Nostalgic Trip to the San Bernardino Mountains

Driving up the grade to Lake Gregory where we were going to spend a few days, I was pleased that each curve and turn looked familiar even though it had been several years since we had come up this way. As we drove, Don and I talked of the many different people with whom we had shared these mountains: Our children, both of our brothers and their families, parents, school and church groups, and several friends. We began our trips up the San Bernardino mountains separately with our parents, Scouts, and different childhood friends.

            Together in our forty-eight years, we have camped in a tent with our kids, even when they were just babies, camped with relatives, stayed in a lovely condo with other relatives, attended church camps at least five times, and enjoyed several different hotels or motels. We’ve hiked, fished, and cooked over an open campfire, gotten lost once, and even attended a concert. I’ll just mention a few outstanding memories:

            Sleeping on the ground, gazing at the incredible stars.

            Walking through Pine Knot Campground with my mom and dog Twinkie.

            Watching Dan, Jenifer, and David playing in the forests and lakes.

            Washing hair in the icy water in the campground with my
            sister-in-law Barbara.

            Fixing Thanksgiving dinner with my other sister-in-law Valerie.

            Kayaking on the lake with Don.

            Taking my sixth grade classes to Camp O-Ongo for a week.

            Learning and worshipping during church retreats.

             

            During this short get-away, we drove up the additional twenty-six miles to Big Bear just to take a look at some of these places from our past. On our way we took a look at one of the camps we had attended, tried to locate a couple of campgrounds, and looked at stores we had patronized and restaurants we’d enjoyed.  The lake was full to the rim of the dam and to the edges of the road which bisects the lake at one point.

            Every season has brought us joy during our stays: Snowfall, sledding, and snowball fights in winter; rivulets of water running here and there watering daffodils and an abundance of wildflowers in the spring; the warm smell of pine forest, more flowers, and blue, blue sky in summer, and crisp nights, turning leaves, and frost in the fall. Of course blue sky, incredible cloud formations, and bird songs are always a part of every season. I trust we’ll be able to enjoy many more seasons in the San Bernardino Mountains.

           

Automation Nation

My grandmother was born in 1888 and died in 1982. She was born before there were a million of the appliances, conveniences, and necessities we now enjoy, and died without ever using a credit card, seeing a computer, a cell phone, or flying in an airplane. It’s almost mind-boggling how much technology has advanced in our nation and around the world in just the last thirty years, and I have no doubt it will keep advancing.

            Today we stopped for coffee at a shop in Riverside. We parked on the street at a parking meter which took coins or a credit card, (never saw that before).  We went in and ordered, and while waiting, I went to the restroom which had a unique lock on the door. Passing a 3”x 4” “Women’s” sign over a small light near the door automatically opened the lock! Throughout my life of using public restrooms, I’ve been given brass keys attached to various objects such as a blue kitchen funnel, a 12” piece of dowel, or a short toilet plunger, but never something electronic. Motel room keys are now plastic cards as well, but they must be inserted into the lock to activate it.

            Once inside the restroom, I had almost nothing to do as the toilet flushed by itself, the soap, water, and towel were on sensors and did their job without me, and as I left, the light went out by itself. Only in the airport in South Dakota did I see more automation, and that was an automatic seat-covering device!

All of this has become so “normal” I have caught myself with my hands under a regular faucet for a few seconds before it dawns on me that I have to turn, push, or pull the handle for water.

            Advancing technology in the restrooms of the nation is a tiny example of the whole progression which IS mind-boggling and a bit scary. I can still remember a cartoon I saw back in the fifties of a human who had a shriveled body from lack of exercise, a gigantic head to encase its ever-developing brain, and a long, muscular index finger for pushing the buttons which launch the systems it needed at the time, whether it was technology or housekeeping. Perhaps I’ll begin exercising my fingers!

           

 

Gardening

Strolling through plant nurseries has become a delightful pastime for Don and me. He has always enjoyed doing so, choosing plants, containers, and any other yard-related object he needed, but I am a Joanie Come Lately to gardening. We have started hanging out at three or four favorite gardening spots, buying plants with exotic names like Myoporum, Dymondia, as well as more familiar ones like fushias, gardenias, and geraniums.  It’s extremely fun!  I love Sunshine Nursery in Encinitas where each section has a theme, any plant you desire can be obtained, and they are healthy enough to be transplanted without dying!

Until recently, yard work meant pulling weeds to me. Our half acre had a “wildness-of-untamed-forests” feel to it, but over the years, my husband had planted it pretty much the way we liked it, and my self-appointed job was to try to keep the unwanted plants, for that’s the real definition of weeds, pulled out or chopped down from between the iris, wildflower beds, roses, and whatever other seasonal plants were there. Basically, it was a battle between us and weeds, dirt, and a myriad of garden pests.

Our new yards, front and back are about one-thirtieth (1/30) of our old ones.  This translates very roughly to one tree instead of fifty, two rose bushes compared to forty, no lawn in contrast to two huge ones. You get the picture. So choosing how to change and beautify our yards has taken on a whole new meaning to me. Together we have chosen large, irregular flagstones and beach pebbles to replace hideous red cinder rock. We’re working on lovely ground covers, and flowers, flowers, flowers.

Even watering is restful here as it can be accomplished in a short time and uses a fraction of the water we spilled out before.  Of course the watering brings the guys that love to eat our plants such as snails and rose slugs, but again, there just aren’t that many to deal with!

Banking Woes

Under our mattress is looking better and better as a safe deposit box. Today, for the third time since we moved, our online business with banks has gotten hacked into. First was Paypal linked to Bank of America, second, Wells Fargo account we’ve had forever, and third, the brand new Wells Fargo account we had to open when the first one went down a few months ago. Now we have to go spend hours in the bank redoing our accounts, passwords, debit cards, and checks.  

            Here we sit.  I know it’s just me, but somehow I feel like the criminal! It seems like it’s no big deal to the bank. Our agent isn’t surprised and comments, “It seems these hackers do so well at that they do, wouldn’t they be awesome in a regular job?”  Prison latrine I’m thinking. We’re advised to buy a new computer as her computer shows our account has a virus. This is the same computer in which we invested hundreds of dollars with Geek Squad to rid of a virus a few years ago.  No online banking anymore, that’s for sure.

            An hour later armed with new accounts and all that goes with them, we left the bank with no ATM cards or money. Ten days without money unless we want to go into the bank each time we need it. That’s like the olden days!  Or I could do what my mom did once: Hide the cash in a paper towel roll and when the roll is empty, throw it out! True story.

Maybe I will keep my new debit card under the mattress when it comes.

             

SOL – Save Our Language!

This morning as I read my favorite cartoons, I was like, “What in  the #%&*#% is happening to our language?”

My husband was all,  ”Don’t let the thang bother you.” 

Then I was all, “Jusfegitaboutit!”

All kidding aside,  LOL, we’re experiencing the downward spiral of English in every walk of life.

When I hear, “She was all, ‘Get outta my face!’” I understand that a girl was angry and wanted another person to leave her alone. However, the laziness of the speaker is irritating and is an example of the demise of our verbal communication.

As a reader, writer, and sometimes editor, it is troubling to encounter certain words which used to only be scrawled surreptitiously on back-facing walls of buildings or freeway underpasses, now used nonstop in novels, magazines, and the vocabulary of half the population. Sometimes words are thinly disguised so as not to offend, but even the youngest reader knows what effing, freaking, f_____, and frigging are supposed to mean, and thinks it as they read the substitute. Sorry.

Thousands of perfectly good adjectives are no longer used because this certain word, in every form imaginable, is the adjective, adverb, verb, and noun of choice. After all, it’s so much easier than finding the perfect part of speech. Certainly, someone will say only that word will do because the situation called for it, or the people being written about used it. However, I think there are much better words to describe anger, sadness, despair, or any other emotion.

We are used to seeing  “#%*<&” in our cartoons representing any sort of profanity.  Who knows, if we aren’t careful, the real words may someday be in cartoons just as they already are in many other forms of communication.    OMGosh!

Spiders

One of my Facebook friends recently wrote about her fear of spiders; …”there is a SPIDER out there, and I'm petrified!” She mentioned being neurotic about them, and as defined by the dictionary, I also am! A neuorsis is accompanied by various physical, physiological and mental disturbances; anxieties or phobias. Yep, that’s me when it comes to spiders.

          Since my early years, nightmares of spiders covering the floor around my bed have kept me from putting a foot out of bed, and watching Arachnophobia sure didn’t help that! My first day of teaching, I opened the door for my third-graders to walk in, and there in the doorway sat a huge spider, and yes, I could almost hear it rasp, “You’ll never get past me, much less teach!” HA! I thought as I squished him, heart pounding, face with a phony smile.

          Over the years I have worked at becoming more tolerant, studying spiders, their habits and homes, and I’ve gained a grudging respect for the orb arachnids. They’re the ones which labor in the garden, weaving beautiful, round, intricate webs to catch their prey. The ones which disgust me most are those which lie in wait under refuse or wood (even under a toilet seat) i.e. the brown recluse and black widow, lazily watching for a victim. Ugh and ugh again!!

          About the aforementioned mental disturbances, a prime example of that also happened in my classroom. A friend had offered a living tarantula as a so-called pet to me. Again, trying to work through my phobia, I accepted his “gift” and had him put it in a wire-front cage. The children loved to watch “Charlotte,” such an original name, as she crawled slowly around on the floor of the cage. For myself, not watching her was fine with me. However, one afternoon as I sat in the front of the room, reading aloud to the kids, I happened to glance up when Charlotte jumped on to the wire and spread out her eight hairy legs.  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you an electric shock went through me even though a good thirty feet and four rows of kids separated us! Normal? I think not.

          Actually, my fear doesn’t mirror the young woman on a recent commercial whose screams prompt her dad to beat the picture of a spider on a cell phone to death, but I’m close. Grateful isn’t a strong enough word for the dear guys who have come to our home over the years to exterminate spiders.

This was in our paper yesterday.  It's the full moon and  a you-know-what!

Too Many Dishes

I just unloaded the dishwasher again! It seems the two of us use way too many dishes, but some people say to be thankful for a lot of dishes because it means you’re well fed. Oh, we’re well fed alright, but not thanks to my cooking.  If it weren’t for the scores of restaurants in our town, we might go hungry. Also, a whole roasted chicken from the store can provide three meals if you divide it up right; sliced the first night,  tacos the second, and chicken noodle soup the third.

            Actually, my husband tells me he likes what I cook, and we don’t really eat out THAT much. My repertoire of dishes prepared without a recipe consists of hamburgers, tacos, spaghetti, hamburgers, ta… Oh darn. Well, things will be looking up because my son-in-law brought me some delicious samples, one of which is a plastic squeeze bottle of garlic! I coated a roast with it today before I baked it, and except for needing to keep the stove fan running for the rest of the day, it worked out well.

            I feel compelled to confess a few cooking disasters, one just yesterday. I decided to cook my oatmeal in my little frying pan because it has a non-stick surface. It cooked much more quickly than usual (timer malfunction?) and boiled over. Not a first, the boiling over part, but when the sticky stuff poured into the bowl, a definite layer was left in the non-stick pan. I’ve eaten fruit leather, but never oatmeal leather!  Then there was the exploding Pyrex dish when I tried to brown a roast in it on the burner, the stroganoff with only sour cream which went into the sink and was replaced by straight tomato sauce, and the incredible stuck-in-the-dish 4 C Pie from a Sunset magazine. Too long to tell here.

            Perhaps all the dishes to wash mean something else. I know the community college here offers cooking classes. Maybe I’ll sign up.

Contentment

It’s been a year since we left our spacious home on ½ acre and moved into a  much smaller house with a teeny yard in a gated community 90 miles from our former life. Although the choice was ours, and definitely the right one, there have been moments of doubt and distress. Tears, a few sleepless nights, and lots of driving around our town; partly to get acquainted, but also to get away from our new reality, have taken up much of each day. The joy of being close to at least one of our children and family has made the move worthwhile, but still tough.

            Then some dear friends began to change my outlook on the move and our new surroundings. They are a couple dedicated to an association which sends people as volunteer teachers of the Bible to children. They recently moved to a large city on the east coast, also leaving their lovely home AND their children, and grandchildren.  Their new home is a 120-year-old house which sounds fairly lovely, but they only get one room, and must share a bath with two other people. This accommodation is on the third floor, accessible only by the long, creaky and wobbly staircase.  When I talked to my friend the other day, she was, as always,  upbeat, thankful, and an example to me. Her voice only quavered when she talked about doing laundry in the dark basement, a spidery, dirt-floored area.

            I was contemplating sending her a flashlight and a can of Raid, when I could almost hear her voice, “God is good all the time; All the time, God is good.” Can’t really send liquids anyway, so I’ll send money and prayers to help them along. Meanwhile, I have learned a valuable lesson in being content!

           

 

Politics

Politics

O.K., I know I shouldn’t touch this one with a ten… no, make that a twenty-foot pole, but politics is a subject which interests me.  Not the bickering, name-calling kind of politics, but the honest to goodness workings of our government and the men and women who either keep it going or gum it up. When my teaching assignment was fifth grade, we studied the branches of government (Executive, Judicial, Legislative), read from our texts, and watched educational cartoons like, “I’m a Bill.” I learned  that Democrats and Republicans are the two major parties, and if a person wants to know more about them, the internet stands ready to help.  It all rubbed off on me and made me more aware.

            Each morning the newspaper and my homepage blurt stories of what’s what and who’s who in the daily torrent of governmental parties’ information and behind-the-scenes intrigue. It seems most of it anymore is about money; why we don’t have it, who does have it, and how our government can get it. One story today tells me a candidate is having trouble raising money for a campaign, and the other that the U.S. has trillion dollar debts. Talk about gumming things up!

            Anyway, I like to talk about politics, but no one else that I know does. We’re all interested but have been trained since youth not to talk about politics, religion, or money. We may be divided by party lines and ideologies. Maybe we‘re afraid of starting an argument which we think would alienate a friend or family member.  Perhaps we might have to acknowledge our thinking was mixed up on something and feel the need to change direction. That in itself could make us feel wrong or dumb. Who knows? Until we figure it out, I guess we’ll go on discussing the weather, clothing, criminals,  and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Hmmm, sounds a little like politics.

We're Home!

          

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!  Nothing like getting back to home, sweet home. We’d just spent two happy weeks in Hawaii, taking in as many sites and sights as possible. Pulling into the driveway we noticed our drooping garden. Our neighborhood teenager we’d hired to water must have forgotten! Take care of that later.

            Unlocking the front door felt great and we were so glad to get into our comfy home again. I flipped the kitchen light switch…no electricity? Great. Call Edison.  The counters had a strange look to them; sort of black and MOVING!! Ants, millions of ants had invaded while we were gone. Find the Raid.

            Must go pick up the dog. The kennel keepers comment when identifying him; “Oh, the mean one!”  He’d bitten the guy, for which there was an additional charge.

            “The bank called while you were gone; we have ten bounced checks because your paycheck never got deposited!” Call the district office for clarification and an argument. Ahhhh, will it never end? We’d only been home a few hours and I still needed to do three tons of washing as well. Get started.

            As I turned pockets of jeans inside out, a dozen little lava rocks fell out of mine. Now I remembered the sign at the Big Island volcano museum. The goddess Pele was a jealous keeper of her lava, and anyone who stole some would experience bad luck! Nah, couldn’t be.

            That was the extreme frustrating end to a vacation, but I find coming home after traveling is always bittersweet. Coming back to reality after a mountaintop experience can put me in a “mood” if I’m not alert to my emotions and keep reminding myself of all the good things in my life. My father-in-law always said a good vacation meant you’d had a good time but you’re grateful to be home.

No Sweat

 Exercise

When I was a student, I guess natural exercise came with the territory of going to school and having a job. Whether I was getting enough exercise or not did not occur to me as it seemed there was never enough time to even sit down as I was always running here or there, from class to class, work site to work site.  Usually ending the day beat and hopeful of sleep by 11:00, sit ups or MORE running was out of the question.

            By the time I had my second teaching job, we had three kids, and there again, adding more exercise to an already strenuous lifestyle would have been too much for me. As the kids got older, I did add two 10Ks and a 5K, complete with all the hours of running to prepare. It was physical torture with nausea at the end for good measure. Ugh and no thanks!

            However, now that being retired is a reality, exercise is much more necessary, though still not so desirable.  There was the L.A. Fitness era during which I’d skulk into the gym, work on the stairmaster or treadmill ‘til I wrecked my hip falling down some concrete steps. (such a klutz) We bought a stationary bike and even had a Nordic Trak for a short period of time. Both of us felt like Lucille Ball on that thing. I never could rub my tummy and pat my head at the same time!

            So now I swim and can truthfully answer “yes” when asked if I exercise. Now the trick is keeping my head above water!

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Why did I think I could be friends with the caulking gun?

Why did I think I could be friends with the caulking gun?

Such an interesting question, and posted for all to see on Facebook. Hmmmm. Had I ever tried to befriend such a tool? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Such an ugly, gangly object became known to me while I was trying somewhat in vain, to upgrade and beautify my bathroom. The marble counter top and the pieces which sat vertically all around the top, (perhaps called splash-something-or-others) had a large, unsightly gap between them; skinny in some areas but wider in others.

            By doing some research on how to fill such a gap  (asking my husband about it), and then making a trip to the hardware store, I made the acquaintance of the odd ungun. Next came actually using the thing; Insert head of tube into metal frame, squeeze handle with firm pressure, blah blah. A thin stream of white goo began to ooze out from the tip, and my adventure began in earnest. Guiding it along the thin gap between the marble pieces seemed simple enough and truly did the job. However, as the gap widened, more goo was needed to fill the space. As I spoke kindly to the gun and tried to gently squeeze, it became obvious that nothing was being filled anymore and the caulking disappeared the moment it came out. It wasn’t the gun’s fault…there was a bottomless cavern behind the gap.

            Practice can make perfect, but in my case, each new foray into caulking proved a disaster for me.  Sad as it was, we never became friends and I leave the oozy work to Don.

Love vs Responsibility

Blog One – Intro and Love vs Responsibility

Writing a blog may be viewed as self-centered by some, including myself, but perhaps it’s more of an outlet for  those of us who enjoy writing and feel we may have something one or two of our friends could read and enjoy and even find value in it.

            This blog will not contain heavy thoughts, advice, or doctrine, but rather will be my ideas on anything I want to write about. Don’t expect a daily entry or any semblance of philosophy. I’m a wife of forty-eight years (yes, to the same guy), mom of three adults, two sons and a daughter, grandmother of two darling girls, and a retired public school teacher with thirty -six years under my belt.

            Speaking of my daughter, we were talking together with another woman over lunch last Sunday.  This woman was telling us about the struggle she was having to pull her mom out of a somewhat depressed state of mind into which she had sunk. She stated something like, “I want to help her to be happy but she shows no interest in anything I plan.” 

            My comment off the top of my head was “It’s not your responsibility to make your parent happy.” Many times these off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts get me into trouble, especially when I voice them. This was no exception because my ever-alert daughter asked if she could have that in writing for the future.
          The friend then explained she felt more a desire than responsibility to help her mom because she loves her, and because she raised and supported her from birth to the present.   Love trumps responsibility for sure.