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It’s important to say ‘bye, Jet, but any sadness I feel is just a whisper compared to my HUGE gratitude that everyone’s okay. I believe your sturdy reliability was part of that. Thank you.
A very happy Mother’s Day to all those who are mothers to someone, whether by birth or by choices of the heart.
One of the best purchases I ever made was my CR-V, Jet, in April of 1998. I learned from past car mistakes and have taken good care of Jet with regular maintenance, oil changes, and cleanings. At twelve, he’s weathered some dramas and isn’t the fresh young thing he used to be, but he’s still my favorite car I’ve ever had and I’m not even remotely interested in trading him for some whippersnapper with a shiny finish. We’ve driven to Mendocino, California and back. To Portland, Maine and back. To Ohio, New York, Tennessee, Alabama, Utah, Minnesota, Georgia, Louisiana, and all over Texas–a lot of highway miles.
Last week, I realized Jet was about to reach an important milestone, and I hoped I’d be with him, but I knew it was just as likely that Tom or Tim would be and probably wouldn’t even notice. This morning when I woke up, I felt compelled to go check him out before Tom used him for an errand. Because it MIGHT still be possible…
Here’s what I saw.
So, like any White Trash Princess, still wearing my nightgown, I grabbed my keys and my license, invited the dogs for a ride, put on my seatbelt, and away we went. About three-tenths of a mile later, we all pulled over and celebrated together:
Happy birthday, Jet, and I look forward to as many more miles with you as you’ll give me. Here’s a photo Tom took of us on our first day together:
Current Photo Friday theme: The Coast
It’s hard to contemplate the impact of the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico without remembering how, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused such terrible loss of life along with damage to property and the economy of the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast. Even in 2008, my first visit back to the area broke my heart.
The story in this photo gives me hope. This smooth road along the coast, with equipment still on it, had been turned into a twisted mass of puzzle pieces by the winds and floods. Many of the gorgeous live oaks–some of them hundreds of years old–and pines that were destroyed in the hurricane have since been turned into sculptures like this dolphin, becoming the number one tourist attraction in the area. Then there’s the whimsy of the Santa hat on the dolphin’s head.
A little science, a little art, a little humor: We deal with catastrophe.
I always make Rhonda feel REALLY great when I tell her that her birthday–May 4–is the day Jeff died in 1995. Because that’s the kind of friend I am! In actuality, though that time was a dark one, only two years afterward, I met Rhonda online, and here we are thirteen years later, “in real life” friends, as they say, and part of a group of people who enjoy and cherish one another, most of whom I didn’t know existed in 1995. Celebrating Rhonda’s birthday while remembering Jeff reminds me what brilliant experiences and people may await me after bad times. No matter what happens, there’s always hope that eventually, someone could make a Pixie Bear on craft night.
I’m assuming–and I hope I’m right, because I have no cake baked!–that Rhonda will be blowing out candles at The Compound while the Canadians are here. And that’s SO SOON. I hope the jasmine is still blooming for y’all, because I was outside earlier inhaling the aroma. Awesome.
One of the daisies Tim got for The Compound looked especially lovely today. I’m presenting it here as a gift to ‘Nathan, because it’s orange and for another reason I think he’ll understand.
Today is also Star Wars day, which I only discovered last year, I think: May the fourth be with you. Once again, in regard to balance, this reminds me to laugh in spite of the other event that this date signifies: the Kent State shootings in 1970. In February of this year, the site where four students died and nine were wounded was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Usually this doesn’t happen for more than fifty years after an event, but the application offered a compelling case for registering the site. One of the applicants, Kent State Professor Emeritus Jerry Lewis, was acting as a faculty marshall on that spring day in 1970. Today, Amanda provided a link to a radio interview with Dr. Lewis that was really good. Thank you for that, Amanda.
Among the things Dr. Lewis shared was an excerpt from an article written this year by Elaine Holstein. You probably don’t recognize her name, but if you’ve ever read an article about Kent State, you’ve seen her son Jeff Miller in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken of him that day; at age twenty, he lay dead on the ground with an anguished fourteen-year-old girl kneeling next to him, her arms outstretched.
I’d like to repeat the quote from Mrs. Holstein that Dr. Lewis shared:
…once in a while, I wonder about my son Jeff’s future that had so needlessly been cut short.
What would he have been like now, at age 60? What sort of career would he have had? Would he have married? And what about those other grandchildren that my husband and I might have enjoyed?
Now, as I watch the news on TV each night, I deplore the increasing ugliness of politics, and I’m afraid. I know too well what can happen when hatred takes over.
Please, let us lower the volume and be civil toward one another.
For Jeff’s sake. And for all of ours.
Every life has its celebrations and losses, its joys and heartbreaks. I believe each time we’re willing to see that truth in the lives of others, even those from whom we feel different, we make civility more possible–and we nourish our own souls.
Rhonda, your date is a profound one–and this crazy world is better because you’re in it. Happy birthday.
I was called for jury duty the other day. I didn’t get picked. I didn’t even get called to a panel for the voire dire process. Several cases were settled and I was among prospective jurors sent home. Doesn’t matter to me whether I serve or not; I’m not a jury duty hater. I was amused when the bailiff made an announcement that someone’s car was in a judge’s space on the third floor of the parking garage and it would behoove that person to move the car ASAP. I guess it’s not good to piss off a judge. It’s also apparently a bad idea to piss off a veterinarian.
I shot that photo when Tim and I played fashion photographer to some Scout’s Honor dogs last week. They were saved from death row and OMG, CUTEST DOGS EVER. If you want to see some of their happy faces, check out the Scout’s Honor Flickr group where we share their photos. I’m assuming at least some of them, along with other great dogs, will be available at this weekend’s Scout’s Honor Adoption Day in the Heights, Saturday, May 1, from 10am to 3pm, at 1128 Heights Boulevard (between 11th and 12th Streets), Houston.
Just to entice you, a favorite of my photos:
April 28 is the birthday of my late friend Steve R, and as I have every year since he died, I enjoyed chocolate cake with friends. That’s what he did on his last birthday in the hospital in 1992, and I love honoring his life each year with the laughter and good feelings that exist among friends. The group around the table may change from year to year, but he’s always remembered.
However, I think you should know that anticipation can lead to jazz hands:
Kathy S, Tim, and Lindsey
Among our Christmas gifts from my sister Debby was a beautiful fantasy puzzle that Tom finished last week with very little help from the rest of us (although Lindsey, puzzle hater, did place three pieces, and I swooped in when all the hard work was done and found some key pieces to make myself look clever):
I shot this photo before I took it apart. I’m sending it and the Lord of the Rings puzzle we got last year from Rob E to Debby for her to do while recovering from back surgery. Because back surgery is not torturous enough. =) Get well soon to my favorite sister!
Current Photo Friday theme: Sunshine
Keeping a personal tradition alive, I made my yearly trip to the downtown post office between eleven and midnight on tax day. Things were running much more efficiently than last year. I couldn’t get a REALLY good shot inside the packed post office before being told I couldn’t take pictures. Me and my camera: still antagonizing security guards wherever we go.
My current (April) banner photo was from a shot I took on April 15 last year. Here are a few of this year’s photos.
Because of long lines inside the post office, many people were first driving to other stations to use automated stamp machines to buy postage. Then they had to deal with long lines of traffic to get back.
There were at least two drive-by spots for people with already-stamped envelopes to drop off their returns to be postmarked by post office employees set up to assist them, and lots of cops directing foot and motor traffic.
But even with all that organization, there was still a long line of people inside the post office. This shot was taken at 11:42. Hope their envelopes made it before midnight!
One cool thing about moving hundreds of photos from one computer to another is finding shots I don’t remember taking. Like this one, from Old Town Spring, Texas, in November of ’08.
Recently I flung myself back into debt like a good American when I bought a new washing machine for The Compound and a refrigerator for Tim’s apartment. I can’t really complain about these big-ticket purchases because over several decades, I received several new appliances as gifts from family members, and those I’ve had to replace put in many years of good and faithful service before they died.
Sometimes I’m questioned about why I don’t have appliances with all the bells and whistles (I see those things as more stuff that can break and honestly, I just want the basics), or why I don’t have a dishwasher (I never met a dishwasher I liked in my years of renting; I don’t have room for one; and unless I’m really tired, I enjoy washing dishes, and anyway, Tim and Tom–and often our guests–are as likely to wash dishes as I am) or a garbage disposal (not enough room under my sink and not a necessity).
However, this go-round of unexpected appliance buying was annoying because I really, really needed a new computer. Even though computers are completely affordable, I’m tired of doing battle with the firewalls and virus protections that constantly need updating for Windows systems. I have two laptops with Windows if I need to use my existing software, so I’d finally convinced myself to splurge on the iMac I really wanted.
Then the appliance crisis happened. I deliberated about this for a bit, then called to mind the old truism about having children. If you wait until you can afford them, you’ll be childless. Rather than be Mac-less, I threw caution to the wind and after picking out a ‘fridge and a washer, I brought home my new 20.5-pound baby and we’ve been getting along famously.
And then…the microwave died.
Let me back up in time to those days when my first husband and I graduated from college, moved into our tiny house, and were gifted with a brand new washer, dryer, stove, and refrigerator from my parents, his mother, and his two grandmothers. Then one night his stepfather said we ought to have one of those newfangled microwaves. Though I really had no use for a microwave, being a very traditional kind of cook, and saw it mainly as something that would take up space in an already too-small kitchen, in came the microwave.
Every time we turned that thing on, we blew a fuse in our old house. So then came the electrician. Before I could figure out any real use for the stupid thing, scandal rocked our small town. Apparently there was a big employee-theft ring at the local manufacturer of appliances–mainly those newfangled microwaves. Sheriffs were getting tips, knocking on doors, confiscating microwaves, and arresting people. Microwaves were being dumped in ravines, ditches, and creeks before they could become evidence. I called my father-in-law and said, “That microwave wasn’t by chance a little gift to you from an employee of [name redacted], was it? DID YOU GIVE ME A HOT MICROWAVE?”
The microwave was removed from my house in the dead of night amidst much jollity on the part of family members at my paranoia and righteous indignation. I maintained a grudge against microwaves from then on and wouldn’t have one in my house following my divorce and even after Tom and I got married, by which time microwaves were standard in most kitchens.
Then my mother lived with us for a while, and when she moved, she left her microwave behind. Over time, I offered it a somewhat grudging acceptance. It was good for a quick bag of popcorn and to melt butter for my baking. When Tim moved here, he saw it and said, “Where’d your mother GET that thing? From Dolly Madison?” From then on, I thought of it as the First Microwave and liked to imagine a conversation between our country’s fourth First Lady and my mother.
Dolly Madison: Dorothy, the British are coming, and I’ve only got room in my wagon for the White House silver and George Washington’s portrait. Why don’t you take this nice microwave?
Mother: Won’t you need it here in the White House after the War of 1812 ends?
Dolly Madison: Actually, we haven’t been able to use it ever since Ben died and could no longer stand on the White House roof with a kite and a key.
Mother: But most of us won’t have electricity until the 1930s. What will I do with it until then?
Dolly Madison: It makes a handy place to store your bread and BBQ-Fritos.
That dumb microwave outlived my mother, but now it’s gone. I’m not in a hurry to replace it; probably the saddest commentary on how little we use it came when Tom said, “Just make sure you replace it with one big enough for the coffeemaker and toaster to sit on top.”
