Mom

My mother died today of natural causes.  She was 83 years old.  My father was with her at the end.  To my knowledge, they loved each other unreservedly all their years together.

I loved her while a child, I admired her while a teenager, and we were friends all the days of my adult life.   As her first-born child (of 4), I probably received an unfair amount of attention, and I thrived on it.

From the day I left home to attend college to the time about 5 years ago when Parkinsons Disease robbed her of her ability to write, we corresponded regularly.  Her letters were always insightful, humorous, and responsive to mine.  We enjoyed challenging each other to be clever.  If she wrote about a party invitation she had sent out in rhyme, I would respond in kind pretending I was accepting (we lived far apart, so it was only in fun).  We enjoyed each others wit and wisdom.   We wrote about our cats' antics.  She always loved Siamese cats (and here I am now with two).  When she could no longer write letters by hand, she obtained a Brother word processor and typed out letters with great difficulty.  Sadly, she became unable to do that in the last few years.  My lifelong correspondent was gone, and it does not work by telephone.

She gave me her sense of sly humor, a love of the vagaries and frustrations of the English language, an appreciation of classical and broadway music, a love of reading and writing, the impractical beauty of flowers, and a love of cats.

I would not be the person I am today if not for her.

She met my dad the first week at college and they never dated anyone else from that day.  Dad was a year ahead, so she graduated in 3 years to catch up.  She was a promising stage actress in college, being the leading lady in several college plays, but did not attempt a career at it.

She was happy to be a wife and mother.  She was an avid golfer. She told Dad she wouldn't date any guy who didn't play golf, so he learned the game and became an avid golfer himself (getting to a zero handicap at one point).  They played golf constantly for decades.

MEMORIES

Learning to cook:  I was chief potato peeler and masher.  I cracked walnuts for her wonderful banana cake (I have never seen a banana cake remotely like hers).  When I left home, I used to ask her for the recipe.  She would laugh and say I would get the recipe when she died.  Fortunately, she sent it to me 10 years ago and I have made one every few months since then.  She also made a Boston Cream Pie (a cake actually) to die for.  But I lost my sweet tooth after college and she stopped making it.  But she sent me off to college with basic cooking skills, and that has done me well ever since.

Classical and Broadway music:  We listened to classical music at dinner most nights.  I came to love it.  But my best memories are of broadway musicals.  We learned all the songs of Camelot, The Sound of Music, Tenderloin, etc.  Her favorite was Tenderloin.  We memorized every song.  To this day, I can pretty much sing all the songs at will.  She loved it so much that before the recorded album was released, we would write down the lyrics as they were played on the radio.  Yes, there WERE stations that played broadway songs back in the 60's.  And just a few days ago, my best friend recalled that I used to sing the Camelot songs to myself while in college (I don't remember that, but friends know things about you that you don't know yourself).

Her endless childhood stories:  Everyone tends to repeat the same stories of their childhood.  The ones that you learn to anticipate word-by-word.  I know how she got her first cat, how one of her brothers accidentally killed his first dog, how she cut her wrist open closing the glass door, the stories of her relatives, etc.  I know them by heart.  But I will never hear her tell them again...

Learning to sew:  Yes, I learned to sew; few guys do.  I was always curious about how things worked.  I must have expressed some curiousity about sewing at some point.  I learned the basics.  She taught me to hem pant cuffs, do a chain stitch, and darn socks.  I'm not very good at it, but I can get by.  That's another thing more guys should learn.  And from what I understand these days, more women, too.  Maybe I should mention that her Dad was a tailor...

Language:  Mom taught me to read before I entered Kindergarten.  That may be common today, but it was rare in the 50s.  Parents read to their children, but she encouraged me to read to her at bedtime.  I recall going to the town library to get my library card.  I had to write my name and address.  I could have written a short essay!  Apparently, I was a surprise to the librarian because of my young age.  I read voraciously.  By the time I was 12, I had exhausted the "teenage" reading library and was allowed to check out adult books.  I thank Mom for that lifetime gift.  I have been a reader all my life.

Humor:  I'll combine creativity and humor here.  Mom taught me to love language, puns, and humor.  She was creative in everything she did.  An example:  The club they belonged to had a "Crazy Hat Party" once.  Dad made her a cardboard hat with a wide brim.  We attached my Ben Hur Chariot Race figurines all around it.  2nd place had some peacock feathers on a regular hat.  Mom won by a landslide.  There was no such thing as "over the top" with her.  I learned to be creative in everything I did, thanks to her.

I mentioned party invitations earlier.  Mom loved to entertain at parties.  She loved themes.  If the theme was "Beach", there would be fishnets on the walls and driftwood tables.  The invitations she sent out would be crafted in beach-theme poetry.  The food and drinks would be beach-oriented.  When they moved away from me to NH, she would always send me a copy of her poem invitations.  I loved that, and replied in poetry as if an invitee (none of her guests ever did).  My best was a rendition of 'The Raven'.  She loved it!  Her party-throwing days ended 20 years ago so there have not been any clever and delightful party invitations since.  I miss that.

Cats:  Mom was one of the best cat-namers I ever knew.  She would research languages to find the right names.  She loved Siamese cats and we had 2 while I was growing up.  Both were named "Pretty Little Girl".  But it was "Kenani" in Hawaiian and "Hai U Phin" in Thai.  I had a series of wonderful gray tabby cats through the years and tried to give them clever names, but it wasn't until 3 years ago that I got Siameses of my own.  My names weren't as fancy, but when I explained to Mom that their names were from a story about Cro-Magnon characters and described the story, she thought they were very good names.  She could never remember the names of my previous cats (she always called Skeeter "Skeezix" and LC "Elsa"), but she remembered Ayla and Iza correctly.

Nature:  When I was a child, Mom took me around the yard putting out bits of yarn for the birds to make nests with.  Then we rejoiced at seeing the yarn in nests in trees later.  It taught me how to notice bird nests in trees to this day.  And there was "Squinty the Squirrel".  Squinty had one eye.  Mom left toast crusts on the kitchen windowsill for it.  Squinty was a regular visitor for several years.  Later, Mom became the official burier of birds that crashed into the house windows.  We had a whole mini graveyard.  She taught us that animals had lives too.  And that lives end.

There is so much more, of course, but I have to stop somewhere.  It's been a sad Summer.  My sister died suddenly last month and now Mom.  They are the first deaths in the immediate family.  I hardly know how to deal with this.  But putting some of it in writing helps.

I'll end with 2 pictures.

Mom and me...

Mom and Dad a few years ago...

Goodbye, Mom.  I'll miss you all the remaining days of my life.

More on Hummers

I occurred to me today, re-reading my last post about the hummer, that there was more I wanted to say about these delightful little things.  While I have a feeder back by the toolshed (so they won't be disturbed much), I get the most enjoyment from them at the feeder that hangs under the house eave at the deck door.

They visit that one often.  When I can stand still just inside the house for long enough, I am often rewarded with a close-up view of them feeding.  They can see through the glass doors, and if I move, they leave.  They are brave for wild birds, but 2' away is too close.  So I have to remain very still and become part of the furniture background.

I've had a few opportunities to get pictures of them at that feeder. 

I don't try too often, but it is nice to have some close pictures.  Maybe I will get one hovering some day...

Remembering...

Hummingbird Encounter

Many years ago, when I put out my first hummingbird feeder as an experiment (never having seen a hummingbird around the yard), I was stunned to find a hummingbird attempting to get at the feeder as I stood deciding where to hang it.  That certainly answered any questions I had about whether there were hummers around the yard and whether they adapted to feeders easily.

I have enjoyed my hummers every year since, having between 3 and 5 hummers in the yard.  One year I even found a tiny nest in a 6' cedar sapling I was about to remove.  The cedar remains there to this day, about 15' tall now.  If the hummers like to nest there, I sure won't bother it.

Well, today, I had a replication of the original experience.  I regularly provide new nectar every 2-3 days.   I was carrying a fresh feeder out to the back toolshed and lifting it toward the hanger  when a hummer came by anxious to feed from it!

It whirrred around the feeder and looked at me from 10,000 different directions.  So there I was, standing there like the Statue of Liberty, holding the feeder as motionless as I could.  It finally chickened out and went to the salvias (which they love).  I gratefully hung the feeder up and took the long way around the garden so as not to pass near the salvias. 

It was a rare moment, and one that I will cherish.

Compost Tumbler

There may be a hope for the compost tumbler after all.  I had really criticized it HERE. 

At first, I mainly used it to keep rich tempting kitchen scraps from the groundhogs and other critters.  I could never get it to heat up enough to really compost stuff quickly.  But I may have figured it out.

But to back up a bit...  In past years, I would look at the barrels of produce waste in the grocery stores and wish I could get them.  My requests were always refused.  But I am persistent.  This year, the store managers suddenly say "yes".  I have gotten 6 bags of corn husks and other unwanted produce debris.

I finally have enough stuff to fill the compost tumbler bin.  You would be surprised how compact a whole trash can of corn husks gets in just a week.  But then it was all green stuff and that doesn't make a good compost blend for aerobic breakdown...

Well, I get a daily newspaper (which uses safe soy ink) and I have a paper shredder.  Aha!  Nice "brown" stuff to add to balance the decomposition.

In the past 2 weeks, I have added about as much dry shredded newspaper to the bin as green material.  I've made it a point to turn the bin several times each day.  It's heavier to move, but not unmanageable.  I can tell the balance is better and that the materials are getting mixed well.  It doesn't smell bad.

I know all about anaerobic vs aerobic breakdowns, so I know it is finally working right.  Best of all, it was HOT inside (140F) when I opened it today.

I finally got enough stuff inside, and the right mixture...

Yay!!!

I still think a regular compost bin is far superior, but I have to give SOME credit to these rotating things.  With a lot of care, they can work "OK".

So, The Flowerbeds, Part 2...

Here are some of the (approximately) same spots that I showed in the last post...

Even the gravel path was covered in weeds...

 

There is actually bare soil to be seen!

 

 The Skeeter Memorial is clear again...

 

The LC Memorial is still hidden, but that by a shrub I am going to relocate this Fall...

 

 This part represents about 1/3 of the flowerbed.  Another 1/3 is Bell peppers and daylillies and is weeded.  I'll show that part next time.  That will give me a few days to weed the remaining 1/3!

So, The Flowerbeds...

At least most of the flowers have survived the drought.  Unfortunately, the weeds did better.  I cringed everytime I walked past them in the brutal Summer heat.  Watering the flowerbeds was almost like feeding lambs to wolves in order to save some lambs, but it was still hard.

In the past week, I have made great progress in weeding the flowerbeds. 

Here are some horrible "Before" pictures...

There are more, but you get the picture. Half the growth is weeds.  Well, a few days ago I started getting at the weeds.  I have a procedure...

Wait for the afternoon shade to spread, bring out the radio, bring out the camera, bring out a beer in a gel-pack, apply mosquito repellent, and start pulling weeds up by the roots carefully.  You would think that, after a couple of years, I wouldn't have a weed problem. 

It doesn't work that way.  Nature brings weed seeds in from everywhere.  There is no stopping it.  I swear that if I sterilized a square foot of soil and covered it with heavy plastic, there would be weeds happily growing a month later!

ARGHHHH!


But I can destroy a month of weed growth in a limited are in a day.  About 50 square feet a day in a tightly growing flowerbed, anyway.  It's tricky weeding a flowerbed with no paths.  I have to carefully slide my feet in between plants I want to keep.  Then I have to bend every whichway following weeds through the desirable plants down to the roots.  Then pull them gently till the roots come up or dig at the spot till I get the roots.

I don't just pull the weeds loose at ground level, I really work at getting the roots.

Well, I made good progress.  Here is the pile for today...

The weed pile was 3'x3'x2'high.  I'm going to let them desiccate there for a few days before I add them to the compost tumbler bin. 

Fortunately after several years, I have the compost tumbler reaching a good temperature.  Enough to kill most of the weed seeds, I think.  But more on that next time...

Well, Finally!

Hurray!  It has been raining several inches the past 2 weeks.  Finally, I am off dedicated watering duty and can pay attention to the weeds again...

The weeds are legion!  They have thrived with the watering better than the flowers and veggies, and they nearly took over the entire garden without my usual lethal attention.

The corn tried to do well.  It grew, but the heirloom variety I tried (remembering it from childhood) "Golden Bantam" was not what I remembered.   I was excited at first...

And it looked really good!

I picked it at the right time (just as the silks dried), but I hated it.  All starch, no sweetness.  And I tried leaving another for the silks to dry longer, but that was worse.  Then picked one ear earlier.  It was all terrible!   Like eating a raw potato, only chewier...

I have been spoiled by modern sweet hybrids.  I'll accept that and will plant the hybrids next year.  Unlike tomatoes, I like the new ones better.

More about the flowerbeds in a couple days...

Jennifer

I figured out the scanner.  Here are her young pictures...  This is my memorial to her.

She was such a happy child.  I delighted in every move she made.

When she was very young, she loved to play peekaboo with me.  The box is where the christmas ornaments were kept.  When it was empty, she loved to hide in it an pop up.

In no particular order...

This is the most precious picture I have of her...Absolute happiness.  She loved that Raggedly Ann doll for many years.

Drinkin the Big Brother drink... Above.  And wearing my hat,  She loved that.  She always thought my hats were special.  Wearing my hat always made her feel great.

One of her earliest moments.  That is Hai U Phin in the doll bed.  Jen loved that cat.  As did I.

Jen asleep in my old bed.  She always liked my red and yellow walls. 

≈

Jen posing for a picture.  She loved to be photographed.  I wish I had taken a 1,000 more,,,

 Jen with Hai U Phin...

 The oldest picture I have...  Jen as a teenager.

 My dear little sister Jen...  44 years old, gone forever...

The spots in the photo are accidents of time.  But I want to think of them as stars in the cosmos.  She deserves to go out with all the stars around her.  She would have liked the idea of "cosmic"...

Intelligent, organic, loving, good mother, friend...

Farewell good sister, good friend...  My life is emptier without you in it.

Casual Police Shooting of Pets

Warning:  Rant follows...

I assure you I am not against policemen in general.  They are important members of our society.  I wouldn't want there to NOT be policemen.

I generally try to understand when policemen feel they have to shoot or taser violent people  Or violent dogs that truly threaten them.  It isn't easy sometimes, but I try.

And I don't care as much about dogs as many people do.  I'm a cat person.  I had to build a high fence around my yard to keep the cats safe from large dogs that roamed free.  So I don't love dogs...

But things seems to be getting out of hand when policemen can can shoot dogs as a matter of convenience when entering a house.  When improperly invading the house of innocent people, for example. In that case, police conducted a full SWAT-quality house assault on a family who were unknowingly delivered a package of drugs as part of a drug pickup trick.  The police casually and routinely immediately shot the dogs who barked at the intruders.

What good dog wouldn't bark at intruders?  They even shot one dog who was trying to run away!  That is wrong.  And I don't even like dogs.

And now, a new example of gun-madness by police.  Washington, DC has named Keith Shephard as the officer who shot Bear-Bear on Monday night. Bear-Bear was a Siberian Husky who was playing in a community dog park when Shephard, allegedly fearing for his life, shot the husky in defense.  Dog Park, get it?  A place where dogs get to run around together and be a temporary pack.  That involves a rare chance for the dogs to see who is the Alpha Dog!

Maybe it is true that the shot dog was aggressive.  But it was a dog park.  They are supposed to run around.  If you don't like it, you leave.   I once grabbed a large neighborhood dog by the spike collar and led him home.  He was scared, I was scared. But it didn't require a gun.

This is going beyond dogs.  I'm getting REAL pissed about too many policemen using lethal force on people and animals who don't really deserve it!  Tasers are killing too many people.  Policemen are shooting people too casually.

Do people have to start carrying guns to protect themselves from POLICEMEN?

It starts with shooting dogs casually.  Then Tasering people.  Then shooting people.  I don't like the way this is progressing.

I understand that police work CAN be dangerous, and that too often, policemen become used to dealing with criminals.  

But when they start to assume that everyone and even every dog they meet is a criminal or lethal threat deserving to be killed on sight, that has to stop...

Refrigerator Problems

I replaced an old refrigerator in 2000.  Mainly, I was tired of the fridge section on the bottom (I reach into the veggie tray a lot and the bending over was getting really tiring), and the door opened the wrong way.  Laugh, but I didn't know doors could be reversed at the time...

Well, right after the new one was installed, I learned the door stayed open unless deliberately closed because it was mis-leveled.  I could adjust the levels.  No problem.  Right!

I ended up detaching a wheel and having the whole thing fall on my hand (10 years ago).  I escaped serious injury, but ended up with a front corner on a block of wood.  There it sat for 10 years.  I kept meaning to have a repair service fix it properly, but I let it go.

Well, last year, the cooling started to fail.  I kept moving the control knob to more cooling.  Two weeks ago, I reached the maximum cooling setting.  I'm not stupid, I knew that meant it was running less and less eficiently, probably due to dust bunnies around the cooling tubes behind the fridge.  But I could pull it out to clean it because of the missing wheel.  I even found my owners manual and wrote down the repair telephone number to have the wheel replaces and the unit checked next Monday..

I waited a week too long.  The fridge failed last night!  This morning the fridge temperature was 60F.  The freezer is working just fine, which saved me about $50 in frozen foods.  I know it stayed cold because I keep an ice cube in a small sealed container.  I've done that for years, and it is a good trick.  If you are ever away and the power fails then returns, you will know because the ice cube melts then refreezes flat.  My ice cube was still a cube.

Fortunately, the old refridgerator is still working and down in the basement.  I moved everything I could to it, but there was a lot of stuff I couldn't feel safe about.  All stuff like mayonaise, salad dressings, and raw meat had to be trashed.  And I through out some stuff that was probably safe to keep (mustard, ketchup, tartar sauce).  Why take any chances for cheap stuff?

The old fridge warmed up in the time it took to fill it with the sodas and veggies and fruits and pickles from the upstairs fridge.  It took hours to cool down below 40F.  I suppose I can't even trust the milk I bought today.  So it goes tomorrow.  I guess I put too much volume at 60F in the old fridge for it to cool it all down quickly enough.

The aggravating part is that the soonest brand name repair appointment I can get is next Thursday.  Another generic repair place might be able to come out Tuesday, but I won't know til Monday.  I won't blame them for that because they keep appointment slots open for people who have refrigerated medications to deal with.  Those they take immediately.  That actually says good things for them.

But I may be dealing with awkward cooking arrangements for almost a week.  Blah...

At least I'll get the front wheel replaced so that I can pull the refridgerator out every few months and clean the coolant tubes...  But it serves me right for not dealing with this last year!