Philharmonic Concert

Sharing a humorous story after a long break from the blog. . .I have been writing my memoir as a Christmas gift for my family. . .

Recently mentioned to my 14 year old grand-daughter who lives nearby that I had been to a Philharmonic Concert.    "Did you jump up and down and scream?"  she said.  
"Not that kind of concert, an orchestra concert," I explained.    "Oh, I thought it was a rock band -
you know, a man's name - Phil Harmonic."

2012 Election

My oldest grandson votes this year and I know he will.   I sent him a message about the election. . .half of the U.S.  will be disappointed in the results tomorrow no matter who wins.   But our country has been at this business for over 225 years and it is not the first time we have had a bitter campaign.   Yes, government will probably veer in one direction or another, but we will persevere.   Drama has seemed to indicate a thousand years of darkness with either a Democrat or a Republican president.   We will endure to face another round in four years.    America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

Family Crisis

The past two weeks have been tedious and worrisome as we learned that our son-in-law, Robert, was
diagnosed with colon cancer.   Fortunately, surgery was successful and his condition is curable.   Once again we have been carried through this anxious time by God's grace in the form of excellent medical care, prayers and support of family, friends, and our church communities.       With humility, I rejoice and pray for continuing strength and comfort to the Trussells in El Paso.

Our River

There is only one river that goes traveling sidewise,

  that interferes in politics,

   rearranges geography 

  and dabbles in real estate;

A river that plays hide and seek with you today

   and tomorrow follows you around 

   like a pet dog with a dynamite cracker

    tied to his tail.

That river is the Missouri.

                                          George Fitch

                                           Rivers of America 1945

A little humor. . .

"Powerpoint was released by Microsoft in 1990 as a way to euthanize cattle using a method less cruel than hitting them on the head with iron mallets."
                                         John Simon    Politico   9/25/12

The Internet

The internet:  a magnificent new technology combining the credibility of anonymous hearsay with the excitement of typing.
                                        Jon Stewart  The Daily Show

Clothing made in the USA

A number of people have suggested that we need to buy USA brands only.     I feel rather ignorant about what is available, so I turned to an internet search.   Most purchases would probably have to be made over the internet; clothingmadeinusablog.wordpress.com  lists hundreds of brands available.   I learned that Spanx shapewear and some New Balance tennis shoes are made in the states.   Lane Bryant, plus size clothing, carries a number of domestic brands.    Apparently there are 846 brands made in New York City.
Nanette Lepore, NYC designer, says they price in China and find that shipping and importing make the costs comparable.   Unfortunately, in 1960 95% of our clothes were made in our country, today - 5%.   I plan to become more aware when I shop.

Cheap clothes

Talking with my grand-daughters about shopping, I understand they can buy stylish dresses for $20.00.
Always cause to rejoice.    But I keep thinking about the factory in China that makes Apple products with people who live in dormitories and work long hours and have no lives at all.   Suicide rates are high because of complete despair.   Our passion for cheap clothes makes me somewhat uncomfortable; however, I wear apparel made in third world countries every day.    The least we can do is to say a prayer for the hands that made the garments we are wearing.

Acceptance

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic and She said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
    and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
   or not wear nail polish
and She said honey
She calls me that sometimes
She said you can do exactly 
  what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it okay if I don't paragraph my letters
Sweetcakes God said
Who knows where She picked that up
What I am telling you is
   Yes  Yes  Yes
                     -Kailin Haught

Buying School Supplies

A friend at church teaches in a small town nearby ; she reported their need for a stock of school supplies as so many children cannot afford them.    I had knee replacement surgery about a month ago and I am just able to drive again and get out (I have had the capable care of my husband.)    So I decided to shore up my energies, go to Walmart and fill a back-pack with school supplies for Slater Schools.   I have no pride:   I knew I would need the motorized shopping cart in order to accomplish the task.

I forgot that this particular week-end was "tax free school shopping" in Missouri, a wonderful break for people with more than one school child.    When I got my vehicle into the school supply aisle, I felt like I was going the wrong way on a one way street.   Children everywhere with parents; I was not welcome and I could go neither forward or backward.     I could not reach some items on the list and thought I would ask a kid to help me, but no one would make eye contact with me; I was clearly in everyone's way.   Eventually, I collected some things and made my way out of the chaos.

When I got to the check-out stand with fifty dollars worth of very basic needs, a  friendly employee smiled and said, "So you have been in the school area.   We hate to go over there.   Every two hours one of us has to go in and straighten up.   The kids take things off the shelves, examine it, decide they don't want it and throw it down, making a complete mess.   I don't like to take my turn in there."

When I returned the motorized cart, three women were sitting on a bench waiting (average weight 250 pounds).   I felt I needed to explain myself as I look relatively healthy, so I said I had just had knee surgery.   "Oh, so did we," and they pulled up their skirts to compare scars.    

Thank God for motorized carts at Walmart, and thank God for the tax-free holiday.  Life is expensive for families these days.   However, after my hour of shopping under hazardous conditions,  I went home and took a long nap to recover.

Look to this Day

        Look to this day:

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence

  The bliss of growth

The glory of action,

The splendor of achievemnent

Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day;

Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Kalidasa

For my high school graduation, the Mixed Chorus sang a musical arrangement of Salutation to the Dawn.

As chorus members had to memorize the lyrics, I have never forgotten the words; I have to look the total verse

up now and then, but I always found the message meaningful.    More than fifty years later, "today well-lived"

is a mantra for living.

Presidential Election Year

Summer, 1987, we visited with Richard's aunt Theo Rice in Kansas, the oldest of his mother's siblings.
She recalled a trip to visit her grandparents in Nemaha County, Nebraska,  when she was a child, during the presidential election campaign of 1896.   Her dad, John Samuel Barnes, drove a covered wagon;  her uncle and his family accompanied them in a second wagon.   All travelors on the road had political  signs on their wagons and  called out their  party  and favorite candidate to those they met.  Theo's dad (Richard's grandfather) was Republican and their candidate was William McKinley (the eventual victor); her uncle was a Democrat and supported William Jennings Bryant.   Our country has a long history of strong  political feelings!

Turkey Vultures

     I have long held a fascination with vultures (see blog note 5/13/11).  When I read The Bluebird Effect:
Uncommon Bonds With Common Birds  by Julie Zickefoose and saw her comments on vultures as a spiritual guide in Native American mysticism, I was intrigued.   "If a vulture has flown into your life, you are being asked to remedy a messy situation and turn it into something positive." . . ."a clean-up of psychic messes".    
      Since Zickefoose cleans out freezer burned food and leaves a bucket of it in the meadow for vultures periodically, her encounters with vultures may have more to do with her generosity.   "The freezer for me," she says, "is a place where good food goes to die."    She did observe that when placing a bucket of freezer-burned  beef, chicken and pork in the field, vultures would not eat a processed chicken nugget.   I have great respect for the judgment of the bird.
     I highly recommend this beautifully illustrated and interesting book.

Spring Planting at our Farm

                                         
                                                      Farmers. . ."beholden to dirt"

                            Daddy's Money:  A Memoir of Farm and Family     Jo McDougall

Our Times are in His Hand. . .

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

              Rabbi Ben Ezra  Robert Browning

A good friend, married for 60 years, is engaged in chemotherapy for cancer.   Her husband

is experiencing cognitive decline, yet remains as sweet and good-natured as ever.   She says

she feels they are closer than they ever have been in their marriage;  she quotes the 

Robert Browning poem.                   ". . .trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Maurice Sendak

It's a blessing to get old.   It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music. . .I have nothing now, but praise for my life..

On Complaining. . .

Just returned from a long week-end visit in Knoxville, Tennessee, with my 95 year old aunt.   I told her that one of the things I admire most about her is that she does not complain.

"I don't have anything to complain about." she said.

Surely anyone can find something to complain about.   Perhaps she is not trying hard enough.

Our favorite vocalist

A number written and preformed by our 14 year old granddaughter (with a little help from her dad who is also a musician).  Photos by another granddaughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDKIHJs4o9s&feature=youtu.be

In Memoriam

Last week I read a Dear Abby column - someone wrote that they had tatooed a photo of their dear departed grandmother on their arm with a poem written by their grandfather underneath.   Another relative objected.
I cut out the column and mailed it to each of  my six teen-age grandchildren.   "Do not do this", I told them,
"Your grandfather cannot write poetry."

A Suggestion

"Love not thyself too much lest thou make others puke."
         (Overheard in South Missouri by William Least Heat Moon, reported in Riverhorse)

On Music -

In the biography of Steven Jobs, Walter Isaacson tells of Yo Yo Ma playing Bach on his 1735 Stradivarius
cello for Jobs in his home.  Jobs said, "Your playing is the best argument I have ever heard for the existence of God because I don't really believe a human alone can do this."

Music as an ethereal quality that lifts the listener out of ordinary life.   I am so happy that my Texas grandchildren are playing guitar, cello and viola as a dimension will be added to their lives.

"God within us is the ultimate  song that plays through our hearts and lives."   Daily Word March31,2012

The Wisdom of St. Augustine

Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance.  Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already
discovered the truth.   Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us.

"Gamer Mode"

My Kansas City grandchildren just left after a week-end visit leaving me with a new label floating around out there which intrigues me.    "Gamer Mode" describes the irritable, snappish mood exhibited by one who has been completely absorbed in their computer games and who is forced back into human interaction.
I understand how this can happen after preoccupation with my iPhone.    A new hazard of living. . .

A plaque on the back of a car. . .

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
                                       Dr. Martin Luther King - 1963

Nine Lives

When my daughter Sarah and her family left their burning house last month, they had no time to pick up the two cats.       After the fire was out, a fireman found one of them in the top shelf of a closet with its little paws burned.   But burn cream is healing him and he is staying with her cousin.    The other one has always been a fraidy cat and hides whenever there is company.    They thought perhaps he was hiding and put out food in the shell of the house but it was never touched.    Eleven days after the fire, a worker with the restoration damage company found him in the basement, hiding.   His fur was singed and he had blood-shot eyes from smoke, but the vet said he is healthy!     His personality was somewhat strange before, and he will probably be really weird after this adventure.

Swimwear

Recently spent some time on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. . .read this item in the news.    In Brazil bikinis are now made in larger womens' sizes.    Perhaps The Girl from Ipanema now  wears a 2X.    No more
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!

House Fire

Sarah and Darin and their family  lost their home in south Kansas City  to fire on Thursday evening.
Thanks to wonderful neighbors, friends and St.Thomas More parish. . .they have had support and comfort and all their immediate needs met.    Laura Story's words and music have meant a great deal to us this week.

          We pray for blessings.
           We pray for peace,
            comfort for family,
             protection while we sleep.
           We pray for healing, 
              for prosperity..
            We pray for your mighty hand to 
               ease our suffering.
            And all the while - 
           You hear each spoken need.
             yet love is way too much, 
              to give us lesser things.


             'Cause what if Your blessings come 
                through raindrops?
              What if Your healing comes through
                tears?
              What if a thousand sleepless nights are
                 what it takes to know You're near?
             And what if trials of this life
                 are your mercies in disguise?


                            Blessings      2011
                       Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing

Memorial for our friend, Diana

Adapted from an anonymous memorial contribution to the internet:

You can shed tears that she is gone, or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and wish she was still with us, or you can open your
  eyes and see she has left.
Your heart can be empty because you won't see her again, or you can be full
 of the affection you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy
 for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her and only that she is gone, or you can cherish her
 memory and let it live on.   
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back, or you can do what
  she would want - smile, open your eyes, love and go on.  .  .

The Merton Prayer

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.   I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.   Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I  think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.   And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.   I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.   And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.   Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.   I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
                                         Thomas Merton   Thoughts in Solitude