Filling up and spilling over

LR loves the music at FO's shop!

Market studies must say that Norah Jones sells stuff. Why else would every retail establishment and most elevators play constant Norah Jones? There must be a connection between the impulse to buy and Norah's Noises. LR was one of the first fans...an early Norah adopter of sorts. But face it: it's just like the salivating dog, play Come Away With Me.. and LR begins itching with primal retail longing. Too bad Norah..no longer the dark divine diva- you are now the musical muse of merchandising.

Fierce Business Owner Friend has her own approach. No market studies for her! Nope. FO personally picks all the music for her shop. Every single tune. A little bit blind opera singer, a little bit country Sara kicking Evans and a little bit Kate Smith Climbing Every Mountain. A little bit God Bless America on any day the congress passes healthcare reform. Throw in a very little bit Norah Jones and some YMCA and you have a very happy FO, and customers who are buying like crazy! Once she gets them shopping FO lets loose: KD Lang,some very old Chris Williamson and then latterday Joan Baez. Amazing. Amazing. Grace. LR likes it all. FO's music Rocks!
LR loves helping out at the shop. And she gets paid! To listen to music. By the hour.
Wake Me Up Before you Go Go.

No Catchy Title for This One.

I need to be writing about health care. Instead I am fooling around with adding things to my blog in honor of having a birthday that qualifies me for a senior citizen bus pass and Medicare. I did not sign up for medicare because right now I have excellent health insurance and fairly good health. Others I know are not so fortunate. I want to believe that the battle has been won and now no one will go without the treatment and services they need. The ugliness around this issue hurts my heart.

Dappled and Drowsy and Ready to Sleep.....

Without that yellow notebook LR would be listless.

My Erica of the Windy Yellow Hair

A blustery day in Seattle. LR drew the short straw. Get the balloon bouquet. Sure. No problem. Except for the gusty breeze. Picture LR...holding her hat to her flying hair with one hand, skirt dragging in the puddles..floating Mary Poppins style up fifteenth following a herd of wayward balloons. Picture LR. Stuffing balloons into the backseat of silver civic, looking like a very bad day at the Macy's parade with muddy skirt blowing in the wind. Picture LR punching at one balloon after another as each struggles independently to escape its silver civic backseat fate. Picture LR driving one handed and blindly through Capitol Hill, peering through a sea of ornery balloons and swatting them down with her free hand. Picture the relief as destination is reached with no human or balloon casualties. Lonely Rivers battled balloons today. And won.

The Clock Don't Jump Off the Wall, Thelma

Lonely Rivers is not in favor of clock changing. She keeps her mind agile and her friends frustrated. Look at her clocks and know instantly: either add or subtract one hour...or trust the hour. Then add or subtract a range of 10 to 17 minutes. No problem.

Makeanewplan, Stan

Lonely Rivers has a list.

Not a bucket list or a SarahLulu list, just a list of everything she wants or needs to do. A new list begins every January 1.

List 2010 lives in a yellow spiral notebook now held together by a wooden pinch clothespin. Lonely Rivers will write one day of the virtues of the two essentials in life: a wooden pinch clothespin and a fondue fork. LR believes that success in life, business,friendship, parenting,and marriage depend heavily on having these two critters on hand. That is for another day.

Lonely mistakenly thought the list existed for the giddy delight of crossing things off. To some degree it's true - the garbage would go out whether it was on the list or not. More pleasurable to take out the garbage AND cross it off the list. The list however annoys the brain and encourages the heart.

Be careful what you write on the list! You may find yourself really really enjoying third row center seats at the opera. Be still my heart.

Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver

.
Lonely Rivers will not soon be quitting her day job.
The one with health insurance!


Gall: irritate, annoy, vex,madden, provoke
Bladder: bodily sac for liquid or gas
Gallbladder: musclar organ that serves as a reservoir for bile


So one day LR took a day off from her real job to help out at the consignment store so that Fierce Owner could have her gall bladder removed.
Fierce Owner is a strong and powerful woman. A stalwart and passionate woman. Sometimes even a tough woman. She loves her store. She never misses a day of work.
FO went to the hospital early that morning for a day surgery. We all thought she'd probably try to stop at the store on her way home from the hospital that night.

Shortly after noon, however, we got a call from fierce owner's partner who said FO wasn't doing well. FO was in horrific pain. By closing time it hadn't gotten better. She was unable to leave the hospital as planned.

Let it be said that LR was unsettled. Yours truly has only experienced the pain of childbirth...(the kind you forget as soon as you see the baby!)...never the pain of having your gall bladder sucked out!

FO was told that the pain was intense because they put a lot of gas in your system to enlarge everything before the liposucking begins...and then you have to endure the gas and enlargement for several hours after the suckery.
WHO KNEW??
The rest of the story:
FO did not come to the store that day or the next. In fact she was in the hospital near death for several weeks due a badly botched surgery. Now many months later she is returning to the hospital to repair hernias in the incision.

Ok, so I think if it's not too late God, I will begin to take better care of my gall bladder. Lonely Rivers reconsiders healthy eating.

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!"

*********************
"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"
**************************************
"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?"

*************************************
"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."
*********************************************************************
"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?"
***********************************************
"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.