Julie

What a fabulous few days I had with niece Julie! She grew up 700 miles from me, so we will be making up for lost time until the end of our lives. We had the house to ourselves most of the time, since John was having his own delights running trains in middle Tennessee. When she checked in for work occasionally, I read email and blog posts. In between, we talked non-stop. On Saturday we took the whole day off to roam the mountains. First stop was Looking Glass Falls, which she had never seen. I took a lucky selfie with the falls in the background. I say lucky because the camera looks only one way, not two like most cell phones. You can’t see exactly what you are aiming for. Not bad for a blind shot, right?

050518 Julie Anne at Looking Glass Falls.JPG

This waterfall needs a picture on its own. It has to be one of the most accessible tourist sights in the world. The highway that John and I cross on our morning walk is the one that goes right beside the water. There is parallel parking on the highway. Julie snagged the spot only three spaces from the beginning of the stairs. We enjoyed watching the water and the young, energetic people who went down to the water’s edge. A couple and a bunch of teens RAN up those steps! Julie noticed the man wore a tee shirt with the name of the county where she grew up. As we drove away, that man was boarding a bus with the name of the church she went to as a child. She texted a former neighbor still living in the neighborhood and found the group was having a weekend mountain retreat. The people we saw were not of her generation, but they were a link to her childhood.

050518 Looking Glass Falls.JPG

We saw small falls from the car. With no reference point for gauging the size, you could imagine this one as a roaring cascade. In actuality, it produced only small gurgles.

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Julie paused to snap a picture of the entrance to one of the tunnels on the Blue Ridge Parkway. That style is used for most of the tunnels on the road.

050518 Tunnel on Blue Ridge Parkway.JPG

The photos I took of the long-range mountain views were not impressive. The lack of color, gray skies, and smoky haze erased the visual excitement. There is one shot of the next waterfall grandson David wants to explore. There were few leaves showing in the landscape, but a small tree beside the road was showering our car with petals.

050518 Falls on Rt 215.JPG

After church we had lunch at a restaurant in Asheville that never got very busy. The staff didn’t mind that we sat and chatted for a couple of hours. Julie asked John some questions about history, so this was her chance to catch up with him. The entrance to the interstate was nearby. She headed east, and we headed west. That was the end of a most satisfying visit.

Summer? Already?

Neighbor Shawn texted me an image of her son Logan and granddaughter Lily. That’s when I became aware of happy shouts outside. Checking that the camera was in my pocket, I rushed out the door. What fun they were having! Water was spraying, and the children were running and sliding around the obstacle course. I took a few still shots and asked if they would do it one more time for a video. Luckily for me, it was a fairly good one.

Both children looked cold, but only one would admit to it. They wrapped themselves in fluffy towels, shivered a bit, and ran off to play on the swing set. I enjoyed a chat with Shawn before she went to check on the children and I headed home to niece Julie. Julie came for a working vacation for a few days. Between phone appointments and computer work, she and I jabbered away.

For the record, it is not summer yet. We’ve barely had a few good spring days. After dinner, Julie and I sat on the porch with a couple of candles burning, but we retreated to the warmth of the house after a short while.

Logan on the Move

A convergence of neighbors had Marla and me chatting with Shawn. All of us were in the middle of something. I was walking back from the creek, and Marla was ending her walk with Albert. Shawn stopped her car to chat with us on the way to the bus stop. Free-spirit Logan jumped out of the car and danced a bit of excessive energy around us. Soon he ran to the end of the road, where I took a photo without zooming in. It was a distance!

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The camera reached out for him as he began to run back toward us. I don’t remember that he came all the way back, because he got side-tracked jumping ditches.

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When he heard the bus chugging up the hill, he ran back to the stop sign, waiting for the signal from the driver that it was safe to cross the road.

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I love watching Logan get on the bus, and I’m not sure why. If he were my child, I would be feeling relief that he was gone for the day. I enjoy having him around, so relief is not the right word. Perhaps it is just the proper thing to happen after the sun comes up. We knew him before he went to school, and now he is growing up. It’s the beginning of his journey to make his way in the world. World, are you ready???

Sibling Reunion

First, I’ll show you the cast of characters.

043018 Siblings in SC.jpg — Thom, Barbara, Steve, Chris, John, Anne

We’ll go back to the beginning of the day to get a proper start. It was supposed to get cold in the night. Often the weather doesn’t get as dramatic as the weatherman wants, but I took the new fountain in, anyway. Before we went walking in the morning, I stepped on the deck. The hummingbird moat was frozen, and so was the birdbath. I pressed down with a thumb as hard as I could, and the ice didn’t even creak. A dove tried to get a drink, so I filled a watering pot with hot water to pour over the ice. By the time we got home from walking, the temp had already risen ten degrees. We wore jackets after breakfast as we started out for the next lowest southern state.

John’s New York sister Barbara and husband Thom flew to South Carolina to be with the other sister Chris and husband Steve. For about 50 years we lived near each other and celebrated birthdays and holidays together. We were delighted they thought of meeting halfway, so that we could share a meal and visit for several hours. There were two things that I thought were significant. I don’t want to disprove NY friend Al’s theory, but he says you can’t have a group of older people without a discussion of ailments and medications. Never once did we bring up those topics! In all fairness, we talked about those things via telephone when they were pertinent. My other observation is that our phones were not out except to check a couple of things and to take photographs. Wait staff at the restaurant took the picture of the six of us. There were no silences to be filled.

Steve talked about an air show and some of the amazing things he saw. I was most happy to have heard about it and not experienced the three-hour wait to get out of the parking area. We asked Thom about his upcoming installation as a deacon, wanting to be there to participate at the end of his two-year course.

If we had an agenda, catching up on news would be considered new business. I had recently seen or texted Chris and Steve’s daughters and didn’t need to ask about them. Before we sat down, we asked for a quick comment about Barbara and Thom’s recent babysitting of their youngest granddaughter near Boston. A few days before, we had talked on the phone about the grandchildren who are in walking distance of their house in NY. Missing were accounts of the twins and their six boys in Maryland. That was a big hole, left unfilled.

Barbara asked about two of our children, Lise and John $. I’m kicking myself for not asking about our daughter Kate. Barbara and Thom see Kate every other week, which is about ten times the amount of time we see her.

In our imaginary agenda, I put questions about childhood under “old business”. Any number of times, John has said he should ask his sisters about their memories. Just recently he wondered about what they had for breakfast growing up. He thought they had orange juice, bacon, an egg, toast, cereal, and milk on weekday mornings. I questioned it, knowing his mother did not particularly like to cook. John was right! They had that every day! I always admired Mom, but my view of her went up another hundred miles. Chris talked about “egg nog” that Mom occasionally prepared. She beat the egg whites and yolks separately, added milk and chocolate sauce, and served in a glass. This was visually exciting when the liquid formed layers in the glass.

In reviewing our marvelous mini-reunion, I’m thinking I need a written agenda. I missed too many people I really wanted to know about.

Cat

When John heard a truck on the road behind us, he scooped the cat up in his arms. We recently found out that neighbor Warren owns this cat that walks with us most mornings. The truck pulled up to us, window open, and Warren himself said with surprise, “She lets ya pick her up?”

To me, Warren sounds like he grew up in North Carolina, probably in the Western part. His accent is softly Southern, not as pronounced as mine, and certainly not deeply drawled like that of Mississippi.

John said, “She jumps right in front of cars, so I try to catch her before that happens.”

Before I could forget again, I asked, “What is the cat’s name?”

Warren replied, “Mah daughtah calls her Blake.”

“What do you call her?”

“Cyat.”

Warren continued, “She’s a workin’ animal. I don’t name her, an’ I don’t let her in the house. It took 20 years for my wife to persuade me to let the dog in. As long as I’m alive, that cat idn’t comin’ in, even if I live to be a hundred. Yeah, that cat is a daredevil. We pull in the drive, an’ she jumps in front of our car. T’other day I made sure she wadn’t in the back of the truck. By the time I got in and started up, she was there. Car comin’. I’ll finish tomorrah.”

With a quick wave, he was off. This may be continued, and it may not if we don’t see him again soon.

A Hummer in the House? Almost!!

The hummingbird feeders were getting low on sugar water. I boiled a cup of water and ¼ cup of white sugar in the microwave and let it cool. The new feeder holds a half cup, so I pulled that one in first. The bathroom is only a few feet from the sliding glass door to the deck, so that’s where I rinsed the feeder. The feeder couldn’t have been gone more than a minute or so. As I was walking back on the deck, an impatient hummingbird darted toward me. The feeder was still an inch inside the house! I paused to let him drink and said to myself, “You are a silly fool! Get outside! You don’t want him flying inside the house!”

That bird kept trying to drink as I hung up the feeder. My hand was only two or three inches from him. I’m undecided whether to admire his bravery or call him foolish for being such a glutton.

Now sing with me, to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell. The hummer’s in the house, the hummer’s in the house, hi-ho the derry-oh, the hummer’s in the house.

Rain and Sun, Beethoven’s way

Have you ever wanted a fun and quick way to explore classical music? At manuscriptnotes.com Nick provides this with posts about various composers from different ages. His lively comments are easy to read, and he includes a link to the music he is writing about. You’ll want to listen and watch this one, with gorgeous scenes displayed as the music unfolds.

Manuscript Notes

Somebody recently asked me which of Beethoven’s nine symphonies is my favourite.

After going through them quickly in my head, I could only reach one certain conclusion. “As long as it’s not the ninth, my favourite would have to be the one I’m listening to at the time.” That’s how hard it is. I exclude the ninth, because it just doesn’t connect with me, despite it having perhaps the most exquisite of all his symphonic slow movements.

That said, as I get older, so have I come to appreciate more the pieces by composers introduced to me in my younger years. In that context, I have not the slightest doubt that if you were to ask me which one piece I would recommend to anyone wanting an introduction to classical music, it would have to be Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, more usually known as The Pastoral.

Which still doesn’t make it…

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Bird Spa and Restaurant

When I thought we were going to have Spring, I ordered a solar bird fountain. It sat in its box for several weeks until the sun finally came out. While John was away playing with trains, I set it up. I chose the most conservative-looking tip, one that I thought might not spray water everywhere. The spray was lovely, but much too enthusiastic. The height of the water should have been no higher than 18 inches, but it was probably six inches higher than that. Water spewed everywhere on this windy day.

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There is no battery, so the fountain runs when the sun is on it and stops in shade. I held my hand over it and took it out of the water. With the spray tip off, the fountain was much tamer. John would not have been a happy camper if he had seen how far the water sprayed the first time. In the second photo, you can see how far the water dampened the deck before I squelched it.

042718 Solar fountain trimmed.JPG

I put fresh seeds on the deck and retreated to my computer to see who would come to the bird restaurant or explore the water feature first. A song sparrow felt food was more important and swooped down for seeds. A dove perched on the birdbath, watched the bubbling water, and took a drink from the pool. A bawdy blue jay wanted to go skinny-dipping, but he lost his nerve and flew off. I was pleased to see a female hummingbird sip sugar water. The males return first, followed by the females. This must be nesting time for them.

Later in the afternoon there were clouds floating by. The fountain was very sensitive to that. It spurted up proudly in full sun and exploded sporadically when a cloud went over. I predict the birds and I are going to enjoy their new spa.

Youthfulness

Many older people comment that their doctors look like children. John and I went to a financial institution where we were served by a young man with a full set of brackets on his teeth. In addition, he had heavy-duty bands linking the upper and lower teeth. Despite his appearance, he was very competent. I still had a wild desire to ask him, “Have you graduated from high school yet?”

Neighbor Marla is another youthful person in my life, although she could pass for a college graduate. She was walking Albert as I came huffing and puffing up the steep hill. The temperature was 43F (6.1C). I had already shed my spring jacket on the hill. As we stood talking, I realized my shoe had come untied. Marla noticed my looking down, saw my hesitancy, and held out her hand to hold my jacket. Now that was awareness coupled with problem-solving! If I hadn’t been called a photo-stalker, I might have asked her to pose. Instead of hanging my jacket on her mail post, I hung it on her hand.

I caught a youthful spot of fog sitting on the road. I guess it got lost from its family down by the creek.

042618 A spot of fog.JPG

Cracker Etiquette

Is there a right or wrong way to serve salted crackers? I never thought to question it, because all my life, I knew which way was correct. What was there to question? Like so many of my preconceived notions, this one had not been thoroughly examined.

To set the stage, I’ll tell you about the Law of Wind according to Anne. I grew up in the South before air-conditioning was available. Most folks went to church, and they used the cardboard fans in the pews just to stay alive through a long sermon. Since most of the fans were provided free by local undertakers, I eventually made the connection that you’d die of the heat if you didn’t use the fan. Before that, though, I observed that the moving fan generated wind to cool the face. I should have realized it was only a theory. One of my most embarrassing moments came from my faulty Law of Wind. Someone at the dinner table spoke of the wind, and I said, “It can’t be windy because the trees aren’t moving.”

Someone older and wiser asked, “What on earth are you talking about?”

I explained my 10-year-old reasoning, “The trees make wind by moving their branches. You know, like when you use a fan.”

Everyone cackled. At that point in time, I learned that trees did not generate breezes. I wondered for years after that where wind came from. You can list things like temperature, rotation of the earth, oceans, and barometric pressure, but wouldn’t you agree that my premise is much easier to understand?

Now, back to crackers and how to serve them. I’m talking about the standard ones – saltines, Ritz, and club crackers. I need to check this out, but I think the pictures on boxes of crackers always show the salted side facing up. Why only one side has salt is beyond the scope of this post. All my life I KNEW the proper side to add cheese or peanut butter was on the top side where the salt was. Old age brought me up short. Failing eyesight and low light were the two factors that made me question the Law of Crackers. I couldn’t see that I had put crackers on my plate with the salt side down. I would NEVER have willingly spread peanut butter on the bare side. Proceeding in ignorance, I did just that. My eyes opened wide in surprise as the salt hit my tongue and gradually mingled with the sweeter peanut butter. What a revelation! I am going to have to carefully reconsider the rule I followed for 70 years. There may be times when food tastes better when crackers are wrong side up. Could we have a vote here? Right side? Wrong side? Buy unsalted? Switch to bread?