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Posts Tagged ‘Memoir’

Radio Hour

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 15, 2013| 1 Comment »

A few days ago our television died. How old was that thing anyway? We bought it when we built this house, about 5 years ago, then I started wondering how long should a TV last. While I was busy lamenting, Bob of course, started researching the latest wired-to-the-internet models while also taking apart our measly 37″ flat screen Magnavox and finding the culprit. Yep, it’s a capacitor problem in the power board! He happily showed me the leaky, cracked caps! I had no idea what he was talking about, but like a good wife, I feigned interest. photo copy

I’ve always said that there’s just something on that Y gene that gives our guys the power to pull stuff apart and put it back together again with impunity. Now I know this sounds sexist, but just follow along. Once I brought home a beautiful antique chandelier – it was a bargain. Only it didn’t work. Well, before long, Bob had all the pieces lined up across our dining room table, and wouldn’t you know it, he re-wired the thing. I asked him if he’d ever done that before, he just looked at me, smiled, and said, “No.”

My foster father Jim liked to fix things too. This may sound arcane, but I distinctly remember him behind our old 1950s era black and white TV cabinet, taking the back off and removing its mysterious vacuum tubes. Then I’d accompany him to the hardware store where he’d test them in some gizmo; I remember them lighting up and the buzzing sound they would make. We’d buy only as many as were damaged. At home, he’d replace the tubes, screw the back on the cabinet and hop up on the roof to adjust the antennae. Nell would tell me when to yell, “Stop” out the window.

Now our TV had to go into the one shop in town that does “TV and VCR” repair work, simply because Bob didn’t want to solder onto the mini=computer board the $8.95 capacitors he could buy at Radio Shack. Thankfully, he knows his limits. It will cost less than a hundred dollars to fix and save us close to a thousand to replace with the latest in LCD wizardry. Which is great. But what’s better is we’ve been listening to the radio at home, NPR to be precise. And yesterday while listening to our President address the nation about the debt ceiling, I liked his tone. I am hoping he’ll deliver his ‘take no prisoners we’re not a deadbeat nation’ message later in the week to Congress about gun violence. I really liked his delivery as I sat there, knitting a rose colored dress for the Love Bug, and feeling like a 1930s era housewife. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. photo

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Sandy

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2012| 2 Comments »

The weather gods are predicting a one in a hundred year storm. When we moved back to NJ and bought a Mid-Century Modern Jetson-style ranch in Rumson, the realtor told us we’d have a flood once in a hundred years. We then had the December 11th No Name Storm almost 20 years ago, exactly one month after we moved in. The full moon was aligned with the rising tide.

Our old kitchen appliances went sailing down the street in brackish river water from our garage, and since we were out of state at a conference, our children had to be rescued…along with the babysitter. The babysitter who left the Corgis to fend for themselves in the laundry room. They never named the storm because it caught everyone by surprise.

I am hoping and praying that all my friends and family, and everyone who is living on the east coast in the track of this super storm named Sandy, will be safe. If you are thinking of evacuating, then please pack up your essentials and consider heading west. Now. Believe me, you’ll be glad you did!

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Have You Hugged a Pharmacist Lately?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on October 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

My Father was a pharmacist in Scranton, PA. Although I never knew him, he died when I was 7 months old of a brain tumor, I’ve heard a few things about him over the years from my siblings. He was very tall, very smart and crazy in love with his children. He didn’t trust hospitals, he thought they may be linked to polio; remember people thought you could “catch” polio in a swimming pool at that time. And he never kept any drug in our house except aspirin! Every pharmacist in the 1940s was a “compounding” pharmacist. My sister Kay had to help him mix drugs with a mortar and pestle when his headaches were severe and he lost the use of one arm.

Today, most pharmacists count pills into bottles that have been manufactured elsewhere. And most work for huge chains like CVS or Walmart, they don’t own their own store. Sure they have to be computer literate, they have to be able to read whatever a doctor or NP or PA writes, and they must know their chemistry. They may even need some social skills. But I really started feeling sorry for them last year when I got my flu shot at a big box drug store. It was late at night and Bob was insisting, since his hospital had not received the vaccine yet. She was a pretty, young thing and naturally we started talking while I took off my jacket in a private room behind the pharmacy.

She opened up to me about her long commute, the terrible hours, that she is currently working two pharmacy jobs, her terrible boyfriend, and the other two degrees she had before getting the Doctor of Pharmacy degree and becoming certified. “Ten years of school so I can do this,” she said as she plunged the syringe in my arm. Later I googled “pharmacy jobs” and found that many can be part-time so the company can avoid including benefits and that the rate of pay doesn’t increase over time…ie, no possibility for advancement. And now this:

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/10/compounding-pharmacies-stricter-fda-oversight.html

In the past couple of weeks, a flurry of emails went back and forth between the Bride and Bob since most cases of fungal meningitis occurred in TN and VA. The outbreak is not limited to epidural steroid injections. The FDA has recommended anything made by that MA pharmacy (NECC) be pulled from shelves, which includes a numbing gel that ER physicians commonly use on children before suturing. It’s called LET for a combination of lidocaine, epinephrine and tetracaine. While checking for the list of NECC’s recalled products, I was referred through the FDA to this rather long list: http://www.neccrx.com/List_of_all_products_manufactured_since_January_2012.pdf

Unlike a bacterial meningitis, fungal infections have a slower start and a longer life, but it seems that the outbreak may have peaked at over 200 infections and 15 deaths, the last being reported in PA. http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112713625/fungal-meningitis-cases-214-101612/ I’ve been thinking about my Father lately. Here he is standing in front of a Valentine window display at his drug store.

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The Kitchen Table

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on October 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

Finally, Fall has arrived. Someone once said that a person’s favorite time of year is related to their birthday, which makes sense. Our whole lives we have been celebrating our birthdays, or at least until we’d rather forget them, and so we’ve become conditioned to “like” that time of year. It’s true in our family; the September babies love the Fall and the August babies adore Summer. Thought I would share this little kitten’s morning picture. She was born on a seasonal cusp, but I can already tell she has a preference for furry sweaters.

I wonder, will the Love Bug’s birthday party happen before school starts or after? This is a very big question since school levels the playing field and expands potential invitees. It will most likely depend on which part of the country our children decide to live in, whether school begins before or after Labor Day. I have pictures of birthday parties in 1950s Victory Gardens, they were small affairs with everyone wearing pointy hats, sitting around the kitchen table. Think about your Mother’s kitchen table. You’ve started back in school and the days are getting shorter. You joined a bunch of kids off the school bus, kicking leaves and slowly meandering your way home. You walk into the house and it’s warm, almost too warm compared to that crisp Fall day. But the smell of cooking is the first thing to hit you. It surrounds you and you melt into it.

My foster mother Nell stayed at home. Her generation was almost required to stay home if the husband could provide for the family. She once told me she worked for a short time at a store before she married, but she never learned to drive and so she was marooned in our little house. She seemed happy to me, but I wonder now. Her gift to me is priceless. Taking me in, loving me like I was her own child. And her comfort food can still make a bad day better. She made “Haloopkeys” (I have no idea how to spell it) – a Slavic dish of stuffed cabbage with pork and rice and cooked in sauerkraut, served up on a formica table with chrome legs. Every culture has a stuffed vegetable delicacy. And every person on earth has a memory of their mother’s kitchen table.

My Fall Table

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Summer Color

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on August 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

Black – searching for rugs:

Let’s do a six-worded color memoir for summer so far. The other day, we awoke to see 2 adolescent foxes playing on our lawn.

Lavender – sometimes at sunset:

They were pouncing, strolling, swatting and scratching. It was parallel play; searching for bugs beneath the grass.

White – butterfly on hydrangea:

I watched them silently, through the French door, wishing to run and get my camera, but rightfully fearing that opening the door would scare them off. .

Pink – peonies at a baby shower:

Their reddish-brown fur gave me this idea

Brown – pup on deck:

Have a sweet Sunday y’all!

Green – an August wedding:

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Mid-Winter Memoirs

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on January 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

Unlike the previous posts of six worded seasonal memoirs, I’ve decided to make this one just a bit different, thanks to my new friend, Courtney, who asked for a 10 word or less memoir of life. She asks, “How would you sum up your life/ relationships, experiences on the planet in 10 words or less?” My answer to this question is a family joke. Bob’s Grandfather Sam, a Jewish Russian immigrant, sat down towards the end of his life and penned his autobiography, in Yiddish. Its title is, “Better it Couldn’t be,” well at least that was the translation.

My answer to anything that goes wrong has always been, “It Could Have Been Worse.” Is that optimistic? I think so; you skin a knee, hey you didn’t break it. Fender bender, no one was hurt, right? So here is my take on Winter in Six Pictorial Memoirs so far –

It Could Have Been…

1) Another Epic Storm

2) A Holiday Binge

3) A Calvin Klein Underwear Ad

4) Lonelier

5) Bigger

6) Well, maybe it couldn’t be any more serene!

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Transportation Man

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on June 18, 2011| 2 Comments »

He used to play the spoons in our kitchen to my utter delight. And every Saturday he would wash and wax that kitchen’s floor. The smell of floor wax makes me think of cartoons. Many nights, after cleaning up the dishes, he’d dance with me standing on his shoes to the radio. When he came home from work at four o’clock on the dot, he would always have a surprise – a flower, a small toy, a cookie. Every single day. One summer he made me a doll house out of Popsicle sticks. Almost every night we’d play gin rummy, followed by butterfly kisses and “Don’t let the bedbugs bite” good night. If I was sick in the night, he would stay up with me until I fell back asleep. He was the only father I ever knew, Daddy Jim.

My Dad was my hero. He would never spank me, but he would chase me around the house for a good “paddy wackin,” which meant catching me until I dissolved in giggles. He never raised his voice, unless he was house-training a puppy. We would sing I Wonder who’s Kissing Her Now in the car or maybe Casey’s at the Bat. If we drove under a bridge, we’d duck our heads. My foster Mom, Nell, couldn’t drive, so Daddy took me out into the world – to the butcher, and the bakery on weekends. And to Mass on Sunday, followed by a Rocky Road sundae and the papers at Zanelli’s.

I’m pretty sure he never finished grammar school, because he had to get a job to help support his big Irish family of eighteen children. But he was the sweetest, kindest man in the universe. In the few pictures I have, he is sitting reading a newspaper, with me underneath it; or this one, holding me and a puppy.

He didn’t pose, and only knew how to tell the truth. Too old to fight in WWII, he found a job at Picatinny Arsenal, helping trains navigate their labyrinth of tracks. He would answer the phone, “Transportation Man!” He and my biological father, a pharmacist, were buddies back in PA. Robert Norman Lynn died of a brain tumor when I was a baby, and Daddy Jim drove his wife Nell over the Delaware Water Gap to save me from going into an orphanage. My husband Bob always said, “Your Dad’s a hard act to follow!” Our son’s middle name is James.

He gave me a home, after mine fell apart, and most importantly, the capacity to love.

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