I am the proud holder of a library card!

I love libraries. Of course I love bookstores too, but in libraries everything is free. You can browse all day if you want. You can relax and revel in being in the company of kindred souls.

I was introduced to the library at an early age. One memorable fall morning, my second grade class was escorted across the street to the imposing Carnegie Library. Around on the right side was a half-flight of stairs leading down into the children's section. We were all seated in a half circle around a tiny woman named Miss Mole (or so it sounded to me) who read us a story book. The book was about a little boy who ate so much, he turned into a balloon and floated away. This concept was confusing and a little frightening but I was enthralled--there were lots and lots of other books in the library with other stories. We were each issued our very own library card so we could come back and check out books again.

The prestige of being the holder of a library card was pretty heady stuff.  I was hooked!

The adult section was up the outside flight of stairs and we were not allowed to check books out of the adult section until we turned thirteen. It therefore became a "rite of passage" to ascend the steps and be issued an adult library card.

Oh the wonderful things that were to be found in the upstairs library! There were books on archaeology and foreign countries, murder mysteries and science fiction, biographies and even humor! I loved reading so much, I would smuggle books to my upstairs bedroom and read far into the night. 

Of course, that old library no longer exists. It was built in an era when nobody gave a thought to providing access to the elderly or handicapped. It also became far too small for a growing population and too expensive to maintain. I'm sure that was the fate of many Carnegie libraries around the country.

But how wonderful that we had those treasures while we did!

Remembering Pearl Harbor

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. The sneak attack was 72 years ago and killed 2400 Americans  in a bombing that sank the battleship Arizona. I was a little over a year old at the time. The news stories today reminded me of my encounter with the father of a sailor who died in the attack.

When I was eleven years old, my family was living in a tiny town in Minnesota called Dovray. My dad was the contractor on a Norwegian Lutheran church being built in that farming community of 100 people. The town was really behind the times in 1950. My younger siblings all went to school in the one-room school house down the hill. (I've often felt envy that they had that experience while I had to make a one-hour long bus ride over to Westbrook for 7th grade.)

There was a general store called Smestad's Mercantile a block away. I was sophisticated enough that I knew how old-fashioned the store was compared to other places we had lived. It was just like the general stores I saw in old cowboy movies. On one side of the store the old man and his wife sold "dry goods" like flannel shirts and four-buckle overshoes. On the other side they sold groceries from a counter just inside the door.

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There were open cardboard boxes of cookies and sheets of saltine crackers standing by the counter. The customer could take a brown paper bag and fill the bag to be weighed and priced. With no air conditioning and sealed packaging, the cookies and crackers were often stale. I don't remember if I was in Smestad's for cookies that day but I remember standing by the counter as he told me that his boy had been at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. 

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He was terribly sad and I was very confused. I'm not at all sure that I responded appropriately. Being a kid, with the off-kilter sense of time kids have, ten years seemed so very long ago that I wondered why he was talking about it.

Now that I am 73, I realize how very recent his loss was and how much he was still hurting from that dreadful day.   

Blossoming

This is something I wrote after I retired eight years ago but never thought to use. I guess it's worth posting.

                                            ...oOo...

I was once talking with the director of my department at work, a woman whom I greatly admired.  She used the word blossom to describe the pleasure of seeing people grow in their jobs.  This made me stop and think about the word, “blossom” and how beautifully it describes the process of reaching our full potential.

Life takes us all on different journeys and at different speeds.  As a result, we all blossom at various times.  Some of us shine in high school.  Some may be the Belle of the Ball in college, or Super-mom for a time or even excel in their careers.  Yet, there are those of us who are conventional our entire lives until we reach our later years.  That’s when we blossom!  We begin to become creative.  We branch out and form new bonds with others.  We broaden our horizons and embrace our place in the universe.  We contribute our time, energy and intelligence to causes that mean something to us.  This is a joyous time of life, when we know and accept ourselves just as we are.  Moreover, we love and accept others just as they are.

This is a stage of life worth waiting for. This is the stage when we no longer mourn the things we are not and finally celebrate the wonderful things that we are...when we finally open up and blossom.   

The glass is greener

Once I was talking with a nurse who was the wife of a Baptist minister. She had recently returned from a women's group trip to Russia. She told me that she had been raised in a church that forbid drinking alcohol but all her life she had the notion that if she ever tasted alcohol, she would love it.

She said that every place the group went on the tour, they were served alcoholic beverages. Out of curiosity, she finally decided to try it. So she sampled everything they were served and, she announced happily, "I hated all of it!"

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Personally, I don't like booze either. Back in my dating days, I tried beer and couldn't believe anyone actually liked it. I moved on to sweet "lady" drinks like a sloe gin fizz, Tom Collins or Bacardi cocktail. Nothing really struck my fancy. I much preferred soft drinks and they were cheaper. I also hated the feeling of being tipsy--the lack of control made me feel uneasy and vulnerable.

I came to realize that I didn't much like hanging out with drunk people either. At the risk of offending those who enjoy the light-hearted camaraderie of drinking with friends, it made me feel out-of-sorts. I hated having a conversation with a boozy-breathed, cloying, erstwhile "buddy" knowing that they probably didn't mean what they were saying and wouldn't even remember it the next day. Basically, I felt like I was being used and at the same time, I felt like an outsider.

After I was put on medications that restricted drinking alcohol, I had a valid excuse for declining whatever was being served. I figure that since I quit smoking in 1972 because of sore throats, I've probably saved a small fortune on booze and smokes. It may seem like those who like to drink and party have more fun, but I find going out to eat and a movie is more my speed.

The dog heroes of 9/11

This was sent to me in an email and I was so touched by all the sweet faces that I had to share it with you.

Nearly 100 rescue dogs worked at the World Trade Center eleven years ago. Only a handful of the hardworking dogs are still left.

Moxie came from Winthrop Mass with her trainer on 9/11 and worked for 8 days.

 Tara also came from Massachusetts and worked for 8 days with her handler.

Kaiser came from Indiana and searched tirelessly for those trapped in the rubble.

 Bretagne and his owner Denise Corliss came from Texas and stayed for ten days.

Guinness came from California with his owner Sheila McKee and worked 11 days.

Merlyn and his handler worked on the rubble pile for five nights.

Abigail worked with her handler for 10 days after the collapse.

Hoke and her handler came from Denver Colorado and worked for 5 days.

These pictures and many others were made for a book commemorating 9/11 and the rescue dogs and handlers who worked so hard in the aftermath. The book is called Retrieved by Charlotte Dumas.

Just passing this on

                                        Beautifully said!

A thought for the day.

               (Borrowed from Linda's Lair)

The Ego, the Devil and Flip Wilson's Dress

I recently heard a quote from Deepak Chopra that the Ego is the source of belief in the devil. He claims that when we need an outside source to blame for our thoughts or actions, our Ego invents the devil--in fact, the Ego is the devil!

Many years ago, I read C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. While the premise was amusing, I never believed in the devil as a separate entity that hovered around and enticed me to eat my sister's cookie.

However, my dad, a staunch German Lutheran, believed in the devil. I know this because of his elderly father's suicide. It was Memorial Day weekend in 1952. I was almost 12 years old.

We were packing for our annual weekend fishing trip to Glenwood Minnesota when the call came. I answered the phone on the dining room wall and it was my aunt. I could tell by the tone of her voice something was very wrong. (Of course, the very nature of a long-distance call was alarming in those days.) I called my mom to the phone and she immediately called my dad who was working at his construction site. He rushed home and called his sister back.

After the phone conversation, he said to my mom, "He went out in the garage and hung himself. It was the Devil, for sure!"

I was heartsick. Not because of any affection for the old man but because it was going to spoil the one and only vacation we ever took. Now, I must explain that my grandfather had never spoken a single word to me or my siblings. He was a sullen, immobile figure always sitting in a living room chair, brooding. When we went for a visit, he would say hello to my mom if she addressed him, he would exchange small talk with my dad if pressed into it, but he never, ever spoke to us kids. Once, around the age of 7, I summoned up the courage to go up to him and say, Hi. He pointedly ignored me. I never bothered again.

As it turned out, since other relatives were handling the funeral arrangements, we were able to fit in the lakeside weekend anyway. When we went back for the funeral, they had returned grandpa's corpse--in its coffin--to the living room of the house. It was just a few feet away from the chair where he had spent his declining years. He was moved to the church for the first funeral I ever attended.

As I have gotten older and wiser, and perhaps more understanding, it seems likely that my grandfather was suffering from Alzheimer's. The devil had nothing to do with it

All of this brings to mind the wonderfully funny Flip Wilson's TV show back in the 70's. His delightful character, Geraldine, would strut around in Mod clothes and Gogo boots and proclaim, "The devil made me buy this dress!"  Whether that was Ego or devil, everybody loved it.

                                    

Old is not Useless!

Doesn't this warm your heart? It just makes so much sense! I would sign on for such a worthy project.

Losing Friends

I just learned yesterday that another blogger friend has died. He called himself  Bevie and blogged under A Voice in the Wind among other names. The most wrenching thing about his untimely death is that he died solely because of poverty. His requests for help from the State of Minnesota and the county resulted in only food stamps. He had no medical coverage of any kind.

Bevie had once been well-employed and he, his wife and son lived in a nice home. As his health began to fail, he could no longer work and they fell behind in house payments. The mortgage lender, in their heartless, hard-nosed rectitude, foreclosed and the family moved out of the house last August. They sold most of their belongings and moved into a small, third floor apartment.

Months later, Bevie and his son took a drive back to the still-vacant house. It was fast falling into disrepair with nobody living there. The pointlessness of it all saddened him greatly.

The family struggled with living on only his wife's income. Getting-by meant that they went to the food shelf when possible and every expense was major. Yet, amongst all this, he was determined that his son should have a saxophone to enrich his life. In spite of his own needs, he insisted that his son would not go without.

Bevie died in his sleep one week ago. His selflessness very likely shortened his life, but maybe that's not such a bad legacy. Rest in peace, Bevie.

Who ever heard of a 200-lb sparrow?

Because of my shoulder impingement, my orthopedist has me going to physical therapy twice a week. When the PT gal took me into the big room where all the equipment is, I found it had an entire floor to ceiling mirrored wall. I was shocked and disgusted at what I looked like! I badly need to lose weight and Curves hasn't helped at all.

I have a terrible problem with my appetite after supper. I spend the entire evening prowling around in hunter mode..."Now, what can I eat?"  It's downright obsessive--if I watch a TV show, I keep mulling over what I'm going to eat during the next commercial break.

I decided that maybe it would help to eliminate carbohydrates from supper since they seem to trigger the eating binges. So last night, I only had a piece of salmon for supper (the No-Name brand marinated frozen portions). It tasted great and I didn't get hungry all evening! I had a bowl of cereal before bed but that was it--no ice cream, no popcorn or munchies, no crackers and cheese, nothing!

I think I might be onto something. I know this smacks of the Dr Atkins diet but I'm only doing this in the evening. I will eat my carbs during the day because I love carbs a lot.

My goal for now is to get the numbers on the scale under 200. Sometimes I wonder if the scale even goes under 200 as it has bounced around between 200 and 210 for years.

You can be sure that if this works for me, I'll be letting you know in the big red letters!

Coexistance

Tuesday evening I went to a meeting. When I was driving home on I-94 afterwards, I was nearly sideswiped by a car in the next lane. It had a bumper sticker:

l

Blogs keep you connected to other's hearts

I have been following a blog called Heartbeat Diaries for over a year. It was written by a 37-year-old Canadian named Euan B. Sharp who posted about his lifelong journey toward getting a heart transplant.

I left him a comment message yesterday. This morning, a friend of his left a message in my blog comments that he died last night in the process of getting a new heart. I feel so bad that all his struggles ended this way.

If you have a few minutes, you might stop by his blog and read his last post dated March 16, 2010. http://heartbeatdiaries.wordpress.com/

What a wonderful writer we have lost!

I'm doomed as doomed can be!

This is Snuffy the cat. He likes to perch on my desk while I'm on my computer. Also on my desk is a green banker's lamp with a CFL bulb in it. Snuffy, alpha male that he is, rubbed his face on the lamp and knocked it to the floor. The green glass shade is intact but the CFL bulb broke scattering mercury on the carpet.

This is no small matter! I would rather the lamp had broken. I had heard that broken CFL's required special cleanup so I closed the door and went on my housemate's computer in her room. The instructions were: wear a face mask so you don't inhale the mercury, take a glass jar with a metal lid to hold all the fragments, do not sweep or vacuum because that raises the mercury dust into the air, pick up as much dust as you can with duct tape, use damp paper towels for other cleanup, turn off heat or AC to the room and open a window, close off room for 8 hours... Other sites offered harsher restrictions.

As I sit here at my computer today, I feel like everything I touch is contaminated. I followed all the instructions but when I googled the effects of mercury on the human body, it was really scary. Most sites are vague about the what the harmful effects would be from exposure to a single broken light bulb stating it depends on amount you inhaled or absorbed through skin, your age (old is good), other health problems, etc.

Here is a partial list of possible symptoms: tremors, nervousness, moodiness, irritability, headaches, muscle atrophy, insomnia and the list goes on to mention kidney failure, respiratory failure and death.

It makes you doubly concerned for children who might accidentally break a bulb and fearfully clean it up without any awareness of the danger. Even unbroken CFL's must be disposed of as hazardous waste! So now, after all the years spent cleaning up lead in paints and asbestos in schools, we introduce this frightening new hazard?

Paraphrasing Ed Grimley (Martin Short's alter ego) "We are doomed as doomed can be, I must say!"

Sometimes they get it wrong!

The proper way to weigh yourself! Who knew?

All my life I've been told I'm fat. Well actually, I didn't know it until I was five. At that time, my family moved from California back to Minnesota and I met all my aunts and uncles for the first time. I have a distinct memory of that meeting as my mom's sisters oohed and aahed about what a fat little thing I was.

Over the years, I have struggled valiantly against obesity all the while being assailed by the media and medical people about how it would shorten my life. Here is a short list of the different things I used to lose weight--Ayds caramels, grapefruit diet, Hollywood bread diet, the drugs Dexadrine, Preludin, Ionimin, 3-day fasts, TOPS, Weight-Watchers, Atkins Diet, Rotation Diet, South Beach Diet and many others I can't recall. My doctor once gave me a booklet on the Heart Healthy Diet--this consisted of cutting out fats, but then moved on to eliminating salt and sugar from your food choices. I called it the "Gotcha Diet" because it was as if they decided that once got you trapped into their plan, they were going to take away everything!

Well, the upshot of all this is that they had me convinced I wouldn't live much past the age of 65. So when I retired, I set up my pension plan annuity to pay out over 5 years. I will get my final check next month.

The problem is that I'm nowhere near dead!

Not only will I suffer the loss of that income, but SS benefits didn't increase this year. At the same time, other expenses are increasing. I am in deep doodles!

I know I'm a dunderhead for not planning better. I should have been less trustful of the medical establishment/media and believed in my Norwegian hardiness more. I will manage, but just be forewarned, when they tell you you're probably going to die, don't believe them!

Coffee House

I don't often frequent coffee houses, mainly because I'm too cheap to pay $2 to $3 for a cup of coffee. I don't care for sweetened hot drinks (like hot chocolate or apple cider etc.) and that goes double for coffee. I tell myself I'm a purist because I don't like anything degrading the coffee flavor.

In spite of this, I was at a coffee house last night drinking a $2 cup of de-caff. My friend S was reading from her recently published book, Ssylka about a Russian woman who follows her exiled husband when he's sent to Siberia. Eight people turned out for the event even though it was bitchin' cold (as we say in Minnesota). It was cozy and warm inside, however, and it was nice to be together with a group like that.

M and S met afterward and found they had many things in common. Except for one big thing--M still has PTSD from living through the WWII bombing of London. (When the local weather warning sirens are tested on the first Wednesday of every month, M has a moment of panic.) S says she remembers the hardships after the war more vividly than the actual war. Both women have written memoirs about those years and are looking forward to getting together to talk about it.

I was living in California during the war years when my dad worked at the Lockheed Aircraft plant. Even so, I have an affinity for those who endured the terror of nightly bombings--of being a little girl in a world where strange men in airplanes are trying to kill you. How do you fathom such insanity!?

Thanks to the members of my writer's group

I belong to several writer's groups but I have been with this jovial bunch the longest. They are all accomplished writers and I am so proud to be associated with them.

Their helpful critques keep me from making the stupid mistakes that I sometimes make when writing my blog, for instance: using the same word too many times in a paragraph or the bad habit of using two adjectives to describe things (Stephen King calls it the Noah Syndrome).

So, I'm still learning and growing in some respects. That's what life is all about!

Things that make me go "wow"!

Hardly a week goes by that something doesn't "knock my socks off". Living my simple life in the middle of the continent doesn't isolate me from all the remarkable things our planet has to offer.

There is so much beauty to be discovered and so much knowledge to be gained. Sometimes I wish I could have been Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey. They accomplished so much that I am in utter awe of them.

I am so grateful for all the explorers, anthropologists, paleontologists, scholars and scientists of every ilk for expanding our knowledge of our fascinating world.

I'm thankful for student loans

I am so thankful for the student loan and grant programs! If they didn't exist, I could never have gotten a degree or paid for my four kids to get post-secondary education. (My second-oldest daughter and I graduated from college just one week apart.)

Imagine where our country would be if only those students with wealthy parents could get a college education. We'd be living in an elitist society where blue-blood idiots would be making the decisions how our society should be run.

Thankfully, democracy reigns and we can all be as educated or as ignorant as we want to be! Now that's what I call Freedom!

A Big Thank You

Today is the day when we give thanks for the men and women in the armed forces.

More than that, we give thanks to them!

We can never even begin to know how much they have enriched our freedoms and our lives. And, we can never truly know what the cost was to them and their loved ones.