In the Lone Star state

Taken from a moving car yesterday

Look at that beautiful sky! It's sunny and warm here in Arlington, Texas, while at home in Bellingham it's raining like crazy. In fact, I just found out through the Cliff Mass Weather Blog that there is a very serious possibility of flooding in Washington state by Thursday, which happens to be Thanksgiving. Although I won't be there, I am really hoping it doesn't occur. He says in that post, "If you live near any of the major rivers around here, you better stay tuned. FEMA should watch this as well." Although I will be out of harm's way while I'm here, this could be a major disaster. Oh, I hope not!

Last night I got a chance to see all but one of my sisters for the first time since a year ago last March. Markee arrived from Canada yesterday, and Norma Jean and I flew in the evening before. Whenever we have a gathering, it's here in the middle of the Lone Star state, since three of the six siblings live nearby. My sister PJ wasn't there last night, but the rest of us went to my niece Megan's home for an impromptu birthday party. We'll be celebrating my seventieth and Fia's fiftieth for the entire week, it seems. Tomorrow we will all go to see the movie Lincoln and today we'll have another gathering, with all of us in attendance.

It seems we only have family reunions these days because of somebody's death. Last time it was to honor  the passing of Norma Jean's husband Pete. In order to keep the entire family from descending on her little mobile home when he died in February 2011, we agreed that Norma Jean would come to Texas, and I flew in from Washington, so we had a wonderful gathering. I wrote about it here. I had barely recovered from spending three weeks in Florida before heading to Texas, so it was a particularly disruptive time in my life. But as a result of spending all that time with Norma Jean, we got into the habit of talking to each other two or three times a week on video chat. It seems incredible to me that we never ever run out of new things to talk about.

Because of our close interaction, we have changed each other's lives quite a bit. We read the same books, she takes the same fish oil I do, and we discuss the programs that we both watch. And before I know it, two hours have passed. It's a bit of an addiction, but now I get to see her in person, and we are even sharing a bed. She climbs into bed, turns over and doesn't move a muscle for hours. I feel a bit intimidated so I curtail the tossing and turning I would normally be doing, and so far it's been fine, I've fallen asleep without a problem.

We are in the living room right now, me writing my post, her reading the news on line. Usually I'm sitting up in bed with a cup of tea and Smart Guy asleep next to me. It's almost 7:00am but not even 5:00am at home. I haven't had any problem adjusting to the two-hour time change; I will probably have more of an issue when I go back home. As I get older, I notice I have become less resilient and less able to adapt to any change at all in my routine.

The first night I was here, Norma Jean, my brother Buz (who we are staying with) and I all celebrated being together by having a couple of bottles of wine. That's TWO bottles for three people. I was getting tipsy and drank more than I realized. Usually I limit my consumption by measuring it and not having more than one glass. I got into the habit of doing that when I was dieting and wanted to count calories, and I guess my body got accustomed to it as well. If I deviate and have TWO glasses instead of ONE, I feel it the next day. Yesterday I woke feeling pretty awful, and I didn't have that much extra wine. But it was enough to make me drink ginger ale instead of wine at the party last night. I didn't miss it one bit, and it was interesting to watch everyone else as the wine took effect.

We reminisced over the pictures I had on my iPad, pictures of all of us when we were young, our parents when they were young, and times, people and places long gone. One nice thing about the iPad is that pictures are large enough to share with an entire table, and we all remembered, laughed and cried together. This was the first gathering of many. Norma Jean will leave on Friday after Thanksgiving, and I will leave the following Tuesday. Until then, I am soaking up all the family I can, and my camera will be busy snapping pictures right and left. These will be added to our memories, but it will take awhile before they fade into the past. The imperceptible passage of time will change us from where we are today, and I won't notice it until we get together again.

We have been very fortunate to have all six of us able to have these reunions. There is no assurance in life that we will be able to have another, since the inevitable changes that come to us all may make it impossible. Thinking of that, I feel my heart swell with gratitude for the time we have together this week. I love each and every one of my siblings and our extended family. I'll still be here next Sunday and I'll have plenty to write about then, too.

Until then, I will be posting on my other blog. I want to say how thankful I am during this Thanksgiving week for everything in my life, including you, my dear readers. Many of you have become as precious to me as family, although we may never meet in person. Isn't life wonderful?

What a week that was

Leaves outside my door

Does anybody else remember a TV show that was called "That Was the Week That Was"? I remember it very well, but I'm not sure why. I just learned from that link that it was originally a BBC program in 1962-63 with David Frost, and then it came to the US in late 1963, running for the next two years. I remember it as a satirical and rather amusing take on the previous week's news. Since I was a young, impressionable woman at the time, I must be remembering it because it was so novel. I wonder what the program would have done with the past week.

Election Day last Tuesday I watched the returns coming in and since I expected that the polls were accurate, I presumed it would be very close. I spent the evening changing the channel between Fox News and MSNBC, and as you can imagine, I observed very different reactions to the results. As a lifelong Democrat, I was very happy that things went the way they did, but I began to get a little uncomfortable with the over-the-top reactions from both sides.

We are a very divided country, and I felt bad for my Republican friends and family, while still being very glad to see that many issues that mean a great deal to me have been upheld by a majority of the populace. The fact that we will have twenty women serving in the Senate next year is really groundbreaking, and every one of the men who made remarks about rape was defeated. Women stood up and voted their conscience. Even I had an opportunity to vote against one of them here in Washington state. That said, it's time to move on to governance and stop with all the recriminations and gloating. Please. I had to unfriend a couple of people on Facebook because of some really hateful remarks.

Moving on to the rest of the week now. It's Veterans Day here in the United States and Remembrance Day in Canada and the UK. I have so many veterans in my own life, and I would like to take a moment to remember and thank them. I have one of these flags displayed in my living room, in a very nice box. It was presented to me by my son's Commanding

Officer at his military funeral. Although he did not die in combat, it didn't matter: he still received a flag with three spent shells folded inside, representing Duty, Honor, and Country. Chris' birthday was yesterday, so he has been very much on my mind. He has been gone for ten years now, and the pain and suffering that I had to deal with then have become a memory, and those things I remember about Chris are now softened by time. But he will always be my son and will always be present in my heart. I was hoping he would visit me in a dream, but it's been a while now since that has happened. I still miss him. I will always miss him.

My father was in the Air Force, and I have so many memories of him in uniform. He was such a wonderful man and was only 62 when he died of a heart attack. Now that I am pushing seventy, it seems like he was so young when we lost him! He entered the military as a young enlisted man and retired as an officer, holding the rank of Major. When my niece Allison (who is a Lt. Colonel in the Army) was promoted to that rank, she asked my sister Norma Jean and me to be present to take my dad's Major leaves off her uniform and replace them with her Lt. Colonel leaves. It was a very moving ceremony, and in some ways my father was there with us. Allison is still in the Army and has been to Iraq and Afghanistan several times. We are all grateful for her coming back unharmed!

My nephew Joseph (Joey to me) has been in the Army for several years and continues to serve. My brother Buz was in the Air Force, and I'm sure I have several other nieces and nephews whose service I am forgetting, but I plead old age for not remembering exactly. So you can see I have plenty to be thankful for today. My childhood was spent living on military bases, and my first husband was also in the Air Force. The military has shaped my life in many ways, so today I can look back and give thanks for my wonderful family.

I finished my jury duty summons by being excused from serving, although last Monday I had to report and go through an orientation session. There were many more prospective jurors than were needed. While we were receiving our briefing, one of the two trials was dismissed. I was among those told to call back that evening to see if we might be needed later in the week, but when I called I was told my jury duty service was over. Perhaps next time that I'm called I will serve on a jury. It became obvious to me that the lower your juror number is, the more likely you are to be on a jury. Mine was 358, so there was little chance I would serve.

The weather has turned really cold, and a brisk wind made it seem much colder yesterday. I wandered around the dwindling Farmers' Market after taking a walk with the Fairhaven walking group and then headed home. Smart Guy cooked up the wonderful organic veggies that I bought at the market, and I settled in to watch a couple of my favorite shows I had missed during the week. We've got cable, and On Demand gives me a chance to view those shows without having to remember to record them, as we did in the old days. At one time we had tapes of previously recorded shows; how much the world has changed in just the past few years. Nobody has tapes any more or owns a VCR! Even DVDs are going away, as everything is becoming available through other means.

Yes, life moves on, things change, and our world continues to evolve. But what a week we just went through! This coming Friday I will fly to Texas to be with my family and celebrate Thanksgiving together, along with my sister Fia's 50th  birthday and my 70th. Norma Jean will be there, and I'm looking forward to seeing her in person. Since we talk on video chat several times a week, she said she would hold a picture frame around her face so I would recognize her! Have a wonderful week, and I'll be checking in next Sunday from Texas. Until then, I will be sending you lots of warm fuzzies.

Time change musings

Taken from the front walkway

My first week of having been summoned for jury duty was a no-show. I called last Sunday night and was informed that my juror number would not be needed that day and to call back the next night. When I called on Monday, the recorded message said that those who were serving on a jury should follow their judge's instructions, and the rest of us should call back the next day for further instructions. On Tuesday, we were all excused until our second week. I'll call tonight to find out what might happen this coming week.

I was a little disappointed that I didn't even need to report for an orientation session. I suspect that one or two juries were seated last Monday. They apparently summon many more possible jurors than they will need here in Washington state. I'm actually hoping that I will at least get to see the inside of the courthouse this coming week. However, if I get seated on a jury, hopefully it will not keep me from visiting my family in Texas over Thanksgiving. We'll see what happens.

The time change last night has caused me to wake earlier than I wanted. I really tried to stay in bed longer, but I wasn't all that successful. I lay in bed an extra half hour and then finally got up to make my morning tea and check all our radio-controlled clocks to see if they made the change. One of them needed batteries, since it didn't "catch" the change. Once I put in new batteries, it only took a few minutes for everything to show up properly in the display. I love atomic clocks!

When I wrote last week's post, my sister was traveling to the East Coast to be with her daughter Allison and granddaughter Lexie. In Arlington the winds and rain were not severe, but they lost power for half a day. They were all prepared for the eventuality, and everything returned to normal quickly on that part of the East Coast. The only problem I had is that some of my video chats with Norma Jean have been put on hold. I'll talk to her tomorrow before she heads back home on Tuesday. She had already voted in Florida before she left, so she'll be reunited with her sweet little dog (who she misses terribly) and her life will also return to normal for a little more than a week, before she also flies to Texas for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward very much to visiting my siblings, but I am not at all excited about air travel. Once upon a time it was fun, but these days I find it extremely taxing. Security lines, removing shoes, liquids in small containers... and then being crammed into a small seat for several hours with the inevitable screaming infant nearby.

In less than a month I will begin my eighth decade of life. More and more often I am reminded of my age. It's not only the aches and pains in my body, but the fact that memories of my youth belong to a period that no longer exists. I love the series "Mad Men" set in the 1960s because I wore those shirtwaist dresses and remember when people smoked everywhere. I was one of them. I smoked at my desk in the office, with my fancy cigarette lighter and ashtray part of my everyday life. The click of the lighter when I flicked it open, the faint smell of lighter fluid as it sprang into a flame. And the sensation of taking a long drag on a newly lighted cigarette.

I gave up cigarettes when I was in my early thirties, because it became obvious to me that I was unhealthy and overweight and needed to change my ways. Not long after I quit smoking, I started to exercise regularly, taking up running for many years, and then hiking up several of the Colorado mountains. Exercise became part of my life just as firmly as cigarettes had once been. That first moment when I stepped out the front door with a brand spanking new pair of running shoes is imprinted in my memory as the beginning of a sea change.

And now as I am turning seventy,  I can walk faster and more vigorously than I could fifty years ago. Because of positive life decisions made in my youth, the journey into the future continues to be bright.

A break from my routine

I received a summons for jury duty here in Washington state, beginning tomorrow, which says it will be for two weeks. This is the first time I've been summoned since moving here, but I was summoned three times over the years I lived in Colorado. Twice I was dismissed in trials for people who had been arrested for driving while impaired and were fighting it. I told the attorneys that I felt they were already guilty and could not offer them a fair judgment, since they had already admitted they were driving under the influence of alcohol. I was summarily dismissed.

And once I sat on a jury for three days. A woman was suing a man for an alleged rape, and I listened to the presentations of both the assertion of rape and the arguments in the man's defense. These took two days, one for the witnesses and aggrieved party to testify, and the second day for the defense to make their case.

The hardest part for me was to listen to everything and not be able to discuss it with anybody: not the other jurors, not my partner, simply nobody. I had some very strong opinions about what was going on here, and it was my duty to keep those thoughts to myself. Were the other jurors feeling like I did? Was I wrong in thinking that this woman was making it all up in a fit of pique? That's what was emerging in my mind as I listened to the arguments.

I am not sure how I would have fared in a long trial, because just in those two short days I was having difficulty letting myself get involved in any other activity. I was obsessed with the trial and couldn't read or otherwise distract myself. If I went for a walk, my thoughts turned constantly to the arguments that had been presented to me, and I couldn't talk to anybody about it!

Fortunately, we were given our final instructions on the third day and went into jury deliberations. What a relief to finally be able to talk about it! And interestingly, all but one other juror felt as I did. Since we had one holdout, a social worker who also acted as an advocate for rape victims (how did he ever get on this jury?), he brought up some interesting theories of the possible reasons this might have actually been what the aggrieved party said it was. But it was a stretch, a real stretch.

 It turned out that most of us were in total agreement about the woman's real intentions in this trial, to make the young man suffer. We finally all came into agreement, and within a few hours after we began our deliberations, we were able to deliver a "not guilty" verdict. When I walked out to the parking lot, the young man was walking out a free man after being in jail for something he did not do. Not to mention the time and expense involved for all parties.

Now I will find out whether I will end up on another jury, or if I will be dismissed or not needed during this two-week period. Since I'm retired and have no job to worry about, you'd think I would be excited about this break from my schedule. But frankly, I'll miss riding the bus to the coffee shop and hanging out with the regulars, attending my regular classes at the gym, and basically having my daily routine disrupted. I am also planning on a trip in mid-November to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I wonder what happens if you end up sitting on a long trial: do they break for holidays? (Probably not.)

It's been raining here all day and all night, for several days in a row. I walked with the Fairhaven walkers yesterday anyway; we only had a few sprinkles as we made our way through Whatcom Falls park. Thirteen of us showed up on a dreary day, and we walked through wide avenues covered with leaves, painting a colorful tapestry of gold, yellow and browns. Even when it's raining, it's really beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest. I would have taken some pictures but I was afraid of getting my camera wet, so I left it in the car.

So begins another Sunday morning as I sit here in the dark, partner sleeping lightly next to me, and the day about to begin. Tonight I'll call the juror telephone line to find out what tomorrow will bring. In Colorado, I was required to attend at least the first day for orientation, but this is Washington state and things might be handled differently. I'm glad I visited my previous experiences as a juror in today's post; my feeling about the situation has shifted to one of curiosity and a possible new adventure.

Have a wonderful week, dear readers. Until next time!

Looking at clouds

Taken from a moving car last Thursday

I love to look at clouds. It comes partly from seeing their amazing variety, but also because I really HAVE seen clouds from both sides: from being above them looking down wondering if I can avoid jumping through them, and from looking at them here on the ground, wondering whether I need a raincoat. Clouds are really beautiful. Could anybody be bored if you love clouds?

Sitting here in the dark on this cloudy and cool morning, I've been casting about for a topic for this morning's Sunday post. Several things are on my mind, but one keeps coming up for examination: how to create useful and satisfying activity in my daily life. Last Thursday twelve of us seniors headed up to the mountains for what seems to have been our last excursion to the High Country for the season: last night it snowed up there and the weather turned much colder. Yesterday I spent some time going through my warm-weather gear to make sure I have the proper items in my backpack so that I can continue to enjoy going outdoors. Back to the Low Country hikes.

I don't usually suffer from boredom, but I know there are many people who think retirement would be boring, that there would be little of interest to occupy one's time. Is boredom a state of mind? I would worry about it when I was working, since I knew that the way I occupied my days would be gone. One of my solutions was to move away from the place I had lived for more than three decades. No triggers or old habits were possible when the act of finding a new home, a new place to live, and going through our possessions and discarding much of the old life had to be accomplished.

Some people need structure, a routine for their days. I am one of them, and work provided that. I was always the first person to arrive at the office, make the coffee and get things started before the rest showed up. It was a good feeling, and I also could leave the office before everyone else. In the summertime it meant I had much of the day to do other things. I've always enjoyed exercising and being outdoors. I could go for a bike ride or run errands. Today, those things are still part of my routine. Frankly, I have wondered lately how I ever managed to fit a full-time job into my busy life.

One reason this is on my mind is that my old boss has asked me to take on an activity with him that I can do from my computer. It sounds interesting, but the real clincher is that I realize he needs my expertise if it is to succeed. He's calling it his swan song before he retires for good, and he'd like it to be a quality product. I said I would consider it, but as it gets closer to fruition, I find myself looking around at what enjoyable parts of my daily life will be curtailed until the job is done. Will I be sorry I agreed to do this? Can I still say no?

No, I'll bite the bullet and get the job done. It will be an adventure, if I approach it the right way. And it's got an end date. Winter might be keeping me indoors more often anyway. It's really funny to think that my daily life doesn't have much room for even a part-time job. I will figure out some way to enjoy the experience.

Just writing this all down, getting it shoehorned into my mental real estate, has helped me. It might not be very interesting to read about from your point of view, but it was a valuable exercise for me. I feel better now.

Sundays tend to be the least structured of my days, with nothing other than this post on the agenda. I'll be getting up soon and getting dressed, however, so I can drive to the cafe for my morning latte. If they have a good breakfast, I'll bring two of them home and share a nice Sunday morning with my partner as I read the Sunday paper. It's the only day of the week that I actually buy a paper and enjoy reading through it, rather than perusing everything on line. Then I'll consider whether the weather will allow a walk or if I might go to the gym and ride the elliptical. Or maybe I'll just hang out at home.

I hope that your day is filled with exactly what you desire, whether it be knitting by the fire, playing with your grandchildren, or looking at the clouds.

A change in the weather

I pass the ivy growing on the side of this building every day when I walk from the gym to the bus. Even when the sun isn't shining, the color is intense right now. I've taken pictures of its brilliant color before, but this year it seems especially red. The skies are dark, spitting rain, and the wind is blowing. Our long stretch of beautiful weather has come to an end. Now that I don't have a cold and could go skydiving, the weather is not cooperating. I'm just not ready to say that the skydiving season is over, but it probably is.

Last night I kept thinking about a video I watched yesterday. It is from the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, about a bunch of ducks mistreated by their owner and rescued by the sanctuary. They were all adult ducks and had never been in water before. It's less than two minutes long, and I've now watched it several times, each time with feelings I can't quite identify. (You might want to make it full screen since I can't seem to figure out how to get it to fit into my existing column. The sound is nice but not necessary.)


The birds were terrified of the water and had to be reintroduced to it several times, until finally one of them realized that it was, well, fun. Before long all of them had taken to the water and were enjoying themselves immensely. It made me realize that all creatures know little of life except what we experience at birth. How would a duck know that it belongs in water if it never is around it? How would any of us know how wonderful life could be if we are mistreated when we are born? That is all we know, and that's what we expect as we go through our days.

I guess that's what the feeling is: a mixed one of sadness that some of us are not given our birthright, and gratitude that there are people like those at the sanctuary who help creatures to have a better life. Adding value to any life is worthwhile, and it makes me hopeful that we humans will one day tip the scales towards compassion rather than neglect. I realize that this might be a bit of a pollyanna point of view, but it's the one I choose. I'd like to think that we are evolving towards kindness and the comprehension that we are all in this together.

Although it's dreary outside, I'm enjoying the change in the weather. I have a warm safe apartment to share with my partner, and we can stand inside and watch the trees bend in the wind and listen to the rain. I don't need to go out in it until I have girded myself with appropriate gear. It's hard to believe that only a few days ago I was in full sunshine in the High Country with my friends, sweating and slathering on sunscreen. Yesterday I pulled my expensive eVent raincoat out of the closet and used it for the first time in months. It will get a workout for awhile now.

I have looked at the long-range weather forecasts, however, and I have learned that we are expected to get a bit less rain here in the Pacific Northwest than usual. For the past two winters, we've been inundated with higher-than-normal snowpack, so it might make for a nice change. In fact, I might even get to skydive this winter, if the weather cooperates at all. The only thing I need is sunshine, even if it's cold. You go up in the plane and jump out, having only a few minutes to deal with the cold. In Colorado where the sun shines most days, I jumped year round; any time it was above freezing on the ground you would see crazy skydivers loading the plane, swaddled in enough clothes under their jumpsuits to look like overstuffed teddy bears. I was one of them.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I remember one day when we had a heavy snowfall all day long on Saturday, nice fluffy Colorado powder. On Sunday morning I woke to see that the sky was completely blue! I packed up my stuff and headed to the Drop Zone, knowing that there would be others who would want to jump, once they cleared the runway. And sure enough, I made three or four skydives that day, landing in soft powder snow. It looked odd to see steps in the snow that seemed to start from nowhere heading to the hangar. I suppose I wouldn't do that again today, since I have so many more skydives now than I did then. But then again, I also know now what I might miss out on!

One thing that we can all count on: whatever weather we are having right now will change. Every season is ostensibly only three months long, and the years flow by, giving us everything from rain and snow to brilliant blue skies. I wish you many days of whatever weather makes you happiest, with just a little bit of the other kind to remind you how nice it is when you have your favorite weather.

A weekend to remember

Deb, me, Sally, Sandi, and Jann at Vashon Island Farmers' Market

This is the weekend of the bloggers' Vashon Island getaway. I'm starting my Sunday morning from the farmhouse here on Vashon Island where we have been staying since Friday afternoon. I wrote about some of it yesterday on my other blog. But the story of how we decided to get together here is worth telling.

Linda (missing from the picture above, since she was busy checking out the booths at the Vashon Island Saturday morning Farmers' Market), who writes the blog Thoughts from a Bag Lady in Waiting met Deb one morning at a Starbucks in Vancouver, Washington and discussed the possibility of having a gathering of some bloggers that they both follow. They emailed five of us about it, and all but one person accepted the invitation to investigate the feasibility of getting together somewhere. Linda researched some possible locations and dates, and we decided on this weekend and chose Lavender Hill Farm on Vashon Island. After some difficulty finding the ferry (covered pretty well in those two previous links), we have spent the last few days together, getting to know each other in person rather than as virtual entities in the Blogosphere.

We have discovered many things about each other that we didn't know, but mostly there have been only a few surprises in personalities. It makes me realize how much of who we are comes through in the words we write on our blogs. I have been taken by surprise by the dry wit of one, the elegance of another, and the sheer generosity of spirit in every one.

Although I am a bit saturated by all the interaction of the weekend, I am filled with an amazing sense of camaraderie that has developed between us. We've shared, we've cried, and we've laughed until we were holding our sides in pain. Last night I had to pull myself away from the living room and make my way to bed so that I would have time to write a post this morning.

I am the oldest of the group, with the youngest, our baby, nine years younger than me. We are all in our sixties, all committed bloggers, and two are still working as teachers and knew each other before they started blogging (Deb and Sandi). I will write one more post about this weekend on my other blog before I will move on to other things. As I sit here with a cup of coffee, in the living room so I can watch the sun rise and illuminate Mt. Rainier, I am feeling introspective and wondering what I've learned from this weekend.

One thing I've learned that surprises me is that I have actually become less extroverted, and for the first time understand the need for quiet introspection. Since I retired, I haven't been exposed to such a concentrated dose of interaction and find myself looking forward to pulling out my meditation pillow at home and sitting for some time. I miss Smart Guy and the connection that has developed between us since we've moved here. The past five years have changed me. In any group, some people talk more than others, and I've always been one of them, but this weekend taught me that I no longer have a need to be the center of attention for extended periods of time; in fact, it's a bit daunting.

In a group of bright, articulate women, I fit right in. In retirement I've continued to grow and change, and it makes me happy to learn that. I guess I thought that once I no longer had the stimulus of productive work, I'd stagnate and become someone less interesting. That's not true, not for me, not for any of us who have retired. Linda is extremely active, traveling all over the world on a shoestring, marking things off her bucket list, and learning to be certified as a mediator. She performed her magic on me when I got an email about a possible contract job I might (or might not) take on. In a half an hour, all the different aspects of the situation had been examined in terms of what it means for me, and what I want out of it. I am impressed and grateful for her expertise.

There's just the tiniest bit of light in the morning sky, and I m looking at Mt. Rainier on the horizon, thinking about this amazing weekend and what I've learned. It's been an education in more ways than one.