Happy New Year!

Tending skittish dogs tonight - they're afraid of fireworks and firearms. Not very New Years Eve-ish. But no matter. There's a "blue moon" tonight: the second full moon of the month. We can listen to Ella Fitzgerald.

We've had an interesting week: the furnace went out on Christmas Eve day and David did a not-to-subtle reindeer imitation on Christmas morning - stomping on the roof when he got stuck after the ice re-froze while he was up there. I squirted it down again and he made it off the roof safely - only slipping once. He needed a part, so our heat was mostly from baking in the oven and from a little parabolic space heater in the bathroom. It was almost enough. Makes you think about how much you heat the house up in the summer when you turn on the oven. David got the part Monday - 5 days (well, counting part-days) of a cool-ish house. I was glad we weren't in North Dakota.

My Christmas morning heating project was baking cornbread. David and Ken had some with pinto beans for breakfast. I made cornbread dressing and marinated broccoli salad to take to David's Mom and Dad's for Christmas Dinner. Prime rib, 4 kinds of pie, etc. Lots of people there. Lots of conversation. Since I can't eat corn, I made some bread dressing for myself with a little leftover bread from Christmas, fresh sage, onions, celery and chicken broth, but I didn't take it to dinner. There was plenty of food there.

Since I got some people cardamom pods for Christmas, I made some orange-cardamom pumpkin bread on Saturday to warm up the house, and some butter-pecan applesauce bread (recipe needs a little work). I decided that a tiny mortar and pestle was not sufficient for crushing cardamom seeds, and I discovered that tapping it with a hammer in a heavy plastic bag (from a cracker box) works much better. Feels sort of primitive to go out to the garage to beat spices to powder. But it's much less primitive than the actual primitive task of grinding grains with a smooth rock. We take so many things for granted.

We've got ham for tomorrow. I got blackeyed peas and a Pasilla pepper for this New Year's Salad.

The doggie logistics have dumbed me down for now. Don't feel like doing much. At the moment, I have Lucky and Troy. David has Maggie. Our geriatric dogs, Sparky and Dottie, are getting deaf and so far they're O.K. in their usual hangouts. Sparky may need to come in later. Little Buddy is not afraid of the noise, and stays in the big doghouse with his little heater. Things are fine, but not exactly festive.

I'm not feeling too philosophical right at the moment, either. But I found some interesting images and music before Christmas which you might like. And then some information about Hanukkah, if you're up for a little deeper thought. Or, for a more personal topic, an Alternative to New Years Resolutions, The Uberlist.

Hope everyone has a great year.

The Sometimes Bumpy Road to Progress

Before we left on our last whirlwind trip to Utah, we heard a story in church about a one-eyed, non-flying pet crow. After attaching a dog kennel to the crow's cage to allow her more freedom during the day, the crow's "daddy" would hear her screeching at sundown, clinging to the side of the wire kennel, unable to find her way back home to her comfy cage. He would have to unhook her claws from the wire and put her back in her home. In her anxiety, she resisted leaving the side of the kennel. Sometimes we are the same way. God wants us to move on to a better place, but we "cling to the wire". Sometimes when we "let go of the wire", progress comes in fits and starts.

While David was talking to people at a foothill facility in Utah, I got out of the car and was met by the most fearless Magpie I have ever seen. Glossier and fatter than the one here. It took food from my hand, even though I was a complete stranger. It flew around, showing off and flirting. And following its interests. Magpies are related to crows, and this one sort of looked like a medium-sized crow with prettier plumage. Quite a contrast to the story about the pet crow stuck to the wire in fear. Kind of uplifting.

David had a wonderful interview, but he did not meet all of the qualifications for the job. I was great to see Mom again. We went home in light spirits. Since that time, David has had another nice interview. When it's time, he'll find the right job.

He's back to work in the house. The sheetrock part is done and the kitchen arch rounded out. Now he's re-doing the surfacing and texturing in the living room and hall. What a mess. Things are piled up everywhere, covered in drywall dust, and the contents of some book cases and a hutch are in boxes. But the job that was done when the house was built has always bothered him, so I'm glad he's fixing it. I haven't been able to get into the office, the back bedrooms or the back bath for a few days. I'm taped into the media room right now. Things should look a lot better soon.

We've also been juggling dogs and cats in the recent wet weather (for which we are grateful). Princess Cat Darla accidentally came into the house while Troy the Giant Dog was inside, causing a big commotion and leading him to think for several days that she was still in the house. I winterized the Kitty Condo and made sure their heater was working. I put a kitty heater in the big dog house in back (Maggie, Troy and Little Buddy came in with me part of the time - it was a little crowded with the 4 of us). I set up a cold retreat in the garage for Sparky, who normally wants to be outside. Maybe it's his Husky/Labrador background. Huskies sleep in the snow, and Labradors were bred to retrieve fishing nets from the ocean. Brrr. He's getting unsteady on his feet and can't get his footing when he's lying on slick surfaces, so now he has a bumpy rubber mat and ridged fabric carpet. He's only wanted to come in on two nights, and I've still had to guide him into the garage against mild protest.

Troy and Maggie have stayed in the house with Lucky a couple of nights during the rain, leaving Little Buddy in the big dog house by himself. He gets separate snuggle time, as he still chews furniture and sometimes gets too playful when the other dogs want to rest. Old Dottie gets a kitty heater in her doghouse next.

We finally have new neighbors across the street, but the house next door is still vacant. Our princess kitty Darla is starting to think the house and yard next door belong to her.

Things are rather unsettled in the world at the moment, but President Obama gave a graceful speech in Oslo. He's on a learning curve, too, I think. On the lighter side of American media and politics, William Shatner and Sarah Palin read from each other's works on the Tonight Show. Maybe you remember Shatner's dramatic reading from Palin's Twitter posts, or his self-parody with "Rocketman".

But back to everyday life: At our fun Branch Christmas Party, the Cox family brought an entire "Polar Express" train painted by an artist friend on refrigerator boxes. The kids got to hear the story read to them in front of the train, while getting little treats. They also heard the Christmas Story via whispers from "Maurice", the shy camel hand puppet who belonged to one of the Wise Men. We sang carols and ate.

I made Spanish Green Beans and a big bowl of coleslaw very similar to this Christmas Coleslaw. I will post more lated on how I used the excess cabbage (bought too much for the party).

The Ongoing Thanksgiving Season

I've decided to expand that "Thanksgiving Feeling" to a longer season. No reason some of the thoughts and sentiments which Thanksgiving calls forward cannot be extended into the Christmas season. There is so much for which to be thankful.

And you really can't eat all the Thanksgiving Recipes on Thanksgiving. Already, our Thanksgiving has been stretched out. We were supposed to serve dinner to guests, then go over to David's parents' house for supper. But one of our guests locked herself out of her apartment, away from the Sweet Potato Pie, Cake, and Ham she had prepared. Another prospective guest took off to try to find a way to open the apartment. So we had company into the evening. But David still got some of his Mom's coconut pie on Friday. We missed Debbie, but saw Donny, Carmine, Mom, Dad and Aunt Helen.

This year, Ken brought a "complete dinner" again, so I just had to fill in with a few extra dishes. I made "boiled" ham, (a small butt portion ham) in an oval 6-quart slow cooker, pumpkin bread pudding, cauliflower and broccoli, and I tried to make this cornbread dressing, but got distracted and burned the cornbread and pecans. Later. I haven't made Dixie Salad yet, either.

Earlier, I posted on the Pilgrim's struggle against famine here. No matter how hard our economic circumstances are this year, things could be worse.

No time to write more now. Hope everyone continues to have a nice Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season.

Some interesting thoughts on Thanksgiving

From last year - Thanksgiving Proclamations and Thoughts.

This year, an academic piece on the importance of keeping gratitude at the center of Thanksgiving.

We are so blessed in this country. Quotes from a beautiful piece below:

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America. . . .

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere. . . .

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth. . . .

William Bradford, some years after the first Thanksgiving:

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.

Fred and Jenny Getting Married

Fred and Jenny are getting married today. Wish we could be there. It's a pretty good idea to get married 2 days before Thanksgiving, I think.

The family was over decorating for the reception yesterday. Mom made sandwiches. Hope everyone has a wonderful time today.

A thought for Friday the 13th

Dennis Prager: "Any day when something terrible doesn't happen is a great day".

Nothing terrible happened to me today. It was a great day.

Thanking Our Veterans

A Veteran knows things: He knows life is precious, because he’s seen
life cut short. He knows life is strange, because those that should die
live and those who have the most life sometimes die. He knows life is
not easily wrapped up in a box philosophically. He knows that plans
fail. He knows there’s such a thing as luck. A veteran chooses his hard
lessons and walks toward them.

Veterans at the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. The video is kind of hard to get through without a tear or two. They were brought to the memorial by an organization dedicated to providing such trips. An American volunteer organization which de Toqueville might recognize as similar to the voluntary organizations of yesteryear which he thought were such an important feature of American culture. I expect that this organization would accept a donation from you.

Two songs, one for WWII and Korean vets, the other for Vietnam Vets. More tears for me, especially knowing some of the experiences David's Dad went through. And the trials that others in our families and among our friends have gone through. The website supports training for companion dogs for disabled veterans. Such a great idea. They accept donations. Or, there's this bipartisan effort, started on 11/11, to encourage 11 million Americans to donate 11 dollars to veteran support groups.

The VFW in our little town have been out handing out little poppies for donations for a couple of days now. I first saw them on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I always donate and pick up a couple of poppies, even though the fabric ones of today aren't as nice as the paper ones, handmade, they used to hand out.

Once, on a night train with Yvonne to Paris, I woke up in the early morning to see a field of poppies out the train window, just like the poppies in Flanders Fields. Kind of made the poem real to me. Europe has seen so much war over the centuries and suffered through two horrific wars in the last century. Right where I was at that moment, there may have been a battle in the past. Certainly there were battles not far from there. But the field looked peaceful from my train window in the dawn light.

I know it's not Memorial Day, but Veteran's Day also makes me think of Grandpa Smith, a chaplain in World War I. Flanders is, of course, in Belgium, from whence he was writing.

Hope your Veterans Day today is rich and meaningful.

I got tagged

Brandy tagged me with a list. She had a lot of good stuff on hers. Mine's a little weird, I think.

Five Things I Don't Leave the House Without
1. Purse
2. Keys
3. Shoes
4. Eyeglasses
5. Pen & paper

Five Cartoons I Watched When I Was Younger
1. Mighty Mouse
2. Bugs Bunny
3. Rocky & Bullwinkle
4. Fractured Fairytales
5. The Roadrunner

Five Things That Terrify Me (or at least creep me out)
1. Things that go bump in the night
2. Being chased by a wolverine at twilight
3. Emotional confrontations
4. Being really unprepared (like when you start to dream about going to an interview in your bath towel)
5. A prowler in the yard

Five Things I Hate/Dislike That Everyone Else Seems to Like
1. Most board games
2. Most card games
3. Playing touch football
4. Action movies with no plot, quite a few TV shows
5. Willie Nelson's voice. Bob Dylan's is a little unusual, too.

Five Things I Want to do Before I Die
1. Get really, really organized and focused on what's important
2. Teach David how to dance (even a little bit)
3. Go to visit Yvonne and Attila in Switzerland, maybe do a better job of visiting Italy.
4. Become an expert - at something.
5. Make amends

By the Way: 10 new recipes up. Potluck dishes, salads, winter suppers, etc.

History - 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall with Alvin and the Chipmunks.

And a highly recommended comedic movie set in Berlin just before the wall went up, One, Two, Three. The review, here, reveals some of the gags. Gives you just a taste of what was going on at the time in Germany.

Happy Halloween

Another little trip coming up. David's Mom and Dad will be staying at the house.

For Halloween, some professional-level pumpkin carvings. And a Catholic priest talks about the current vampire craze. Whoa. An artist carves Tigerhawk's face. Scared the kids, he says.

Update: We didn't get any trick-or-treaters. Too far from other (inhabited) houses, I guess. Tonight we "fall back" to standard time. An extra hour of sleep, which we will lose in spring.

Back to Nature

Victor Davis Hanson has thought, taught and written a lot about big issues like war and peace and the rise and fall of civilizations. He believes that when a culture loses its connection to the land - when not many people know what it is like to grow food, etc., that culture starts to lose touch with reality. He sometimes writes about the unreality of the academic world in comparison to the world of farming, for example. He works in both.

Similarly, Stephen R. Covey writes about working in "natural systems" - working a farm or caring for infants, for example, where people must pay attention to the cycles of nature and/or the needs of babies who cannot speak in order to be successful. He contrasts this with working in "artificial systems" such as academia or politics. People who understand "natural systems" have an edge in understanding how the universe works. Bluffing works better in artificial than in natural systems. Attractive, but erroneous, ideas are quickly exposed in natural systems but may retain respect in an artificial system for a long time. This can allow problems to build up longer than they would in a natural system. Reality can be displaced by wishful thinking without too much difficulty in an artificial system.

Most people in our culture spend a lot of time in "artifical systems" - especially those who spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games, for example. People substitute short, on-line contacts for time with people, or post messages "to the world". There are some real advantages to "being connected" in the digital world. But balance is in order. Lack of focus on the non-digital world may reduce our ability to understand what is "real".

I like this post concerning Amish proverbs. If there's any group of people in America who still live in a mostly-natural system, it's the Amish. Proverbs mean something to them. Most of the rest of us don't spend a lot of time thinking about proverbs nowadays. We're too busy. Maybe we need a few Amish proverbs to bring us back to earth once in a while. Think about some of those proverbs and how they might apply to your life.

Jumping for joy is good exercise.

Beware the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.

A task takes as long as it takes.

At Stake Conference yesterday, one of the speakers recited her mother's favorite saying (or proverb, if you will):

Knowing is not doing.

This seems to me to be a proverb well-suited to the modern world. We know a lot of important things. But we are distracted by even more things. We distract ourselves from doing what we know is important. I have a suspicion that the Amish don't have as much need for this proverb as some of the rest of us do. Some people in the modern world have learned how to lessen the distractions in their lives. I'm still working on this.

In personal news, we learned Saturday that David's early retirement papers have been processed. A little less worry for us. We've been too distracted by the drama of David's whole irrational work situation. Time to get back to some activities which are a little more grounded in reality. Keira suggested pouring a small commemorative slab of concrete somewhere in the yard to mark the occasion.

For people who are newly unemployed or who are still really worried about future income, one of my favorite thinkers, Richard Fernandez, has some practical, low-cost tips for staying connected and approaching job-seeking on the web. Because it's hard for people who have had "real" jobs to get a new job without entering the digital world nowadays. Unless maybe they're Amish.

I went to Jathisa's wedding yesterday afternoon. She looked as pretty as I've ever seen her. Families were happy. Friends were happy. That's the way we like weddings.

We heard that little Julia is out of the hospital following possible H1N1 flu, which was a big relief. Still praying for friends and family struggling with illness.

My connection with "natural systems": Our late plums and early pomegranates. Also some remarkable bug photos.

Filling in a Picture of Life

On Sunday, we had two interesting messages at church. The first was about learning to take "Joy in the Journey". Something I need to think about more deeply and plan for more carefully.

The second speaker used a story about his neighbor who likes to work on jigsaw puzzles as part of her quiet, meditative times. He noted that when working on a puzzle, she first put together the framework. I think of "frameworks" in life as principles and related rules for behavior. Without a framework, we are likely to get chaos. It is almost impossible to reach for the higher aspirations in life while mired in chaos. We really do need a place of at least minimal order in our lives if we want to make much progress.

On a more secular level, I thought of the famous "no guardrails" essay from the WSJ.

Back to our Picture of Life: As the speaker's neighbor worked on the puzzle, she placed odd-looking, sometimes ugly, pieces together to form something beautiful. In our own lives, working within a proper framework, we can fit difficult events, circumstances and often even difficult people into a beautiful picture if we work mindfully.

More bureaucracy this week. David seems to have caught whatever I had a couple of weeks ago (or something similar). He has been quite sick for a couple of days, but is starting to feel a little better, with an antibiotic, etc.

As a diversion, I've posted cookie recipes - traditional chocolate chip cookie bars with notes on getting the best texture, chewier big chocolate chip cookies or coconut bars and Oatmeal/Coconut cookies - for making ahead of your event. I wrote about Jujubes, too.

Over on the "Perplextities" blog, there's a post about blogging and a balanced life, featuring a link concerning Kristi Yamaguchi and one on how good men and good women can minimize the hurt they cause each other. My first attempt at "liveblogging". I am not particularly fond of "liveblogging", as a rule.

Mom's 80th Birthday Party

Not everyone throws a party with dancing when they turn 80. But Mom did, of course. It was a wonderful idea and I think everyone had a good time.

We had a hectic afternoon last Saturday, but I managed to get a few pictures. I haven't figured out how to get any of them on this blog page yet. All of Mom's kids were there. Jeanine flew in from Oregon. We had lots of other relatives and friends, there, too. Many people with wonderful memories of past times together.

Mom planned the colors for her party around a tablecloth her sister, Claudia, had given her. The roosters on the tablecloth had a little lavender in their tail feathers. She had lavender flatware, plates and napkins, lavender M&Ms and a lavender hydrangea as a centerpiece on the refreshment table. She ordered chocolate and carrot cakes and bought nuts at a specialty store where they keep nuts fresh. We prepared cheese and grapes just before the party. David bought dates to go with the nuts.

It was one of those relaxed kinds of parties with old-time country dancing. You could hear yourself over the music. Which was a good thing, because there were a lot of interesting people to talk to.

Mom's friends who played for the party included musicians who played at the driveway dance at our wedding reception. Mom arranged that, too. Jeanine joined them for a few pieces.

Last Saturday, Julie taught and called the Virginia Reel - more like this one than this one. My foot stuck to the floor when I was sliding (nephew David was my partner, and he was enthusiastic). I fell but was not injured, thanks to the floor in the cultural hall which is built like the floor of a basketball court. Note to self: Get some dancing shoes. No more rubber soles when dancing.

I taught some of the nieces, nephews and others a rudimentary Varsovienne and a simple Schottische. Not nearly as fancy as this one, danced in a square. It was the elementary school version, sort of a partnered line dance. It's a very old, genteel dance. Some new steps for the Sweetheart Schottische here. Never considered doing the Schottische to Reggae until I read the Wikipedia entry.

You could dance the swing to many of the pieces played at Mom's party. More people knew the Swing than many of the older dances. And there were waltzes and polkas. It was the kind of a dance where Betty could become a boy to teach the Virginia Reel to a little girl, and where the young father of a disabled little girl did not need to feel self-conscious about taking her to the middle of the floor to dance with her, in her wheelchair.

A lovely evening. It started to rain as we got home. A brief downpour, with thunder, started as soon as we had unloaded the car. Dramatic. David, in the kitchen, thought he heard gunfire. Jeanine, in the living room, discovered that it was fireworks after the football game at the university. So we watched fireworks from the front door. Not everybody rates fireworks at the end of their birthday party. But Mom did. She deserved it.

I'll write more about our little trip later.

When things aren't where they're supposed to be

A while ago, David decided that it was time to tackle the imperfect finishing of the walls in the house. Most people wouldn't notice, but he did. It has bothered him for years. In preparation, we moved things from the bedroom and bathroom to the shed. We moved the furniture into the media room and the closets (except for the bed). No pantyhose for church one week. The blankets went in the living room.

David started re-doing the bathroom walls. He used an oil-based primer and everything. Then we went to Utah.When we got back. David's Mom had tidied up quite a bit, but things were still out of place.

Laundry stacked high (at least is was clean). The dogs had dug a little hollow under the Iceberg rose. Things took longer to do. Sometimes I couldn't remember where an item of clothing was. We had to unpack from our trip, too. Soon there was dust from drywall mud everywhere. I got strep throat (which responded quickly to penicillin) and we got colds which lingered. We cleaned a lot of the mess up, put the dressers back and . .

The dogs went into the bedroom to inspect. Lucky grabbed a pair of socks and laid on the bed on his back. Little Buddy started chewing on the nightstand. Troy the Giant Dog hid under the bed with only his tail sticking out. When he didn't come out for a biscuit, I tried to make a space for him to back out. He worked his way all the way under the bed to where we could see his face, and his big, brown eyes were mournful. We moved the bed and he was free at last!

The bedroom walls look better, especially to David. We'll have more shelves in the closet and the towel racks in the bathroom are more secure. We have little constellations of paint spots in the corner of one set of sheets. One looks like the Big Dipper. Whew. A lot of work. I was inspired to start throwing away old magazines and such.

Now David's started on the living room. We moved the table and laid drop cloths. One of the dogs found an old stain on a drop cloth and pooped on it. I just caught Little Buddy eating a ballpoint pen. Dust everywhere indoors. Outdoors, there's a gopher under the apple tree.

Here we go again. So much for getting normal things done. But we'll get a few big things done. In other news, we're still dealing with some very bizarre bureaucracy, and it's the anniversary of 9/11. Which puts our mundane problems in a little perspective. Lots of things, and people, aren't where they're supposed to be. Andrew Klavan has a piece up about the power of ideas. A clear, poetic presentation, though not everyone will agree with all the ideas in it.

Like all real things, ideas have qualities, characteristics. There are true ideas and false ones, practical and impractical, good ideas and bad. According to their qualities, ideas exert a force on human action. . .

Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior—and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history. . .

Memories with Marilyn

It was wonderful to see my cousin Marilyn at the family reunion. My memories of her go way back. When she was a preschooler, she became famous in the family for her ability to identify the makes and models of just about any car on the road. She got some coaching from her Dad. I wasn't famous for anything at that age. I wondered if I would ever develop a skill comparable to her mastery of car recognition.

We are about the same age and once lived only a few blocks apart. We played together. Marilyn and Carolyn. Once in a while, we also hung out with our more sophisticated cousin Marie. Marie's older sister, Lynne, even put up with us. Marilyn and I reminisced at the reunion about an early memory of the mystery disappearance of the little moths we had caught. They vanished from the little plastic purses in which we were "saving" them. I can't imagine Marie doing anything like putting little moths in a purse, even when very young.

Despite our joint insect experiences, Marilyn never developed much of a tolerance for spiders. Once, when she and Dana were newlyweds living in the Farner's basement (at least, I think it was the Farner's house) she called me and I walked up to catch a spider that was in her house. It was quite a big one. Ever seen a picture of a woman standing on a chair because of a mouse in the house? It wasn't quite that bad. I think fear of spiders or snakes is just built into some people.

Growing up, I had bad dreams about black widows. I developed little rituals for jumping down stairs which I imagined would protect me if there were a black widow in the corner of the bottom step in the basement. But I was usually not too upset by other spiders. Mom told stories about watching spiders spin their webs above her head on the sleeping porch in the summer when she was growing up - including Black Widows. I fell somewhere between Mom and Marilyn on the "fear of spiders" scale.

I also have a fragmentary early memory of something to do with Marilyn's sweet younger sister Suzie and an earwig. I tried eating ants once, Suzie. And I think Suzie once drank perfume, too.

I remember their Mynah bird. Too cool. Later, Marilyn's mother, my aunt Marlene, adopted an orphaned (by its previous owner) caiman. Not everyone's aunt adopts a caiman. They take some specialized care. If someone had arranged for a dozen strangers to mingle with all my aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, and then asked the strangers which of my relatives they thought had a caiman at home, I don't think many would have chosen Aunt Marlene. But I really don't know who they WOULD have chosen.

Marilyn and I sometimes visited with Grandma and Grandpa together, too. When we were little, Grandpa taught us to sing Ach du lieber Augustin in German. Somewhere along the line, I also picked up the first verse to this song. Lyrics here. Sing along.

When I still thought I was too young to be a fan of a popular music group, Marilyn was already a fan of the Kingston Trio. We listened to their records in her basement room. I always think of them in striped shirts, for some reason. I remember the banjo snd guitars, as well as the singing.

Somehow, all these years, I have missed Steve Martin's banjo career, however. I thought of the Kingston Trio again when I came across a Steve Martin Banjo video today.

When we were teenagers, I remember Marilyn and Suzie's younger brother Jeff, Lynne and Marie's younger brother Brad and my younger brother Brent as sometimes being kind of ornery or mischievous at family gatherings. They've all reformed now.

It's nice to have extended family.

Desert Tourist Traps

On our way up to Utah, we stopped at Barstow Station, an improbable jumble of buildings and old train cars built in the former parking lot of the "biggest McDonald's in the World". It's a well-designed trap for tourists heading to and from the biggest tourist trap of all time, Las Vegas.

The proprietors know what people en route between California and Vegas want: "The Cleanest Restrooms in Barstow". Plus, the "historical" interest of old train cars (not really in a very historical presentation), fast food (even Chinese), candy, ice cream, tourist trinkets and Ex-Lax. There are "quick" lines for cash only at the McDonalds, for people on a limited break from a bus.

Normally, I'm not really impressed by "touristy" places, but I thought this one just fit the bill for a quick stop. Wouldn't want to stay for long, though.

Down in the low desert, past Baker and before Las Vegas, is a failed tourist trap. Someone in a little town apparently thought it would be a good idea to build a water park in the middle of nowhere in the desert. But who wants to go to the low Nevada desert just to swim? Or to fish? Who wants to go on to Vegas in wet clothes after a "swim stop"? This enterprise failed. But I imagine that this little town could have been a welcome stop for the men working on the railroad to Las Vegas. It succeeded the 20-mule teams hauling borax from Death Valley to Mojave. I can hardly imagine what this trip must have been like on rough dirt roads from the low desert to the high desert.

Life is hard in the desert. You need a good plan to survive. If you have a business, you really need to know your potential customers.

The Power of the Pause

A momentary silence in music or in other forms of art can be powerful. It's the power of the unknown, the power of anticipation. All you new piano players out there: Remember to take your foot off the pedal once in a while. I know it's a little scary sometimes to hear all the notes and the rests more clearly. But you'll be glad later if you get into the habit of paying attention to your pedaling.

Also, the special powers of Ancient Airs and Dances by Ottorino Respighi. "The Cure for Everything".

Notice in the linked video how the smooth transitions between minor and major keys and/or related modes lead you deeper into the music. They're like subtle surprises - changes in mood which you can't quite predict. Even if your mood matched the somber key or mode in which the piece starts, you are swept up by the insistent flow of the music into lighter feelings, with an occasional break into major chords. There is tension between the light, airy tempo and the serious key signatures which dominate the piece. No dramatic silences, no dramatic changes in tempo. The shifts in key are a subtle way to keep you anticipating what comes next. And, of course, the piece ends in a positive major key.

"It will make four hours at the lathe with a bad foot a trip to the confectioner's."

Well, maybe for some people.

Hawaiian Stress Reduction

Our friend, Brandy, recently asked which music "refills your well". I may have missed the point a little in the comments. I included "feel good" types of music in addition to the inspiring, soul-filling kinds. But sometimes I have to work up on inspiring, "fill the well" music with less lofty or contemplative, but still recuperative, music.

When Sister Lee was here, we became more familiar with Hawaian music and instruments. Just being around Hawaiians can help you take on a more relaxed attitude. . The music also tends to reflect this. We bought some IZ, ukulele and slack key guitar CDs. We even bought some ukuleles.

Here are some examples of music from, or with some tenuous connection to, Hawaii or Hawaiian instruments. All are good for taking the edge off the stresses in your life. Here's some slack-string guitar, where even the strings are tuned to low-stress. For fun, some ukulele background. Heavy metal from Hawaii. Slack key taropatch ukulele if you don't want your ukulele strings to be uptight. Baritone uke in slack key. Arthur Godfrey sometimes played a baritone ukulele with Ukulele Ike. Here, Ike does a little ukulele, plus the complete version of "When you wish upon a star", which he performed for Disney.

The Baritone ukulele is tuned like the four highest strings of a guitar when not in one of the slack keys. I figured that four strings would be easier to handle than 5 if I wanted to learn to play. I already have enough trouble with guitars because they seem backward from a piano. The strings on a baritone uke are spaced about as far apart as guitar strings, so guitar players can transfer a lot of their knowledge directly to this instrument.

And of course for real feel-good music, there's that Hawaiian institution, IZ (Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole) performing Over the Rainbow, some beach party music, and a couple of my favorite hulas.

Back from our little trip

Well, we returned yesterday from our little trip to Utah. We were tired, but had good traveling weather both ways - Rain in the desert on the way - 69 degrees going into Las Vegas and 81 in the city itself - at 2:00 p.m. in August! Moderate monsoon weather continued in Utah - cool and overcast, a little rain, with one hot afternoon (hottest of the year) at 101 degrees.

Going home, we stopped at a casino in Mesquite in the afternoon. Our room was partially subsidized by gamblers. Only 103 degrees at 3:00 p.m. We parked in a shady spot. Skipped valet parking. The "real people" part of town - supermarket, Walmart, etc., are easily accessible from the freeway. Mesquite is in quite a pretty setting, surrounded by mountains. It's near Bunkerville, where our deceased friend Sylvia's family was from. She was born in a tent in Las Vegas, where her father was mining (I think), Early settlers in Bunkerville didn't have much more than tents. How spoiled we are.

We left Mesquite at 3:00 a.m. Clark County, Nevada, where Las Vegas is, must be huge. County fairgrounds are near Bunkerville and Mesquite. Settlers were able to establish dairy farms to serve Las Vegas after a road to the city was built. Hidden Valley Ranch is between Bunkerville and Vegas. The city is still more than an hour away from Mesquite even at freeway speeds.

It was 68 degrees outside Vegas (a "lake of lights" before dawn, as David put it). If you have to go through Vegas, that's a beautiful time of day to do it. Only 81 degrees in Baker. And as low as 64 degrees in the high desert.

David's Mom and Dad stayed with the animals, who mostly did fine. Maggie, Troy and Little Buddy refused to go outside once and Grandma had to show them a broom (don't know how they knew about brooms). Lucky went on strike for a while and wouldn't eat (he even refused chicken) or go outside. He demanded sympathy and love from Grandma. He broke his hunger strike with peanut butter and toast.

This trip was a very nice change for us. The dogs were thrilled to see us - raced around the yard. Geriatric Sparky and Dottie looked contented. Cats took everything in stride. More later on the family reunion, etc.

Fiddlin' and Feet, Nova Scotia style

Just for fun. Pretty girls. Maybe could use a little performance costuming. But never mind. Watch their feet.

Grandpa Smith from the Belgian Front, World War 1

Elizabeth found a letter from Grandpa to his father in Mom's basement. When we think that we have it rough, it may be time to read through it again. This is one of Elizabeth's favorite parts of the letter:

I am happy to say that peace seems to have come. I was slightly wounded in the right arm in the offensive we took part in on the Belgian front. I felt happy to be alive and safe and I look forward to coming home.

My sympathy goes out to those who will never go home and for those who expect to see friends and relatives who will never come back. I have come to the conclusion that life is a precious gift and is worth living, no matter what the difficulty, but we are so helpless to save it or preserve it that it is not worth while to consider our health and happiness and comfort about that of others. It is worth while sometimes to die, if death will serve to help others. When we think too much of our comfort we expose ourselves to more danger by disintegration than we do when we make a brave fight and face every danger and exposure.

I hope I come home from this war more of a man then I went into it. If I don't I'll feel that I have not played my part.

-Calvin S. Smith, in a letter to his father written from the Belgian Front, late 1918

This letter does not come close to reflecting all the hardships he faced. I know that he was once shot in the back and bit into the bullet in his "bully beef", the corned beef strapped to his back in a little frying pan. He carried shrapnel in his body until he died.

Things are heating up now

We got a surprise VIP conference phone call a couple of days ago from Sacramento. It went much better than the more bureaucratic call we got on Monday. Not confident the bigwigs are really able to civilize their organization, though. Challenging illegal activities within a State agency can be a wild ride full of inanities. And it's a whole lot of work. But on to the rest of life.

The weather has turned hotter. Forecasts are for around 106 to 107 degrees for a few days. It only goes below room temperature for a few hours in the early morning. So that's the time you want to be up for baking, laundry, dishwashing, etc.

I've put up two recipes from my high school cooking teacher. Tomato Flowers (for all the tomatoes we have coming on right now). No cooking required. We also have fruit on the trees. So even though it requires heating up the oven, I've posted a recipe for Fruit Cobbler. Have to check the weather report before baking, then finish before about 6:30 a.m. with the windows open and the exhaust fans going. Then morning rounds to check on the garden and feed the critters before it gets too hot.

We've had lots of dog hair in the house with the hot weather. There was dog hair on the floor and a pile of paperwork on the table when we had an emergency overnight guest last night (locked out of her apartment). Embarrassing. Oh, well. I guess it's sort of embarrassing to be locked out of your apartment, too.

Interesting short history of imperialism in China linked here.

The Patience of Hope

The title of this post is from Charles Wesley's hymn, Come Let Us Anew. "The Patience of Hope and the Labor of Love" are both important for our success, I think. We've been grappling more with the "Patience of Hope" part of this phrase recently.

The health problems among family and friends are less dramatic now. Debbie's husband is out surgery but still at risk. Cousin Kim's son took a shower recently for the first time after nearly dying of swine flu. Things are looking up for the branch members who were recently so ill. We had a lot of people at the "Munch and Mingle" Sunday.

We've been dealing with maddening bureaucracy pretty steadily for the last couple of weeks. But we've also gotten some help from people who know what they're doing. The kinds of bureaucratic laziness, aggressiveness and arrogance we have encountered are predictable. Especially in California at this time. But things are looking somewhat more positive. The elders gave David a blessing not long ago, and he now seems to have an increased ability to bounce back after encounters with hostile bureaucracy. His brother has retired and is relieved to have largely put similar problems behind him. He's coming to the Valley to pick up some corn and watermelons.

In other family news, "the other Carolyn" has produced a wonderful (according to Mom) retrospective program on the history of Ogden and the old Fox Egyptian theater. I didn't know she was involved in that sort of thing. Our Swiss friends Yvonne and Attila have a new granddaughter.

A couple of weeks ago in church, while the Stake Presidenty was visiting, we heard a a message on hope which stuck with me. Neal A. Maxwell in 1994:

. . . In the geometry of restored theology, hope has a greater circumference than faith. If faith increases, the perimeter of hope stretches correspondingly.

Just as doubt, despair, and desensitization go together, so do faith, hope, and charity. The latter, however, must be carefully and constantly nurtured, whereas despair, like dandelions, needs so little encouragement to sprout and spread. Despair comes so naturally to the natural man!

And again in 1998, during the time he was undergoing treatments for cancer:

Life’s disappointments often represent the debris of our failed, proximate hopes. Instead, however, I speak of the crucial need for ultimate hope.

Ultimate hope is a different matter. It is tied to Jesus and the blessings of the great Atonement, blessings resulting in the universal Resurrection and the precious opportunity provided thereby for us to practice emancipating repentance, making possible what the scriptures call “a perfect brightness of hope”

This week, we heard a message from the scriptures reminding us that sometimes we must be willing to leave behind some material things (and by analogy, misplaced emotional attachments, assumptions about the future and false hopes) in order to save our emotional, temporal and/or spiritual lives, We also had a great reminder that sometimes we should try prayers during which we only express thanks. Gratitude may be the antidote to grumpiness.

Good things to remember right now - a correct perspective on hope, with an emphasis on patience, and gratitude.

The weather has been fairly moderate for July here. I'm putting up some new tomato information and recipes, some with short cooking lessons, here.

There are posts on the 4th of July plus a week here and the "Glorious Revolution" more than 300 years ago in England here, if you're interested.

I discovered today which dog had been chewing the cord to the vacuum cleaner into short chunks. It's Maggie. She was scolded, given a lecture by David, then re-directed. So far, no recividism. Old Dottie today got some extra love for being such a perfect embodiment of patient hope - sitting quietly, looking up into my eyes with a steady gaze, waiting to be petted. Endearing.

Happy Independence Day

The "safe and sane" fireworks sales have been going on for a few days. "Free vacation package with every $300 purchase". Wow. And people have also been getting some fireworks which are not so "safe and sane", as usual for our rural area. If you're going to have a party, might as well make some noise.

Our two biggest dogs, Sparky and Troy, are the most afraid of fireworks. But Sparky's starting to lose his hearing. He came in Thursday night but stayed out last night. He'll probably need to come in again tonight. Troy gets frantic at the first booms. He doesn't try to get in the bathtub like Sparky used to do, though.

We've been dealing with ennervating heat and even more ennervating bureaucracy this week. Independence starts to sound good.

And so many of our friends and family have had health and personal challenges in the last two or three of weeks. In our little church branch, we haven't really had enough people to rally 'round those with emergencies. But we've done a lot of tag-teaming. Time to take a break to observe the 4th of July.

I've put up a Fourth of July post on history (good links on Lincoln and the Founders), also touching on current political themes, here.

Recipes and garden updates are here. Lots of tomatoes and squash in the garden right now. We've got Santa Rosa and Burgundy plums, and the July Elberta peaches are coming on. Even with all the problems in life, there remain a lot of things to celebrate. Have a great Fourth.

Medical Miracles

One of our friends nearly died this week. Her mother, a nurse, did not expect her to survive her surgery at Stanford after a part of her intestines died. Sounds similar to something my grandmother and one of my uncles died from. But she pulled through. Techniques for this surgery may be getting better. She still has a blood clot in her lung.

She came home today (a painful trip) and looks pretty good, considering. We are so happy for her and for her family, especially her husband and her kids

We had some anxious times as David's dad recovered from
open heart surgery earlier this year. His recovery was a really long haul, and they say it will be a year before he's fully back to normal. He's doing much better now, and got through out-patient knee surgery pretty well recently. Interesting descriptions of open heart surgery and other medical miracles here.

Zen and the art of kitty (or doggie) maintenance

As noted in the post below, our friend Brandy (who has now identified herself in the comments) started something. She planned and successfully completed a "Silent Saturday" devotional exercise. After she announced her plan, I read, considered and eventually linked this moving post by Sissy Willis, who misses her treasured cat, Baby Face. Sissy does a lot of especially fine Cat Blogging, and she was also interested in certain philosophical aspects of Brandy's "Silent Saturday" exercise. She responded in the comments. One thing led to another, and she expressed interest in Brandy's account of her Silent Saturday which connected Zen and her experiences with her cats.

Now Brandy has posted on The Zen of Kitties. One thing she wrote about was how the routine of caring for her kitties kept her focused on the present. Her kitties really depend on her. A bond of love develops. When I lived alone in Southern California, I couldn't keep a pet in the house, but I cared for a partly-wild "outside kitty". I was surprised how hard I took it when she died quite suddenly. I felt sort of lost without that daily connection.

Of course, since then we've had other treasured cats and dogs. Plus a banty hen, Henrietta Heartley, once the fearless, bossy companion of big, intimidating Sparky, who is a Husky/Black Lab mix. He's the only one of our dogs whose breeding "pedigree" we know. He was abandoned by our neighbor, who was cruel to his children and his dogs, perhaps due to meth addiction. All of our other animals have just adopted us.

We don't have a chicken any more. The first cat who adopted us in town, Wild Panther Mama, is gone. She was truly wild. Her sweet babies, Cocoa and Chocolate, are gone. Fluffy, the sort of dim boy kitty we thought was a girl kitty, is gone. So is Speedy, who retrieved lifesavers. Peter seems to have chosen to live full-time with his second human family. Charlie and Cloudy were just too rough. Now we have Darla and Thomas, who are "people cats", and Charlie, Brewster and Cloudy, who each have their own stringent rules for human involvement. But they all still need us.

David still thinks about his little princess dog Sula all the time. The little stray puppy in our side yard right now reminds him of Sula and her big, brown eyes. Troy the Giant Dog reminds him of Sula and her big, brown eyes. Lucky reminds him of Sula and Snickers. Maggie reminds him of Snickers. Dottie reminds him of Snickers. And we still have Sparky, from the time when we had Sula and Snickers. But he's showing his age. Even though our first two special dogs are gone, they're really still sort of with us.

As with Brandy and her cats, the routine of caring for our animals often helps keep us going and focused on the present when things get tough. But, as with Brandy, cats and dogs help us in other ways, too. When we have more than one, they have their own little kittie and doggie dramas, reminding us not to take our own dramas so seriously. They're fun to play with, snuggle and just watch. We learn to love them all. Even the ones who don't really seem to like us very much are endearing. The ones who really show their love for us - all of the dogs and about half of the cats - are really special.

Brandy reminded us about the benefits of adopting a cat. I like to see people adopt two kitties if they're young, so they can learn to express their "cat nature" appropriately. Here's Ben Stein on dogs.

Silence or Sound

One of our friends decided to set aside a "Silent Saturday" as a devotional exercise aimed at helping her focus on God and on the present (rather than the past or future). She reported that it was a great success.

After she announced that she was preparing for this special day, I ran across a post by a Catholic blogger called, "The Sounds of Silence." This got me thinking about whether there were some types of music which had an effect on us which was similar in some respects to the effects of purposeful silence.

She wrote about, and linked, three pieces of music which broke her heart - good for times when we need a good cry. The first was Mozart's Ave verum corpus. The video follows the score. I was surprised that I could anticipate both the Soprano and Alto parts. Like I had sung it before. Maybe I have. But not in Latin. The second on her list is Ave Maria. This one is beautiful, but probably means more to the average observant Catholic than to me. The third I linked in an update to my Memorial Day post. There's another moving video at the end of this post. Can some music help us resolve our feelings about the past and help move us into the present with more awareness?

In addition to music which makes me weep, I have sometimes had a feeling of intense absorption in the present when practicing certain pieces by Beethoven and a few other composers. I imagine that someone practicing this Bach cello prelude could have a similar intense feeling of being involved in the music. But listening to it reminds me of math and logic somehow. In a very good way.

It has an entirely different effect on me than the achingly beautiful Arioso. I remember as a small child sitting under the piano and becoming absorbed in the music as my mother played this piece on the cello. I later accompanied her, and it continued to have the same effect on me. Another Bach piece which also sometimes brings me to tears (maybe of gratitude - certainly not of sadness) is Air on the G String. This piece has apparently had a lot of influence on other composers. But analysis takes away a little of its magic for me.

A lesser-known cello piece in which I became absorbed as a child is Nina, The melody is very old. We thought was written by Pergolesi, but it is now attributed to Ciampi. I didn't know when I was a little girl that originally, this was a song. The singer becomes a painter singing to his model, who has been sleeping, perhaps for 3 days.

There is other music which is wonderful, but which can have a more distracting quality. Like this interesting guitar/cello duo. It reminds me of many jazz violin pieces. Has its over-ambitious moments, but I think Jeanine would find it interesting. Probably one of the more unusual musical duos in Bozeman, Montana.

I think that there are times for silence, but also times when carefully selected music can help us focus on the present. And there are times when it's nice to have music which is a little more distracting. But most of us distract ourselves too much from the present moment with music, talk, etc.

I remember being surprised as a pre-teen at how much better I felt about housework when I was listening to the Norman Luboff Choir (men only) singing "Songs of the Sea" (sample !16, "Homeward Bound") and other work songs. But often we work to music or talk (on TV, radio, etc.) which was not invented as an accompaniment to work. It may tend to take us out of the present moment. And our friend reports that during her Silent Saturday, cleaning gave he a feeling of being closer to God. I don't think the Norman Luboff Choir did that for me. And some of the songs certainly didn't.

One person commenting on her post said that she had a hard time finding moments of silence even on the Sabbath. That reminded me of the careful preparations for the Sabbath in traditional Jewish communities. Dennis Prager has described feelings of being completely removed from the cares of the world during the Sabbath and focused on God and the people around him. Maybe we need to do more preparation for these special days.

I once read, then lost, a book by a man who went from being an agnostic academic type to being the president of the London Temple. Don't even remember his name. But he emphasized that we should strive to make our experiences in life genuine (and this was before video games became a big thing). He suggested that if we were listening to music, preferably live, we should give it our full attention. If we were eating, we should give that our full attention, etc. I believe that he connected this type of focus with gratitude. And with making the best choices about how to spend our time.

There are so many things in our world today which can absorb our attention. It's wonderful to remember to be silent from time to time so we can just experience life, observe and listen. And even to plan for times of silence, as our friend did. I'm also going to focus on "staying the present" more often. This may require a few adjustments in my thinking.

Yay! One Puppy to a New Home, Graduation Day

This morning, a young black puppy showed up in our front yard, and F. put him in the side yard with the last puppy who showed up. Troy and Maggie thought that this was an outrage. Especially Maggie. A difficult doggie day.

Fortunately, K. came by in the afternoon, and later brought a friend by who took the little black puppy home, because it looks a lot like a Black Labrador puppy. He hopes it will be a retriever. He has prepared his big back yard for the puppy and everything. One day turn-around on a stray puppy. A record.

Our poor little tan and white puppy was left behind. He is still looking for a friend to play with full-time. He liked the little black puppy. I play with him in the morning and bring him in to visit Lucky in the evening, but it's not enough, and Lucky has not quite accepted that he's part of the pack. The puppy already knows how to retrieve, but will only be able to retrieve little things when full-grown. His paws are about the same size as the smaller, much younger black puppy's paws. He's getting kind of long and skinny, but not much taller. Cute as anything. Somewhere, there is a little kid or another dog who's going to be glad to have him for a playmate.

Local kids graduated from high school today. I heard the noise as the ceremony ended while out shopping. it rained off and on, but I think everyone came through the graduation O.K. Better than 106 degrees in the stadium. We're proud of our little Branch's big scholarship winner.

June already

Well, we're mostly over our respiratory infections. I just have a slight cough now. We've been doing a lot of paperwork. David helped his Dad on the day he had knee surgery. He's doing better with his recovery from open-heart surgery.

Our weather started cooling down last week, and we had a freak storm with high winds and lightning which scared the dogs, especially big old Sparky. He had to hang out in the laundry room for a while. We weren't hit by the full force of the storm. Some locations were warned to expect hail the size of a quarter. We heard about a security system fried by a power outage and surge. Our region seems to be prone to these fast-moving, intense storms from the East in the summer.

We had a relaxed, casual Branch party last week, and I took lemon cookies from cake mix. Very quick and easy. Popular. Remind me to
post the recipe. It was an adult party. I was interested in who chose to go swimming. A mother and daughter who are kind of sporadic in their church attendance, and an older woman who walks with a walker. Nice to see her in the water.

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for the Cub Scouts. A lot of adults in the community put a lot of work into this little event. The kids were excited. A brother and sister team just a little older than the Cubbies judged who crossed the finish line first. A friend suggested that next year, I need to prepare a car of my own for this race. it would probably be fun.

On my kitchen and garden blog, I've posted a report on apricots and our first tomato from the garden, and also a recipe for yummy, down-home Okie Squash and Tomatoes.

On the Culture and Political front, I've put up posts on American Values (Prager University), Andrew Breitbart and Hollywood, Newsweek, Playboy, the General Motors bankruptcy and the 20th anniversary today of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Take a look around if you like.

Memorial Day 2009

It's Memorial Day today. Last year, we participated in the memorial service at the city cemetery, where the avenues were lined with flags and each veteran's grave had a small flag. This year, David and I both have some sort of respiratory infection. I don't think it's the over-hyped Swine Flu, though cases have been reported nearby. The bug we have has not made us seriously ill, but sick enough to keep us from doing much. I even missed Dennis Prager's show, which I'm confident had some good Memoral Day content. I heard some snippets of militry music on NPR while running errands and read a National Memorial Day reminder on a friend's blog. Our other Memorial Day remembrances have been pretty much mental this year.

Growing up, our family remembered not just war dead and deceased veterans on this day, but also other people whom we had loved and lost. And those our grandparents wanted to remember. Like the Aunt who brought Great Grandma across the Atlantic when she was a motherless infant, with a goat to provide her with milk. It was a time to take precious peonies and lilacs from the garden to the cemeteries, and some years, the first of the roses. Mom called yesterday to tell me about the family's grave decorating trip over the weekend, coordinated by a thoughtful daughter-in-law. It's a nice way to remember those who have gone before us, I think.

It wasn't until I got a little older that I really understood that the day was really meant primarily to honor lost warriors. Peggy Noonan writes about fame in America, the behavior of heroes and why we tend to forget them. Via Maggie's Farm, Victor Davis Hanson's moving 2002 essay on some of the men who fought with his father's cousin, the man after whom he was named, in Okinawa:

. . . I also know that America has never quite produced a generation like those Marines who went up Sugar Loaf Hill — educated, idealistic, and as dangerous in war as they were benevolent in peace. Now in their eighties, their letters and voices seem strangely tranquil and with astuteness of a distant age that will not return, so at odds with the cacophony of the present. So on this Memorial Day and once more in a time of war, we Americans must be duly conscious of who they were, what they did, and how we must try to preserve and be worthy of what at great cost they have passed on.

Read the whole thing. Please.

One of the things those Marines (and many more like them) helped preserve was the culture of the delightful couple in the video linked here, of about the same vintage as the Marines. So fun to watch.

Update: Do not stand at my grave and weep. Makes me weep.

Neighborhoods and "Church Neighborhoods"

Last Sunday, we heard stories from the history of our little branch of the Church. Stories of faith and of work to build up the church where there had been no church organization before. And especially, we heard wonderful stories about how people helped each other.

One of the strengths of our Church at this time in history is that it provides organized ways for people to learn how to be good neighbors. Sort of like neighbors in physical neighborhoods were a generation or two ago. Or maybe we're supposed to even become more than the typical old-fashioned good neighbor eventually.

This occurred to me as I read this piece, in which the author attempts to answer the question, "Where Went the Neighborhood"? He made the interesting point that, when Christ gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan, people had a better idea what good neighbors do. And not only was the Samaritan a good neighbor, but he also enlisted the Innkeeper as a good neighbor.

We're a little short on close neighbors in our neighborhood right now, with two empty houses nearby. One is in foreclosure, but that's another story. We still see Emma and her granddaughter frequently. Once in a while I talk to the neighbors up the street who have the rat terrier which is so interesting to our dogs. Being at the edge of town, we've had people show uo when they really needed help in the past, and we still get people stopping by for directions or help in finding lost dogs. But we seldom even see most of the people in our physical neighborhood. They seem to want it that way.

We do much better with members of the Church. But even in the Church, being a neighbor seems to take more effort than it used to. In Relief Society, we heard from Nonie about how when her children were young, all the members of the ward rallied around a family in crisis to help them through the crisis. But now, it seems like just about every family has a crisis of some sort. It often takes a special effort to share the joys and sorrows of others and to help each other with sudden problems or even routine, everyday needs. Sometimes we manage to do this spontaneously, sometimes through a deliberate individual effort and other times through an organized effort. Many people act as wonderful neighbors by consistently and prayerfully carrying out their Church callings, without fuss or fanfare, despite challenges in those callings.

But we're still not as neighborly as Church members were in the past, I think. Sometimes it seems like we're just overwhelmed. I have decided that I need to pay just a little more attention to those who aren't living in the ideal nuclear family situation - the widowed and the fatherless, people who are single for any reason. And to watch for families which run into difficulties. It's an especially great feeling when we can all rally 'round them even though we are having problems of our own. To "love 'em up", as Dennis Prager would say.

We may need similar help from time to time. And none of us is immune to becoming the man at the side of the road in the parable.

Not the Blossom Trail, but close

Yesterday, David and I had an appointment in Fresno. On the way up, we saw orchards of peaches and nectarines in full bloom, hundreds of acres in various shades of pink. The almonds had largely dropped their petals, and plums were in various stages of bloom to green. There was a light wind, and white cumulus clouds were overhead, a relatively rare sight here. You could see the snow in the Sierras. A beautiful drive. It's nearly peak season to follow the blossom trail.

Most of our own peaches and nectarines are blooming now, too. Peaches and nectarines have not been my most successful fruits. I've posted some new information on peach and nectarine varieties and culture here.

In Fresno, we saw smoke from a big fire, and as we approached home, another ugly, dark gray plume of smoke. As we got close, it looked like it was coming from about where our house is. We started to think about how to get Lucky out of the house. Then a police car in front of us went past our street to regulate traffic on the next block. Fire engines started speeding in. Our house was not on fire. The fire seemed to be coming from a yard where there are frequent recreational bonfires, plus very loud music. We haven't gone over to investigate whether a structure was involved. We hope that it wasn't a housefire. We are thankful that it wasn't OUR house on fire.

Later in the evening, the wind came up, clouds turned black and we had a thunderstorm accompanied by rain. Sparky was insistent on coming in from the garage to be with Maggie, Troy and Lucky. Our biggest dogs are the biggest wimps when it comes to thunderstorms. Dottie laid in a cupboard in the garage on some black trash bags to which she has become attracted. I ordered them years ago from a charity. She tore the box apart to use the bags as nesting material. David moved them to a cupboard, so Dottie moved in on top of them. But the dogs were happy after the storm passed, and we needed the rain.

The biggest news is that David's dad finally went home yesterday, to a wild greeting from his little Boston Terrier, Prissy. She no longer needs to hop the fence to search for him (not that she will necessarily give this activity up). Recovery from his surgery has been a long haul for Dad, and for his wife. It was a good day.

End of February in the Central Valley

There is not a whole lot of earth-shaking news right now at our house, but there are many things to be grateful for. It was Stake Conference last week. We noted the 30th anniversary of the creation of the stake. A lot of people worked hard to put together histories of the stake and its units. Hard to believe that once the Fresno Branch stretched all the way from the peaks of the Sierras to the Coast Range. Pattie put together a nice display for our branch. And we got to hear about the adventures of the Sequoia Branch, with wild pigs digging up their lawn, etc.

The main message I took from the Saturday adult session's theme of a Legacy of Faith was that, in our church callings, we need to strive to "get the water to the end of the row" - using the analogy of a Western potato farm. We need to pay more attention to the people at the "end of the row".

Sunday there was a broadcast to the stakes in roughly the northern half of California. One theme was that we can work on becoming a "Zion People" right where we are, even in these discouraging times. California's government is in deep financial trouble and the state is losing population and businesses. It is one of the 5 states with high numbers of mortgage defaults. But there's no magical place where we can escape life's challenges. And sometimes great blessings come during times of trial.

We can turn more of our attention to our families, friends and neighbors and give less attention to our worries. We cam act as conduits for God's love, being careful that we're not trying to attract attention to ourselves as we do so. We can move forward with faith, despite the current disheartening developments around us, "accepting the guiding hand of our Heavenly Father", as President Uchtdorf put it. His wife's family was taught in Germany by a missionary from a little town in the Sierras. Small world.

Washington's Birthday passed without much notice, now that it is no longer a national holiday. It would probably be better if we remembered him more often.

As we've been driving back and forth to visit David's Dad in the rehabilitation center, I have been noticing what a beautiful time of year this is in the Central Valley. On sunny days, the weather has been slightly cool, fresh and glorious. The wheat fields and fodder crops look lush. Even the weeds look good. Vacant lots are beautiful and green, often with a yellow haze of tiny flowers. Some of the little flowers in waste places are fascinating up close. The almond orchards are blooming.

In town, the earliest flowering pears are finished blooming and many of the later-blooming cultivars are dropping "snow". The Krauter Vesuvius pink flowering plums are gorgeous. I think people with light gray houses should be required (well, maybe encouraged) to plant one in their front yards. Both the pink flowers and the later smoldering deep red-purple leaves look great with gray or pale yellow. The leaves look wonderful with coral pink roses or crape myrtle. They sometimes look harsh against white during our hot summers. Too much contrast. Maybe someday, I'll get a Spencer Hollywood tree - not such deep purple leaves, and it also provides good fruit.

The deciduous magnolias are blooming in older neighborhoods. We've been through an old section of Visalia a couple of times and I've admired the green canal banks, Victorian homes, picket fences and garden gates. I went to a landscape nursery during the week while David was at a supply store in one of those low-rent small business developments. I saw some lovely camellias. Made me miss the camellia forests at the Huntington Library and Gardens and the Descanso Gardens, both near Pasadena.

The nursery also had flats of violas and pansies. It's getting late in the season for planting them here, but it was fun to see them all. I love the little ones the best, and they had some very distinctive varieties. The color range of these little flowers has really been expanded from a couple of decades ago. There was a blue, cream and peach viola which had a darling face, and a striking burgundy backlit on the edges with gold. They also had some small pansies in watercolor shades which were very attractive.

The rain has not totally deterred insects from the early bloom on some of our fruit trees. The Arctic Star nectarine rivals ornamental flowering trees for beauty right now, though it is still much smaller than most of the ornamentals. Some of our plums and Pluots are also very attractive, with dense white bloom. I'm looking forward to some fruit in a few months.

I've posted some new recipes, including the green Jello salad I've been taking for David's Dad. They've had a hard time getting him to eat, and he has had some nausea when he does eat. He went weeks without eating anything before coming to rehabilitation. But he is doing much better and is tentatively schedules to go home next Wednesday. We've had a training session on how to help him maneuver safely at home as he recovers some strength in his legs. He wants a haircut more than about anything.

The Washington Navel oranges will be past their prime soon. We're seeing strawberries from the coast, and soon we should have local berries for this recipe, Strawberry Flowers. Enjoy the early flowers in the landscape, too, before they're gone.

California Trails

Today, we went to see David's Dad at a rehabilitation facility in Visalia. As we approached a turn, there were three SUVs pulled over - one each on the north, west and south sides of the corner. Plus a couple of highway patrol vehicles. As we turned east, we passed several more highway patrol cars -at least one at each intersection and more between intersections. We started to worry about what kind of criminal was on the loose. But the cars pulled over at the first corner didn't fit into a fugitive scenario. Finally it dawned on me that this was the day that Lance Armstrong and others would be taking the California Tour through Visalia, past our little town and then to Paso Robles (a difficult, hilly stretch of the tour). I guess they had had a collision in the rain the day before.

David and I seemed to have taken, coincidentally, three of the roads which would be part of the tour. As we got into the city, people had set up lawn chairs to watch the action, especially where the bikers would be turning.

Dad is in quite a nice facility. He had clothes on instead of a hospital gown, and no tubes attached to him. He was kind of nauseous, but was able to spoon ice chips for himself, and was lucid. His sister Lucille and her husband Manuel came in, too. He's getting a lot of attention from the staff. Their goal is to get him walking and taking care of himself so he can go home. We look forward to that. It's hard for him. He was not in the best shape before surgery, and the surgery was a big shock to his system.

Ken called later to say that the CHP had approached him as he was spraying weeds along the canal, and had asked him to stop spraying before the bike tour came through the countryside west of town. It was two hours before the bikers passed, preceded and followed by many support vehicles. Ken didn't find the passing of the bike tour particularly exciting. Cars were backed up on all the cross streets, though. Even on that flat stretch of the tour. I'm glad we got through the tour route before, not during, the bike tour's sojourn through Visalia.

Chugging forward, slowly

We had more encounters with bureaucracy yesterday. Not as disheartening as Friday's, but with some instances of bureaucratic lassitude (in addressing problems) and rigidity about completing forms. We were interviewed by CPS as possible caregivers for two little girls who have been through some very difficult times. A surprisingly involved process. David later got a call from Sacramento which seemed bracingly non-bureaucratic. In general, though, our state government is in trouble, with layoffs of State workers ordered due to a budget impasse and deep deficits. Some of our friends are worrying right now.

The garden is showing some signs of spring. Our gardening partner planted a frilly, heavy-bodied variety of lettuce everywhere, and the heads are getting big now. I don't know what he plans to do with all of it. Hope he has a lot of friends, because it doesn't seem like a heat-tolerant variety, and we may have some warm days soon. We had some of the lettuce for dinner. The flavor and texture were not the best, but it tasted nutritious, for lettuce. Last year, he planted a deep red variety of lettuce. Seedlings came up from chaff he was given when he worked for a company which produces lettuce seed. The red lettuce was better than this year's lettuce. Maybe we can get some cruciferous greens in before it gets too hot.

David's Dad has been moved to a rehabilitation facility to prepare him to go home. We hope to be able to see him tomorrow.

Lift Up the Hands that Hang Down

Today was a good day at church. It was conference day in our little branch. We had quiet, emotional messages on angels, angels in human form and other means God uses to communicate with us and help us through struggles and difficult circumstances. Dennis Prager observed during one of his "Happiness Hours" that as we get older, we are more likely to be brought to tears by hearing about acts of kindness, help or courage than by hearing about cruelty, disaster or weakness. Seems right to me.

But the thing which touched me most was watching the visiting male leadership, after the meeting, choose for their first greeting a young father who is having some serious emotional and financial difficulties. They talked with him not as someone who needed sympathy and aid, but as someone who was important for them to get to know. I could see immediately a difference in his level of self-confidence. It was a great example to me of following the commandment to "Lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees".

And there were other examples of the same kind of support, from both men and women. We had a few people we don't usually see in attendance, because of the baptism of a young boy. I was glad that this was the day that they had come to church. Lora and I were asked by the Stake Relief Society visitors to watch carefully for families in the branch who might be having financial difficulty due to the economy. But the needs addressed today through personal interactions were probably more important.

Valentine Hearts

It's Valentine's Day. David gave me lovely gifts in anticipation a couple of days ago, one a big red heart. But I've got a blue heart this morning, and so has he. I am disheartened with bureaucracy and government at the moment. On a better note, here's how Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong handled the Blues. They say that playing Blues and similar melancholy music, then gradually brightening the mood of the music, can help lift your mood. Maybe I'll try it.

Update: O.K. Try these in sequence for mood-lifting: How Deep is the Ocean, My Funny Valentine and Side by Side.

Valentine's Day Thought from Wretchard:

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Below, a sweet and schmaltzy poem from the comments. It's the thought that counts. Truly.

Daughters are special. Having a daughter makes a man feel like he accomplished something. I wrote this for my daughter a few Valentine’s Days ago, and offer it here to all Belmont Clubbers fortunate enough to be fathers of daughters.

TO MY DAUGHTER, ON SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY
The dawning paints the night sky pink

With rose and amber hue

To look at it I have to think

The morning loves you too.


The rising sun climbs in the sky

Too bright for us to view

Another reason I know why

The noontime loves you too.


As sunset draws the curtain low

And sky turns dusk from blue

I ken full well that this I know

The evening loves you too.


And as I trundle off to bed

I think always of you

And count the thousand times I’ve said

Your father loves you too.

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day

Walt Erickson

Thanks, Walt, for being a loving Dad. From a daughter who misses her own Dad.

Up and Walking

David's Dad is not up and running yet, but he walked a few steps yesterday and more today. He had pudding yesterday and today, and real food for lunch.

This has been a slow recovery, but I guess it's not unprecedented. We have heard about friends who have been disoriented and who have had complications in recovery from open heart surgery. We are grateful that he is doing so much better.

Saturday, Dad was talking, but not so you could understand him, until his wife and I started to talk about his little Boston Terrier Prissy. He repeated her name. A few minutes later, after I had left so David could come into the room, he said to David, "I can talk again. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy." This reminded David of his grandmother. But coherent language was still mixed with mumbling. Among the coherent things Dad said was, "I love all of my kids".

Sunday, Dad was disoriented and kept trying to disconnect medical equipment. But last night, he started asking questions about various family members. He said he wanted to go with his wife to Medford, Oregon. He wanted me to take his sister-in-law Helen in a separate car. He instructed David to start moving him toward the South (toward home) at 9:00. His plans will have to wait a few days.

He looked much better, and we are looking forward to his return home.

A big smile

David's Mom went to visit his Dad today. He said to the nurse, "My wife here" and started to grin. This time, his wife's presence was a comfort instead of a trigger for agitation. He's still on heavy medication, can't talk much yet and he floats in and out. But we're all feeling much better about his progress. We'll go to visit when we're a little more confident that we won't spread a respiratory infection in the ICU. Interesting how much easier it is to get things done when you aren't as preoccupied with the health of someone you love.

Wednesday update: The medical team got Dad out of bed and into a chair for the first time since the surgery. Mom says he looks better, but he is still very tired.

The waiting may be almost over. Gratitude in order.

We just heard that David's Dad is awake and responding, with no breathing tube, after 10 days in which he was kept in a coma-like state most of the time. After prior complications like swelling in his throat, we were grateful to hear about the success tonight. We are also grateful for the ICU nurses and doctors.

The medical team had first tried to remove the tube for the ventilator while he was awake, then while he was asleep, This time, the medical team switched to a different tube which was not hooked to the ventilator, to allow him to start breathing on his own. He had previously become agitated and combative when he heard the voices of family members, so we were asked to stay away while they woke him up this time. He may have been reacting to difficulty breathing. We believe that we may get to see him tomorrow.

The music I linked when this wait began led to other videos suitable for a time of reflection. Here's another of those beautiful Respeghi "ancient airs and dances" and a piece by Gluck that my Mom plays on the cello. Sometimes I accompany her. I think it must be the "minuet" from Dance of the Blessed Spirits. And what do you know: here's an old recording of Rachmaninov playing another part of Gluck's work. My Dad once heard Rachmaninov in concert at the Salt Lake Tabernacle (renowned for its acoustics, but with uncomfortable seats). Rachmaninov's performance was very theatrical. He entered dramatically in a flowing cape. During one piece, a train could be heard from a few blocks away. Rachmaninov lifted his hands from the keyboard and waited for the train, then signaled the conductor to begin the piece again.

Each video seems to lead to another interesting one. I learned to play la fille aux cheveux de lin on the piano. Mrs. Hayes, my piano teacher, went to a great deal of trouble to track down the music. The sheet music came from France and the paper was very fragile. Here the piece is arranged for violin and piano, with some pretty amazing double stops at the end by Jascha Heifetz.