Cramming for the Exam
“I’m cramming for my exam” I said to AdventureMan, as he eyed my plate full of vegetables and my WonTon soup broth.
“What exam?” he asked.
“I have a follow up with Dr. Internal Medicine, and I need to get my blood tested in two weeks. In two weeks I can make sure my cholesterol and blood sugar and blood pressure are all in line,” I told him.
My sister, Big Diamond, told me that it only takes two weeks of proper eating to get the numbers right. I did it last time and it worked. Now and then, between exams, I eat something too sweet, or too white, or too high on the glycemic index, but not the two weeks before my blood test! No no no!
Whoda thunk I would reach this ripe, mature age and still have to worry about exams?
Scanning Obituaries
Who knew? I certainly didn’t, and yet I find that I’m not alone. AdventureMan does it, too, and other friends. One friend says she thinks she scans the obituaries to celebrate the fact that she is still alive. That may be it for most of us, but in addition, I find that there are people living among us with amazing histories, and we don’t even know. Sometimes when you read an obit, you can tell that the person wrote it himself or herself, and what that person considered important in his/her life. Sometimes the obituary is not very loving.
Southern newspapers, in my experience, are much richer in extraordinary detail that newspapers in bigger cities, like Seattle. In bigger cities, only the rich and famous or notorious get much space; it may be that the space is far more expensive in the bigger cities, or that families are less willing to shell out from the estate for the bigger coverage. Southerners value family, and history; it’s a part of the culture.
Yesterday, when I took the Pensacola News Journal in to AdventureMan, I had circled something in one of the obituaries, knowing that he, like me, only reads them now and then. I didn’t want him to miss this line:
(Name) was a Past Mighty Chosen One of the Zelica Daughters of Mokanna, Ladies Auxiliary to the Grotto.
Holy smokes! I thought it might be one of the Mardi Gras Krewe things, but AdventureMan googled, and discovered that is a Masonic offshoot, and their larger groups are called Cauldrons. (!)
In America of the early 1900’s, social affiliation groups were important. People belonged to religious groups like Knights of Columbus, Ladies of the Church, etc, quasi-religious groups like Masons and Shriners, and social groups like the Elks and Moose and Lions Club. Some groups still exist, and are still going strong, like Rotary Club, and special interest groups. In Pensacola, there is a Tea Party AND a Coffee Party. There is a Philipino-American Republican Club. When people gather together regularly to share something in common, they can form a group. All of these groups help people be connected in their communities and in their lives, and help people to look after one another.
I belonged to a group once that called ourselves the Aqua-Babes. To be perfectly honest, we might not be total babes, but hey – it’s our group, we can call ourselves what we want, right?
But oh, my, to be a Mighty Chosen One . . .
Happy Two Years Old
I remember when they were called the Terrible Twos . . . but, at two, our little Happy Toddler is a delight:
He is so delighted to be able to communicate. We can hear him in his car seat, practicing his pronunciation, so people will understand what he says. Two weeks ago, he was patiently trying to communicate something to us, and we thought he was asking about the garbage can, but he was asking about his car blanket. Now “car blanket” is clear, and daily he gathers more and more vocabulary. “Stuck!” he chortles! “Bubbles!” “Tractor!” “Door OPEN!”
We laugh with glee to see his delight at our comprehension.
There are other times he cracks us up. “What color is this?” we ask, and he says “Lello,” but he isn’t even looking. He doesn’t really care much what color it is. If we say “no, it isn’t yellow” he might say “red” or “geen” or “boo” but he isn’t looking and he doesn’t care. The-Grandmother-who-lives-on-color hopes that this is just a passing phase, and that one day he will care whether it is carmine or flaming or blood or cherry or claret . . .
He walks boldly, he runs exuberantly, he skips, he dances, he climbs; he is a very all-boy boy. He has a dignity all his own, and a confidence that he is greatly loved. We thank God for this little grandson.
Abraham Buys a Cave and a Field
When I was an undergrad in college, I was majoring in political science, and there weren’t a lot of women in the field. You’d think that would be heaven for a young woman, but many of these political scientists had political aspirations, or an ax to grind, and were constantly standing up and making speeches. It was annoying; I needed some balance, so I took on another major, in English Literature, to give my academic life some balance.
It’s not like that was without its own problems; English Lit was full of these really OLD women, like in their thirties, who had come back to school to earn or finish up a degree, and they took it seriously. Aarrgh! Didn’t they know that this was university? This was supposed to be fun? Having those women in class competing for grades forced the rest of us to work harder . . . not such a bad thing.
One of the things you learn in studying Lit is that there are things that are important, or the author wouldn’t include them. As I read today’s Old Testament reading from The Lectionary, I found myself reading as literature, asking “where is the significance?” “why was this story included?” The Hittites are so very gracious to grieving Abraham; they sound like loving friends. Abraham insists on paying for the land, the cave where Sarah would be buried. Why was it so important to pay for the land? Was it so that there would be no question later as to whether the land was his?
Genesis 23:1-20
23 Sarah lived for one hundred and twenty-seven years; this was the length of Sarah’s life. 2And Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. 3Abraham rose up from beside his dead, and said to the Hittites, 4‘I am a stranger and an alien residing among you; give me property among you for a burying-place, so that I may bury my dead out of my sight.’ 5The Hittites answered Abraham, 6‘Hear us, my lord; you are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places; none of us will withhold from you any burial ground for burying your dead.’ 7Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. 8He said to them, ‘If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me, and entreat for me Ephron son of Zohar,9so that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as a possession for a burying-place.’ 10Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city, 11‘No, my lord, hear me; I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it; in the presence of my people I give it to you; bury your dead.’ 12Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. 13He said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, ‘If you only will listen to me! I will give the price of the field; accept it from me, so that I may bury my dead there.’ 14Ephron answered Abraham, 15‘My lord, listen to me; a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.’ 16Abraham agreed with Ephron; and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants.
17 So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, passed 18to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, in the presence of all who went in at the gate of his city. 19After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah facing Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20The field and the cave that is in it passed from the Hittites into Abraham’s possession as a burying-place.
Grandparents Move Near Children and Grandchildren
Fascinating article published this week in the AOL News Huffpost section on Life and Style on a growing trend for people in the grandparent stage of their lives to uproot, sell the family home and move to be near their children and grandchildren while the grandchildren are little.
Karin Kasdin, Author, ‘Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy: Confronting Motherhood, Womanhood and Selfhood in a Household of Boys’
Grandparents Uprooting Their Lives to Move Near Grandchildren
Edye was the first to leave. In her late 50s, she sold her home, packed her belongings and her cats, and left her close circle of friends to pursue a relationship and a job three states away from those who love her most. My inelegant and somewhat selfish response was, “Seriously? In late middle age you’re going to LEAVE ME AND START ALL OVER?”
Apparently her answer was “yes,” because she lives in Chicago, and I live near Philadelphia. She owns a house that she renovated from the floorboards up, and she has meaningful work she loves. It’s been a decade since the big move, so it’s almost time for me to accept the fact that this could be a permanent situation. And I would accept it, if it weren’t for another fact … the fact that she now has a grandson on the East Coast. She’s talking about how nice it would be to live near him. Grandchildren trump everything else, even best friends.
I know this because Elayne moved next. She moved to California permanently in order to enjoy her grandchildren’s formative years. After managing a bicoastal relationship with the kids for nine years, she simply could not bear the distance any longer. So off she went, leaving me bereft and confused.
“I suddenly realized I have very few years to spend with the kids before they become teenagers,” she explained to me one day as I sat in her kitchen crying into my tea. “When that day comes, they will prefer to spend time with their friends and I will become irrelevant.”
She was right. The frequency of her grandchildren’s visits had dwindled considerably over the years as the kids became engaged in school and neighborhood activities.
Gathering the fragments and memories of one’s entire adult life to begin anew in an unfamiliar place is not on most middle-agers’ to-do lists. But those lists were most likely compiled before we thought about grandchildren, and today baby boomer grandparents are moving in droves.
A recent AARP study revealed that 80 percent of adults 45 and older believe it is important to live near their children and grandchildren.
Nancy and Harm Radcliffe are among this number. After spending much of their adult lives living abroad, they returned to the United States and established a happy home in Bethesda, Maryland. In the 13 years they resided in Bethesda they made lifelong friends, became very involved in their church, and looked forward to spending their retirement years there.
Their plans were discarded in the blink of an eye when their daughter and son-in-law called from Philadelphia and hinted that they could use some help with their 7-year-old special needs son and his two siblings.
For Nancy, the decision was a no-brainer. She said, “As soon as I was off the phone, I asked myself, ‘Why am I here in Maryland when my daughter and three kids need me in Philadelphia?'”
Convincing her husband, Harm, to leave the Washington, DC area, was a bit challenging. He was retired and had fashioned a contented life for himself in Bethesda. Reluctantly, he agreed to the move and now says he has no regrets.
For the first two months the Radcliffes babysat 12 hours a day, five days a week. Their daughter, Laurel, works fulltime as a doctor. Today the Radcliffes spend three days a week engaged with their grandchildren. They like to give each child one full day alone with them.
Friends have been plentiful in their new neighborhood. “I don’t wait for people to come to me,” Nancy said. “I extend invitations to the neighbors. You have to be proactive with regard to making new friends.”
Sally Fedorchek followed her grandchild from Yardley, Pennsylvania to Austin, Texas when her son-in-law’s job took him there. It was a move she never expected to make, and it happened so quickly that she and her husband had little time to find a house.
“We found something reasonable. It’s not the perfect house, but the longer I’m in it, the more I like it,” she said. “At first it felt like this was just an extended visit. I had to keep reminding myself that I’m here permanently. I miss my friends back home, but not as much as I missed the kids when I was living in Yardley. I’m not worried about a new life. So far the kids have included us in everything. I’m well aware that won’t last and I’ve already made a list of activities I’d like to try.”
We boomers encouraged our kids to be independent. In many cases we sent them to college far from home. Our children have traveled more than we ever did at their age. Cellphones, Skype and email have made it possible for them to feel close to us even when they live a continent or two away. Sometimes the price we pay for the independence we granted our children is the disappointment we feel when they decide to leave the homestead for other adventures. If we want major roles rather than cameo appearances in our grandchildren’s lives, it becomes our burden to make that happen. Some of us choose to move. Others practically live on airplanes and manage their lives around their frequent flyer miles.
Susan Newman, PhD, a social psychologist and author of 13 books about family life, asks grandparents to consider the following questions before making the big move:
Is your child or his/her spouse likely to relocate in a year or two? Will you continue to follow them if their careers involve living in several different places?
How jarring would it be for you to move in terms of your own social network? Do you make friends easily? Can you give up the friends you already have?
Remember your adult children will have lives of their own. When they have commitments that don’t include you, will you feel cut off?
If you’re still working, what does the employment picture look like in the new location?
If you’re single, what activities will be available to you?
I am no longer confused by Elayne’s move. Still sad, but not confused. I know exactly why she did it. At the moment, I have a 6-month-old granddaughter and a one-month lease on an apartment in California. We’ll see how it goes.
We did this. After carefully planning our retirement, when our son told us they were going to have a baby, suddenly all our former plans paled in comparison to being near our son, his wife and coming baby. Within months, we had bought a house in an area we had never considered living, and had begun a life totally different from that we had envisioned.
There are risks. Especially in this economy, things can change. For us, it was a calculated risk – we kept our house in Seattle, because it’s there, if we ever want to live in Seattle, and meanwhile brings in income as a rental house. We calculated that while our son and his wife have adventuresome spirits, that she also has a lot of family in this area, and the odds are, at least in the early years of marriage and child-bearing, that they will stay put long enough for our investment in living here to pay off in terms of growing a solid relationship with our son as an adult, his wife, and our grandchild(ren), before he/they hit(s) those independent pre-teen and teenage years.
We had actually spent some time in Pensacola, through the last five years, visiting our son. We knew there was a church here we liked, and I knew there was a quilting group. We knew the cost of living was within our means, and that there were military resources nearby. There were a lot of factors to consider, which we did, but the deciding factor was our commitment to being a part of an extended family.
My next younger sister and her husband recently made a similar decision, and I know they are as happy with their decision as we are with ours. Time passes so quickly, and we want to know our grandchildren, and to be a part of their lives. We are thankful that they feel the same way. 🙂 I find it interesting to know that we are part of a growing trend; we thought it was the influence of the Arab world on us, but it appears to be a part of a generational shift in paradigm.
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
The Tiger’s Wife was the perfect book to get me from Pensacola to Seattle, and through the Atlanta airport, full of bustle on a Sunday, packed flights, no quiet, no privacy. Thank God for a good, engrossing book, that takes you totally out of where you are to a world where things are not always what they seem.
The book is set in an unnamed country in East Europe which has just come out of a war, and the main character and her best friend are en route across a border which did not exist before the war, on an aid mission to immunize children who were once neighbors, and are now in a different country.
The primary relationship in the book is the bond between a young girl and her grandfather, and the stories he tells her as they walk up to the zoo, the Jungle Book he reads to her as they visit the animals, and the stories she finds for herself as she participates in the post-war rebuilding. It is a fascinating book because what she is writing about is not always what she is really writing about; the stories and legends and experiences are metaphors for another reality and a life lesson.
I don’t want you to think that this is one of the mindless airport books I sometimes tell you about. If it were, I would tell you “this is not great literature; this is an airport read.” Not this book. This book is literature. This book has meaning, and events you will think about and talk over with other readers long after you have finished the book.
In the back of The Tiger’s Wife is an interview in which one of my favorite new authors, Jennifer Egan (A Visit From the Good Squad) interviews Tea Obreht about her writing process, her life, her vision, etc. Fascinating reading, too, and also reader’s guide questions help you see things you might need to see and might otherwise miss.
. . . Hurray for the Pumpkin Pie . . .
“You’ve worked HARD!” our water aerobics instructor told us. “You get a free pass tomorrow; you can eat anything!”
I wish she hadn’t said that. We did work hard, but it wasn’t just one day of feasting, it was pretty much four days, and we enjoyed ourselves too much. No matter how hard we had worked Wednesday morning, it wasn’t enough to cover four days.
Arriving at Papa’s and Grammy’s we were welcomed with a bubbling gumbo, a combined effort of Papa and Grammy; Grammy did all the shopping and chopping, and PaPa worked the roux, which is the butter and flour combination that makes that smoky flavored base for the gumbo. They had just finished cleaning and deveining about 40 pounds of shrimp for Thanksgiving, and threw a few in the gumbo. Oh YUM. The next morning was full of preparations, and then, mid-morning, the feasting began, with all the guys shucking oysters and eating boiled shrimp. As you drive up, you can smell smoke from an outdoor fire, and chairs and tables are out everywhere, but the shucking goes on down near the creek:
The house is beautiful, spacious and welcoming for so many people. The happy baby, who is now a happy toddler, was in heaven – he was surrounded by boy toys – tractors and golf carts and a Model A and all sorts of age appropriate toys, as well as cousins, aunts, uncles and a lot of hilarious rough housing. Why is it kids just love the terror of being turned upside-down?
For me, this was the best Thanksgiving with the family; finally I am beginning to figure out who is who from year to year. I still have to ask questions, but they seem more comfortable with me, and I had some really good conversations, sort of beyond the polite-passing-the-time conversations. I’m not that great in big crowds, but now I am beginning to have some good one-on-ones, and for me, that’s a great Thanksgiving.
And on, man, the food. Tables and tables of food. I don’t know how they do it, but I saw the list of cakes, and there must have been twenty cakes on THE LIST. They each have responsibilities, and somehow, it all works.
Three turkeys, all carved, and so much dressing (which I grew up calling stuffing, it all depends on where you grew up):
That green container is AdventureMan’s first foray into cranberry chutney. This one was a little tart, but tasty. As are darling daughter in law so diplomatically put it, “I would probably like it more if my taste buds were accustomed to having cranberries without sugar.”
About half of the sides were sweet potato casseroles; you can’t believe how good these are. This year this front dish was one of the favorites, squash cassarole:
This photo doesn’t begin to do justice to the desserts – holy smokes:
So the biggest brother blessed the food and we ate around one, then we visited for a few hours, people going back and grazing a little. Then the next generation cleaned everything up and got all the food packaged up and put away. About an hour later, that broccoli salad started calling me, and I went out to try a little more and discovered it was all put away, but a partner in crime knew where it was, and we pulled it out and had some, which started a whole landslide of second-platers, just when everything had been all put away, LLOOLLL!
It was a great day, a day full of thanks for all the things in life that really matter.
I Wish I’d Hugged Her
The phone rang, late for most of my friends. We rarely talk after nine. It was one of my quilting sisters, calling to tell me one of our members had collapsed and died.
I sat down. Why would my friend say such a thing? On the other hand, when I saw her – just three days ago – she wasn’t looking too good, had one of those allergies or things we all get during this time when the temperatures may be in the 40’s or in the high 70’s. But she did make it to the meeting, and we all have bad days, don’t we?
My friend said she would let me know as soon as she knew the arrangements. I think I was a little dazed, a little in shock. I remember when I got the call my Dad had died, it’s like I can’t integrate things all at once, it takes me a while for things to sink in.
I wish I’d hugged her. She’s a lady I really like, talented, wry, funny. We talked, briefly at the meeting, but then the meeting went into full swing and I didn’t really talk with her again. I wish I’d hugged her.
The Hemingway Safari: Chobe Part 4
At six the next morning, we hear the sound of zipping and then “good morning!” as our hot water is delivered into the bath and dressing room. We hurry our cleaning up, as it is COLD! We gather around the campfire for coffee, and have either hot or cold cereal and fruit before heading out on our morning game drive.
First, we watch the lions for about 45 minutes – they are a hoot. They are about 200 yards away, and rolling around, feeling well fed and guarding their carcass from the hyenas and jackals. Other trucks full of viewers start arriving. At sunrise, we are down by the river, watching hippos and crocodiles, and Namibean fishermen from across the river. Godfrey tells us there is a huge problem with poaching, as Botswana has made a decision to protect the game and encourage eco-tourism, but Namibia hasn’t. As the game has been hunted out in Namibia, hunters cross the river to hunt in the game reserves.
At 9:30 we stop for coffee/tea, all packed beautifully in a wicker picnic basket, with small sandwiches. AH and I start laughing – we had no idea we would be fed five times a day on this trip. At 11, we arrive back in camp. The deck chairs are in front of our tents, and lunch is ready. Dorcas meets us – every time – with the hot washcloths. And yes, there is HOT water in the shower!
Lunch is macaroni and cheese, cold cuts and cheeses and fresh baked bread, cucumber and green pepper salad with joghurt dressing, and oh, it is delicious. And now, thanks be to God, we have siesta time, time to snooze a little, time to look at the guide books in the library and check out what we have seen, time to review maps of where we have been. Ah, we need siesta time.
AH has just drifted off to sleep when I spot a HUGE baboon walking by our tent, right into the center of the camp. I shake AH awake and point. The baboon turns around, looks, then continues on his way. What a thrill. Tea is served at three, and Simaseku has baked an apple cake. My friends, this is a problem for me. I am on a weight loss program, and I don’t want to hurt Simaseku’s feelings, but I just can’t eat all this food!
On our afternoon game viewing we spend a lot of time watching the elephants wallowing along the river. It is so much fun, they are rolling, splashing, blowing water over their backs, having a great time. Some of the adolescent males are flghting a little, but not seriously. Later, we spend another 45 minutes watching the lions, and then . . . one of the most magical moments of the trip happens.
As we leave the lions feasting on what is by now a very smelly carcass, it is almost dark. Too dark to take any photos. And my guess is that the stink of the carrion was carried with us, as we had sat watching for a lenghty period of time. We run into a huge herd of impala. Impala are like the skinniest, most graceful little deer you have ever seen. They have large liquid eyes and thin little legs. And for whatever reason, as we drove into the midst of them, they went crazy. When impalas are anxious, they pronk.
If you were a ballet dancer, and you did a leap, and at the top of the leap you gave it a little extra kick, you would be pronking. And to confuse the predator, the impala pronk in all different directions. I am guessing we smelled like a predator, because for a good five minutes, the impala did what I can only describe as an incredible ballet around our vehicle. Groups would dash from one side to another, in front of us, behind us, beside us, leaping and extending that leap, like crazy ballerinas. It was the craziest, most graceful, wildest ballet I have ever experienced. I wish you were sitting next to me as it happened, I wish you could see them, barely visible in the diminishing light, as they did their manic leaps and bounds. We couldn’t photograph, we could just sit and experience it. It is a sight I will never forget.
Tomorrow morning we will depart for Savute Elephant camp, and stop to see Godfrey’s parents and village en route. I am getting used to the noises in the night, I even LIKE them! I love sleeping in our tent, and although I am in the midst of wild animals, I feel strangely safe.
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