$723.06

My disappointment grows apace!

Years ago, when I started this blog, I went to a great deal of trouble to install Sitemeter (I just couldn't get it at the bottom of the page.) I wanted to track the thousands of people who were going to read my blog each day—who were they? where did they live? who referred them to my site? Each week I eagerly opened the report from the folks at Sitemeter giving me the harsh facts. I get one screen listing the domain name of the last 100 visitors. That's pretty meaningless because it is mostly numbers. Hm, "Churchbutler", I quite like that one. Then there is the location list. Nice to make new friends in Bogot, Cundinamarca, Colombia and Khabarovsk in the Russian Federation. There are are other confusing reports (Out clicks, Exit Pages, Entry Pages) but nothing can disguise the grim truth set out in the Summary. Average readers per day, between 8 and 11. Even worse, when I took that hiatus and published nothing for many months, I still got 8-11 readers a day.

Here's the final straw. I was looking at stuff on my iPhone to while away some waiting time. I don't like to do that because I find it difficult to read screens and virtually impossible to write. I must have been in an area related to Sitemeter. I think. But this is what I found:

There are nine million, three hundred and forty three thousand, eight hundred and sixty one people in the United States who "rank" higher than me. My blog is worth $723.06. What does that mean. Content? Style? I could raise that amount if I advertised beer? No IPO for me. I'm dispirited, but I'll plod on for a while.

To Everything There is a Season . . .

. . .  or maybe not.

October is certainly the month to clean up the garden ready for spring, Everything is dead or dying: the phlox is mildewed, the peonies have black blotches on their leaves, the shastas and black-eyed susans have proliferated, but cannot keep themselves from their ultimate demise. Everything must go into large paper bags or the compost. I try to get everything done before it gets too cold, but right now it is hot and I rush around trying to work in the shade. Anyone who has read this blog in the past knows that this is the time I quote Laurence Binyon. Wade through the post until you come to the link to his glorious poem. Each year I quote it brings me one year closer to the time that someone else will welcome the beauty of the re-born peonies and phloxes.

As I cut down the plants, look what I found. I had  taken my dead and yellowed Easter lily outside in spring and planted it in the hope that it would have understood the message of resurrection and bloom again next year. One thing you can count on around here is that the lilies will burst into bloom right around the Fourth of July. And here it was, the Fourth of October. I hadn't noticed it coming back to life until it was uncovered. Perhaps there is a lesson for me here or a topic for a homily.

P.S. Today is Liz's birthday and I can't find a photo. She will be so happy, but I have to acknowledge this special day.

Something Came Up

Remember those words. I have heard them twice lately in annoying circumstances. The first time was three days before our first set of summer guests was due. The installation of air conditioning was supposed to take three days—a narrow window of time, but hey, that's us you are talking about. The workmen were due to arrive between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Shortly after 11:00 I called and asked where they were. The scheduling engineer replied, "Something came up". He had, so he said, just heard from Arthur, the crew chief, who was on his way to Chicago. Family problems, he muttered. That is a phrase with which I was quite familiar in my working days. You can't really argue with it, you should not enquire into the nature of the "something", especially with the addition of "family" even though you know it can include anything from a hangover to sleeping in. You swallow it and go on. In this case, of course, I couldn't swallow it. I wanted my air conditioning before six small children and their parents arrived. And I got it. The only problem was that the new crew didn't have time to explain how it worked. But it did work pretty well, in spite of us. (Later on, we got a charming engineer out who was patient and explained it all. I was happy.)

After everyone left, I was so glad that my wonderful housecleaners were due. Not as impressive as it sounds, but two nice women from Poland who understand elbow grease. I dragged out all my cleaning stuff and buckets and rags etc. and just ten minutes before they were due the daughter of one of them called to say they wouldn't be coming because —you guessed it—something came up. And they couldn't come until their next scheduled date, two weeks hence. So I was on my own and it didn't hurt one little bit.

I have not posted here for a while. Any one looking for an explanation?

Something came up.

It Has Taken Fifty Years

I have finally begun to like baseball. When I first arrived in LA and started my life in the States as a Teaching Assistant, my fellow TA was a delightful man called Joe Margon. Joe was way older than me and had lived in New York with his wife and two children. After he moved to LA he earned a living working for MGM, reading books and plays and giving recommendations as to whether they would make good movies. Somewhere along the way he studied classics and was admitted to the University of Southern California as a Ph.D candidate. That first summer I told him I could not see the point of baseball, which seemed to me like a glorified version of rounders. Now football, the American variety, I could see, but not baseball. Joe looked most upset, but we were way too busy for him to explain why he thought I was wrong. He did mutter something about a game of the mind.

Time marched on and in 1968 we were in Detroit with two small children. If I thought I was busy when the topic first came up with Joe, that was nothing to this time in my life. When I got a chance to read the paper or watch the news, I realized the Detroit Tigers were having a great season and we were watching when they eventually won the world series. Together with most of the population of Detroit (and I suppose with those two small babies) we poured into the streets and we drove up and down Jefferson, beeping our horn. Not probably the smartest behavior.

The Tigers repeated their world series victory in 1984, though I don't think it made much of a ripple in this household. It is conceivable that they will repeat again this year, although you would never guess from the game I watched last night. They lost 4 to 20 to the Boston Red Socks. One of the joys of watching on ESPN is that there is all kinds of commentary, necessary and unnecessary, telling me that this was the worst Tiger loss for 20 years. And I have got my co-habitant telling me all the rules, even the ones I know. My daughter Elizabeth pitched for John Carroll University, her husband Jeff plays short-stop for a church league and their son, Henry, is a real baseball fanatic and Tigers supporter. I just talked to Liz who told me she and Henry (that's him in the Tiger shirt) spent three and a half hours in the emergency room last night after a ball hit Henry in the eye. He's fine.

Now I will revert to my heritage and try to figure out soccer.

In Which She Demonstrates the Courage of her Convictions

No secret that I have a favorite blog: the first one I go to every day is Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By. She very carefully selects "elder" as being the best and most appropriate word for people of our generation. Besides very well researched posts on Social Security, the Affordable Care Act and matters like Sequestration, she deals with more "social" matters. If you go to her blog and search on "elders and", you will find entries on "elders and loneliness", "elders and loss", "elders and voter suppression" and many other similar topics. Try it. This week she dealt with the paucity of well designed clothes for elder women. You may be interested in The Media's Take on Elders, which is a prelude to a number of later entries where Jay Leno and other comedians knock the older generation of geezers.

This is where I come in. Sort of. Grosse Pointe has few places to buy a decent birthday card. There used to be a couple of stores with Caspari cards, which I loved, but they are gone. The grocery store and the drug store don't work. Believe it or not, there were attractive and thoughtful cards in the Hardware store, but it too has taken off. Of late cards have been on offer in the corner of the second hand Treasure Trove, next to the post office sub-station. So that is where I went. And what did I find? The majority of cards had images of elderly men in shorts with knobbly knees and wearing sleeveless undershirts. The women all looked like Maxine, wrinkles galore and everything sagging south.

I just couldn't buy them, so I thought of Ronni, approached the young man who obviously sold second hand diamonds and asked for the card buyer. As usual in these situations, he was at lunch. I expressed my unhappiness and with the unctuousness they teach at second hand diamond selling school, he suggested we look at the selection of cards. He pointed out the card with the glittery flower—about the only semi-decent card—and I gave him my lecture about elders and image, bought the card and left.

I can't help feeling Ronni would have organized a march on the Better Business Bureau with a sit-in outside this store. Maybe next time.

And just in case . . .

. . . you wonder where I have been since that last post, take a look at this.

One group left, another group came. Just enough time to get clean sheets on the bed and take another trip or two to the grocery store. And then one more wonderful week of swimming and picnics and barbecues and fire pits and sleep overs (thanks to Kate who seems to be able to handle anything).

Al and three boys left this morning and I just had enough strength to upload some photos. This one needs to be re-cropped—Patrick on the right is losing his head—but I am going to bed. Eleanor, the adorable one on the left, is coming for a couple of days, but I think she is actually going to take care of me instead of vice versa.

I declare the summer over.

Just in case . . .

. . .  anyone has been wondering where I have been, this will give you some idea.

Andrew, son number 2, together with his wife and six children, came to visit. So nine of the  cousins in the neighborhood came swarming, along with their parents. There was swimming, food (lots of food), a party to celebrate Josephine's fourth birthday, more swimming, and more food. So many thanks to the eight parents for their help.

Andrew and Marcie left at 7 a.m. this morning, and there is no way I am going to get caught up on this blog—son number 1 is arriving on Monday with his four boys and we will start all over again.

I'll fill in the gaps later.