Weddings change over time

My maternal grandparents must have had a wedding in 1910, because there is a formal portrait, Grandma in wedding dress and Grandpa in a suit. They married in South Chicago. I wish I knew how they celebrated.

My paternal grandparents eloped on horseback in 1923, married by a preacher by the side of a road in Southeastern Kentucky. Certainly not the norm for that time and place. Her mother was angry! 

When my aunts and uncles married in Northern Indiana in the 1940's. WWII was raging. A marriage took place while service men were on leave. The ceremony might be conducted in the front room of a parent's house in the morning, with a wedding breakfast afterwards. 

When my hippie generation came along in the late 1960's/early 1970's, marriage wasn't cool, at least in our crowd. Tom and I went to a justice of the peace with two witnesses. If friends had a wedding, the afternoon reception was cake-related, like a formal tea. In those days before birth control pills or abortion, the bride was usually between 17 and 21, and maybe a little pregnant.  

Weddings for my younger siblings, non-hippie cousins, and eventually our daughter were bigger. These felt like family reunions. Brides were in their middle 20's. Old folks and babies left soon after the wedding dinner. Young children flailed about on the dance floor with cousins for an hour or two, while parents, aunts and uncles tried desperately to stay awake. Alcohol was served. The younger folks carried on, celebrating with abandon until the music ended and the staff started clearing tables.  

Now, weddings have changed again. In recent years, most weddings we're invited to have been adult-only events. The bride and groom are often in their late 20's (or early 30's). Consequently, they have discretionary income and a huge network of friends. The wedding industry has seriously upped the cost (and instances) of all related expenses, so I imagine that plays a role in limiting participants to adults. Their carefully planned weddings are amazing.

Times change, and weddings follow suit. I get it, and I find the evolution interesting. Still, I miss seeing children on the dance floor.  Maybe I'll start planning a family reunion? 

My maternal grandparents in 1910

Thanksgiving 2023

I'm trying to get into the right frame of mind for Thanksgiving, you know, the state where I want to clean and cook. It's getting late, so it better happen soon. Thankfully my husband cleans, and he's always game to make the turkey and mashed potatoes. I don't think I have ever made a turkey. I'm spoiled rotten.  

I would like to experiment with wild side dishes, but our daughter and her family have food issues. Our daughter has gluten issues that will make her sick in bed if I use wheat flour. Grandson N has a milk protein allergy and will spend his evening in the bathroom if I'm not careful. He's also extremely picky because so many foods have made him sick in the past. Granddaughter E is the foodie, but even she doesn't like onions. Neither does her father. I want ALL of us to be happy on Thanksgiving. 

I make two stuffings, one gluten free. I sauté onions and celery blended to high heaven with turkey broth before I bake this GF one. The other is made with cornbread and includes apples, pecans, onions, celery and mushrooms. Guess which one I eat? Gravy is made with gluten free flour, and it turns out just fine. I use cold water instead of milk. Tom and I are the only ones who will eat the cranberry sauce or the sweet potatoes. Everyone likes green beans. Butter doesn't have milk protein in it, so there's plenty of butter in or on everything. 

Grandson N will eat chicken nuggets and separately roasted potatoes. Don't judge me, he's my grandson and I'll make him whatever he wants. You be you. I'll be me.

Make me say it: I make fresh green beans for some, green bean casserole (with gluten free cream of mushroom soup and crispy onions) for others.  

Our daughter is in charge of dessert. She's a good baker, and sees it as her lot in life to adapt wheat based recipes to gluten free.Whatever she makes will be super damn yummy. 

In my mind, Thanksgiving is the best meal of the year. For all who celebrate, enjoy!

Last year's meal. Oh gee, I need to run to the store for
red beets, and apples to make applesauce. Aaaack. 
Granddaughter E LOVES red beets.

Afterwards

Well, that was rough, going to a funeral for a 32 year old man. Death is always hard, but when a young person with so much to live for dies, the loss delivers a particularly potent punch.  

Birth, death, and all the living happening in between. It's all so very odd, isn't it? We all come from nothingness and eventually turn back into the same. Is dying simply one's "time?" Or is it just random cruelty? I surely don't know.

Then, almost immediately after a significant loss, there becomes a new normal. A normal without them. It isn't fair, it always sucks, and it is never okay. 

I can't think of a title for this

I've been sick with a sinus infection all week. I called the doctor on Monday, but couldn't get an appointment so they set me up with a nurse practitioner for a video appointment. She said as soon as she got off she'd call in a prescription for me to my local pharmacy. Instead, she called it in to my mail order provider. It's Saturday, and it still hasn't arrived from the mail order place.  

I called on Tuesday to let the nurse practitioner know the pharmacy hadn't received her order. She fessed up to her mistake and said she'd call it in to the local place. Yesterday (Friday), the local pharmacy finally texted me that it was ready. I picked them up. Today the mail order pills will arrive. When it rains it pours.

I'm very low energy and feel like crap. Tomorrow Tom and I fly to Indiana for a family funeral. A really freaking sad one, by the way, for a 32 year old husband and father of 2 young children. He was my niece's husband. It makes my sinuses ache just to think about what's ahead.  

I'll see family members I haven't seen in years over the course of two days. I will run the gamut of emotions.  Actually, it will seem more like running the gauntlet. Families are tough!

There may be a hurricane off the East Coast right now, but there is no wind propelling my sails. I'm just going through the motions for the people I love. For my niece and her little ones. For all the nieces and nephews and in-laws of her generation who are dealing with peer loss for the first time. For my siblings and in-laws who are triggered by the memories of similar losses, and extreme familial love. For the kind of love that wrestles you to the ground. My heart is broken.  

We remember what we lived

I was sitting at the breakfast table one Saturday morning with my mother and my brother, Freddie. I'm not sure of the year, but it would have been between 1965 and 1967. We were concerned because my father had not come home the night before.  We didn't know what to expect.

He busted in as we were eating breakfast, like a force of nature. It took my breath away. He pushed open the door and stumbled in to the kitchen, bruised and bleeding from his nose and ears.  It was quite an entrance.  My Mom took one look at him and said “I guess someone really worked you over good.”  He snarled back, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you!”  As he headed up stairs to sleep it off he ordered, “Go out and check the trunk for a body.”  

I am not kidding, this is exactly what he said.  My Mom and brother went out to check the car trunk.  There was nothing in it.  Dad had been in a barroom brawl the night before, helping the bar owner (a friend and neighbor) get rid of some thugs who were menacing the bar.  Dad suffered a concussion and had passed out in his parked car afterwards. He could not remember the outcome of the fight, but it must have been a doozy. 

No, he didn't go to the doctor.   

Life is so strange, sometimes it's best to laugh.

Keeping warm in the 1950s

In 1949, my parents moved out of my paternal grandparent’s house in South Bend, Indiana, where they had lived since my father returned from WWII. They moved to a post-World War II housing development for young veteran’s families on what were then the outskirts of the city’s west side, between the Studebaker and Bendix industrial complexes. South Bend was an industrial town back then, a company town, and these were two of the biggest employers. Our house was a small, 2 bedroom, wood-frame house with a breezeway connecting the house and the one car garage. As more children arrived, my parents eventually turned the breezeway into a third bedroom. 

We had a coal burning furnace throughout the 1950s. I'm relying on my memory here, which is always a crap shoot, but I remember it as large and imposing. In my mind's eye it is taller than my father. The furnace lived in the middle of the basement, and I could see the red hot coals when my parents fed it. We had cast iron pokers and shovels, and scoops my parents used to replenish the coal. 

There was a small room in the basement that we called the coal bin. Up at ground level there was an opening big enough for a coal chute door that was opened from the outside for the "coal man" to deliver the coal from a truck once a year. When that happened, it was loud, dirty, and disruptive of normal routine. Of course that was very exciting for young children! 

A world away now. Funny the things that come to mind as we age. 

 

So, how do I fit in?

My husband became a great-grandpa again. His granddaughter S had a baby boy. He's a beauty, just like his 2 year old sister, CH. I claim these children as my great-grandchildren, too. After all, his daughter R is the half-sister of our daughter, M. Is that presumptuous of me? 

We've had this beautiful family in our lives since 2017, when Tom took a DNA test and he and R found each other. It was epic, wonderful, full of grace.  

I struggle, though. Not the wicked stepmother struggle of "what does this take from my family with him," because it takes nothing away. Love isn't a pie to be divided. Love expands. If you open your heart to it, love will fill you up like a balloon.

My struggle is trying to figure out my place. R was adopted at birth and she had a good parents. Her children had grandparents they loved. I can't be what I never was. However, if you can't be one thing, then you can be another. Even if you have to make it up as you go along. It's all good. 

Recently I found an old picture of her biological mother. I was surprised when the picture made me sad. Why did it make me sad? Because it looks like R has her birth mother's mouth. I want her to look like me! Ha! I'm a silly old woman.  

I made a quilt for H. It's not a treasured crib quilt. It's a lay-it-down-on-the-floor and get it dirty kind of quilt. I hope the first time he rolls over he does so on this quilt. 

Family really is everything

In my last post I told you how I hate to travel. Today I will confess that I love to be other places once I get there. 

While up north last week, our extended family surprised us with a 50th anniversary party. We have never been honored like that before, nor have we ever been surprised. Tom and I felt loved by and grateful for our large, crazy family. As my sister-in-law, Vacation Sue, says: #familyiseverything.  

Not everyone was there, of course. My family lives from sea to shining sea, north to south. So far, my parents have 36 direct descendants: 7 children, 16 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. My parents and two of my brothers have died, and I won't include divorced former in-laws, but adding in spouses and significant others, there are currently 51 family members. I say currently, because at least one more great-grandchild is due to arrive next year.  

There were 24 family members at my brother's house that beautiful night. Plus 5 special friends, two of whom were friends of ours from high school days. For two retirees who spend most of their time alone with each other and a large, ginger cat, it was super darn fun. Glorious, really.

And now I promise I won't write about our 50th anniversary again.  I've managed to squeeze 3 posts out this past year. I'm really pushin' it.

Too soon

Aaack, my heart!  My youngest grandson no longer thinks I'm the funniest person in the world. 

I knew this would happen eventually.  But I'm not ready for N The Logical. I haven't yet had my fill of N The  Peurile. Not fair!

A couple of weeks ago I picked him up from school. I employed my usual shtick. He did not laugh. Instead, he replied "Grandma, you don't have to try so hard to make me happy." THAT gave me pause. I don't? What if I want to? He's not the boss of me.

Last week I picked him up again. As he climbed into the back seat I said (with great enthusiasm) "Hello, Punkin!"   He took his seat, buckled his seat belt and said "You know, Grandma, I'm 8 years old now. You really have to stop calling me all those baby names."  

Darn it. I'm not ready to grow up.

Today I am practicing my itsy bitsy spider routine so I can Facetime our great-granddaughter.  I'm SURE I can make her laugh, for years and years.

And hey, look!  A new banana blossom in our yard.

That race is run.

I recently learned two of my father's first cousins died. We weren't "close." However, we shared an interest in family history and I liked them. I hate "losing people."

They were both generous when asked genealogical questions. I received family stories and photos from each via email and snail mail. They solved a number of genealogical mysteries for me, giving me the low down on family rogues and reasons to be proud of some others.  I liked knowing they were still alive.

Ray was a double first cousin to my father. Ray's father was my paternal grandfather's brother. Ray's mother was my paternal grandmother's sister (i.e., 2 sisters married 2 brothers). He was a gentleman, kind and friendly. If curiosity and enthusiasm can be family traits, then I recognized those shared qualities in him. 

I knew Gary better. His father was another of my paternal grandfather's brothers. Gary was a polyglot who went to South Korea in 1964 to teach English and to study Asian languages. He never married, but he fell in love with South Korea. He stayed there for the rest of his life as a hired word-slinger, translating and editing. He had a passion for Esperanto, always hoping it could become a common language. Eventually he gave up his U.S. citizenship to become a citizen of South Korea. He said he had no axe to grind, being a citizen was just easier.

I wish we had corresponded more. There's so much more I want to know, and they were the only ones alive to tell me. I should have thanked them more profusely, and I would like to have had the opportunity to say goodbye. Now that race is run.

Death is so freakin' permanent. 

Will you forget the pain?

When I was in hospital giving birth to our daughter 47 years ago, we agreed to allow student nurses to observe my labor. Actually, I didn't agree. They never asked the writhing mass of agonizing humanity in the bed. Instead, they asked my 20 year old husband, who said "Sure."

The student nurses engaged with me before and after contractions, asking questions. I remember announcing (loudly) I was never having another child because it hurt like Hell. They giggled and knowingly assured me I would both forget the pain and have more children. Well, that pissed me off.

Seriously, they said that to a woman in hard labor. No sympathy, no drugs, just happy-crap jargon. As if that information would make everything okay. The present doesn't exist, only the future? Nah, if anyone knows  reality it is a woman in the throes of hard labor.

Right then and there I made up my mind NEVER, EVER to forget, and not to have more children. True story. I am my own worst enemy.

The first night home with the baby I slept as badly as she did. I kept dreaming famous patriarchal icons got me pregnant and I was going to be forced to deliver their baby against my will. One famous icon was John Wayne. The other was Pope John XXIII. Thankfully, I didn't dream about the sex.

My niece had a baby yesterday. Another niece had a baby last week. One of my granddaughters is due in a couple months. It's all so glorious and exciting I can hardly breathe.

When women I love are in labor I can recall my own labor and delivery crystal clear.  Except for the pain. I know it hurt, but I don't remember hurting. 

I kind of wish I had done it again.

CHOICE: 1998 advice to a pregnant teen

Here's a letter I wrote to a 15 year old pregnant niece of mine over 20 years ago.  In light of the current attack on Roe vs. Wade, I think this is thought provoking.  I think there's a lot we all need to think about.  If we don't think, we may not act.  If we don't act, our hard fought rights will be eroded.  Anyway, I'm sharing this letter and I still stand behind it. How wonderful that she had a choice.

5 Nov 1998

Dear ---,

So glad to hear you received the clothes. M and I had a lot of fun picking them out. T got a kick out of how different maternity clothes are nowadays. You can’t imagine how UGLY maternity clothes used to be. Big, clunky collars and blocky shapes. Yuck. And they didn’t used to have maternity jeans, so I had to cut out the stomach in mine, and sew in elastic panels. 

Sounds like your pregnancy is progressing nicely. You’ll be amazed at how glorious the whole experience is.  Nothing else like it in the world. Your Grandma is famous for having really easy deliveries. She was able to just pop ‘em out with little pain and with short labors (she delivered J at home because it went so quick she didn’t have time to get to the hospital). Maybe you’ll have inherited that from our side of the family? Did your Mom ever talk about her pregnancies and deliveries?

How’s school?  Does it seem weird to be going to classes pregnant?  Also “in the old days” they made girls quit high school when they got pregnant. You couldn’t attend classes when you started to show (or when the gym teacher found out - they used to track our periods in gym class in order to figure out when one of us got pregnant).  I was in college, trying to major in art, when I was pregnant.  People really thought it was weird that I was still taking classes. One professor actually asked me why I was still enrolled.  It really pissed me off - I remember answering, “What else am I supposed to do?”  It just never occurred to me to live my life any differently than I had been. People can be so mean, you know?

Here’s the advice part of the letter (warning, I’m not a normal person - so please just humor me):

Yeah, well, life can be pretty @#*! hard, especially when you don’t have a lot of money.  It’s the nature of “Life” to take it’s best shot from time-to-time - sometimes hitting you square in the face. The really special people in this world seem to be the ones who are strong enough to take it on the chin, pick themselves up and keep on trying to do their best. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a pro-boxing match on TV - I love boxing. I think it symbolizes a whole lot about the way reality is for working class people. I really love that “down but not out” stuff.  And even when someone doesn’t win, if they fight with A LOT OF HEART, they still earn the respect and admiration of the audience. It‘s really all about the effort - not the result. I see you as having a lot of heart.  I’m in awe of the things you’re doing right now to keep yourself afloat. What an enormous effort it must be to try to get through school this year, and to provide a safe, healthy environment for yourself while you’re pregnant. I think you must be pretty wonderful.

And on top of all that, you’re also faced with some major real-life decisions. I’m glad to hear that people are giving you a lot of time and space to make the decision about the baby. That’s important.  Because (as you’ve figured out by now) once we get pregnant, women are faced with those three scary choices:  abort the fetus, allow the pregnancy to go full term and keep the baby, or give the baby to someone else to raise. Realistically, each one of those decisions will bring you physical and emotional pain at some definable point in time.  Each decision becomes a path your life will take forever.  Any one of those choices will probably bring you additional emotional pain further down the line. That’s just the way it is, but the fact that each is a hard choice makes them all equal in some ways.  Of course, each choice will bring you moments of great happiness in the future, as well.  Consequently, I don’t think any one of them is a bad decision. They’re all good choices to make, depending on who you are, what you want from your life, and what you feel you can handle.  Emotional pain isn’t the end of the world. When you have a lot of heart (which you do) and are a strong woman (which I think you will become) - you can handle emotional pain. It can shape you for the good, or for the bad - depending on who you are, and how you approach it. 

Independent of the pregnancy, what do you want to do with your life, by the way? What were your plans for after graduation before you found out you were pregnant?

Please write and let Uncle T and me know how you’re doing.  We care about you, and we’re concerned about your current situation.  And, of course, we wish you the absolute best.  

Vulcans and Klingons

I've said this before, and I guess I'm gonna have to say it again. My side of the family are like Klingons. This my husband and I agree on, with great pleasure and deep appreciation. I know without a doubt that should you mess with one of my siblings, they will rip your heart out with their (sharpened) teeth. My sibs think of me as the soft one, the weak one. This I know, too. Perhaps I am. Maybe not. What if I am just the quiet one? These things are all relative, you know.

My husband's family are like Vulcans. They are quiet and measured. Logic rules over the heart. If you mess with them, you might think you won; however, you will never know the jokes and disdain that will follow you for the rest of your life.

Here is the basic difference between our families. Klingons want you to know you've been destroyed. That's the be all and the end all. In T's family, the villain's awareness of their own destruction doesn't matter. Vulcans are not threatened by the continued existence of their vanquished and diminished enemies. What the miscreant thinks isn't important, and his/her awareness is inconsequential. It is an interesting difference, don't you think? 

We have tempered and changed each other over the years. I no longer walk up to strangers and tell them I like their hair. I rarely jump up from my airline seat to scream at the person behind me for kicking my seat. He has learned to apologize and works hard on the empathy thing. This is the truth: together we are better than we are apart. 

I still can't walk away from a fight, but I am now self-aware enough to wish I could.

We are the lucky ones!

Yesterday I received Valentine's Day flowers from my three grown-up grandchildren who live up north. You really have to know a bit about our short but profound history to fully understand how touched I am. 

I've written about this before, but let me summarize: My husband, T, did DNA testing in late spring 2017 to determine his ethnic heritage. When he received his results, he was surprised to find he had another daughter, named R. He contacted her within 10 minutes of reading of her existence, and immediately they began to build a relationship. This is a relationship that flourished and continues to grow and deepen for all of us who are related to this man and his oldest child. Sometimes these things don't work out; however, we are the lucky ones.

At one point I was complaining that there was no familial name, no role to label me. Why? Because I'm a self-indulgent and needy monster, of course. The love I feel for our family and everyone in it is over the freakin' top!  I'm not the birth-mother. I'm not the familial grandmother (they already have grandmothers who were quite wonderful). I'm not really a step-mother, either. So what am I? Can we PLEASE make this all about me?

Luckily, R thinks I'm funny. So when I complained to her about this (and yes, I really did complain to her about this because I am a self-indulgent and needy monster with absolutely no filter) she said I could be her Fairy Stepmother. Well, alright! See why I love this woman?  It turns out her 3 children are equally as lovable.

The card that came with the Valentine flowers says:

"Happy Valentine's Day, Fairy Grandmother!
  Love, The Fairy Grandchildren"

BIG smile. Thanks, SM, AC, and MC. I love all of you, too.

When company departs

Visitor season in Florida is going on full force as the frozen Northlanders make their way south to warm up. This natural phenomenon also warms up our hearts.

The only downside to visitors is the ridiculous amount of food that is leftover when they leave.  Honestly, I try my best to stuff them like sausages when they are here, but legally I am unable to force feed them. Or at least that's what my husband tells me.

T's daughter R (my fairy stepdaughter) left this morning. It was hard to see her leave because we love her so freakin' much and enjoy getting to know her. So I was sad when we walked into the house after dropping her off at the airport. Sad is a very dangerous state to find yourself in when there is half a pecan pie AND a third of a red velvet cake in the fridge. Or potato chips in the pantry. Oh wait, aren't there a couple of pints of ice cream in the freezer, too? 

Putting away Christmas

The older I get, the more Christmas becomes a life gauge. Each year I touch and consider my past.

• Owl ornament my ornery friend Maggie gifted in 1983. She died in 2006. I'm still a bit afraid of her.
• Cardboard box to store ornaments. We originally received the box in 1996 when we ordered a printer. The printer is long gone. The box remains.
• Needlepoint bell niece K made when she was a child. She'll never know how touched I was to get it.
• 1970's/80's salt dough ornaments daughter M made. She's forever my baby, my child, my cranky teen.
• Every ornament our grandchildren made/painted/bought for us. Especially when we can't figure out what it is. They go front and center.
• The salt dough ornaments husband T made that are so hideous, so utterly ridiculous that we laugh and hide 'em in the back of the tree. He's a good sport.
• New ornaments from R, the daughter who is my husband's oldest, and a daughter of my heart.
• Yellow cat ornament Chilly Hollow gave us millions of years ago. She's still a friend, a reader of this blog, and an irreverent smart alack.
• Ornaments Syracuse friends bought and pretended were from their son, Coop. Ha, we never fell for it.
• Vacation souvenirs, baubles and tchotchkes.
•  The glass Santa from Sharon, who died in 2015. Each year I hold it and try to believe she's still alive.
• I really must stop, this is getting too long. I could go on for pages.  Suffice it to say that every ornament has a story to tell and circumstances to describe. 

  

  Santa ball from DebbieK, Tibetan ball from Choklay and Nyima, Icon BVM from Oldest Sister

  
  
  

Alright already, I cleaned.

This post is for my blog-friend Sabine, who is often the voice crying out in the wilderness. 

Baby Sister texted to thank me for posting about our mother, and we reminisced about childhood holidays. She remarked on the work Mom did to stage those holidays. She said how thankful she was Mom made the effort because it provided lovely memories. Baby Sister waxed poetically about pulling out Mom's good china and setting a beautiful table under Mom's direction. Sheesh.

My mother was a great cook, but a lousy housekeeper.  She's famous throughout our extended family for her messy house. So for her to summon up the energy to discard all the accumulated junk on her dining room table was a monumental act of love in itself.

Great, I thought to myself as I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair with the phone to my ear. Now in addition to cleaning like a crazy woman, I had to go through the boxes in the garage to find the good china?

I muttered a stream of swear words that would make a sailor's eyes pop out, pulled my lazy #%* off the couch to start cleaning the house and digging out the china. I made the effort not because I wanted to, but because my grandkids deserve Thanksgiving memories of a beautifully set table at their grandparent's house. The things we do for love, right?

Is that all? Well of course not! I'm a sneaky old woman and I'm leading up to something more important than cleaning; climate change. If we don't start making the changes to deal with this, there won't be a future for our grandchildren, great-nieces/nephews.

Why bother? Well, why bother breathing?!

Climate change WILL be at the top of the list for the new Democrat majority House of Representatives in the U.S.  While they deal with the big issues, we must muster the energy to overcome our cynicism and despair on the home front. We can start creatively imagining new ideas, new industries, alternate economies, better and more effective political strategies so there will a reasonable future for those we love.

Call me naive, but to me there is nothing more important right now than this: reuse, recycle, re-imagine, rethink, and redesign. Please make the effort.

Popeye would do it.  Bluto would not. Be like Popeye.

Bone Tired

Yes, I am bone tired. I am back from the family wedding that warranted my new haircut. I had a great time, filled with family, old friends, and a ridiculous amount of fun. I also had ice cream twice, as well as wedding cake. Wine flowed. Sinful abandon abounded.

Now that I am home, I find myself exhausted. I did nothing yesterday, and I may do nothing again today. I'm trying to figure out if this is a physical reaction or an emotional one? It is likely a combination of the two. I refuse to admit that I am simply aging and have less energy. Oh, Hell no!

In the meantime, my nephew's wife is having a baby. She is having a hard time and a long labor. I wish we were still in Indiana so I could be sitting vigil in the hospital with my Baby Sister. Saturday she married off her youngest child. A few days later her oldest provides her first grandchild.

If sonograms can be trusted, today we add another heroine to the family saga AND Baby Sister and Mikey become grandparents! My nephew and niece-in-law's lives will change forever. Everyone's life will be enhanced when this baby arrives. I may be bone tired, but I am shaken (not stirred) by these glorious events.

Today I will be on the couch reading, napping, and resting my weary bones. Perhaps I'll get my mojo back after this stubborn baby girl is finally born.

Memorial Day 2018: My Uncle Joe

On Memorial Day 2018, I choose to honor my my maternal uncle, Joe. He was initially stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii with the Army Air Corp. On the morning of 7 Dec 1941, he was walking back to the barracks after attending mass when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The heel of his shoe was hit by flying shrapnel, but Joe was not hurt. After Pearl Harbor, he was assigned to Canton Island, a South Pacific coral island, where he helped to operate one the first radar facilities.

Later, he received a transfer to Europe. While traveling from Hawaii to England, the B-17 he was in flew over Griffith, Indiana and “buzzed” his hometown. My mother said they had been expecting it, and everyone knew who it was. Joe, being short (about 5’8”), was a tail gunner flying bombing missions over Germany.

The first week in December, on his 13^th mission, his B-17 was shot down over the Black Forest. The crew parachuted to safety. All survived but the pilot. Joe hid in an abandoned farmhouse for 4 or 5 days. He melted snow to drink, and in one of the houses he found one egg, flour and sugar. His feet froze, and he wrapped them in old rags. He decided to try to make it back to the American line. He was dressed up as an old lady, and some German solders spotted him crossing a river.

I wonder if he stole the clothes? He was a beautiful young man, charming, and he spoke German. Perhaps he talked a kind older woman into giving him the disguise?  We never felt like we could ask him, he didn't like to talk about those days. Regardless, he was captured and imprisoned at a German prisoner of war camp until the end of the war.

War, of course, is Hell.  

Uncle Joe, Uncle Jerry, and Grandma (before he was captured)

Ringing out the old year

What a mind-boggling, life changing year 2017 was for me. I'm a compulsive photo chronicler, so I have photos to testify on behalf of the year gone by. If I concentrate on those pictures of my personal life, and ignore the political hijinks/moral decay in this country, I feel this was a particularly good year for me and my family. And I want to feel good, so that's what I'm going to concentrate on.

I rejoined the work force a year ago, albeit as an unpaid volunteer.  Like many others, I found a political niche to fill and spend time every day of the week working against hate. It isn't pleasant and I am often frustrated. I actually quit twice. I can't tell you how many times I have also threatened to quit because I am a hot head AND a raving maniac. However, I will stick with it because I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eyes and tell them I did my very best. In the process, I am learning about myself. I am learning to set boundaries for myself, and to respect boundaries set by others. These things don't come naturally to me. As always, I learn the hard way. I'm trying to take it on the chin; to not take adversity or criticism personally. Geez, that's tough!

Through the magic of DNA testing, in June 2017, my husband T discovered a grown daughter (R), son-in-law (CH), and three full-grown grandchildren (S, A, and MR) he didn't know he had. Various subsets of these glorious folks have visited us four times, and we all seem to like each other. Building relationships takes time; but so far, so good. Maybe it is presumptuous of me, but I think of them as mine, too. Just like the younger daughter we always knew we had, this older one is a joy, as are her family.

It was a good old year. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I await the new one with an open heart. I hope you are, too.