Tales from the Old

I sat with my father at his lunch time in the dining room of his care facility. He had tucked another clean linen napkin away in the basket of his walker to add to the crisply folded pile in his room. His regular table mate sat mute and smiling, carefully finishing the gelatin topped with whipped cream as his current girlfriend chatted with me about my wonderful father. 

Again she told me how nice it was to finally meet me ('again' because we had the same conversation last time I visited). Enthusiastically the woman went on about how highly my father spoke of me.  Her late husband had been an LAPD officer and they had known my father since he was 16.  What are the odds? Anyway, as she went on about what a gentleman my father was and how he loved my mother and called her his "little English wife", she started to vary from the tale I'd heard before.

Mentioning La Canada, where she still had a house, prompted her to divulge that, in a hushed voice, she couldn't go back, however much she wanted to, because of the dangerous neighbor. As we sat talking at the table, Dad's usual table partner quietly left to sit by the piano, saving his girl a seat so she could join him later. She continued to tell me in a low voice how a Jewish man had moved in to the house next to hers. She said that "they" put up a good surface appearance, but that he was dangerous. He had tried on many occasions to kill her with his car. She had even gone to the police station to report him; but he was tricky. Her daughter decided it was too dangerous for her to continue to live there, so she found this place as a temporary solution.

I said that her daughter must be very concerned with her safety to have moved her here, and it was important that she stay safe here. As this well-spoken woman went to join her boyfriend (does she know he is also Jewish?), I wondered about the brain and how it creates parallel realities. I thought of her daughter getting a call from the police station about her hysterical mother, and the decision made to move her to a care facility. My father has told residents and workers that the dog in the lobby painting is Ginger, my childhood dog, and sometimes that my sister owns the building and I am the Principal of a school. Perhaps all of the pattern-seeking brain activity that has gone on all our lives takes the side streets as we age, making sense of the strange neighborhoods we find ourselves in.

I sat at in the car thinking about this woman and her stories and I wondered how much truth there was stirred into the cauldron of her tales. There are over a hundred residents in this place, each with stories to tell. Fantastic, semi-truthful, historical, personal stories. What a treasure box of fables! A book could be written about the secrets, dramas, love stories, and mysteries swirling around the halls and dining rooms of this neighborhood aging care facility. I'd better get started...

Growing the Good Will Pile

Today is breezy, and after the rain stops there is a nip in the air. It's the weekend, when what I wear leans more toward comfortable than stylish...or flattering.  I put on pants and reach for the old faithful long-sleeved, high-waisted, slightly faded, knit top that hangs from my chest to below my hips. I even think as I look in the mirror - hmmm, this always makes me look a little pregnant, but I don't care what other people think. Comfort is king. Wrap a scarf around my neck and off I go. 

When I flag down a sales lady at the middle-aged-lady's shop that I occasionally make purchases from  she takes my selections as she says, "When are you due?"  This is so out of context and outside of my thought process that I don't take it in until she opens a dressing room for me and says, "Oh, July? Here you go, let me know if you need anything." Does she mean, no she couldn't possibly. OH MY GOD SHE DOES. Waves of emotion wash over me. Speechless, flabbergasted, MORTIFIED, I can barely stand and nothing looks good on me, in fact all of my choices are too big. As I sneak out of the store avoiding the sales lady, 

a big smile crosses my face. She actually thought that I looked 

young enough to be of child-bearing age.

I LOOK YOUNG ENOUGH TO BE PREGNANT.  

That must mean that I look at least 

 TEN YEARS YOUNGER than I am. Wow, I look gooooood. 

  Dance of Joy.

Thank you, sales lady, you made my day. And that top is in the Good Will pile, of course.

Jumping into 2012

I've been chopping and browning and chopping and seasoning (did I mention chopping?) all morning. And as I make chili to celebrate this new year, I've been thinking of my dad. My dad was a famous chili maker in his circle of friends. Every Memorial Day weekend a group of families my parents had camped with for years would have a chili cook-off. It was a festive but at the same time serious and competitive affair. And every year my dad would spend the day before with a variety of meats and spices and onions and peppers. He left beans out long ago, and often combined cuts of meat. The spices he used also varied, and he tried to keep it edible to most (he loved it so spicy that only a few could stand it).  Sometimes he'd start with a bag of spices he'd purchased, sometimes he'd mix his own. Although I loved to watch and be enveloped by the smells coming from the kitchen, my dad wasn't one to divulge his secrets easily. He took pride in coming in first place more than once, and was almost always in the top three. He would always say it was his "secret ingredient" that made his chili special. I have the feeling that the secret changed every year. For me it was the process and the love and care he put into it.  I wish I'd known that the man I watched with a mixture of amusement and admiration would slowly disappear before my eyes in just a few years so that I'd payed more attention. I wish I'd joined in more often.  I wish that dad was with me today.

Today I welcome 2012 by honoring my past and looking forward. Everyone is home for one more day, so we'll all have chili and cornbread and maybe a salad for dinner. Today I honor you, Dad, by chopping and browning and mixing and stirring a pot of my closest approximation of your wonderful chili. It's a great way to start a year that will be full of new experiences, challenges, and changes! Happy New Year!

Friendly Skies and Super Stars

In the last 24 hours I have looked into booking three, no, four flights for my three kids. Wow, it's a busy time of year. Personally, my favorite airline to book with is Southwest. Easy online website, no change fees if you do it online, no bag fees, and lots of flights and prices to choose from. 

Chicago daughter was going to be home this weekend after a long ago planned trip to Vegas, but got a second interview on Tuesday for a job she really wants, so back to Chi town she goes. Can you guess how much it is to fly out of Vegas on a Sunday night?! They've got you if you have to be at work on Monday! It was cheaper to have her drive with her friends back to Orange County and then fly out of Long Beach on Monday. She'll stay with Auntie then get dropped at Long Beach airport. So I won't even see her until she comes back. Hmmm, we don't know when. I guess that will be the next flight I book.  

Youngest child is headed into her first college finals week ever. Not sure how she'll survive, but she's got friends to help her through. And she's growing by leaps and bounds every week.  However, she's still not sure if she'll have a final on Friday, and the flights home from San Jose are expensive except for the 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning or the 7:00 p.m. Saturday. When will you know if you have to take that Friday final??!  Oh, well, at least she's booked for Saturday. 

Today my son called asking me about flying in to town next weekend to meet friends near Irvine for a trip to Big Bear. Should he fly into Burbank and we meet him with a car to drive south? We have four cars for the two of us at the house right now, but I suggested he fly into Orange County, go up the mountain and back, then sleep at his Aunty's house so she can drop him at LAX on her way to work on Monday. She's coming in very handy over these two weekends, a super star in the eyes of my kids (as well as me and my tired cars), and the bonus is that she gets to see her adored niece and nephew (who are hard to pin down under normal circumstances). 

I'm exhausted, so I'll be at home, drinking wine while I sit in front of the tree listening to holiday music, waiting for my home to be full of my family once more.

Holidays 2011

So I'm baking and cooking and shopping and planning for the big meal on Thursday. LOVE this time of year. But because 1/3 of my children will not be joining us it is also a time of year that leaves me melancholy and sad at times. And because of the hormonal challenges that accompany this age of my life I am alternately elated, depressed, angry, impatient, happy, hyper, or tearful. Right now I'm hyper and happy, so I thought this would be a great time to post a holiday blog. 

So the story behind the reason that my middle maiden does not join us from Chicago is that she was supposed to stay in Chicago the Thanksgiving of the first year she was away at college due to the cost of travel. But I couldn't stand the thought of her being away so, with help from Grandma, I secretly flew her home. Picked her up at Burbank airport, 20 minutes away on a good day. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is not a good day. It took us 6 hours (yes, I said 6) on the 5 freeway to get home. The first two hours were wonderful, full of catching up and reminiscing. After that there was a lot of lying and backpedaling on the phone to those at the house to try and keep Claire's arrival a secret, and other than that we were out of conversation. And had to pee really, really badly. I'm pretty sure by the time we got home everyone had figured it out. Claire and I are still scarred from the experience.

Needless to say, we haven't done that since, and she has established a wonderful tradition of making a feast at her apartment with the other ex-patriots hanging around. I'll never forget the first year of the feast and all of the phone calls I got about oven temperatures and how long it takes for a jello to set. Of course I loved every minute of it!

So Thursday we have some old friends joining us who we haven't seen in a couple of years. The needs of our parents have taken us away from each other recently, but we have decided to adjust as needed. This year my cousin won't be joining us because her daughter-in-law has a new job and is on call, so she wants to be available to spend an on-call Thanksgiving with them. I totally get it. Our family comes first, but in order of priority: Kids, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, lifetime friends, other friends, acquaintances. As kids move out and get jobs, as parents age, as siblings marry and procreate and divorce, things change and we flex with that change. Fortunately, in the United States, the holiday season starts at the end of November and lasts through the New Year. Hopefully we can all see each other at some time during the holiday season!

Chardonnay and Calm, Blue Seas

How did this happen? The last year of my 40s is slipping away like sand in an hourglass. The boys of summer are finishing up their run. My class is humming like a well-oiled machine. Evenings on the patio are crisp with the clear, fresh wash of cool breezes flowing across our valley. How on earth is 2011 almost over? 

My children are spending time with each other independent of me, or my planning. They now enjoy each others' company and call/text/email/message each other regularly. Life moves on without consulting me. Come on, I'm supposed to be in charge here!! I guess I should just relax into it and let it happen. It's inevitable, the passage of time and the changes in me, my husband, and those around us (most of our changes involve sagging body parts and unexpected aches and pains -god, are we really talking about our health issues??). Mo and I talk more about retirement planning and living trusts than what we are going to do this weekend.

I'm having a hard time with all of this. Anyone else? I can no longer keep track of the current stars of the box office or Billboard charts. I feel so.... well, so... hmmm. Behind? Old? Out of touch? Like I've stepped off the train and am sitting on the platform watching it roll by. But with a glass of really nice chardonnay in my hand, or maybe gin and tonic. With lime. In my gloved hand, wearing a nice wool coat. With boots. Really tall boots. But not the ones with the spiky heels.  Waiting for the other train. The one that takes me to the pier where the cruise ship departs. Yah, that's it. The cruise to the Mediterranean. Okay, I think I can slip into this phase of life now. As long as there is wine and calm blue seas...

Change and The Light

There is a moment, a day, in September, when the light changes. The sun crosses the sky at a lower angle, the shadows are longer, the afternoon feels later than it actually is. These are the signs that fall is creeping towards us, ready to sit at our table very soon. Everything is a little more golden, a little less brilliantly outlined, a little softer, more shadowed. This change affects me. Today, it feels like a nation of change.

Ten years ago violence against our nation struck all of us. Each one of us has a story of where we were, who we were with,  and where our family members were at that moment we found out about the planes. Every one of us has a story of how we have changed, how our lives have changed because of this experience. All of us felt the horror, the heartbreak, to our core, and all of us remember how we came together as a nation afterwards.

I did not listen to the radio that morning, so when I walked into my classroom and found my partner teacher on her cell phone, asking anxiously if the person on the other end of the phone had heard from his daughter yet, the urgency and grief on her face made me think that someone in their family had died. She looked at me incredulously and said, "You haven't heard?"  Every day since then, and I mean every single one no matter where I am or what I am doing, I wake to or turn on the radio to listen to the news.

The light signals passing time. A new season approaches. The tears still come when I see the images and faces of the tragedy of 9/11/01. I don't think the passage of time will ever change that.  Where were you? What did you do? Please share this post and respond. Sharing experiences is a privilege and one of our most important human experiences.