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Here endeth the first lesson.

Tuesday, October 17th, 2023

Nyel’s Handicap Placard Too bad it’s expired, eh?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while.  About trying to be a little pro-active about my health and welfare.  I thought it might be a good idea now that I’m approaching 90…  (Well, not quite.  I have two years and four months to go, but today I learned that it’s a moot point, anyway…)

I’ve been thinking  that it might be a good idea to have one of those Handicap placards to hang from my automobile mirror when I need to park closer than a gazillion blocks from something.  It’s not that I can’t walk just fine.  But I don’t always feel secure.  My peripheral vision is far from perfect.  I don’t always notice curbs or buckled sidewalks My balance is okay but if someone were to bump into me (or I into them) I’d likely fall.

But mostly, it’s when I’m grocery shopping and having to schlepp my stuff up and down the rows of cars or step back and forth over the curb to get stuff out of my shopping cart into the car — that’s when I feel vulnerable.  And I don’t think i should really have to feel that way.

So I called my Primary Care person and asked if he could write me an order or a prescription or whatever for one of those Handicap placards.  “Can you walk 200 feet without difficulty?”  Well, yes.  “You don’t get short of breath like someone with emphysema might?”   Well, no.

“You don’t require a cane or other aid for walking, do you?”  Well, no.  “You can walk 200 feet without falling?”  Well,  yes.  “Sorry, the State of Washington will not issue you a Handicap placard,  You don’t fit the parameters…”  or something like that.

So there you have it.  Eat right.  Live 87 plus years without ever being overweight, breaking a bone, or needing a walking aid.  Stay active.  Take care of your eyes, your teeth, your mind.  Stay in good shape and if you get concerned that you might need a little extra support DO NOT LOOK TO THE STATE OF WASHINGTON (probably especially the DMV.)

As I said… Here endeth the first lesson.  Well, probably not the first.  Most of us over 80 know we are in the “Make-A-Fuss-Over-Then-Throw-Away” category.  The State of Washington just seems to have skipped the “Fuss Over” part.

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Not Since The Civil War

Wednesday, September 27th, 2023

Senator Foghorn Leghorn

Nothing much in the news  surprises me anymore — mostly because I seldom pay much attention to anything beyond our local area.  (As in what’s the use?)

But there was a paragraph  in this morning’s NYT article on Menendez which did catch my eye: When politicians are unlikely to be removed, they rarely quit, and Menendez faces little risk of removal. Only the Senate can expel one of its members. It has not done so since the Civil War.

Really???  Not since the Civil War?  Not for 161 years?

Foghorn Leghorn Again

When I looked up more about it, it all became clear — and made me more disgusted than ever.  Basically, the ten senators who were removed at the beginning of the Civil War were from the southern states and they were removed for doing what their states had directed them to do.  In other words, they were doing their jobs.

Those opposed to the 1861 expulsion measure, argued that the southern senators followed the directions of their states and that no senator individually had conspired against the government.  They suggested that the expulsion rule should be reserved for individual acts of misconduct, since formal expulsion of the southern senators would only exacerbate an already inflamed situation. One of those in opposition to expulsion said he believed expulsion implied moral turpitude, a stain upon the personal character of the individuals that most would agree was unjust [in this case.]

And Yet Again

My mind whirls and twirls.  If I, as a teacher, had followed the directions of my principal, even though those directions were contrary to popular belief, should I have been fired?   But then, how can a lowly teacher compare herself to a high and mighty senator — one with gold bars secreted in the clothes of his closet.  No contest, folks.

We are so screwed up.  The mind boggles and the eyes overflow.  I KNOW BETTER than to read the news.  Shame on me!

 

 

 

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Thunder! Lightning! Gullywashers! Oh my!

Tuesday, September 26th, 2023

It might have looked like this but it was too fast for my faulty eye-brain coordination!

Linda and I met for breakfast this morning.  It was nine o’clock — a civilized hour I thought.  It was raining, but not really buckets — although I did wonder if the puddle waiting outside my car door was going to go up, up, and inside my loafers.  It was a very close thing.

So there we were, I with my back to the front window, enjoying my first bite of hash browns and darned if a dancing sunbeam didn’t light up my life.  Followed in Nano-seconds by a KABOOM that completely disabused me of that sunbeam idea!  Good Lord!  The sky didn’t even look all that stormy.

And, just as I was getting to bite four or five (with a few bites of sausage patty in between!) here it came again.  Only this time the lightning and the thunder were as one.  No space in between.  No way to tell which came first.  But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the chicken OR the egg.

Nevertheless, we had a lovely time.  When we finally decided we should make a break for it, I noted that the puddle was now quite a bit deeper than it had been.  So I went on tiptoe as fast as ever I could.  BUT WAIT!  Someone was calling me!  I hadn’t paid, a voice called out.  Yes I did! and squelched into my car.  Doncha hate it when everything happens at once like that?

I’m pretty sure it didn’t look like this.

Well, I didn’t drive clear off and the waitress, bless her, figured that I was coming over to park on higher ground — which I was.  It seems she had forgotten to take my credit card and, after a time, I thought she had brought it back.  So… I scooped it up and boogied out of there.  I felt bad for being such a dolt.  She felt bad for not taking the card right away.

And do you think the Bard was right?  Will the rain it raineth every day??

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Money, News, and Other Random Thoughts

Sunday, September 24th, 2023

At last! It’s time for my signature chapeau to make its reappearance!

I can’t decide whether that advertisement that prefaces the NYT Morning in my inbox each day is meant to piss me off or give me hope.  Usually, it’s the former.  “7 ways to Retire Comfortably With $500k” it says.  Well… duh!  In my world that wouldn’t take rocket science.

I ignore the ad and scan the headlines, looking to see if there is anything pertinent in the day’s news that could make a big difference to the reality of my own retired life — a life in which the words(?), symbols(?) of “$500k” have no substantive meaning at all.  Sometimes I wonder if the NYT news, itself is slanted toward those who fit the “retired on $500k” category.  On the days I think “yes, probably” I move on to other concerns.

It’s not news to my friends that I’m not very well informed on the “big issues” that are of current times.  Or even the smaller ones.  I try to keep current on local news — mostly so I won’t be arrested for burning during the burn bans (and btw, our current one has been lifted as of today) and know when to batten down for a big storm that’s barreling in on us.  (Actually, that last one isn’t rocket science as our forebears knew very well.)

Always at the ready in Oysterville.

It’s not that I have “given up” hope for effecting change toward a better world.  Not even that I despair of “setting an example” for others or “influencing” the way young people think.  It’s just that keeping abreast of the “news” seems an incredible waste of the time I have left, whatever amount that might be.

Mostly, I think it’s what  Confucius said: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” And besides, I zoom every week with son Charlie and bonus-daughter Marta.  I can count on them to keep me up-to-date (whether or not I buy into that $500k thing.)  And it looks like rain is on its way to us in Oysterville right now.  Yay!  Life is good!

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Sometimes it’s hard to choose…

Wednesday, September 20th, 2023

To read?  Or to write?  To have a day — or even better two days in a row — to do one or the other is my idea of heaven, especially if I have the leisure to spend just enjoying myself.  No deadlines.  No necessary research.  No over-riding “reason” to do one or the other.

Today I chose to write.  There will be deadlines involved soon, but I have ten days or so to blather on, delete, explore new avenues, and let my thoughts take me where they will.  Luxury to the max!  So… I spent time on two totally disparate themes.  One was “cops and robbers” and the other was “unexpected public music.”  Both (or neither) may turn into columns for the paper.

I had fun with both of them but one is too long and the other… perhaps too bland.  I’m not sure.  So, I’ve put them both on the back burner for now, am going to treat myself to my favorite all-time pasta dish — Sandy Stonebreaker’s chicken tetrazzini accompanied by sautéed snap peas with a lemon zest garni.  And then… I’ll read a Donna Leon book on my Kindle —  Give Unto Others, the 31st in her Guido Brunetti series that came out last year.  Somehow I missed it.

Dobby, Sydney, Tucker

And one more bit of perfection on this day — Tucker and I went over to  Dobby Wiegardt’s so we could have our pictures taken together!  Tucker took a selfie of the three of us.  Great picture except I look like I’m standing in a hole.  A deep one!  However, I think it will serve its purpose.  I’ll let you be the judge when you see it its proper context in the paper next week!

 

 

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Shouldn’t we call it R&R Day?

Monday, September 4th, 2023

What to do on Labor Day — from Country Living Magazine

I do understand the reason that the first Monday in September is called “Labor Day.” It is our yearly celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday was first proposed when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.

But, what it has become, of course, is a “day off” — a sort of extension of summer.  One more day before school starts most years and then the work year begins anew.  Except, of course, if you work in the tourist or travel industry or happen to be a nurse or a retail worker or a first responder or…  But, I guess the point could be argued that some work does not count as “labor.”

Another Labor Day Option?

In my own case as an elementary school teacher, the holiday just came at an awkward time in the school year — within days of the opening  school some years or, in some cases it was the day before school started.  It was always just at that time when we “grade school teachers” were scurrying to get our classrooms ready for the next 25 or 30 (or when I began in 1961, 32). youngsters.

There were desks to arrange, bulletin boards to create, new curriculum materials to become familiar with, class lists to look over, the school nurse and (if you were lucky) counselor to meet with, lesson plans to prepare, worksheets to create… and on and on.  Of course that was in “the olden days” but nothing much changed during the 29 years I spent in the classroom — except, perhaps, the addition of paraprofessionals who sometimes made the work load easier… but not on Labor Day.

One Last Summer Picnic

And so… I thought the “Labor Day” moniker was apt and actually was thankful for one more day to get ready for the new school year.  But, now that I am retired and don’t usually have to scurry on this holiday, I really would like call this “R & R” Day — and find a way for all workers to have the luxury of one paid day with no work responsibilities at all.  (Yes, I have been told I live in a Fantasy World!  Hear!  Hear!)

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At long last! It’s Dahlia Season in Oysterville!

Tuesday, August 29th, 2023

White and Spikey

It’s been a weird year garden-wise here at my place.  Almost all the flowers came late and began to fade away almost as soon as they had time to say “hello.”  At first I thought it was because summer took its time to arrive and then gave us too much wind and very little rain but my friends say it’s been “a great summer” and look at me as if I’ve been on another planet.

Perfect in Pink!

I guess it’s one of those eye-of-the-beholder things and my garden and I have mostly been beholding mole hills and bird nests.  But, now the dahlias have come out in full force and I am in my usual quandary — to pick or not to pick.  I so love seeing them brightening the garden that I hesitate to approach with my snippety-snips.

On the other hand… there’s nothing like bringing a bit of the outside in!  I do so enjoy seeing their stately blossoms and gorgeous colors as I move around the house throughout the day.  They make me think of my father — he always had dahlias, every place we lived, and usually had “a cutting garden” so he could leave the decorative bedding plants alone.  He often spoke of his mother’s dahlia garden in Boston when he was a boy and how she would stop at homes of perfect strangers to ask for bulbs.

Color, Color Everywhere!

I’m not even close to being that cheeky — and, thanks to my friend Patricia, I don’t need to be.  Her Long Beach garden is a dahlia lover’s Paradise and she is generous about sharing.  In fact, I wonder how many of my current plants came from her,  And, come to think of it, some of hers originally came from here many years back.  (My dad and Nana would be proud!)

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Lordy! Lordy! Should I be thanking Mrs. C.?

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023

Fall Down, Go Boom!

Only two pictures were knocked off the wall as the plumbers eased the hot water tank down the stairs — and neither one was damaged!  There were drops of rusty water left along the route and, once again, I congratulated myself on choosing that cranberry colored carpet years ago!  It is the most forgiving color imaginable.  And the entire tank-moving-operation could have been so much worse!

Step One in the Upstairs Water Heater Removal Project was to drain the water remaining in the forty-gallon tank — presumably forty gallons of (now) cold and somewhat rusty water if the outside overflow was an indication of what had settled at the bottom of the tank.  I (hovering downstairs and out of the way) offered one of our very long garden hoses (perfect!) for draining purposes but then heard a bit of discussion between the plumbers about a window!

Splitting from Bottom to Top

“You can run the hose downstairs and right out the East Door,” I called out.  They looked it over and within minutes that tank was empty and could be muscled downstairs on a dolly step-by-step — which is when the pictures got knocked off and the drips occurred.  When the tank was safely outside, they said, “Take a look!  I think we were just in time!”

OMG!  the entire seam up the back of the tank was splitting — popping out screws as we watched!  I truly think Mrs. Crouch was on our side for once.  Perhaps she’s super-sensitive to water having reached her demise by drowning.  Whatever the reason for our narrow escape, I am thankful beyond measure.

Oh!  And another thing!  We thought we had turned off the electricity to that pesky hot water tank.  Nope!  It wasn’t the upstairs breaker switches as we’d assumed, It was the ones downstairs!  So does that mean the water going out the hose was hot?  I didn’t think to ask,

And another thing… the water in the sink in the bar that wouldn’t turn on Saturday was an unrelated problem — the filter in the spigot was completely clogged with rust. (I do think Mrs. C. might have had something to do with that…) Now that’s also fixed but the house and I aren’t out of the woods (or water) yet, plumbing-wise.  Stay tuned.

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It’s The Piano Season! Did you know?

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

Colin Staub at a Push-Play Piano in Downtown Portland

The President of the Board of the Oysterville Restoration Foundation at the present time is Colin Staub.  He has been a part-time Oysterville resident for all of his 34 years.  He has worked in the oysters during the summers, spends as much time as possible at his family’s second home here in Oysterville, even bicycling now and again from his home in Portland,  and has performed at Vespers on numerous occasions — he is a mandolin player of some note.

Sometimes when he is in town he stops by to visit — an occurrence which I consider a great privilege.  And I must say, he never makes me feel two-and-a-half times his age (and then some) — not even when we occasionally get into the thorny subject of technology and the ORF website and other things I think I might have known about once but have given up that brain space to more immediate concerns.  Like how to keep my balance when walking over uneven terrain…

“The Old Rugged Cross”

For a few years now, when he’s in Oysterville, Colin has been playing the piano in the church — sometimes ragtime, but more recently, some of the hymns from the old Methodist hymnals we used to use for Vespers.   (Though he began on the violin as a young boy and now is teaching himself the piano, he still considers the mandolin his primary instrument.)   Yesterday, he wrote me this note: There are a dozen or so pianos set up in public places around Portland right now, and I’ve been making the rounds to play them all. I was playing “How Great Thou Art” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” the versions I learned in the Oysterville Church hymnal, downtown the other day, and a guy came up and started singing along. He was visiting from Atlanta and said he didn’t anticipate hearing gospel music in downtown Portland. The hymnals are coming in handy!

When I asked Colin more about those pianos, he wrote that they are put around town by a project called “Piano Push Play” Wow!  https://www.pianopushplay.com/
They get painted by local artists and placed in various places throughout the summer. It’s pretty cool and has been going on for 10 years or so. I’ve had numerous interesting encounters with people at the pianos, exchanged numbers, had impromptu duets, all sorts of things. Last year I emailed the founder about one particularly memorable conversation and she posted about it on their Instagram:

Piano at the Oysterville Church

There was one in particular that sticks in my mind, where I sat down to play a few boogie-woogie songs and noticed a woman sitting nearby who was crying and clearly not having a good day.  By the end of the first song I noticed she was tapping her feet, although still crying.  A couple songs later she came over to the piano and asked if I could teach her a couple chords, and we ended up having an impromptu piano lesson and talked about what she was going through.  She said it was the best unexpected thing to happen to her all day, and I thought it really illustrated the power of public music.

If you are in downtown Portland this summer, keep your eyes and ears open!  You may come across Colin playing some of those old-fashioned hymns he’s been learning at the Historic Oysterville Church!

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Wildlife Magnets of the First Order!

Thursday, August 10th, 2023

At Surfside, August 10, 2023 – by Tucker Wachsmuth

I’ve never been hunting — not with bow and arrow or shotgun or rifle or even a slingshot.  But I’ve read a lot of books and know that there are some hunters who, seemingly, have to work hard at their job and others who seem born to the task.  On a website called “Rod&Rifle,” six “core hunting skills” are listed: 1) Marksmanship; 2) Mental Toughness/   Physical     Fitness; 3) Navigation; 4) Bushcraft; 5) First Aid; 6) Observation and Patience.

I don’t vouch for any of the above.  But even though I’ve never been hunting, I’m here to tell you that I think there is a seventh “skill” — or actually, more of a pre-requisite, that transcends all of the others.  For lack of a better term, I’ll call it being a “Wildlife Magnet.”  I’m sure it’s not a scientific term, but it might be measurable.  The Magnet I have in mind seems to be a genetic quality belonging to many members of the Wachsmuth Family.

Bear Family, 2020 by Tucker Wachsmuth

If you have followed my blog over the years, you have seen picture-perfect evidence of this magnetism.  Bears, porcupines, raccoons, squirrels (Douglas and Gray), deer, and a gazillion birds regularly visit Tucker and Carol’s tidy backyard.  They arrive frequently, giving Tucker photo-ops galore, delighting his children and grandchildren and even the visiting cousins from Germany.  I used to think of the Wachsmuth garden as “Nature’s Little Half-Acre” but I’ve realized that this gift for visiting with the denizens of our Peninsula happen away from home, as well.

Raccoon, 2018 by Tucker Wachsmuth

Last night, for instance, Oma and Opa went on a 45-minute drive around the streets of Surfside with granddaughters Gabi and Danielle.  During that time they sighted 104 bunny rabbits (“lots of them hopping,” said Danielle) but, even more amazing, three young bucks who walked right up to the car and some 20 others during the course of their drive!  WOW!

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