Do You Know What This Is?

Out of context, it may be difficult. Here's some background. When I was working, I usually dressed, put on some make-up and then jazzed up even the plainest outfit with a minimum of jewelry, usually a pair of ear-rings. Since I retired, I have given my skin a rest and never worn my ear bobs (don't you love that term? Chiefly Southern, says the dictionary.) Except for special occasions. The problem has been that the wee little holes in my ear-lobe have closed up a little. This has caused a problem when I have tried to wear the only expensive David Yurman ear-rings I have. You should have seen me before Lucy's wedding, poking the little probes through my ear lobes —finally succeeding. So I have practiced this aural acupuncture more frequently and my favorite jewelry tends to be drop ear-rings. I bought a lovely set last week. Here's the back and front. HOWEVER, the little fish hook doo daddies have a tendency to fall out if the ear-ring touches my (or anyone's)
shoulder. Hence the plastic thingamajig. HOWEVER, the manufacturer fails to take into account the inability of elderly fingers, especially ones suffering from the twitches, to line up the hole in the plastic with the probe on the fish hook.

Are my ear bob wearing days over?

Product

I have observed that whenever a person has a haircut, the question that is asked when checking out is "Do you need some product?" On the shelves behind the checkout desk are bottles and jars of fragrant potions which make up the "product". Product for curly hair, product for frizzy hair, product for limp hair—well, you get the idea. I always answer politely, "no thank you." And that's it.

I like the guy who cuts my hair. He's quick, doesn't talk much, looks at the way my hair is behaving (and it does seem to have a mind of its own these days) before he hands me over to Samantha to wash it. Last time I was in his chair, he muttered, "You have dry scalp." Samantha who was standing near by agreed. He poked around until I dared ask, "You mean dandruff?" He acquiesced. Head and shoulders, have you let me down? Andy and Samantha agreed I needed product. I supposed I agreed too.

Fast forward to checkout desk. Samantha hands me a small, neat bag with a shampoo, conditioner and stuff you rub in. I have product! I always write a check. Quick and easy because it is always the same amount. This time the bill was twice as much and then some. I'm a coward: I paid it. But they are not going to catch me napping again. "Product? No thank you."

Amazing Things?

Last week I got an e-mail from Flickr. That’s the service I use to store some of my photos and, like many of you, to organize them in sets. Better word than organize—separate them. I have photos of a wedding and a funeral: the photos and the commentaries I could make were more appropriate when kept separate.

The e-mail was excited to tell me:

"Amazing things are happening at Flickr. We’ve made a lot of important upgrades to your service that we wanted you to know about."

Note, they had already done it and now they wanted me to know. What were these changes?

"Biggr.That’s right, a terabyte*"

Thank heavens the asterisk explained what a terabyte is—

*500, 000 pictures, 537, 731 6.5 to be exact.

The cute spelling continued—

"Spectaculr. Share in full resolution

Wherevr. Available anywhere you go."

Of course I went immediately to my Flickrpage and was taken aback by what I saw. It looked like a collage, but I had had no input into what photos I wanted in what size. After some research I made a little more sense of what  had been done, although as a Pro member I found no indication of whether my Pro subscription would be refunded now that I had a free terabyte.

I thought I would find some assistance by googling help  (there didn’t seem to be a help button on the Flickr page) and came across a help forum with almost 30,000 comments. Among them was “What an UTTER heap of CRAP”, Stupid, stupid and more stupid”, “It sucks”. Some I couldn’t repeat. Apparently the comments were shut down and there are another 6,000 in the new comments page. Many of the comments covered technical issues I could not understand, but there were enough dealing with aesthetic issues to let me know I was not alone.

I must admit that over the years Flickr has made it much easier to upload photos. I was using it as a vehicle to allow friends and family to follow our lives visually and yet provide an input for narrative. I have yet to find out what will happen when I try to upload new photos and create new sets—and I must figure out how to remove the berries in the banner.

Do any of you use Flickr? Any concerns?

A Tale of Two Garages

“Two car garage, five bedrooms”. Sounds a pretty impressive description if we decide to sell the house, doesn’t it? I have already told the full story of the five bedrooms, bedroom number five being frigid in winter, a furnace in summer. Not exactly truth in advertising.

Let’s move on to the garages. When we bought the house, there were indeed two garages, an unnecessary luxury for us since we only had one car. To get into the garage we had to drive down the driveway, unlatch a gate and maneuver through (and, during the years we had Murray, first tie up a walk-craving dog), latch the gate and make our way gingerly into the garage, avoiding a sturdy metal basketball post. So even one garage didn’t get much use.

Somehow I didn’t pay much attention—I was working at the time—when my husband said he was getting his trustworthy Grazio Brothers “to brick over the large area of driveway in front of the garages and had contracted with Eddie to brick up one of the garages to make a workroom.” Well, many thousands of dollars later he had his workroom, which, of course needed a door. And a heater. And a table saw. As the years went by, thanks to the children, the room acquired a television and a refrigerator, and became a man-cave.

As for the  other garage—needless to say it became the repository for all our garden equipment, bikes and general junk. No way a car could get in, especially since there is a large bench on one side which I laughingly call my potting bench. This side looks a little smarter this year since we have a new door which I can once again open with an electronic switch. When my children were younger, they did their best to “decorate” the walls.

Here we have the German poet’s wall (in translation):

Here the English poet's wall:

Here the pets' and siblings' wall:

A lot of memories in what started out as a "2-car garage."

Easy Peasy

Everyone born in Iowa likes corn. A generalization maybe, but it is certainly true of my husband. It sure makes cooking dinner in the summer easy. It also makes for a meal which is totally unhealthy for anyone, especially the older generation, of which he (sorry sweetie) is one. You see, the final touch is lots of butter and salt.  To complete his preference,  the only thing resembling a vegetable is sliced tomato (sprinkled with vinegar) and of course the best kind of sliced tomato is fresh off the vine, which around here is in late August or September. So for the time being, I have had to improvise.

This year we have had two meals of corn. In this last one I incorporated two pork cutlets, hacked off a loin which I was getting ready to cut in two and freeze. Pork, of course, is another favorite of sons of Iowa—and my sons-in-law. Since all I have to do is boil a pan of water and throw in the ears of corn (immaculately shucked) for a few minutes, I will not complain.

But should any of the local gentry drop by for dinner, I can gussy the whole thing up a bit.

Mothers' Day

Or Mother's Day. Collective or one single? Oh, never mind, I prefer the English version anyway. Mothering Sunday sounds so much more kindly and gentle and avoids the sound of a Hallmark holiday (which is is.) Also avoids the punctuation problem.

This holiday is coming up on Sunday and therefore many a pastor or priest has been saved the trouble of composing a homily by offering up a paean to mothers. I never thought much about it until I read a blog post which my friend Liza brought to the attention of her Facebook friends. It is considered bad blogging etiquette to eviscerate a fellow blogger's post and post it in its entirety, so let me tell you that you can read the whole thing here. I am going to reprint the prayer which I found so very moving. A number of my friends experienced losses this year and sometimes remarks are hard or even inappropriate to make. There's a lot to think about here and in the comments.

To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you

To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you

To those who experienced loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you

To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.

To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you

To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you

To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you

To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you

To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we acknowledge your experience

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst

To those who have aborted children – we remember them and you on this day

To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children – we mourn that life has not turned out the way you longed for it to be

To those who step-parent – we walk with you on these complex paths

To those who envisioned lavishing love on grandchildren -yet that dream is not to be, we grieve with you

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you

And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst. We remember you.

Keeping up Appearances

I was adding a note to a birthday card to a friend in England when I wrote “Must go. I have moved to my upstairs study and it is cold.” I had the grace to finish up with a brief explanation of my grandiose comment.

It is getting warmer now and I am happy sitting at my desk in Lucy’s old bedroom with my computer and my collection of stationery and books. I moved in here when I got my laptop. I realized if I didn’t move fast this room too would be annexed by my space hungry husband. How did Lucy ever sleep here? It is freezing cold in winter and steaming hot in summer. When I realized the problem, I packed up my tents in Fall and took my laptop down to the playroom in the basement where there is an old desk of mine with the requisite drawers and a lovely gas fire to keep me warm. In spring it is back upstairs until the heat drives me down to the basement, where it stays cooler longer, then nomad-like to any space with a window air conditioner.

I was going to include a photo of this room to relieve the monotony of the prose. I have some in the catalogue of photographs I took for the insurance company. You know how people sift through pictures of themselves to select the most flattering to insert on Facebook or, dare I say it, blogger? I couldn’t find an attractive likeness of this room. The main problem is that years ago I put up wallpaper here. I did a super job. The walls are smooth and there is a lovely frieze. Some time later, we had a door blocked off and although it is nicely plastered, I had no way to cover it. The wallpaper is no longer produced and the thought of stripping the existing wallpaper and starting from scratch did not appeal to me. After those pictures were taken we did get a bookcase from IKEA which fills the hole quite nicely, but not perfectly.

I didn’t want to post an imperfect picture. Would you think less of me? I doubt it. This room is immensely practical, but Martha Stewart would raise her eyebrows.

I wonder how many of us are guilty of this, especially as we blog. There are blogs which give details of the writer’s visits to a psychiatrist, problems with obesity, their children’s desertion, losing their job, but how many writers gloss over these conditions, publish photos of smiling children, describe a pleasant incident, which even the most unhappy have, and cover over the parts of their lives they are ashamed of?

And perhaps the bigger question, does it matter?