone ever taught me about food (I was not allowed in Mom’s kitchen, only the pantry to make a vodka martini for Dad for when he arrived home from work, I was eight years old) or floral arrangements I somehow knew what looks good florally on the table, as well as food-wise. Of course with food I care about flavor the most but how it looks is important as eyes and nose check it out before the forks come out.
Remember Jodie Foster in Contact, the movie? The aliens were speaking in primes. Mr. B fascinated me in math class in probably 6th grade with primes. That was something I could do. I then excelled in Algebra then had problems with Geometry. It was OK. There was a really cute guy, Alex, who sat behind me in both, no we never dated, but I helped him learn the first and he helped me after school learning the second. We both passed.
As kids we had a little group with nicknames all from AA Milne books. I was teeny back then and kind of a mascot so I was Piglet. Alex was Eeyore the donkey. Years later I don’t remember the other characters, just know we helped each other learn math.
Now you know to arrange your food and flowers. I bid you adieu as I must take out the dog at 6:30 on this long holiday weekend and say a Happy Fourth of July! Cheers! Dee
Siblings
Always different, never the same. That is why we have varied actions and reactions. The last time we got together that may be the last ever was at Dad’s funeral over the holidays.
I am eldest and was the dreaded word “babysitter” as when I was 11 my parents would leave me in charge of three kids. I went away to college before they were grown and they resented me for it.
Little sister, I tried to put her up to the bed at bedtime but preferred for her to stay up by the windows and await our parents’ arrival. Then she’d run back to bed before their car arrived. We had time, it was a country road.
My brother was the trouble maker. He would do anything like climbing the tv tower at age three. Then he’d tell on himself saying “Mommy, I’m not being ‘haved” and she would hug him. Nothing he could ever do was wrong in Mom’s book. He ended up Dad’s best bud and executor of his will, as he should have been.
Baby sis was a standout from day one. Oh, I was not allowed to see her in the hospital but folks came home and they said they were naming her “Chipmunk” because of her cheeks. I said no way, you already saddled me with a name the teachers cannot spell or speak. They were joking. She has a nice name.
We had a little dog back then, a rescue that was huge in the winter then had a summer cut to keep her from burrs et al. She was a basement and outdoor dog and I wish I’d known Dr. Dog’s theory that a backyard dog is a dog without a home, back then.
That advice was not around when I was eight, I’d have known it from PBS. Our dog is sleeping on our bed with my husband right now. She is old and lets us know when she wants her only toy, Precious, or to go out again. She is great in elevators, with people, other dogs (except hateful ones where she steps away) and even cats.
I’ve had some wonderful shelter pets in my life and do consider them family, not siblings. Believing that one’s pet looks like you is one thing, I do believe you chose them to act like you, to show your persona to the outside world.
Everyone knows our old girl. Someone told me years ago that I was a terrible person and should never have been born. My girl is my presence in the world and anyone you meet in several neighborhoods around the country will tell you that we’re good people and dogs and that we go out of our way to care for others of the human, canine and feline societies. Ghostbusters aside, Bill Murray would have liked dogs and cats living together, as it always worked for me. Dogs used to run away from home to visit my cat. I’d get a call at 7:00 a.m. “Is he there?” Hold on, I’m at my desk. “Yep.”
“I’ll take him inside until you get here.” They used to go out through their garage to get the newspaper, dog ran. We had a system. He also had play dates outside with next-door neighbors, three different-sized Shisa dogs and the Shi-Tzu used to wrestle with him.
A Corgi also caught his eye. The dog used to put my cat’s head inside its’ mouth and he thought it was great! He ended up living with them for a couple of years as after I married my husband was deathly allergic to cats. I believe coyotes lured him off his back yard tree house and maybe he was ready to go as he was nearing ten years.
Family is what one does with blood and friends. If we are lucky we each make a family for ourselves. I’ve the Three Musketeers and many more around here, plus others, one of which you can put a prayer in for, a mentor for over 25 years who is in hospice care, another who is in an assisted care facility and calls me her daughter. Dee
Posted in Editorial, editorial pets, Family, Zoe
Tagged Bil Murray, ghostbusters, mentors
Cooking with Dee 