Sunshine Almost Always Makes Me High

When we were kids mom told us to listen to the elves dancing on the roof whenever it rained. To this day I love the sound of rain. I like everything about rain. I like watching and listening to the rain. I like being inside when it rains and I love walking to work in the rain. So it is good that I live in Seattle where one gets wet many days of the year. Truth be told however, walking in the rain with hood up and head down is not very neighborly. We walk fast to our destinations, rarely connecting with others who are doing the same thing.

But give us a sunny day or the promise of a sunny hour and the streets fill with friendly happy Seattlites strolling cheerfully and greeting friends and strangers. One of the greatest benefits of living in this rainy place is the absolute joy that fills the city when the sun does actually shine. Rainlovers have a deep deep appreciation for the sun...and today was APPRECIATION DAY!

Store Bought Food for the Mean-eyed Cat

Big city grocery shopping is all wrong.
Walkerchick knows it's just wrong to drive to any store.
Multiply the wrongness by ten since the nearest market doesn't carry buttermilk or caraway seeds.
And while she's at the drive-to grocery store looking for caraway seeds, she loses her personal parking place down the block. The one that her neighbor covets and her loyal car usually protects while she WALKS everywhere.
Behind the wheel,she stalks her city neighborhood searching out a new spot that meets her criteria: 8.5 or better on the mature woman's parallel parkability scale.
Round and round she goes.(Repeat chorus!)
Her previously petite carbon footprint now scares Sasquatch.
It's just wrong.

Deep in my heart..........I do believe

Dear Ralph,

I wanted to answer your question about whether I felt even a little uneasy years ago when we paid a lady only ten dollars a day to come to our house to make biscuits, iron our clothes, clean our home and care for our child while we went off to work determined to raise issues of civil rights and save the world from Mississippi Racism. And I have pondered that question for months and months wondering if I had a better, deeper more PC answer than the simple uncomfortable truth. The answer is, the irony is,I can't remember feeling uneasy. Mostly I remember how grateful she was that we paid her cash and how good the biscuits were. Mostly I remember that we could barely afford the $50.00 a week that made it possible for both of us to have jobs. Looking back I do know that we treated her with great respect, trusted her with our treasured child and showered her with gratitude. I wish I could tell you that I was more awake and aware! Mostly I was a young white yankee liberal trying figure out how to live in the south without getting killed by rednecks or snakes. I don't know where she is today. I don't even know her name. I do know that I am glad you asked the question.

Seeing Angels In the Architecture - Lunch Conversations with mom and her friends

"I have a toothache and that's a bad thing and a good thing."
"What's good about a toothache?"
"What's good about a toothache? The good thing is it means I don't have to go to the physical terrorist for my backache!"

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"Sarah you're all dressed up!"
"Going to my son's for Christmas Dinner"
"Well you look like Doris Day!"
"Aren't you the most DAH-LING CHALD"
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"Did I tell you that the chef here used to cook at the white house?"
"No! Which president?
"Well I think it was sometime after Truman.
"Hmm"
"Did I tell you that the chef here used to cook at the white house?"

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"So you're here from Seattle? Isn't that nice for your mom!"
"Yes! Have you been to Seattle?"
"Oh yes - I visited there in '40 just before all Hell broke loose."
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"I am so happy to be here near my kids and grandkids. And a special surprise has been the food. Did I tell you that the chef here used to cook at the white house?"
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"Being ninety and stuck in a wheelchair is tough - but having wonderful friends and wonderful food sure does make life easier!"

Just like the ones I used to know

One year ago I was SNOWED in SEATTLE for days and days and days. Today it is rainy and warmish. Guess where I'm going tomorrow (maybe) - Washington D.C.

Her Eyes as Clear as Centuries

Long term care insurance.
We take care of ourselves.
Until we can't.
Anymore.

Like A Poem I Meant to Write

Heading to DC to spend time with my mother. She isn't bouncing back - at ninety it's hard to bounce after a hip fracture/surgery/time in a pt rehab facility/ a grueling trip from Delhi N.Y. to Falls Church, VA /12 hours in an emergency room/hospitalization and a return to her home with the support of two nurse's aides. She is tired out, losing weight and has to force herself to eat.
My sibs and I have learned more than we ever want to know about how old,frail people become low priority in busy hospitals - and how critical it is for a family member or advocate to be present for everything that happens. My mother's children live miles apart and have grown even more distant over the years. We have come crashing together determined to make this time in mom's life the very best it can be. We realize we have never in our lives communicated with one another on this deep close- to-the-heart,this-is-what-I-really-think-about-life-and-death level. I am awed by them, my brother and sister, a former hippy mostly democrat and a former sort of hippy totally bush republican. Grownups who bring just the right measure of intelligence, compassion, diplomacy, humor and inyourfaceassertiveness to get the job done. Why am I surprised that I like them so much? At 58,59, and 64 we have some catching up to do. We don't call ourselves children. But my mom does. Proudly.

One Way to lose...these walking blues

Walking to work update: Love it love it love it.
Walking home from work update: Uphill all the way.
Living in the city update: Why didn't I do this years ago?
Quality of life update: Two extra hours in every day.
She's got diamonds on the soles of her shoes!

Days Falling Backward into Velvet Night

Turning ninety in August was a milestone for my mother, in fact for an entire family blessed and cursed by both the longlife and shortlife genes. Turning ninety with all of her charm and intellect intact was an accomplishment she cherished and we celebrated. My once tall mother is now tiny, and fragile with skin so thin the blood pools at every touch. She is lively, strong-willed and determined most days. She has scores of friends and always makes sure others are included and supported. In her Independent Living community she writes and edits a monthly newsletter, makes lively contributions to her book group, and attends the opera. She refuses to be assigned a regular place in the dining room, insisting that she will "eat around" because life is more interesting if one meets and connects with all of her neighbors. A week ago she took a spill, broke her hip, went into surgery and woke up confused and disoriented. Her mind, more precious than her mobility began to slip into other times and places. The docs said this is not unusual as there has been a combination of trauma, anesthesia, painkillers, oxygen levels, and dehydration. Glad to report that time and Gator Aid seem to be making things a bit better.

Mourning Rain

Sam Owen was twelve and full of hopes and dreams.
In March his pink cheeks turned gray.
All the love and support and medicine in the world couldn't make those cheeks pink again.
Sam Owen turned thirteen last week in a hospital bed.
His best friend read Sam's Bar Mitzvah while his dad held his hand.
Days later the motorcade that made the somber trip along the blue you can live forever lakes stretched for devastated wretched mournful miles and miles.
Sam Owen was a beautiful beloved boy.

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

We did some time in Mississippi. He had a a pretty neat University job and Lonely Rivers thought that her job would change the world. Baby Rivers celebrated her second birthday in a house that flooded everytime it rained. A woman came to our house every day before we woke up. She made biscuits from scratch and then she ironed our clothes and cleaned our house. She wasn't afraid of the spiders and killed snakes without a blink. She made us blackeyed peas and greens and cornbread. Her laugh came from deep deep in her belly,but she never called me by my first name. Not once. She loved Baby Rivers who loved her right back. She charged ten dollars a day, cash. It pains me to say that try as I might, I just can't remember her name. First or last. But I sure do remember those biscuits.

How the heart approaches what it yearns....

I am tired of driving to work. I am tired of sitting in traffic, or wondering in winter if I can get home because of the snow and ice. So I am moving. I signed a short term lease on a city apartment. I am not selling my house. I am probably crazy. I just don't want to drive to work anymore. So for the next several months I will live in the city. I will walk to work. In the rain. I will take the bus or I will walk. Maybe I will write a book about being a crazy old lady who is tired of driving. In the rain. Who moves to the city. To walk to work. In the rain. And in the sunshine. Just walking in the rain. Getting soaking wet. I am not retiring. My car is.

Seniorita With a Necklace of Tears

She is a nattering nabob of negativism. A safire in the rough, rough world of my work. She complains no matter what. I can count on a regular phone call or an email (cc'd to everyone she can think of) with her opinion of why something we did or said or didn't do or didn't say is wrong. Usually I say "I am deeply sorry you are feeling that way." I have kept a file of her emails over the past five years. My fantasy: to flood her mailbox with all of her own complaints - backatcha baby.

Moonlight Sleeping on a Midnight Lake

He came to our family when he was three.. skinny arms and hopeful brown eyes. A mind of his own. We told him he was perfect and showed him his new room. In the middle of the night he got up and made a pot of coffee..a three year old with a mind of his own. Who had been on his skinny own. Too long. Long twenty seven year story short. I'm pretty sure I saw him today, I think it was him. Brown homeless eyes and a mind of his own. Lonely lonely rivers.

One man's ceiling is another man's floor

My neighbor's blackberries have climbed the fence, slithered into my trees and are lunging toward the hydrangeas. Feisty and mean these aggressive critters grow taller, bending,winding and grabbing. Kudzu with teeth. Cutting them back is dicey. I am left nursing jagged scratches. Fighting blackberries anywhere in the Northwest is a never ending battle, but one I have tried to fight over the years, hacking here and there and being a good neighbor at the same time. Clipping, hacking, not really admitting that my gentle soul is bent on killing. Minimal and fleeting success, a day or two, before the monster roars bigger and bolder. My yard erupts in blackberry laughter at my feeble violence. I read an article "brutalizing a blackberry only serves to invigorate it's determination." My property would soon be swallowed. I headed to the neighbor's house with forced resolve. I would smile. I would be friendly. I would carefully suggest that we consider just a tiny drop of blackberry getridder from a bottle with a skull and crossbones. Just a tiny drop. Not something I would ever want to do,but...... At the door wiping her hands on her apron, she smiled, she even hugged me. "Why hello neighbor! Come on in and join us," she gushed, "we're making blackberry crepes!" War postponed. Indefinitely.

I Want to be POP-ular

Blessed I am. I get to see good theater regularly. Sunday I sat with hundreds of others enthralled with the sights and sounds of Wicked. The music has been in my life for a few years now, I had read the book, so Sunday was like the magic moment when butter and sugar stop being butter and sugar in the mixing bowl...the minute you know that everything has come together perfectly for a delicious treat. A treat made more lovely by the charming eight year old in blue tulle and tierra who sang every lyric as she clutched her mom's shoulder througout the production. Thrilled she was. Blessed I am.

One Day She Left Without A Word

She took away the sun. Blogging is a wintersport. I guess I'm back and the lemon flower is sweet.

Like a Beautiful Child, Growing up Free and Wild

Spring Sunshine Sunday in Seattle. We've got the bluest skies you've ever seen, the greenest hills, two giant lakes, white beaches, and ferries crisscrossing the waters of Puget Sound! Throw in a couple of snow capped purple,silver,pink,mountain ranges on either horizon and you've spelled Seattle. This rainy town turned inside out, sunny side up today, gardening, street festivaling, cheese festivaling, Norwegian festivaling, farmers marketing, and soaking up the sun at Greenlake, Golden Gardens,and Alki Beach. Sunday special: PC Lattes one dollar - no Styrofoam anywhere in our little town! Strolling Queen Anne cradling compostable coffee cup, smelling the lilacs and loving life. Sail on silver girl.

You Make the Weeping Willow Tree Smile

Though her house was full of her own children, barking dogs, slamming screen doors, neighbors in for coffee, and endless cooking, there was always room and time for the cousins. Interested and excited by the details of our lives, she was the Queen of Questions: "What are you reading? What do you think of it? Was that pretty sad? Did you just feel so happy when you heard that? What is your favorite....? How did you decide that?"

The Queen of Questions was also the Duchess of Delight: "Let's build a swimming pool in the back yard. Get a shovel. Maybe we could use the long picnic table for a game of Billy Goats Gruff...who wants to be the Troll? I bet there's a way to make Chocolate Popsicles. Better yet, let's all march down the hill for ice cream cones. And on the way back let's throw a few m&m's in the creek for good luck!"

Or the Mistress of Mischief..packing the younger kids in the slightly cracked trunk of the car to sneak into the fair after teaching the older kids how to cross the creek and sneak in on foot. Or the Wizard of Wonder, waking us up in the middle of the night to stand at the window to watch the flames against the distant horizon as the Oneida Market burned to the ground.

Everyone's favorite English Teacher, she loves good books, the theater and edgy movies: "LR - I think we should see this movie - it's just out, not really reviewed yet- but let's be the first- it's called - The Graduate!" She loves parades parties, fireworks, marching bands and airshows. She put a bit of glitter on every minute of every day. She has been our very own Auntie Mame.

Making memories has been her vocation, her magic, her gift. And she gave it all she had. All she had. At eighty five, my always lovely, once lively Aunt now struggles to remember. She cries out with fear and frustration. She can't grasp that she has created a precious and treasured legacy. She doesn't know that she can't lose my memories.

Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition

Lonely Rivers is rapidly growing tired of being in charge. Challenges inspire creativity, there are no problems, just opportunities. Hire great people, treat them well, teach them well, celebrate their success, keep building the team. And let them know that the the buck always stops here. Bring on an earthquake, a flood, three weeks of too much snow, a recession, or the swine flu and LR begins thinking about giving up the "big bucks" for a nice job as a follower, a taker of directions, a passive recipient of the decisions of others. Oh to be able to sit around and criticize the boss, complain about the lack of plastic spoons in the lounge, and second guess most anything. Pass the buck. Dream on.