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Posts Tagged ‘Dogs’

Ear Bug

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

There is a constant buzzing in my ears. Inside the house, it’s manageable; outside it’s another story. Shall I start from the beginning?

The Bride and Groom had scheduled a trip and we were all IN to be working grandparents… and granddog parents of course. Then it hit me – a sore throat. Why is it that ever since the pandemic, getting a common cold feels like a death sentence? I tried to keep my distance from the Grands – we ordered pizza for dinner – Bob did the driving – dog walking was passed down to the Bug and the Pumpkin. The problem is, Maple, the black/mix/killer/rescue dog, is on one mission and one mission only: she is single-mindedly determined to

Eat as Many Cicadas in One Walk as She Can Find!

“Ewwww Nana,” my granddaughter said, “she ate two cicadas while they were mating! and I could hear them screaming.” If that’s not a Hitchcock film in the making…

I tried to make light of the Bug’s budding fear of bugs. After all, I’ve picked hundreds of ticks off of dogs and children (and myself) over the years, and they can find some pretty strange places to burrow. I was proud of the baby Bride when we moved back to NJ because she was the only one of her friends who would pick up a daddy longlegs. We were country people, people!

But here we are, living in a semi-genteel southern city that has been attacked by cicadas. Granted they don’t bite, or transmit a horrible disease, still they are dang ugly, and LOUD. Their chorus is around 100 decibels in TN, akin to a Harley only not as nice. We still have our old windows in our new cottage so I can hear them humming all day. It’s like I have chronic tinnitus, with a cold to boot. When I venture outside to water the garden, the trees are shimmering with them and the noise is no joke.

I’ve swept the patio, picked them out of my new patio poufs, and we’ve been in charge of the neighbor’s pool while they are away which means Bob is routinely skimming around 50 dead cicadas every day from their filter. But the last straw was on Sunday when I was swimming with the Grands. I sent Bob home with the kiddos so I could finish my water exercises. I was so deeply grateful to be back in the pool, the water was warm and the sun was shining after a week of rain.

As I was getting out of the pool, feeling the weight of gravity return, a cicada flew right into my right ear!

It was screeching to get out. I was screaming for it to get out and banging the other side of my head. Somehow I knew not to put my finger inside my ear, I guess some medical knowledge does rub off? I grabbed my towel and ran into the street not caring what anyone might think of this wet haired swim suited crazy banshee woman. But in the few minutes it took to run across the street and find Bob, it must have flown out. After a quick investigation with an otoscope, I was pronounced cicada free!

Last night the adult children returned, and now we must pack for our next trip to Italy! I wonder if they have cicadas in Tuscany?

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It’s Delightful

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 5, 2024| 2 Comments »

On my way to the Bride’s house, I heard a strange sound. It was a typical early spring morning, a bit overcast and chilly and I thought to myself, I should have worn a heavier jacket. But it’s a short walk, just two houses down our street to the next block. Their house would be empty, everyone at work or school, and I’d promised the little French Emperor he could visit us and chase rabbits in our backyard. The sound was getting louder, and it was coming from the sky.

But first let me start with the beginning. Most mornings, I’ll sit in my snug for breakfast and scan the news on my desk/laptop – the BBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Bob and I will attempt to do the Connections puzzle if we have the time, and I might browse through the vegetarian recipes on Times’ Cooking. I may or may not pick up my phone, depending on a few factors; like did it ding and did I remember where I left it.

But that morning, the one with the otherworldly noise, I was looking at Instagram on my cell and saw that Brother Jones, aka TN52 Democrat Justin Jones, was visiting the Wheeler Wildlife Refuge in Alabama which attracts thousands of wintering waterfowl. It seems that the flight path between Wisconsin and Florida takes these magnificent birds right over Nashville. Jones was going to introduce a bill to protect the whooping crane, an endangered species that first migrated here in 2004. Whooping cranes numbered only around 20 in North America in the 1940s. Today we have about 600.

As I swiped left, I could hear a cacophony of noise, like a gaggle of geese had boarded a slow-moving train playing metal clackers with their webbed feet. I’ve seen great blue herons and egrets on the Jersey Shore, but I’ve never seen a crane of any kind.

And voila, not an hour later, I was gobsmacked, craning my head upwards, listening to the exact same discordant/natural/music/sounds I’d heard on my phone… only louder and more urgent. I shielded my eyes. For a long minute the clouds sauntered and the music amplified.

Then they appeared out of the mist in gray formation, scattered Zs so high up, heading north by northwest.

I stood very still. I remembered to breathe. I felt present, as if I belong. Thousands of sand cranes escorting whooping cranes through their ancient flyway. Escaping. Migrating.

When I returned home with the little emperor, I tried to tell Bob about the whooping cranes. I showed him the Jones video, but something was lost in translation. It was otherworldly, it was out-of-body, it was magic! And maybe, it was because of my T’ai Chi classes that I stopped and soaked in that moment. In the past, would I have stopped, or looked up for so long? “Mindfulness is deliberately paying full attention to what is happening around you and within you – in your body, heart, and mind. Mindfulness is awareness without criticism or judgement.” Jan Chozen Bays

Every day I am confronted by delightful experiences; a petulant dachshund named Lucy, rainbow sprinkled biscotti left on my porch by Leslie, a grandchild walking through the door. Or a video of an owl in the wild walking like Charlie Chaplin! I follow a New York City photographer named David Lei on the Gram, and was delighted to learn his pictures of Flaco, the aforementioned Eurasian eagle owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo, were recently featured in the NYTimes. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/nyregion/flaco-owl-central-park-zoo.html

These small, unexpected delights add up and sustain me through health challenges and news cycles. And I can smell spring. We divided a monster (monstera) plant this week that had been devouring the dining room table. Its roots were like tentacles. Bob is planning to build a raised bed for vegetables. I can only hope the rabbits, chipmunks and birds approve of our choices this year.

 

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Cold Snap

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

It’s December already. Bob and I try to walk after lunch since it’s too dark to walk after dinner. Yesterday was a record day for Welsh Corgi sightings on our park’s greenway. We met at least five of both the Pembroke and Cardigan variety, and thoroughly enjoyed talking to one young woman who was walking two Corgis – one a beautiful brindle and the other a tri-color like our Tootsie Roll. You might say I am missing having a dog. Nobody greets you at the door like ‘woman’s best friend!’

Speaking of canines, I have to confess my latest streaming obsession. “The Secret Life of Dancing Dogs” is on Hulu and is throughly worth watching. A reclusive woman from Norway and a young British woman with juvenile arthritis will steal your heart along with their dogs. I guess this is the closest thing to reality TV that I actually like because it combines my two great loves – dance and dogs!

https://www.hulu.com/series/the-secret-life-of-dancing-dogs-4df02fde-ad1d-4b73-97a2-ed52772d3469

The first time I saw a woman dancing with a dog was on the Gram. I tend to follow authors on social media and I’d just read Ann Leary’s book “The Good House,” so I was surprised to find out she is married to actor Denis Leary and lives on a farm with lots of animals. You know when we first moved south to Cville I’d wanted to raise alpacas, and so I envied her bucolic life. Leary’s videos were nearly always outside in New England weather of all sorts showing her horse whispering or dog dancing skills. How hard could it be I thought, to teach a dog to dance?

Very hard as I have learned from Hulu. Another sensational series on Apple is “Lessons in Chemistry.” I absolutely loved reading the book by Bonnie Garmus and although it’s true that the movie version was not quite like my imagination, it was enjoyable and cathartic nonetheless. A love story between two scientists with an actual talking dog – I mean…..

There was no dog featured in the latest Parnassus signed first edition, “The Absolution” by Alice McDermott. If you too are not fortunate enough to have the company of a furry friend, you may want to consider curling up with this book on a cold winter night. A seminar on power both personal and global, and its malignant consequences, it is compelling. She writes from a feminist perspective about our early build-up to the Vietnam War… which had me thinking of those Israeli soldiers, the young WOMEN who tried to warn their superiors about the uptick in Hamas activity before 10/7.

I’m beginning to wrap Hanukkah presents since latkes will be served the first night, this coming Thursday, December 7 (WHAAAA)! We decided to gift the Grands their first present early – warm puffer coats! This year will be a bittersweet holiday season for Jews around the world. We will light candles to illuminate yet another war, another moment in time when Jews were not assimilated or extinguished entirely.

In the second century BCE, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who tried to force the people of Israel to accept Greek culture and beliefs instead of mitzvah observance and belief in G‑d. Against all odds, a small band of faithful but poorly armed Jews, led by Judah the Maccabee, defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of G‑d.“

https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/What-Is-Hanukkah.htm

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Pet Peeves

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on September 27, 2023| 2 Comments »

Are dog and cat people like the musical Oklahoma; its farmers and cowboys, never to reconcile? If I had my way, we would have always had dogs and cats. In fact we did for awhile in the Berkshires with our first German Shepherd dog “Bones” and my old red tabby cat “Henry”. That is, until the toddler Bride proved to be highly allergic to cats – and that was that! Turns out Bob is also allergic to felines, only we didn’t find out until we cared for the Rocker and Kiki’s cat “Pou” (pronounced like NO) while they moved to California.

I’m asking about pets because I just read that President Biden’s two year old dog “Commander,” a beautiful German Shepherd, has bitten yet another Secret Service agent. I looked at Bob and said he’s probably a secret MAGAT, dogs KNOW THESE THINGS!

The attack happened on Monday night and the officer was treated at the scene, the Secret Service said in a statement on Tuesday. This is the 11th time the dog has bitten a guard at the White House or the Biden family home.The White House press secretary has previously blamed the attacks on the stress of living at the White House.“

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66932087

But eleven times? We can blame a lot of things on stress: psoriasis, anxiety, insomnia, to name a few. But how stressful can it be for a dog living the good life at the White House? Granted, the Bidens had to foster their other German Shepherd rescue “Major” with friends after moving to DC. Still, in all our history of family dogs – Bones, Tootsie Roll, Blaze, Buddha, and Bean – we have never had a biting incident. Never. IF I had a dog that bit a person, it would go back to the shelter.

Don’t get me wrong, our dogs were brave, cold-hearted killers. Squirrels mostly with an occasional rabbit. Ms Bean could catch a bird mid-flight! Still, most of my past injuries have been dog-related. Starting with big baby Buddha, who didn’t yet know his own size and side-bumped me across our patio while running out of the rain into the house. And ending this year with our funny fast Frenchie finger kerfluffle. Of course cats can be dangerous too, just ask my brother Dr Jim. His black and white tuxedo cat “L’il Bit” actually sent him to the hospital with sepsis. Twice!

If I had to choose between a dog or a cat, I guess I’m a dog person. I’ve always had dogs, mostly mutts. Our little rescue dog Ms Bean passed away this summer at 16 years old. I’ve had trouble trying to write about it. She was so sweet, even though she came with phobias and hip dysplasia. She was our special needs puppy who navigated both the Albemarle country and Nashville city life with ease. She was my last dog, even though Bob isn’t ready to throw in the towel. Like the Queen, I know when my old age will no longer align with a puppy’s friskiness.

We all know which President didn’t have a pet in the White House in the last 100 years right? The only one? Not a dog or a cat or even a lizard? Let’s do our best to keep dogs on the Hill, even if they nip now and then.

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Balloon a Palooza

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on February 7, 2023| 3 Comments »

Sometimes I feel like somebody’s watching me, for real.

They’re counting how many times I click on cute pictures of Welsh Corgis. Right now, Pinterest thinks I’m a wallpaper obsessed, coastal grandma who loves dogs, and they wouldn’t be wrong. The other day I was watching TV and some actor said “Alexa” and whaddyaknow – my phone’s little hologram lit up and started swirling, and we’ve never invited Alexa into our house!

We have invited three guys into our house today to do some air sealing. Since our new/old house’s HVAC unit can’t keep up with the extreme heat and cold, Bob is determined to find all the leaks and stop them in their tracks. We’re not so much worried about our gas range, which I love btw, as we are simply being comfortable inside when the weather outside is 8 below. Today is a perfectly sunny day to create a wind tunnel at our front door.

By tonight we should be comfy cozy, sipping hot chocolate while watching President Biden deliver his State of the Union Address.

And boy do we Tennesseans need some good news. Our very own Governor gave quite the speech at his State of the State Address:

“Brushing aside calls to tweak one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Monday unveiled plans to funnel tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to anti-abortion centers as he declared the state had a “moral obligation” to support families. Lee, a Republican, said he wants to create a $100 million grant program for nonprofits commonly known as “crisis pregnancy centers.” If approved, Tennessee would become one of the top spending states on such organizations known for dissuading people from getting an abortion.”

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-bill-lee-tennessee-7509c03331225cc884ac2878ae71ef0c

And he also refused millions of federal dollars to help fund HIV education. Here we are, in the 21st Century with a leader who wants to whitewash history and force women to give birth. I honestly never thought I’d see this day. Maybe we are banning books, but at least Lee isn’t asking to monitor female athletes’ menstrual cycles. Not yet. No, he smiled and called TN “prosperous” and “unrivaled.”

We are most certainly unrivaled with: the most infant and maternal mortality rates: the least per pupil spending in public schools; and we’re number 3 in the country in the most violent crime category. Thinking of Memphis, I wonder if police shootings are counted?

Bob and his air quality crew have just disrupted my chain of thought. There is thermal imaging and caulking happening all over the house but especially in my Snug where the attic stairs pull down from the ceiling. And poor Ms Bean is walking aimlessly about trying to corral all these strange men.

I wonder what that Chinese surveillance balloon was spying on? Did it fly over TN? Did it catch the L’il Pumpkin rollerblading? Did it take a picture of Bob walking Bean? Did it see Bob using his metal detector to try and find the property markers? I wasn’t very worried about the balloon, it immediately went into the “things that cannot be changed” category in my brain. After all, doesn’t TikToc get all our information anyway? I’m assuming either Alexa or Siri are constantly monitoring our every sound, while some satellite is taking Google earth pictures of our homes. We like to delude ourselves into thinking privacy is our constitutional right.

And as much as we’d like to create an air-tight house, I’d much prefer to live in a state that values women and education no matter what the weather.

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Nestivus for the Restofus

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on December 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »

We’re betwixt and between winter holidays. The New Year approaches full of expectations, affirmations and regret. Let all the dreaded diet and exercise programs begin!

I came across the Festival of Nestivus on an anxiety blog Instagram account. It’s a cartoon of a cloud-like blob of anxiety that lets people know they don’t have to be the Do-everything-BE-everywhere Elf this season. Or any season actually. It reminds us to rest and recharge and retreat to our home nests whenever we want. The problem is, the Bride and Groom’s flight back from visiting the VA Grandparents was one of thousands cancelled this morning by Southwest.

Not that Nashville was all that comforting this week. We woke Christmas eve to minus ONE temps, so even if we wanted to go out for Chinese food and a movie, everything was closed. Our little Crystal Cottage grew ice crystals on the inside of our windows, and since we had a rain, turning to ice, turning to snow storm, I wasn’t stepping one foot outside!

For the first time ever we experienced “rolling blackouts.” Every few hours the power would suddenly go off for 10-15 minutes, it felt like we were living in a real banana republic. Once, I had simultaneously turned on the gas flame to heat up some homemade vegetable soup, when all the lights went out and the house turned dark. At least we had hot soup. The first time it happened we were panicked. The heat in this 80 year old house was barely keeping up with the outside temps.

Sometimes the inside thermometer hit 61!

One of our neighbors lost their power completely while they were away, and had a dog-sitter who couldn’t keep their dog at her house. So we rescued the cutest little Shih Tzu for a few days. Ms Bean welcomed her graciously, but wasn’t too happy about her sleeping on the bed with us. I loved having a sweet, lap dog in the house. And I must admit, Bob truly stepped up to the task of keeping the home fires burning…

…and the water running – all sinks were kept at a steady drip. Cabinet doors were left open. Outside spigots were insulated and a small heater was trained on the new shower wall. NO bursting pipes for these old New England geezers! I whipped up an Irish lasagna on Christmas Eve. What’s an Irish lasagna you might ask? It’s made with turkey and a cream sauce and we’re still enjoying it.

I must admit we binged a little Three Pines on Prime. I’ve only read one Louise Penny mystery, the one she wrote with Hillary Clinton, “State of Terror.” But the Prime video series is about her award-winning books featuring the French Canadian detective, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. I’m totally in love with the village of Three Pines and its quirky residents. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/11/alfred-molina-three-pines-best-role-of-his-career-interview

Bob and I also caught the final January 6 Committee Report, did you? https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/Report_FinalReport_Jan6SelectCommittee.pdf

Mr T let his mask slip, he’s been exposed for the con man that he is – a calculating, malicious miscreant. He must never be allowed to run for public office again. I truly hope our Attorney General does the right and proper thing and indicts him.

Meanwhile have a very Happy and Healthy 2023 everyone! Don’t climb any ladders, but do dance like no one is watching. We’ll be nesting here for the duration and I’ll be knitting, which makes the introvert in me extremely happy.

Here is Ms Bean telling the newcomer it’s too cold to go out!

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Real vs Imaginary

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on December 10, 2021| 2 Comments »

Did you have an imaginary friend when you were young? I don’t mean Santa or the Tooth Fairy; more like an apparition about your own age to hang out with. I didn’t, my children certainly didn’t, and so far the Grands haven’t mentioned it. Then why do I feel like a good proportion of adults in our country are living with or within a delusion of some sort?

Some believe that Mr T is still president. Some even believe that there is a Democratic cabal of pedophiles running things. Blaming ‘the other’ for the unexplainable isn’t anything new; we burned many witches to death in Salem don’t forget. But thanks to social media, crazy talk can spread like a wildfire today.

“In 2020, QAnon supporters flooded social media with false information about Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests and the presidential election, and recruited legions of new believers to their ranks. A December poll by NPR and Ipsos found that 17 percent of Americans believed that the core falsehood of QAnon — that “a group of Satan-worshiping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media” — was true.”

https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html

Okay, 17% doesn’t seem too bad, until you realize that means about 55 MILLION people! This is not counting the rest of the Republican party who may know the BIG LIE isn’t real, but don’t have enough courage to say so… because of money, power, getting primaried or just plain fear of Mr T and his gun-toting followers.

So nearly half of the country is committed to chaos and disinformation, while the other half is busy trying to get T’s staff to honor a Congressional subpoena in order to get to the bottom of the BIG LIE that led to the insurrection on January 6th.

Mark Meadows, Chief of Staff (2020-2021), can write a tell-all book about his time in T’s White House, and also sue the Senate Judiciary Committee after they plan contempt hearings against him? How does that work, first you pretend to comply with the investigation, and then you have a change of heart? I feel like we’re in a hall of mirrors, which way should we turn, what is real and what isn’t?

This morning I asked Bob why the planners of the Jan 6 insurrection aren’t being called “traitors?” Is it too strong a word? Because Charlottesville was just a rehearsal, while storming Congress in January was a well planned and financed Hail Mary. We need to convict these domestic terrorists, these traitors, before we find ourselves in an authoritarian state.

I recently met a married couple, two women. One was a Protestant preacher and the other was an Episcopalian priest, and no we didn’t walk into a bar. We talked on a porch and they told me that their beliefs only differ on one thing – whether the eucharist is actually the body and blood of Christ.

A loving couple with such a fundamental difference between symbols and reality, and who were gently humorous about it, left me with hope for the human race. That one person can hold conflicting beliefs is normal, you can be a practicing Catholic and still believe in a woman’s right to choice.

But can you call yourself an American and still believe that Mr T actually won the election and/or should be the next president? I mean I kinda believed that Bush stole the election from Gore, but I didn’t buy a gun or storm the Capitol.

Bob and the Grand Dog discussing his walk schedule

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Ground Control

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

It’s been a quiet, cold weekend and I’ve been noticing that Ms Bean doesn’t like to leave my side.

My rescue dog is almost 14 and doesn’t see or hear very well anymore. Besides fireworks and the usual bombs demolition going off in the neighborhood, she will only react when I sneeze. For some reason, sneezing makes her get up slowly, and walk into another room. The Vet tells us she’s doing fine for her age, but going up the stairs is an effort and her daily walks are getting shorter – like the days.

Still, when I have a little “song and dance” party by myself, Bean will rally. We were watching the CBS Adele concert last night, and she was hopping along with me to the music. The only other time she hops is just before I set down her dinner.

I loved the interruptions of the Oprah interview with Adele throughout the concert at the Griffith. Watching the sunset over Hollywood, then switching to the green and white setting in Oprah’s California rose garden was magical. It felt intimate, just two divas catching up. I had some idea Adele had been married, but no idea she was now divorced with a son. Losing 100 pounds by training and lifting weights? Not really, pretty sure I just thought she looked great. Her album “30” is like every other album title – it’s her age when she wrote the songs.

“It was exhausting, trying to keep going with it. You know, the process, the process of a divorce, the process of being a single parent, the process of not seeing your child every single day wasn’t really a plan that I had when I became a mum. The process of arriving for yourself every single day, turning up for yourself every single day, and still running a business… I felt like not doing it anymore.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-59291000

We’ve all felt like this at times in our lives. You start to wonder about your purpose, you look around at your life and you wonder how in the heck you got here. This was not THE plan you had, like Adele not planning to disrupt her child’s life with a divorce. Because her father had been an abusive, absent alcoholic, her plan was to keep a nice, cozy nuclear family humming along. But that effort was killing the British Grammy winner, and she needed to break free.

Let’s take our American Songstress Nashville version of superstardom, Taylor Swift, who also released an album this week.

Tay Tay is 32, only one year younger than Adele. Of course, I still think of Swift as a twenty-something in cowgirl boots. The Love Bug is positively in love with her! Her trajectory from country starlet to pop sensation was rather bumpy. But I remember when the news hit, about losing all her master recordings to some private equity firm – they sold for 300 Million last November.

Having raised a musician who weathered the sea change at the same time in the music business, I could empathize with Swift’s loss. It wasn’t just the money, it was about control. It was about mastering your own life, like Adele who thought that a marriage would bring her happiness. Both singers write deeply personal, emotional lyrics. Only Swift was bullied and shortchanged not by a husband, but by Scooter Braun, a music tycoon who bought her previous label and sold the rights to her last six albums.

“Swift is a calculating business owner who already recorded two albums during the lockdown simply because it was fun and she didn’t have to spend two years in Lover album promotion cycle. Why wouldn’t Swift take time to re-record her material? Imagine a private equity firm not doing enough due diligence on one of the world’s most surveilled super stars to think Swift wouldn’t take advantage of the time inside to maintain her artistic integrity. The woman once wrote a song about Katy Perry poaching employees!

One hedge fund manager who was approached to buy the catalog told FT: “To extract maximum value from music assets you absolutely need, if not co-operation from the artist, you at least need them to not be actively angry.”

https://jezebel.com/imagine-thinking-taylor-swift-wouldnt-re-record-her-son-1848043235

The artist must not be actively angry so you can commodify them. But anger can be a very good thing. Taylor took time during the lockdown to produce RED (Taylor’s Version), and I may have to run out to Target to buy a CD, if there are any left! This album is breaking Spotify records, as Braun’s hedge fund is declining. Good on you girl.

Adele is an outlier. She signed a 90 Million Euro (130M dollars) deal with Sony/Columbia a few years back and she can write her own ticket. Almost seven years ago, she waited to release her “25” album on streaming services until as many CDs as possible could be sold. This time her album “30” was simultaneously released on vinyl, CD and streaming. Despite not owning her masters, Adele has skyrocketed to super stardom. She took a more traditional musical route, and transformed it into her own.

I still remember the first time the Bride played “Rolling in the Deep” for me. “We could have had it all.” Her voice is simply devastatingly beautiful. Adele appeals to almost every age, she is a more mature Taylor. We are all learning to “process” a new normal these days; as Grandma Ada would say, we are all in transition.

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Peach Tree

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on August 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Testing, one two three. Testing. My patience has been tested like never before these past few weeks. First it was the dumpster.

Right before we flew to LA, a group of smartly dressed people began appearing in front of our living room windows; pointing up, taking pictures and generally talking about their dating lives. Our city farmhouse sits right up to the sidewalk so Ms Bean will yelp every time someone walks by.

Bob of course got the lowdown. It seems there is a major problem with the apartment building across the street. These were professional engineers and photographers and consultants who were about to investigate who was at fault – was it the building’s owners or the builders? They brought in the big dumpster, and dropped it right in front of our front door!

It would only be a couple of weeks they assured us.

Meanwhile, we turned up our classical music on Sonos, brought our cricket-chirping noise machine downstairs, and attempted to carry on all while parking our car at the opposite end of our street so we wouldn’t block traffic. I longed for my quiet Blue Ridge sanctuary as I watched a guy in a cherry picker strip siding off the apartment building and toss it in the dumpster.

Would this building collapse like the one in Miami? There was no time to worry since we hopped on a plane to California.

When we returned surprise surprise, the dumpster was still there and it had a friend – a big green cherry picker parked directly across from our garden. Before we left, the picker had left every evening, but now it must be moving in.

The black tarps down the five story building would flutter with the wind when I opened the living room shutters, and come Monday morning, a miracle. No noise! Tuesday morning came and nobody showed up, nada. So Bob had a little talk with the building manager and whatdoyaknow, the dumpster and the cherry picker disappeared…. All except the fluttering black tarps that grace the view from my window.

Instead of enjoying the relative quiet, we packed up Ms Bean and drove to Atlanta. Her car sickness is well behind her, she happily curled up in the back seat. The four hour road trip saw very few people wearing masks, and now that we’ve arrived it’s even less.

Our Big Chill reunion got off to a great start because everybody is vaccinated and our friends had just installed a pool! Our host was in Guys and Dolls with me, he’s a retired PA. I attended the Junior Prom with the lawyer from Buffalo. And Bob’s best bud came all the way from Richmond, an engineer recently single. Our history goes back to elementary school for Bob, and I was lucky to join the group of nerdy smart kids in high school.

But our host’s daughter was recently exposed to someone with COVID. So the weekend is ours to reminisce and laugh and cry over our lost brothers, Lyle, Rich, Dickie. To debate the merits of crystals. To catch up on our respective lives, good and bad.

And just as we were lounging around the gorgeous pool, we heard construction noise nearby, like right next door. A tree had fallen on the neighbor’s house and so…. Here we were in this verdant Atlanta suburb, and it wasn’t filled with leaf blowers but good ole heavy construction was going on a mere 50 ft away.

We feasted on Low Country Stew and had a yummy peach cobbler for dessert last night. I wonder if it was a peach tree.

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Meatless Monday

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Herb plants are potted and vegetables are in the raised bed. I’ve added a new phlox to the garden and even sprinkled some flower pots about just for fun. As much as gardening is hard work, somehow this year I couldn’t wait to dig my hands in the dirt. And I’ll blame it on the Zoom Pilates, my body hardly suffered from all that bending and hoisting.

Which leads me to ask, what do you do just for fun?

I’m currently reading a book about fun by Annie F Downs; “THAT SOUNDS FUN” or The Joys of being an amateur, the power of falling in love, and why you need a hobby! The Grands and I did a quick trip through Parnassus Bookstore and I was drawn to the local author table. I rarely need to buy a book because of Bob’s monthly gift from the store’s signed first edition club, plus my family and friends revolving free library. But I was drawn to the title after this past pandemic year.

Fun can be big or small, it can be planned or spontaneous. For example, the Bride lets us know when she’s working a day shift and the Groom is in the Covid ICU. This is bound to be a wonderfully fun day for me because I get to puppy sit! I mean, who doesn’t love a puppy? Especially one with big pink ears who looks like Winston Churchill! In fact, today our little Frenchie is on the scene.

So gardening can be a chore, and puppy sitting could be an obligation, it just depends on your attitude. Like cooking, for instance.

I can honestly say that I used to adore cooking, especially for loved ones. It’s my “love language” I’ve been told. But EVERY single day, breakfast/lunch/dinner for a year, and usually just for the two of us… has become a bit mundane. And I like prepping and chopping and such solo, it’s meditative for me. But, since Bob has discovered sourdough, we have to work around each other in the kitchen.

If I’m doing Zoom Pilates in the morning, and I’ve figured out in my mind what’s for lunch and dinner – yes, food is often what I’m thinking about on the yoga mat – then I’m a happy camper. Last week I’d roasted a big pork loin and delivered it to the Groom because the Bride had an evening shift. He was happily surprised to have dinner delivered along with the above mentioned puppy. Then the next day the Bride told me the truth.

They are trying to go meatless for the month of April!

I mean the whole family has decided to tackle Climate Change by changing their diet. I did see it coming; the Love Bug loves pasta with butter, period, and has already delivered a speech to her class about making Mondays meatless in their cafeteria. Still, it was a shock. It was like my daughter telling me she had to stop ballet classes when she turned 10. It was interfering with her schoolwork!

This weekend the Bride made meatless meatballs with chickpeas that were kind of like falafel. And she suggested we join them on a Zoom call with their friends (other doctors and environmental lawyers) about the agricultural impact of Climate Change. We learned that often rain forests are clear cut to make way for cattle grazing – and the more cows and sheep we consume, the more methane these animals produce.

“…global greenhouse gas emissions will need to fall by 40% to 50% in the next decade. Scientists say the only way to achieve that reduction is to significantly increase the amount of land that’s covered in trees and other vegetation and significantly reduce the amount of methane and other greenhouse gases that come from raising livestock such as cows, sheep and goats.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/08/748416223/to-slow-global-warming-u-n-warns-agriculture-must-change

Bob and I were not only intrigued, we were mortified. At least we are open to learning something new from our children. Ever since Bob turned 40 I’ve been trimming away red meat, making turkey meatballs for health reasons. Now, we can factor in a healthy planet for future generations. I only have two caveats – the production of cheese is considered to have a negative impact on the environment, and so is the farming of shrimp! These are two steps too far.

Tonight we’ll play Super Boggle and I’ll make veggie burgers just for fun.

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