Time Passages

Today’s earworm is courtesy of Al Stewart, the song “Time Passages.” I woke up to a text message from my cousin EJ letting me know that another cousin MW had passed. 

MW was one of those people who never meet a stranger. She liked dancing and going out with friends for fun, food and good times. Unfortunately, she didn’t watch her diet and she didn’t like the way some very necessary medications made her feel so she wouldn’t take them. Her girls hadn’t heard from her for a day or two, couldn’t get her to answer the phone, went by and found her lying on the floor. She’d had a stroke and had been lying there for at least 24 hours, and probably longer. This all happened in late summer. She spent her last months in a nursing home with no quality of life. The angels took her home either yesterday or early this morning. 

MW was a member of that set of cousins that were mom’s sisters’ children. (JP born in 1936, MW in 1939, EJ in 1941, WM in 1943, CY in 1946.) The older ones were born while my mom was still living at home. (My mom was 15 when MW was born.) The older ones remember mom getting married and remember me being born. We moved “upstate” when I was 19 months old, so I only saw them when we went to Houston on vacation, either in the summer or over Christmas. But for a while, “Aunt Fluffy” was more of a big sister than aunt to many of them. EW’s sister is WM of the cows.

The amaryllis is in bud. It may open on or around Xmas, or later. Orchid #2 is starting to form buds on its flower spike. My windows face dead center between north and east on the compass. With the tree gone, the light is fairly bright but not hot, and the sun goes behind part of the building in late afternoon, early evening.

The Christmas cactus is going nuts. I counted 12 flower buds. I almost bought a Norfolk Island Pine yesterday. I had one, Phred, for well over 20 years. I would have bought one yesterday if I’d had a place to put it, but I don’t have room for the plants I have. I need to wipe the hard drive on my old computer and take it to Best Buy to recycle. Then I’d have room on the end of my dining room table for the peace lily that’s been sitting on the end of my kitchen counter since I brought it back from mom’s. It needs to be repotted too. I have the pot. Think I have enough potting soil left.

I’ve done all the things I need to do about mom’s stuff except taxes, and I won’t have to worry about that for two months yet.

Today is the winter solstice for those of us north of the equator. We are far enough south that the maximum solar declination at the winter solstice is 31 degrees, and on the solstice, we have nearly 10 hours of daylight (from 7:48 a.m. to 5:43 p.m.), whether we want it or not.

My Christmas will be quiet, with no family obligations. I have dressing and turkey and cranberry sauce, and I may make a beet salad. Being alone has never been a problem for me. I find it restful. 

Carols and Whatnot

Blame Shoreacres for this one. The gang chez Pogo attempted to penetrate the impenetrability of the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” more than once during that strip’s run. This is not the one where Churchy makes a strong point about the three French hens (the constant gabble-gabble of chickens in general, and can you imagine all that in French?). The conclusion that time was that there was thievery involved and that the “true love” referenced in the song was a fence. 

Walt Kelly was one of the first newspaper comic strip authors to gather each year’s worth of his daily strips and publish them as a book. This offering is from Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo (a birthday gift from my ever-loving brown-eyed father back in the day), which was a kind of “greatest hits” compilation from the first ten years of the strip.  Pogo is the furry guy in the striped shirt, the turtle is Churchy La Femme, and the alligator is Albert, a smoker of seegars. The carol the ensemble cast usually ends up belting out with fervor and abandon is “Deck Us All With Boston Charley,” which is about as impenetrable as they come.

©Estate of Walt Kelly under Fair Use

The North Wind Doth Blow

But we won’t get snow. Thank goodness. It’s blowing a hoolie, though, and the wind is almost straight out of the north at 21 mph/33.7 kph. It’s 18 F/-7.7 C with a wind chill of 2 F/-16.6 C. Mom called yesterday and wanted me to get her some tooth paste (she also wanted some $ for some little tokens of appreciation to her care givers), which I naïvely thought I was going to do today, but nope. Not with that kind of wind and that kind of wind chill. Mañana. It’ll still be as cold, but the front will have blown through by then and the wind will have died down. That wind is brutal. Like the man says, “Ain’t but one fence between us and Canada, and it’s down . . . “

They’ll be serving a nice Xmas dinner on Sunday here, with turkey and all the fixin’s. I’ll get mine “to go” and take it over to Carillon House and eat with mom.

The other day, I figured out how to get from here to there without having to go outside. It’s a pretty straight shot.

I’ll take her Xmas present with me. She’s getting me some new glasses this year.

Proper glasses with some light-weight lenses (I’m only 20/40 in my left eye, but I’m 20/400 in my right eye and my right lens is so thick my glasses tend to sit cattywompus on my nose), and some new, lighter frames. They won’t be here until the 30th, though.

I’ve got one of those throat tickling “drainage” coughs where you get into a coughing fit that’s so prolonged you almost pass out from not being able to breathe for coughing. I’ve been taking guaifenesin (a mucus thinner) and pseudoephidrine (a decongestant) for it. It’s allergies, not a bug. As I noted, it’s not cotton ginning related, but whatever it is that’s setting me off makes my eyes burn as well. I’ve managed to stay well so far (touch wood!). With my sinuses already in an uproar and this wind kicking up the dust, yet another reason not to get out in it.

Now that the weather has gotten colder, my feet have been so cold at night that I’ve started putting the heating pad in the bed to warm them up. I’ve got one with a timer on it that turns the heating pad off when time’s up. No, I don’t need an electric blanket. I’ve already got a microfleece blanket on. Once I get my feet warmed back up, I’m good.

T’is the Season, Y’all

I got all gussied up for the party: A (velvet) plaid “lumberjack” shirt (!) over black tee and black velvet slacks (Xmas spirit. I haz it) embellished with this glass bead necklace I bought years and years ago at a “vintage” shop. (Loved everything about it but the length, so I popped it and restrung it to choker length, and had enough beads left over to make ear dangles.) (Notice the stoppers on the ear wires!) I wore my little magnetic Carillon name tag. (Yee-Ho-Ho-Ho!)

The place was packed. I sat with friends. The food was episodic, single serving, but good — little plastic cups of dip and dip-able veggies, dinner roll sandwiches (mine was ham), shrimps and a dollop of cocktail sauce, and an collection of little cakes for dessert, each on its little plastic plate. I had a small plastic cup of white wine. There were raffles for door prizes (e.g. an hour in a chauffeured limousine for 10), and we each got a stocking from the corporate sponsors with a pair of socks, a packet of tissues, various “single serving” size candies, and business cards.

The music was provided by “Cadillac Jack Band.” (Guess what kind of music they played.) I had no trouble hearing it. (I will be vibrating for days.) The party was from 4:00 to 6:00. I made it to 5:00 before I bailed.

(If I hear “Joy to the World” on pedal steel guitar one more time . . . )

Here, have a shot of the good stuff. On the house. And one for the road.

Giving Thanks

Friends brought us food for Thanksgiving. It was a loving gesture, and we embrace them for it. They’re dear friends and have been for a long, long time. And he is an excellent cook.

They wanted to have us over to their house for Thanksgiving, but that plan was defeated by the logistics of getting my mom there and back again. We could get her into my car, but it would take a chain hoist to get her out of it. (I have trouble getting up out of it). Not to mention that her wheelchair won’t fit in my trunk. These friends have a place down near the Gulf Coast (where it’s warmer), they took both cars, and the vehicle they came back up here in is his gigunga diesel four-door pickup. The cabs on those things are so high up off the ground that it would take a fork lift to get me into and out of one, never mind a 98-year-old woman with a bum back who needs a walker and/or a wheelchair to get around. So they brought the food to us. Right about the time it started sleeting. But it was good (as I say, he’s a great cook) and we loved it and them.

Mom and I have so much to be thankful for, and this Thanksgiving is a case in point. When you find friends like these dear people, you hold onto them and cherish them. Sorry, no pictures. We were too busy being in the moment.

A Brown Christmas?

Hope not, but today on Xmas eve, it’s blowing like 60. Really. Wind speeds are 20-35 mph with gusts up to 60 mph, and we’re under a wind advisory and a small child alert*. As you might suspect, we have some very moving scenery today, heading NNW at a pretty good clip. I had a pretty stiff headwind coming back. I thought I was going to have to beat to windward to get back in the building.

These pictures don’t really capture how just plain brown the sky is near the horizon.

The above were taken when I braved the elements to get another Phred at Market Street, which is the same chain of super markets that I got the original from. The original Phred was a Norfolk Island Pine. This Phred is an Italian Stone Pine, which is drought tolerant and wants 6-8 hours of full sun a day — which he isn’t going to get, alas. My new windows face the northwest. This new Phred will either adjust or he won’t. I had the last Phred for 27 years, which sets the bar pretty high.

The gnome with the white braids is wishful thinking on my part. One day my hair will be long enough to braid again and I’ll knit myself a gnome hat to celebrate. Goals. I haz ’em. Here is my contribution to the decorations in the common area. I’ve never really been big on seasonal decorating — even when I had someplace to store them.

The revised forecast for mañana is a high of 78 F/25.5 C, which is even ridiculouser than a high of 73 F/22.7 C, but then today’s high was 81 F/27.2 C. No surprise that today’s quaff is peach juice on ice. (serious nums!) I need to find my baggie of mom’s name labels and my laundry pen and get to sewing.

• Small Child Alert — if your child weighs less than 35 lbs, belay them to something heavy like a car before you let them go outside, otherwise they’ll probably get blown halfway to Crosbyton and you’ll have to go hunt them.

Ham Salad!

Seeing as how it’s the eve of the traditional day for picnic blowouts that is the 4th of July, I thought I’d share this.

A little gratuitous product placement for you. Not pictured is a small can of sliced black olives. (A heaping handful of whole black olives would also work.)

Dice the onion, pickles, green onions and ham. Chunk chop the black olives. Dump everything in the bowl. Add enough mayonnaise to moisten. (As an alternative to mayo, you could toss with a balsamic vinaigrette.) You can also add some small elbow macaroni, but it’s too durn hot to cook any so I didn’t. Chill overnight. Serve by itself as a side dish, or spoon it on to crackers for a snack, or make sandwiches from it. Serious yum, y’all.

I’ve made it this time in the new 2.5 quart bowl, which is very Goldilocks*, BTW. I still had plenty of room in the bowl to add the macaroni without the bowl being too full.

I’m dipping mine with tortilla chips, which is an art as well as a skill, but there are two sandwiches chilling in the fridge for later.

* Not too big, not too small, just right!