She Did Everything Right
When I was a little girl growing up in Alaska, we had neighbors who lived just across the creek. Our neighbors had a daughter 6 years older than me; she was my first babysitter. Growing up, those six years made all the difference – we didn’t know one another as friends, the gap was too great. Our families were very close, however, and when my parents would go to parties at her parents house, they would take us and put us to bed in her bed.
I saw her now and then through the years, but our lives were in different places. When I was just getting married, she had big boys, by the time my son was a teenager, hers were getting married and going to college. We reconnected in Florida, of all places, where we both ended up at the same time due to our husband’s jobs.
Having our Alaska childhood in common, having grown up together and knowing each other’s family through all the years created a strong bond. We saw each other often; she was like a big sister to me.
She always had it all together. She had a group that bicycled together every morning, and then had outings later in the day. She was a fitness buff, and ran in the mornings before she bicycled. She kept herself thin, and she loved to cook, but she could eat what she wanted because she exercised it all off.
She was a reader, and would pass along the really good books to me. She and her husband were also news buffs, so when we would get together with our husbands, there was never a dull moment at the dinner table.
She and her husband were sent to Egypt, and to Rumallah, and to China, and they made the most of every minute. They loved traveling, they loved their sailing boat, they loved their family. They would come to visit us in our places of the world, and we would have great reunions. They were so alive.
She could be annoying. She would chide me about not exercising enough. She would comment on how much food people ate. She always knew the latest in medical research to back herself up. She kept her mind active, and she kept her weight down. She exercised, she travelled, she took care of her parents, she did good works for others. She did everything right.
A couple years ago, we joined her and her husband for dinner. She hadn’t combed her hair. She weighed about 20 lbs more, and didn’t seem to notice. She couldn’t remember the last book she had read, and she couldn’t remember her recent trip to Mexico, or an earlier one to Spain.
It’s been downhill since then. Her loving husband is strong and able to care for her, this once-beautiful, sprite-like, spirited woman. I think she still knew me, when I saw her last summer, but she can no longer really express what she is thinking. She is restless, up and down from the table, and not able to participate in the conversation.
I am haunted. I am so much like her; I tried to live up to all that she has taught me. A part of me wants to scream at God “This isn’t fair! She did everything right!”
Perhaps doing everything right gave her a few extra years, and I am just not seeing things from the right perspective. Meanwhile, I get no answers, and my heart breaks when I think of her.
One Thing Too Many
I was tempted to volunteer for something yesterday, something I KNEW was wrong for me, but I just wanted to help so badly. Volunteer work can do that – how can you say no? You WANT to help. I have to remind myself that I want to do the things I must do WELL, that taking on commitments and making promises I end up not able to keep is not helpful. It doesn’t help the person I promised to help, and it makes me feel terrible about myself.
I already have a full plate. I really cannot take on more.
Sometimes we get a sign. If we are very lucky, if we have the eyes to see, we recognize it.
Some tomatoes had become overly ripe and I needed to toss them. I could easily hold four, but wanting to do it all in one swoop, I picked up all five, and one fell. When I saw the splat pattern on the floor, my first thought was that it had some artistic merit, and my second thought was that I needed to photograph it as a reminder of what happens in life when we take on one thing too many.
Jimmie Rodgers Follow Up
A commenter, Thomas, responded yesterday to an article about Jimmie Rodgers that appeared several months ago (You can read the first article by clicking the blue type above) with a reference to a radio interview with Jimmie. It is a total hoot – when the interviewer calls, you can hear all his dogs in the background, and he asks the interviewer to give him a minute to get all the dogs out of the room – evidence enough for me that he is up and about, and capable of living a full life once again.
If you’ll remember, Jimmie Rodgers was a popular singer who, after a bad accident, had a metal plate put in his head. Years later, he was having it removed, and it was a highly risky operation. His family asked for the prayers of the people – and by a miracle, the operation was far easier than expected, and a total success.
You can hear the entire radio interview for yourself by clicking Jimmie Rodgers Radio Interview.
Many thanks, Thomas.
“Something More Serious”
I remember clearly the first time I ever felt old.
I had discovered a Lancome product, Renergie, that I loved. I have always been good at trying to keep my face “moisturized,” and had graduated up to Lancome from good old Oil of Olay. We were living in Germany once more, our son was about eight years old, and I think they formulate Oil of Olay differently for different customer bases; the smell was different in Germany (and even more different in Qatar! I think it has a sort of cumin undertone!) but I had found this Renergie stuff that glided on and smelled good and wasn’t oily or sticky, so I liked it. It was expensive, but we had a little more money now and I felt it was a splurge.
My Renergie was running out; I needed a replacement. I happened to stop by the Lancome counter at a time when there was a Lancome representative there who asked what I needed. I told her I was looking for the Renergie that I loved.
Simple question, right?
The Lancome representive stops, and looks at me closely. There is this long, uncomfortable pause as she continues to look at me. I’m frankly annoyed.
“My dear,” she starts, “You need something more serious.”
Something more serious? I’m thirty-five years old! I have not yet got any wrinkles to speak of! My skin is in great shape!
All these thoughts rush into my head as the saleslady continues to look at me seriously, and to move toward some heavier creams, which I HATE. I’m still dealing with that one word – “serious.”
I need something “serious.”
It was so devastating to me that my reaction was almost physical revulsion. I think my legs went week and shakey. Looking back, I suspect that it is part of a sales pitch, a script devised to move the customer up the scale to more and more expensive products. I think I even sensed it then, but the truth is, when someone says something like that to you, it damages a vanity that you didn’t even know you had.
I don’t think I bought anything that day. I think I stumbled out of the store and went to pick up my son from his karate lesson and sneaked back at a time when there was no Lancome lady there and bought what I really wanted – the Renergie.
But the damage had been done. Now, when I put the cream on my face I was looking in the mirror for whatever the saleslady had seen that indicated I needed something more “serious.”
It wasn’t long before I humbled myself and went back and asked what the representative thought I really needed, and we agreed on the light form – the lotion – which also went on nicely and smelled good, because how it smells really matters to me. I don’t care how good it is; if it doesn’t smell good – to me – I can’t wear it.
She moved me up to Primordiale, which I wore for years until the next Lancome representative looked at me and said brightly “I bet you would love Absolue! It will get rid of those little crow’s feet in no time!”
We all have weak spots that we don’t even know we have. If you are a man and you have read this far, you will laugh in your superior way, thinking this is just a piece of fluff. To you I say wait until your son beats you in those family wrestling matches for the first time, beats you fairly. When our son would wrestle with his Dad, I would say “I hear the antlers clanging in the forest!” as they fought for who would be the king. To you I say that the sad day will come when you are no longer the biggest bull moose in the forest, and you, too, will have that sad, humbled feeling I got when I was told I needed something more “serious.”
The advertisers of this world know our weaknesses. I am willing to bet the Lancome ladies have a script they use, to press our buttons, to expose weaknesses we don’t even know we have. My husband brings home a Men’s Health occasionally – have you ever noticed, every one of them is the same? There are articles about making your abs flat, taking vitamins and reviving your sex life – in every issue! They know where we feel bad about ourselves before we even know it, and they are making a lot of money off of our inadequacies!
And no, my friends, I don’t have any answers. Even while I know that these things are the vain, inconsequential things of this world, even while I know that this is all passing vanity, even while I try to resist, I succumb. Sometimes the temptations is too great and my spirit is too weak to stand up to their insistence that I need something “more serious.” This blog entry is merely my meager attempt to fight back.
Qatari Cat Plays With Adventure Man
When we got the Qatteri Cat, he was about 8 months old, a gangly adolescent. I had been looking at another cat, but the vet showed me this one and said “he looks like you.” It made me laugh, and I took the cat.
He had been adopted by a family where the man in the house really liked him, but his wife and her mother did NOT like him. The Qateri Cat cringed every time I came near, he would hunker down on the floor, his ears would flatten and he would growl.
The minute Adventure Man walked in the door, the Qatari Cat fell in love. He followed AM around the house, rubbing on his legs, looking at him adoringly. As he calmed down and I would pet him, he would allow me 30 seconds and then he would bite me – hard, hard enough to draw blood.
We ran into his former owners at an art exhibit. “Is he still such a naughty boy?” the M-I-L asked us. “Oh no!” we lied, “He is NEVER naughty.”
Qatari Cat would occasionally get out of the house, and I would have to try to find him. All I had to do was to wait a few hours, and then I would hear his plaintive wailing from behind somebody’s wall, and I would have to go knock on the door and ask if I could get my cat. I learned to take his cat cage with me, after being seriously scratched a couple times because he was tired and scared and his natural instincts came into play. I still have scars to prove it.
Slowly, slowly, he came to trust me. Even when he bit and scratched, I never hit him, never kicked him, I would just pick him up and put him in a bathroom for ten minutes or so – or until I got over being angry with him. His little brain couldn’t remember three minutes later why he was in “Time out”, but sometimes I had to keep him there for his own protection!
He still bites when he is scared. He was born on the street, and those instincts will always be with him. I keep him away from little children and people who would move too fast in his direction. For the most part, he is tamed. He hasn’t bitten me for months, and even then, even as he was biting me, hard, he remembered, and let me go without a fight. He even had the decency to look a little ashamed.
Why am I telling you all this? With Adventure Man, he is a totally different cat. He has NEVER bitten Adventure Man. Adventure Man comes home from work and the QC is waiting in the hallway for him. He slings QC over his shoulder and takes him on a walk around our home, then he slings him down on the carpet and give him a big rub on his tummy. The QC never bites, never scratches, just goes belly up and lets his “dad” rough him up. As soon as AM lets go, he does this amazing flip to get back on his feet and he runs away just a little, looking back and saying “C’mon, aren’t you gonna chase me?” and I hear the two of them roaring off down the hallway.
I think the QC thinks AM is another cat, a really fun cat. And I think he thinks I am his mom. Definitely he thinks I am his feeder, waterer and warm spot. But I will never hold the same place in his adoring little heart that Adventure Man holds:
PS Adventure Man didn’t like the photo I posted last week called DementoCat. He said it made the QC look dead, and it hurt his heart to see it. I am sorry, Advenure Man. 🙂
Get an Early Lead and Hold It
The title line is from an old joke: a high school football coach tells his team the secret of winning – Get an early lead and hold it.
Many of you have asked about why it even matters to me what the Yemeni Star is all about. So I am going to tell you a secret from my childhood, a secret that got me through school with good grades.
It’s in two parts. The first is about getting an early lead – it’s called The Halo Effect and it is like getting an early lead and holding it. You work really hard and get good grades when you are young, and those early grades influence the later graders to give you the benefit of the doubt as you move up the grades. It doesn’t always work, but often enough that it has been given it’s own name.
The second secret is to develop an area of interest to YOU. For me, it was the stars. I loved (and still love!) stars, constellations, comets, heavenly rhythms, music of the planets, etc. For me it is God’s hand on this vast, cosmic scale. So I first started writing early reports on stars, constellations, etc. You know, how you have to write science projects?
From the constellations, I branched out into mythology – what a great study. So many references in daily life and literature refer to mythical beings and happenings, and if you don’t have a clue, you miss a whole level of richness. Like if someone refers to a Sisyphusian endeavor, you don’t have to run go look it up, you know they are referring to an almost impossible task. Between astronomy and mythology, there was enough material that I could take previous reports every year and ramp ’em up for the next year. I usually learned something, but the most important thing I learned was that I could succeed without having to re-invent the wheel every year.
If you can develop a particular field that interests you, your school life can be a lot more interesting. And believe me, we all know how deadening the school experience can be, unless you have really good teachers who can make it come alive for you. You have the most amazing tools available to you – a world of information, via the ‘net, and GoogleEarth – GoogleSky,, Wikipedia, and all kinds of illustrations available to add depth to your papers and reports. You are truly a generation who can have a lot of fun learning, if you take responsibility for your own education.
(Big hurrahs and shouts out here for Elijah, Swair, Magical Droplets,, MacoholicQ8, and all my other teaching friends, my classroom-warriors friends, heading back to do battle with and enlighten reluctant minds; you are my heroes!)
Ivar’s Acres of Clams
In Seattle, there are three restaurants, Ivar’s Acres of Clams (the original, established in 1938), Ivar’s Salmon House and Ivar’s Landing in Mukilteo, and several smaller, more casual, fast-food kind of Ivars, famous for fish and chips.
This was one very smart man. The first Ivar’s Acre of Clams was built next to the ferry terminal in Seattle and provided both oceanfront dining and a quick place to grab some fish and chips coming to and from the ferries. It was a Seattle landmark; everyone knew Ivar’s Acres of Clams.
He also did a lot of promotions, appearing on TV in his own ads, often singing. The ads were very very bad, so bad that everyone remembered them, so in fact . . . they were so bad that they were good.
(Photo courtesy Paul Dorpat from the HistoryLink.org collection of Pacific Northwest History.)
(Kuwait needs this Wikipedia kind of historical page, gathering data and stories before the old Kuwaitis are all gone, and their stories with them. This would be a great thesis program, getting this set up and running.)
Some of my earliest memories are meals at Ivar’s. As a child, visiting from Alaska, the whole of my father’s clan, aunts, uncles, cousins, would all gather at Ivar’s for a grand dinner. Later, as a starving college student, from time to time a kind aunt would invite us to dinner or lunch there, taking us out of the university environment. As a young married, it was the restaurant where my husband-to-be met my extended family for the first time. Ivar’s is full of memories, as well as good food!
To this day, I often meet my old friends at Ivar’s. The food standards remain high – good Pacific Northwest Seafood, prepared so that their flavors come through. Dungeness crab Louis, salmon and chips, prawns and chips, halibut and chips – even plain old fish and chips, fresh out of the deep fryer. Even Ivar’s fast food is delicious, and as well as the fish and chips you can get their great clam chowder, also smoked salmon chowder, and a salmon ceasar salad, or a shrimp or crab cocktail – at the fast food Ivars. Great quality food, not the supersize me kind of food.
These are photos of the original Ivar’s Acre of Clams:
This is what their seafood cocktails look like (YUMMMMMMM!)
This is one of their dine-in fast food places; there is a long line of people ordering!:
This is the Ivar’s motto:
The Mukilteo Landing Ivars suffered so much damage in a recent storm that they were closed for over a year as they remodeled to be able to seat more people:
This big fish is part of the interior:
You sit in this beautiful restaurant, inside or outside, and watch the Mukilteo ferry come in and out of the dock. The restaurant is right next to the dock, and also has a fast-food Ivars outside to sell fish and chips or chowder to all the people in line waiting for the next ferry.
Ivar Hagland isn’t alive anymore, but his restaurants live on, thriving, after all these years. The concept holds true – have a great product in a great location and the profits will follow. You can read more about his restaurants, and even look at their menus by clicking Ivar’s.
What’s in Your Toolbox?
What do you give a young adult, graduating high school, who has just about everything he wants? What do you give him that he doesn’t even know he wants?
It was Christmas, and we were trying to figure out what to give our son. We eventually decided on a tool box, and we had a lot of fun filling it – hammers, fasteners, screw drivers and Phillips screw drivers in various sizes, nails, putty, screws, a level, a measuring tape . . . he like it, but he was a little underwhelmed.
Until he got to college. At the end of the first week, when he called us, we could hear the joyful confidence in his voice.
“Guess what!” he said. It wasn’t really a question, he was going to tell us.
“No-one else has a tool-box here! All the other kids need help putting their bunks together (there was some smart entrepreneur who was marketing loft-like bunk beds and room-customizing kits to all the incoming students, making, I am willing to bet, a fortune) and I’m the one with the tool box!”
We could hear the smile on his face.
And isn’t that life? The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better equipped you are to handle what life throws at you? Even the unexpected – if you have the right tools.
For me, those tools have been varied.
• Reading books has introduced me to new ways of thinking.
• Learning foreign languages gives me different perspectives.
• Living in foreign countries helps conquer ignorant ideas about people of other cultures.
• I can eat a wide variety of cuisines without fear
• I can swim, use a rifle, cook, and speak in public without my voice quavering
• I can laugh. Thanks be to God.
All these tools have been acquired, some, like patience and kindness, at great price.
So what are your tools? What has helped you deal with what life throws your way? What tools have you grown to deal with life’s challenges?
It’s all Relative
I lived in Florida for six years once, in another life. I hated it.
At first, I was enchanted. It was so warm! And the air was humid and soft! And I went into my first Home Depot and fell totally in love. We had our own pool, we had pool toys and a new Florida life style and we were having fun.
Then, September came. And it was still hot and humid. Nothing changed. I waited expectantly for the cool breezes to begin, for the leaves to turn, all the things I was used to happening in September, including getting out my winter clothes – none of that happened.
I remember the first cool breeze. It was October 20th.
At Thanksgiving, we were still using the air conditioning. I had figured out by then that the hot, humid air made me sweat when I did housework, and made exercise much less attractive. Even sedentary activities like needlework seemed steamy and undesirable.
As I put up the Christmas tree, still with the air conditioning on, I was NOT happy. I really wanted some winter.
We did get one cold month, January, where we had two days of possible frost.
When we left Florida, I felt like I’d been let out of jail – I moved to Seattle and relished the coolness, even the rain. We have air conditioning, but in Seattle, we have never had to use it – the house stays cool, and the night breezes freshen everything up. I can have the windows open most of the year.
Now, back in Florida – from Kuwait – I am noticing how soft and warm the climate is once again, even in the torpid heat of summer. Record highs? No problem. I drove during rush hour traffic yesterday, and it was calm, relaxed . . . almost boring. I am probably the worst driver on the road – I have to remind myself to signal, and to take a deep breath – driving here is totally NON-aggressive.
Little Diamond sent me a clipping from the Kuwait Times on the AWARE center having a diwaniyya on driving problems in Kuwait, with the outcome that if laws were enforced, Kuwait would have far less of a problem. Amen.
This morning I awoke to the chirping of a cricket and the cries of pelicans flying over. Big clouds, threatening thunder, crowded out the clear blue of the sky. And just down the street, I am not kidding, is a Lebanese restaurant. Life is sweet.
Jimmie Rodgers: Power of Prayer
Thank you, commenter Linda Sue who gave us a link to Both Sides Now Stereo Chat Board.
This is the update from that website:
Miracles do happen and one happened this morning.
The surgery began this morning with a group prayer with the Dr’s and family.
About four minutes after beginning, the Dr’s pulled back the scalp to reveal the plate. When they did that the plate literally jumped up away from his head. The Dr’s, five in all a Neuro Surgeon, Two Plastic Surgeons, Two Stem Cell Specialists and the rest of the team began to clean the plate and lift it away from the head. It released itself and came away clean. On the video we could hear the Neuro Surgeon say Oh my God look at that. How did that get there?
Under the plate was revealed a complete and intact skull bone where three months ago there was none. The entire hole in the bone which was an eight inch by six inch oval had grown completely closed with a new skull bone which was smooth and shaped to match the existing skull. It was perfect in every way and was the same thickness as the other bone.
The Dr’s said that in 35 years of surgery they had never seen anything like it. They did not need to recreate a new skull bone at all. Dad was completely healed and made whole again after 40 years. The stem cell Dr’s sprayed a stem paste made from Dads blood over the skull bone and onto the skin flap and the Plastic Surgeons closed him up. The stem paste will keep him from swelling and will encourage skin growth onto the bone.
The entire procedure took about 28 minutes and after one hour in recovery Dad walked out of the room on his own. He is coming home tomorrow. It was an amazing day. Prayer is so powerful.
Much Love to you all,
Michael
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