Still Alive Here

Been at war with each other over tight money. To really help things out, Rachel, who has the only thing passing as as a job here, got a jury duty summons. Frankly, I she and Maria are enrolled at Delaware County Community College by the time Chester County wants her in a jury box, and that she can claim hardship.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi nonexistent audience,
We've been to New York, didn't pass the test for contestants, moved some of Bob's aunt's furniture, and now am waiting for a 20 lb turkey to thaw. See you around when I get more time to tell the story of doing the champagne town on a beer budget.

Really busy on Facebook

besides Bob breaking a metatarsal in his left foot, Anne's Saturn starting to blow its transmission, and the Durango not wanting to start in the rain, it's been busy here.

Out on Facebook

I got enough people after me to show on facebook, so there I am if I'm not here. Easier to find the new babies, grandbabies, 2 zillion games from people my kids' age, etc.

Anne's out

It won't make any difference what bit her - Anne tested positive for MRSA. So that's why she got such a GROSS infection. She was released last Thursday, went back to the ER briefly on Sunday, and finally got someone to kick her Medicaid to allow the high-priced antibiotic.

She still has an open wound to keep clean until it heals. It puts a big crimp in working at the stables. Anne accompanies Rachel to drive - Rachel's still on a learner's permit - and then has to sit in the car and read a book. Bummer.

Prayers for Anne

Last week Anne got bitten on the left leg by SOMETHING - big mosquito, tick, brown recluse spider, we don't know. Over the weekend it got infected: redness, discharging, fever, pain.
She's in Brandywine Hospital, after 2 rounds of intravenous antibiotics. Staff is still waiting to see how she responds to it.
Of course I'm concerned! Mommy reflex has kicked in!

No Readers?

Looks like everyone is over at CarolinaChronicles.blogspot.com looking at all the cute pictures of Ian, and his worn-out parents Nikki and Dan. (I still don't know if labor was induced, or if Ian decided to come out on his own.) :D

Nikki and Dan's baby is here!

Ian Gordon Johnson was born last night (Aug.3) at 745pm. He weighed 7 lbs., 9 oz. (an entire pound less than Anne, my lightest baby) and is 21 inches long. His first name is the Scots variant of John, and his middle name honors both grandfathers. See CarolinaChronicles.blogspot.com for pictures of the baby and his parents.

Nikki and Dan's baby

The 'pregnancy ticker' says 8 days. But since Nikki has been schlepping around at 3-4 cm dilated, and the baby is at -2 station, for two weeks now, it's about time for something to happen.

For those uninitiated in late pregnancy terms: The uterine cervix has begun to dilate - 10cm means the cervix has 'disappeared' and the baby is ready to be born. Also -2 station means the baby has begun to descend into the birth canal; -4 station is 'crowning', and the baby's head is appearing at the opening. But being on the launch pad for TWO WEEKS? Nikki is treading the edge of sanity. :)

Labor may be induced on Monday. Stay Tuned!

Memory Eternal (sorry I'm late, Grandma, and Grandpa)

Missing Grandma Grace's birthday in June (16?) was a bad habit in this family. After losing Grandpa, she had to downsize to an apartment and eventually to a nursing home. She lost two sons before she died. She paid more attention to us kids' birthdays and didn't expect anything in return. A salute to a woman who persevered in the circumstances she was given, and passed away at the age of 96.

Grandpa Walter, however, deserves more honorable mention. Anyone who took world history noted his birthday was Bastille Day (July 14), although the only revolution he ever subscribed to was that of Christ. He lost his mother at 12, took flak from his stepmother for marrying a divorcee with a child, lost his wife when she was 57, remained a widower for 13 years, kicked smoking cold turkey at the age of 70, and quietly passed from lung cancer at 75.

This was the only man my mom called Daddy. He was the only man my sisters and I knew as Grandpa; Dad's father died when I was 3, Grace was 2, and Deb not yet born. I am confident that he knelt before the throne of God and declared himself unworthy, and was told, "Friend, come up higher."



PS. Any news on the baby, NIkki and Dan?

Survived surgery (ha)

Bob and I were the first customers at Paoli surgery center last Wednesday -even waiting for the door to be unlocked. I was dressed and prepped; and waited, and waited....... When the doctor arrived I asked if the traffic on the 202 was bad. He replied that he was at a prayer breakfast for a friend and it went a little overtime. (Note to self: Keep this doctor. A doctor who prays is not going to be cocky about his own powers!)

I was positioned on the table before the sedative took effect. So when I awoke, still on the table, I was expecting the quick removal of a 1" orthopedic hardware screw. The nurse handed me a specimen jar (for you-know-what) with a screw spanning the diagonal volume of it. THAT'S 2 1/2 TO 3 INCHES!!! Then she added that they had to boost my anesthesia to spinal anesthesia. Guess that screw was a lot harder to extract. Plus there was a sac of fluid on my knee that had to be drained before anything else could be done. That was the point of removing the screw; it irritated the skin over it. So it was THAT bad, that my knee tried to make a water balloon cushion. When I had shaken off a mild nauseous feeling, by burping out all the air in my empty stomach, I was repositioned on a gurney and rolled to the post-operative area.

I lay a short while in the post-operative area. Once sensation had returned to my ankles and I could rotate my feet, I was moved from post-op to the recovery area at the other end of the room. The nurses raised the head of my gurney to a semi-sitting position so I could eat. Graham crackers are a standard in medical facilities - not salty, nor empty calories - and I chose to wash them down with ginger ale. Take that, nausea!

The last surprise came before leaving. I had chosen to dress in the restroom. I found my legs worked fine, but my nether lands were a block of numb wood! I was freaked enough to pull the call light. The nurse responding told me that all was normal: the very end of the spine is the last to recover. "Numb butt? It'll come to in an hour." I wondered if (a) they retained men until all the feeling had returned or (b) anyone male had ever threatened a lawsuit. It seems to be a tenet in this culture that a man who is dead in this department may as well be dead and buried. And yes, feeling had returned by the time I got home.

Bob stopped at the pharmacy and picked up the Vicodin. I took it for a day and a half and promptly misplaced the bottle - I guess I knocked it off while sleeping in my living room lounger. So I went back to my Aleve-and-Extra Strength acetaminophen arthritis routine. The only thing that hurts more than usual is hitting the two-stitch incision. This too, friends, shall pass.

Stumbling through family history

You wouldn't believe it from looking at me, but:I'm 5/512ths Iroquois Confederacy.

That's 1/512 Oneida - a Tory colonist married a French Canadian - Oneida woman about the time of the Revolutionary War (marriage legally recognized) Mom's side

And 1/128 Mohawk - around 1850 a Mohawk - white man was part of a raid and raped one of the settlers. (Observation is probably not 100% accurate. I suspect the man may have been the child of a white man raping a Mohawk girl, and that he decided to 'return the "favor"')
Dad's side
(you can be sure they kept this one covered up!)

What does it mean for me? High-set cheeks, an unusual set of blood proteins besides the A-B-O positive and negative, and the conviction that Custer acted stupidly in the Indian Wars and paid the ultimate price for it.

Also, the recognition that there are always two sides to every story... and that the majority view isn't always the right, just, or fair conclusion to a problem.

Prayer, por favor

For friends, family, and anyone not bored stiff reading my declaration of a pox on the digital conversion:

I'm having surgery next Wednesday on my bum left knee. The orthopedist is taking out a dubiously-placed screw in hope of giving me some relief from the pain that is my constant companion.
Love to all, and Thank you.

Digital Conversion, MS, PhD

(That's More of the Same, Piled higher and Deeper.)
Sometime over the weekend WPVI fine tuned its signal, so here in Coatesville we are getting a decent picture with only occasional pixel dropouts. Sound runs continuously, too. This is on our small TV with the old antenna and 10 dB amplification. The big TV with the S-video and a 20 dB amplifier is near perfect. This is good, because Bob prefers WPVI 6ABC news.

Wonder how they are doing in Washington, DC with their two deadhead stations? A lot better than Metro, I hope. We rode that Red Line through the accident site on May 29. There but for the grace of God.....

Results of the digital conversion

Goodbye, rabbit ears falling on head. Goodbye, interference from the computer in the next room and the DSL modem. Goodbye, fridge door antenna. Goodbye, hand as antenna. Goodbye, head in the field.

However, goodbye WGAL channel 8. It was refreshing to watch news that wasn't full of gang war and city corruption, and had views of country life. But goodbye WPVI channel 6??? Google 'digital stations lost', and the leading story is that BOTH the CBS and ABC affiliates in Washington, DC went AWOL. Philly channel 6 is next, followed by Chicago's ABC affiliate is a distant third.

It seems that some digital stations kept or moved to VHF frequencies (the old channels 7-13), and these are giving the FCC a pain in the netherlands. Hey, I'm still using my mother-in-law's roof antenna with a 20 decibel amplifier. Channel 6 has to get it to me before I can use it to blast out the living room. :) Stay tuned....

The Joy of Digital Television

Keep coming back - I won't be finished until later with this!

Since we brought all our analog sets with us from California, and everyone is SO unemployed, of course we went for the converter boxes. Bob had to blow both $40 coupons on the cheapest GE model available at BJ's Warehouse (closest competitor to Costco and Sam's Club), after I had told him I wanted one box with analog pass-through since our local PBS (WHYY 12, Wilmington/Philadelphia) was not broadcasting a strong enough signal for us to get out here in the boonies of Chester County.

I hooked up the converter to watch the Rose Bowl in hi-def. So Bob tried to change the channel to tape something else. Hello, the converter box changes the channels. Plus one box feeds the same signal to both the TV and the VCR. Disconnect box.

We went down to Costco in Delaware, and decided to check out the Circuit City bankruptcy sale across the parking lot. The store was virtually sacked down to bare shelves, except for stacks of APEX brand digital converter boxes... with analog pass-through. Price $30, with a disclaimer that the bankruptcy sale operator wasn't taking the $40 coupons. We didn't have one anyway.. so home one goes. I hooked it into the TV antenna line, but left it unplugged. That way, we can get our TV regular or hi-def and not pay PECO (Philadelphia Energy Co. to you non-Pennsylvanians) one mite more than necessary.

The big day of June 12 came. When I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, I plugged in the box with the pass-through. WHYY 12 (PBS) had announced it was switching off the analog at noon. Just after noon I switched from WGAL 8 to 12.... static. I kicked in the converter box and scanned. Success!!!! Channel 12 had gone digital! They'd diverted the power from the analog broadcast to boost the digital signal enough to get out of Philly and reach us. I switched back to 8.

Fifteen minutes later I tried WPVI 6 (ABC). "Channel 6 is gone," I announced. By 12:30 pm the only analog stations still in business were the CBS affiliates and associated stations: KYW 3 Philly, WGAL 8 Lancaster, and Channel 57 (CW Philly, but owned by the group holding KYW 3). WGAL 8 had announced it was switching at midnight.

We watched Channel 8 news for what I figured would be the last time that night. Its reception had always been fuzzy, but it was the only thing the rabbit ears would pull in, in the kitchen. The digital box wouldn't pull in the New Jersey PBS stations, so I knew Channel 8 Lancaster would go too.

I went out to Radio Shack after the girls got hoe from the barn to get some video cable connectors, so I could use what cable I had on hand to connect the kitchen TV to the roof antenna. While I was there the salesman commented on how many complaints he had gotten that day of "Channel 6 went off the air!!"

However, watching Channel 6 for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune proved to be a new trial. The picture had digital pixel drop-outs scattered all over it, and sometimes it froze. Ditto for the sound. BIG bummer. How can a family figure it has the full offerings of broadcast TV if one of the Big 3 is AWOL, or acting hung over and/or stoned? We watched what we wanted for the night on other channels.

Then Bob switched to a newly discovered treasure (for us), Y arts on WHYY 12.2. Y arts provides concert music and dance in all genres. Bob stated he prefers it to Conan O'Brien.


EarlierI got to work on putting in that kitchen connection through the basement. As a woman, I am happy that I understand the work and can do it. But as a married woman who was expected to stay home with the kids, I am fuming that my husband doesn't "get it" well enough to do the job. And as a handicapped person, I know there will be a price to pay in pain to do the job. I miss my son Thomas. He does this electric spaghetti stuff much better than I.

First, on Friday,I cleared the broken concrete away from the spot where the high water pressure shook the hot water pipe until it broke the wall. There's my pass-through from the back basement room into the main room. Then I pulled the stuffing out of the hole the kitchen sink pipes pass through the floor. This was a surprise... the floor joists had been covered with plywood, and the space between the laundry room ceiling and the kitchen floor there was stuffed with trimmings of plastic-backed fiberglass insulation. It's itchy as all get-out! (insert one of my dad's profanities here)

Now that I could see my target, I hooked the connector of one end of a 25-ft. video cable in a straightened coathanger and poked the hanger through the hole by the cold-water pipe. Then I went upstairs to see my progress. I couldn't see the wire, back down I went. Poked the wire a little farther. Went back up the stairs. This time, I could see a foot of the 3' hanger wire, and pulled the cable through. Now I have to get it behind the sink cabinet, and the space didn't look big enough for the video connector. Lo and behold - it went straight up behind the sink. I pulled out enough slack to reach the opposite wall, screwed the connector to the converter box we got for this TV, and went back downstairs and repacked the fiberglass. (@#$$!%!!)

I screwed a connector to the other end of the 25-ft. cable, connected it to a 10-ft cable I'd picked up from the recycling dumpster at the apartment we'd lived in in California, and pushed it through the wall. Much easier than the last job. I found the joint cleared the water heater, and I packed the hole with some of that itchy fiberglass and some foam. The cable followed the water intake into the main basement room, but didn't quite reach the main video cable from the roof antenna. I had to connect another 4 feet of cable to get there.

Saturday was the day of the big connection. First I fed some of the slack in the antenna line down into the basement through the hole the installer had drilled in the living room floor. Then it had to be fed back through its tight carrier clips to the point where the kitchen cable caught up to it. (Repeat 2-3x.) Then I had to select a good position on the floor joists to fasten the 10 decibel amplifier/signal splitter; it had to reach both the cables, and the only available electric outlet fastened to the floor support beam near the furnace. I could reach it standing on tiptoe, and bear in mind, I'm lucky I can stand on tiptoe at all.

Cut the mainline from the roof to the living room. Attach screw-on connectors to the two cut ends. Be sure the end from the antenna attaches to Input, and the two diverging lines are attached to the Outputs. Screw the box onto the floor joist.

The last thing proved the hardest, as first I hammered a pick into the joist for start holes. Then screwing in the Phillips screws was tight, and required a lot of strength. After getting them half done I found the Kick Step stool, and got on the first step 6" up from the floor, and found the going a lot easier.

But after all this reaching overhead, my calves, hamstrings, and glutes were on fire. (They are still!) So I plopped down with my feet up for the last job - making a short connector for the signal splitter. I put the short connector between the 20 decibel amplifier and a (non-powered) signal splitter, and then connected leads for the TV and the DVD/VCR combo. Yes, a technological fossil.

Channel 6 was still ornery, so I called the FCC number and the local DTV info number.... which proved to be WHYY info. (A fox in the henhouse?) I was told by the FCC to file a complaint, and by WHYY that channel 6 was having "internal issues", which probably means more than the 65+ comments on WPVI's DTV site. (I left 2.)

So it's time for me to sit back with my feet up in my lounger and ease my aching legs, and enjoy the fruit of my labor.

Memory Eternal (sorry I'm late, Dad)

In memoriam: Vernon Lydens, 5/28/1932 - 11/30/2003. Memory Eternal. Also for Adrian Lydens, 10/16?/1889 - 5/30/1957. (My dad's 25th birthday was spoiled by losing his father.)

Why late: Auditions for the quiz show Jeopardy! in Washington, D.C. After that, Bob and I went to all the memorials on The Mall. We made sure to see the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial(s), and the Korean Veterans Memorial. They're clustered together on the west end of The Mall.

More on this later.... my bum knee is killing me from all this walking!! Someone there has Segway tours; how about Arthritic Senior Citizen Scooter tours?? Bob wound up the next day pushing me through the Smithsonian Castle, Museum of the American Indian, and the Air and Space Museum in a wheelchair. :)

Thanks, Lord, for today

Today dawned bright and sunny. I was scheduled to take the last computer class today, and I actually got up before the alarm. I had enough time to negotiate with Verizon to lower the price on our DSL after breakfast. Got a break, too. Rachel was up to help me put stuff in the car and I got off on time. The commute was a little thicker on the traffic than I had experienced before, but I still got there on time.

With a one-on-one with the instructor, I cruised through the MS Excel class. The beginning was shaky, but once I woke up.. :) I finished the class an hour ahead of the time normally allotted to it. (This accommodates multiple students' questions.) I received certificates for finishing the class and the total course, filled out a course review, and said goodbye. I'll still be in touch by email.

Since the school is 13 miles from home (in the opposite direction from Paradise - see post on art) and I had the car, Bob expected me to shop my way home. Considering I only had 5 dollars cash and some change, this took some planning. First to Produce Junction, a fruit, vegetable, and flower wholesaler 1 1/2 miles away. Three heads of green leaf lettuce and 3 pounds of carrots came to $2.75. Then to the Dollar Tree store for the county newspaper, 75 cents. Check out BJ's Wholesale (local Costco competitor) to see if the 2# burger chubs were near expiration date. No luck, try next week.

So I had 3 greenbacks left - used the change on the paper and the veggies - so I considered rye bread at Acme (local Albertsons). I didn't find our favorite unsliced caraway light rye on the shelves, so I went to the bakery to ask for some. The baker had it, but she tagged it at a price 50 cents higher than the sale price on the shelf sign. I pointed this out, and got the break. So I had one dollar left for white bread for the girls' PB&J. Over to Giant, where I had a question on a previous shopping trip.

I didn't get a break on the other trip - a double coupon contention - but I found the house brand soft Italian bread on sale for a buck. Home, do-it-yourself supper (the girls were still at the barn), and fall asleep with my feet up in my recliner.

Classes done and some good financial deals for today. The organic horse fertilizer may hit the fan tomorrow, but Lord, thank you for all the good things of today.

Seeing double or triple?

Do these look like the same person? The color pic is a dead giveaway, but don't the faces look alike? Cousin Nancy sent me a group picture with the exclamation, "Doesn't the older girl look like your mother?"

I replied with another picture. "My husband thinks our oldest daughter's baby pictures look like my mom." Strange, how genes pop out in strange places.

As for the pictures, the top is my grandmother's cousin Louise, who would be 92 if still alive. Middle is my mom's high school graduation picture. And the bottom is Anne. Cue the Twilight Zone music.

A mixed bag

Condolences to friends Nikki and Daniel. Dan's father passed away Saturday night. They will traveling back to CA... and Nikki is around 6 months pregnant. I told her how I survived going home for Grandpa Walter's funeral when I was 5 months pregnant with Maria. She will have it easier than I did, because: 1. Her husband is going with her... or more like, she's going with him, because it's for his father. And 2. She won't be chasing two rambunctious pre-kindergarten kids - smile, Tom!

Anne fixed little cans of Fancy Feast frosted with a thin veneer of mashed potatoes and decorated with food coloring for each of the cats, to celebrate their "birthday". Haruhi, the spotted girl cat, nipped into hers even as Anne held her and Maria took pictures. Gotta find the pix and post them. Anne wouldn't have spent the bucks on Fancy Feast for any other occasion.

My sister Grace got out to see the Star Trek movie on their birthday. She implied that Kirk was a young punk and was given the choice of jail or Starfleet. I've got to see THIS! Dad would have loved it. I had made the 3-way call to her and my mother, and Mom told us that our sister Deb, her kids, and grandkids came to visit after Mother's Day. It feels strange for Deb to have a 9-year old granddaughter when Grace and I are both older than she, and NOT grandmothers. Life deals interesting hands to all.

Tomorrow I go to make up that MS Excel class I'd missed for a 102° fever. Time to start job applications.

Also, I've been exchanging emails and pix with cousin Ray, the youngest of my cousins. Given that his dad was my dad's oldest brother, it's another "feels strange" hand dealt by life. He dug up a really good picture of Dad and my uncles that he labled "Lydens brothers jam session". That one's priceless. Judging from the two wedding pictures on the piano, the picture dates from 1946-1947 and my dad is the teen on guitar.

Dan's father is perfectly welcome to join their jam session in Heaven, especially if Dan inherited his musical talents from him.

Mom Bragging Rights

Pretty good, considering Tom's had to work all his post-high school life. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.... most of the time. :)

In other departments: I just had my bum leg checked for a 3-year check up. So stay tuned. My bum insurance requires me to go up to the hospital for x-rays, rather than having it done in the orthopedist's office.

And the girls have chosen May 12, Rachel's half-birthday, as the kitties' official birthday. They plan to frost some Fancy Feast with some mashed potatoes for a kitty birthday cake.

This one's for Tom

I got your Mother's Day card today. Thank you. Maria's already looking at the cds and the copy of your diploma is cool - only I thought you got the credits jammed through for an Associate of Science, rather than an Associate of Arts. Sounds like someone at Saddleback College told you to take the money and run.

Too bad about Cal State Long Beach freezing transfer acceptance because of the budget crunch. Dad got a token raise in his pension. But if they start biting into it there will be protests to Gohvenuh Ahhnold for sure. Go CSUF Titans.

Cousin Ray Lydens (Gord's brother) called me yesterday after a lot of email exchange. He's got a page on classmates.com, which is how I found him. Aunt Grace (sis) called me today to say her phone is on the fritz and Ma Bell is coming out. She and her family will be taking the paratransit bus to a restaurant and a movie on Saturday. (for anyone else reading this, it's her 54th birthday.) The restaurant they chose is 1 block from the theater so they can roll her to it. They haven't decided on Wolverine or Star Trek yet. Grandpa Vernon (my dad) would have loved both.

She made me think of the last time I saw Grandpa, when I called him Professor X. He didn't know X-Men characters so I had to explain. "Professor X is in a wheelchair, reads your mind, and kicks your butt when you're bad. And he's portrayed by Patrick Stewart of Star Trek Next Generation." He got it then. Grandpa loved a good sci-fi or fantasy story.

Looks like you had fun with Brittany at Disneyland.

Do we want a charger for Anne's phone? YES YES YES YES YES YES I thought I was going to take the cover off the transformer plug and splice the wires into it, and I found the cover is held on by stinking tri-wing screws, like the one on the iron. Radio Shock wants $30 for a universal charger. Anne said stick it. I say tell me how much it weighs for paying the postage. Grandma Jean (my mom) loves it when I run a 3 ring circus call with Aunt Grace.

Your sisters say hi. Love Mom

Life as Art...

More than a few locals would not find Coatesville beautiful enough to inspire art - but someone did. There's an exhibition at a University of Pennsylvania gallery of artist John Moore. For everyone who can't afford to come up and see me, see the selections:
http://www.design.upenn.edu/people/moore_john
I discovered this in Sunday's Philly Inquirer. (you can google that too) The painting "A Fine Fall Day" has the most interest to me because the right-hand street is ours, and our house is lost in the forest of roofs at the top right before the 'field'.

The art reviewer in the Inquirer must have never been to Coatesville. What he calls 'fields' are cemeteries! My inlaws are buried in the foreground cemetery, and Bob's Grandpa Frantz (and a few old neighbors) are buried on the opposite hill. They have excellent views, far from the steel mills which used to control life in this town.

The large building at the left is the S. Horace Scott Middle School (was the high school when Bob graduated). The colorful building at center houses public health clinics on the 1st and 4th floors, and senior citizen apartments on the 2nd and 3rd floors; each function has separate entrances and elevators. It wasn't there when we moved in two and a third years ago.

PS. The exhibit is entitled "Thirteen Miles from Paradise". Coatesville is, literally; Paradise is a farm community in Lancaster County, 13 miles west on US 30. Plus, working in a steel mill sure isn't 'paradise'. Coatesville has the distinction of being the only city incorporated in Chester County. The other 'cities' in this county , including the county seat of West Chester, are called boroughs.

I'm still here...

and life is a little better, just busy. It got warm enough to put up screens, and we've been at it the last 4 days. Fans, too. This old house doesn't have 220v wiring, and fans are it....and they get old by June, when the humidity hits.

Found one cousin on ClassMates. Found the son of another has a rap sheet in Florida and puts mud on our good name. Back in the old days, a guy like this would get the choice of the army or jail. One of my husband's cousins said at the funeral of an aunt, "Uncle Andy (her husband) was so good at raising hell at home, they sent him to raise hell with the Germans." Must have worked, he came back to be a responsible citizen.

Thank you, Lord, for what my kids are so far.

Duh, forgot

Memory Eternal, Walter James Genter (July 14, 1910 - April 22, 1986)
Mom's father and a very levelheaded man
The great-grandfather my kids didn't know because we lived in CA

A cupbearer to the Apostles in Paradise, I hope, and sharing the company of Chirpy with Grandma Lily, his wife, and Grandma Grace and Grandpa Adrian, my other grandparents

Christos Voskrese

Yes, I'm still here....
The girls are still plotting how to beautify Chirpy's grave. As it is, it receives all the palm crosses, church bread crumbs, red eggshells from church, and fake flowers they can shower upon it. They also ordered plush animals that bear a passing resemblance to her and put her collars and ID tag on them.

I managed to eat some spoiled leftovers last Saturday night, and what's worse, held them down until Sunday morning. THEN I 'tossed my cookies'. I recovered enough to drag myself to church, sit slumped in the choir, and belt out the tenor. We actually had 2 men to sing bass! Val works in Baltimore. His wife Sandy is first cousin to our choir director Nina. Michael, well..I'm not sure how he fits in, he's Russian and his wife is Greek. He appears frequently, but not steadily. As it is, his little son Constantine keeps attempting paratroop maneuvers off the choir loft rail. Boy, I'm glad I wasn't in the St. Nicholas San Diego choir, Thomas would have tried it.......

I slept most of the rest of the day. Didn't eat much, either. The Russian Paschka tradition is to pork out on all that meat and dairy denied during Lent, so I broke that. However, I had lost 3 pounds at my last diabetic checkup on the 15th, and my A1C (glycosolated hemoglobin) was a 5.5. That's within the normal range. Feelin' good!

Called Mom in her nursing home and my sister Grace at her home, which is a defacto nursing home with her son Aaron as caretaker since she fractured her lumbar spine and discombobulated her knees. Grace roasted my husband Bob for not allowing the cats in the house. In her opinion, he was responsible for Chirpy's death. I had to counter that the current setup is not my idea of responsible pet ownership, but a compromise with the Lord and Master that allowed the litter to even stay and not be carted off to the pound. Mom suggested that Bob misses Chirpy, but can't bring himself to admit it, having grown up with the constant propaganda of 'pets are destructive'. I think Mom's right.

Meanwhile, back to the job hunt, wondering how we'll handle going to DC for the tryouts, and filing for the nth time to get Maria on Medicaid. They accepted Anne and Rachel, but not her. HUH? The one who needs it worst? I dropped off a "Health-Sparing Medication" form at the county office on the 31st, and you think I'd have dropped off a fox in the henhouse. Tomorrow Maria and I go visit the office of a professional pit bull retained by Brandywine Hospital to expedite these matters. Let's go kick some ***!

And yes, Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

Good thing we're Orthodox

...Or it would be a really unhappy Easter. As it is, I hope Mom had a happy birthday today.

Our tiger cat Chirpy got hit by a car at the corner of Star Alley and Walnut Street, 1/2 block from our house. Looks like she took a hit to the head so she didn't suffer. We just finished burying her 15 minutes ago. Bob started the hole by our plum tree, Anne finished it, laid Chirpy in the hole, covered her in fallen petals from the blooming bush in the next yard, and some dried grass from our attempts at digging garden plots. Then Bob filled in the hole and replaced the sod.

In spite of being adults, Rachel and Anne are heartbroken. Maria seems to be taking it in stride. "Grandpa has another kitty to play with now."

The girls plan to buy flowers on Monday to place on the grave.

Me, I'll miss her.

Catchin' up on the ol' blog

I finished the Certified Medical Administrative Assistant course April 3 - got 99 out of 100 on the exam. The certificate is in the mail. (Technically, I still have to take the Basic MS Excel class I missed February 24 because I was running a 102° fever with the bug going around. I'm scheduled for May 22 - too far out - but I'm noted to be contacted for a cancellation. I've checked out a book on MS Office from the library.)

The young woman in our class who is turning her life around, and was so anxious over being able to pass at all, got a 96. Shrieks, tears, laughter, and pictures all around with the instructors. Which reminds me, I need to email her the Student Profile for Career Search, since I don't know if she got one. She left before I did on Friday.

I applied to a library-secreterial position at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, Coatesville. Its main building looks like a knockoff of Independence Hall sitting on the crest of the hill overlooking Coatesville on the north. I got a NIce Turn Down email sounding like the position was open to the public only to be fishing for any veterans out there who weren't IN the hospital. C'est la vie. I haven't heard from my Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor lately, so I think he's fuming over it. :)

Michigan State got to the finals, just to be stomped flat by University of North Carolina. Wait till next year, Nikki. People here in the Philly area aren't too happy either. UNC defeated Villanova before taking on State. Villanova is a Catholic university about 35 miles east on US 30 from where I live, and Bob's cousin Jerry is an alumnus. He must have gone there on his father's sweat at Lukens Steel, and ROTC, because after that he went to Nam...... and back, fortunately.

The Jeopardy tryouts will be held at the St. Regis Hotel in DC, at 9am. ZZZZZZ. Their cheapest room is $400/night, we can't afford to stay there. Separate beds in sex-segregated dormitories at the American Youth Hostel are about $30 each per night. Looks like we may not be able to avoid just driving down (115 miles) and/or staying at a Motel 6, 8, whatever, near the terminus of the Washington Metro and commuting in. Who wants to park in the capital of confusion?? It was a lot easier auditioning in Culver City on the Jeopardy soundstage. Stay tuned.

And ONE MORE TIME: Thomas, email your father or get a cheap phone card if you can't get your cellphone to hold a charge. I believe your sisters have no reason to lie to me when they say they've heard from you..... but your dad wants proof and he won't get off my back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeopardy tryouts, round 8

I just got a return email announcing the Jeopardy tryouts in Washington DC, for those would-be contestants who passed the online test in January. I hope Dad's birthday, May 28, is good luck.

I passed this test in Culver City, in person, 6 times. Is the eighth time the charm? Of course we could use the money!

See Bread Recipes below the Cloud picture

I just HAD to reuse the blank instead of deleting it.......

What an interesting cloud....

Recently Nikki, a friend from California who's now in North Carolina, posted a touching poem on her blog comparing her soul to a sunflower and the gardener to Christ.

My attempts at poetry were what dragged down my English grades. My only gift is rewriting songs a la Weird Al Yankovic. So I'd like to express my appreciation to Ken, fellow Whitehall High Class of '71 student, for emailing me this picture.



It came with the "Jesus Test": Are you ashamed of Him? The score is 100 or zero, nothing between.
Now that I've given this picture the boost from private emails to publicly searched hyperspace, I hope my score is more than zero today. Thanks, Ken.

Give us this day our daily bread

As Khouria Frederica Mathewes-Green has said of Lent, "The bread machine runs all day long". A decent bread, if one is not clogging up one's arteries with meats and saturated fats, is a choice food to get through the day. Spread with peanut butter, Earth Balance margarine, lightly salted, or even sprinkled with Cajun seasoning, a slice of bread will hold off hunger until the next meal.

My daughters are fond of the taste of prosphora, the Orthodox communion bread. However, the first recipe I got for it from Father Andrew makes too much for one household. Start with a whole 5-pound bag of flour?? My freezer is already full. I found this recipe in the book Making God Real in the Christian Home by Anthony Coniaris.
5 cups flour plus extra for kneading
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups warm water
2 cakes or envelopes yeast
Standard instructions for bread are: dissolve the yeast in the water, stir in salt and flour until it's too stiff to stir. Knead for 10 minutes, let rise one hour, punch down the dough and shape into loaves, let rise 1/2 hour or until the bread pans are reasonably full, bake 1/2 hour at 375°.

Now prosphora comes with the extra specifications of pray the Jesus Prayer (the Publican's prayer) while kneading, and hold the stamp mold down on each round for the duration of the Lord's Prayer (aha! that's why my stamps didn't take). But since I am making this for family consumption, I can skip straight to my bread machine which will bake a 1-1/2 pound loaf. It can mix twice that amount if I bake the loaves in the oven. This has been a good thing this winter, as it is an excuse to heat up a cold kitchen.

So here's Mom's Bread:
5 cups high-gluten bread flour (all-purpose is too crumbly)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1-3/4 cups warm water (flour tends to be dry)
1 tablespoon dry yeast
Note on yeast: If you bake a lot, it's cheaper to buy a bulk pack from Costco/Sam's Club/BJ's Warehouse than to buy those $1.50 envelopes at the supermarket. But since it will still fizzle out in a year's time despite refrigeration, be liberal using the yeast.
Load your machine the way the maker specifies; mine says liquid first. I put the salt, sugar, and yeast into the water. Then the flour goes on top. I let it mix on the dough cycle and raise until the machine kneads down the first rise. Then the dough is placed in two 10" x 5" loaf pans. The pans are placed in the cold oven to rise.

The baking method I read in a book by William Woys Weaver on Pennsylvania Dutch cooking; he attempted to recreate the effects of a woodfired brick bake oven. Turn the oven to 175° with the loaves in it; let them finish rising 10 minutes. Then turn the oven to 400° and bake 15 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 350° and bake another 15 minutes. Bread should be done now, with a crispy crust. Take it out of the pans to cool so the bottoms don't get soggy.

I usually bake a whole wheat loaf with the 2 white loaves. Its recipe is similar, only it contains 1 tablespoon of applesauce for internal moisture. Oil would work too, but applesauce satisfies certain nitpickers who maintain even a bread should not contain oil on a day not marked 'wine and oil'.

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup high gluten bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon applesauce
1 cup warm water
Mix and bake as above. The sweetness of the applesauce makes this bread more suitable for PB&J sandwiches than for garlic bread...OK by the girls!

Cat pictures by the girls

Pardon my blunder, these pictures loaded in the reverse order in which I wanted to post them. This window doesn't appear to have "cut and paste".

Haru on a car-u. As the littermates have gotten older, their muzzles appear more square and their ears seem shorter than when they were small. Or else they grew big ears first, then their faces caught up. The kitten faces look like miniature Egyptian cat deities.

Haru and one of her brothers annoying the dog next door. Fortunately for them Jenny is in the house!

Bob hates pawprints all over his car. But Chirpy loves climbing all over cars.

The kittens as the girls found them in June. They named the mother Midna. She disappeared in the beginning of October.

Art assemblages by Rachel-Blogger frame crops the pictures, so click on them for the full view (plus Photobucket promos), especially for Neku! He is hiding, as usual, in the right pane of the picture. Rachel's :3 is a kitty smiley face.
Terra, the heaviest one! And the most social too.

Zack has a thin line of white hairs under his chin, to distinguish him from his brothers.

Unless you have food or are Rachel, Neku has no use for you.
Unless we're really close, all the boys look alike.

The beautiful Lady Haruhi that breaks men's hearts. Only Neku is more shy than she.

She moved into the littermates' house around Christmas. And she's much more affectionate than Terra. Besides squeaks and a very quiet purr, her call begins with a hoarse 'chrrr' before breaking into the 'rrow', hence the "Chirpy". She answers to Chirpy, too!

Follow-up on fixed kitties and Shady Maple

Haruhi and Chirpy arrived home about 9pm, ready to resume their old lives. Neither of them were pregnant (no aborted kitties). And since the surgical wounds were closed with skin glue, no stitches. The girls have a new friend, and her dad knows a friend of Bob's.

Bob and I got off to Shady Maple about 2:30. I made sure to get 2 sacks (10 pounds) of bread flour, 1 of whole wheat flour, 1 of unbleached flour, 1 of split peas, and 1 of rolled oats . We also picked up 3 of their $1 per peck reduced price produce baskets: tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, and sweet potatoes. I got bathrobes for the girls for $6 each at Good's Store and a skirt for $2.50 for me (plus sized, folks!). A good trip, although there are two disadvantages to shopping on Saturday. One, Saturday is the day for "English" tourists to come gawk at the Amish and Mennonites, so the place is crowded. Two, is that they close at 5 pm, because they believe in getting ready for worship the next day. They're always closed on Sunday.

One busy day

My computer school had a 'workshop' for resume, job search, and interview skills scheduled for today. I figured my information in that sector dated back to the dark ages, when women weren't supposed to reveal marital status for fear of being shut out of a job "because you'll quit to have babies and never be back". Plus my past and current job searches were duds. So I signed up. Then my instructors told all the students that they could bring friends. My mind jumped to some job searchers I know..."Maryrose, how about my daughters?"

They actually got up for this workshop. (Now we'll hear it from Bob about why they can't always get up for church. :P ) We ran on Frantz Standard Time, aka 10 minutes late, but since there were traffic problems on US 202 the presentation was right in synch with us. It got down to business after coffee, cookies, coke, soft pretzels, and bottled water.

Karin led off with the seminar on resume writing. First, the reverse chronological history I learned in high school was OUT. Highlight strengths with action verbs; don't mention negatives - there's no law compelling it; and disclosing gaps in employment are still the kiss of death. (Face it, someone my age with a continuous employment history has either never been married, never had children, or had a very understanding husband or mother around for child care. I was not fortunate enough to have had close child care.) Maria actively participated in question and answer, in contrast to her sisters. The discussion was summarized with the statements "Your resume is NOT your autobiography" or "The Great American Novel" - would its headline be "Stuff I used to do" or "Look what I can do!"

After a break, Maryrose demonstrated a sample online job search site: selecting keywords to limit searches (2000+ entries?!??), mileage radius limiters, and going into company websites to find information and employment applications. Even then, she recommended dropping off a resume live and in person over an electronic/email submission.

Karin returned with her own take on online searches: don't make them a be-all and end-all in the search. Introducing oneself and inquiring if any local companies are hiring is a better form of networking than 'being lucky enough to know someone'. Then she dug thoroughly into preparation for an interview.

This is the part that leaves "back in the day" in the dust. Research the company, research your financial needs and goals, research the problem areas in your experience and rehearse answers for them. Consider yourself under scrutiny from the minute you enter the parking lot - you may be coming up on the elevator with the person interviewing you! Respect the receptionist...s/he may be telling the boss what sort of uptight person you were in the waiting room. Karin even stated that this was a good time for silent prayer, to put the matter into the Lord's hands. As you are questioned, listen.
The point that got my attention was the question, "Do you have any other questions?" The interviewer's hope is for you to divulge information that can be used against you. (Not that many people got this.) Your defense is to restate information you heard in the interview, to shape your impression of the company and their impression of you.

I must admit, I was never a practitioner of the thank-you for the interview note. I was always under the impression that one would be offered the job at the interview, or within the week. The only time I heard back directly on a job - in my life - is the Honey Brook Library calling me to give me the turn down live and with a follow-up letter within the week, last year. I guess I felt too burned on rejection to consider that a prospective employer would keep me on tap for a second choice. Gotta get the bipolar in gear on that.

After the workshop, the girls thought that they would be picking up our girl cats at the vet, where they were to be spayed. The girls were fortunate in that the vet they picked from the local SPCA list had a vet tech who lives 3 doors down from us. And we didn't know it!! (And Rachel has vocally thanked God for this 'coincidence'.) This person recognized the cats and offered the girls the low income/feral cat price for the shots and surgery. However, the vet had a problem with a cat with an eye infection, and our cats had not yet been spayed. The office said that this tech would bring the cats home with her tomorrow.

Then Anne fell asleep in the car, saying she felt off. I had to take Maria and Rachel to the barn, where they were too late to ride, but not too late to work. So Bob wanted to eat supper when we got back, and not go to Shady Maple Farm Market/Good's Store in Amish country. Drat. I wanted to go. We were out of high-gluten bread flour, and during Lent we eat a loaf of my homemade bread a day. Shady Maple also has the best produce prices in Lancaster or Chester County.

I just hope the poop doesn't hit the fan when Bob finds out the cats were spayed. He still begrudges the girls the price of the cat food, and they buy it out of their barn work money at wholesale warehouses.

...The Rest of the Story

As Paul Harvey used to say.....
I went hunting online for another piece of band music, a piece that Thomas played in eighth grade for All-District Middle School Honor Band entitled "Salvation is Created" by Pavel Chesnikov. Short, but very dramatic in tone color and dynamics. The title and author immediately suggested Orthodox Church music to me. Pavel's biography had more drama than I could imagine...

Chesnokov was a composer and choirmaster. "Salvation is Created" is a communion hymn specifically for a liturgy celebrated on Thursday. This was the last choral music he wrote for the Church before Communism shut down churches. According to Wikipedia, he never heard it performed publicly - but it escaped to the west. Chesnokov continued composing secular works and teaching choral conducting until Stalin coveted the ground of Christ the Savior cathedral in Moscow and blew up the church. Chesnokov, in disgust, never composed anything again, because he had been the cathedral's last choirmaster.

As for the site, it proved too swampy to support Stalin's world congress of soviets and was covered with a public swimming pool. After communism fell, the people of Moscow rebuilt the cathedral. Vindication.

Americans and Western Europeans seem to think they do a vocal piece honor by arranging it for instruments. This is contrary to Eastern church tradition, which maintains that the best sound to praise God is the one He gave men, the human voice. But... one can listen to the band arrangement (choose "Salvation is Created") and judge its merits against the choir arrangement.

I must admit guilt to co-opting this music. Thomas would practice his trumpet and forget his English or history. So when I'd ask him while driving to school in the morning if he were finished with homework, and he'd answer "no", I'd sing, "Thou art roa-sted, thou-ou-ou-ou art roa-sted" to the first line. After a couple rounds of "Mom, Dad would roast you for singing church music with other words," Thomas figured it was easier to do the homework to shut me up. Mom Power.

Oops (3/1) - forgot the pdf sheet music for anyone who'd like to see it, courtesy ChoralWiki. Daniel, Thomas, anyone?

What kind of town is this anyway?? Bus fires

Last Sunday night, 7 school buses were burned at North Brandywine Middle School, north of Coatesville and across the road, west side, from Brandywine Hospital. To whoever thought that was such a smart idea, maybe that they would get out of school:

Ain't gonna happen.

Those buses weren't the property of Coatesville area school district. They were owned by Krapf Bus, which serves nearly the entire county. There are a lot more buses where those came from. So give up.

The two kids being held for torching houses were in jail when this happened, and still are there. Pyromaniacs, seek therapy!! People who are not in the habit of praying are losing sleep over you.

California budget crisis

If the legislature or Govuhnuh Ahhnold messes with the pension funds:

We're toast.

To any Saddleback College employees contemplating early retirement: Either have that new job with benefits in hand, or hang in there until you're 60. Paying COBRA will eat 1/3 of your pension. At 60 Saddleback pays your health insurance. Why else would I be retraining at 55??

SECOND ARREST IN ARSONS

Last night on the 11pm news they announced the arrest of a 20-year-old male who was a friend of the first person arrested. See all the links in the previous post. This person had a record, and it was sad to see the parents of the 19-year-old denying their son could do such a thing and blaming it on the 20-year-old. Is the truth somewhere in between?

Bob and my girls also noted that the 19-year-old's mother bore a passing resemblance to my sister Deb. Sorry, folks, she's in Michigan, and all her kids are over 25.

ARREST MADE IN COATESVILLE ARSON SPREE

I heard about it as I was leaving MS Word review class today from an instructor who also lives in Coatesville. Check the (Chester County) Daily Local News and the Philadelphia Inquirer for details. Also video from WPVI channel 6 Philadelphia.

Sheesh! A kid, the same age as my youngest? Lord have mercy. Bail is set at 9 MILLION dollars. He's not going anywhere.

First Week of Computer School

Last Tuesday was my first day at Full Circle Computing. My counselor, Brian, had said that state-funded training would rather do business with trade schools than community colleges. One, to avoid federal paperwork, for example FAFSA; and two, to fit into budget constraints, only a $4500 grant is given.

When I had taken Windows 98 at Saddleback (Community) College 10 years ago, different conditions applied. The class was held in a lecture room holding 100 people. The instructor projected the moves on a screen behind her. Bob and I shared a book-and since he was getting his class paid for by his employer (the same Saddleback College), he felt the book was college property and did not write in it, bring it home often, willingly share it, and left it in his office after the class was over. (This caused me to beg, plead, whine, and cross-examine Thomas a lot, since these things seem to come naturally to him.) And finally, I (we) had to sign up for computer lab time. A lot of the lecture flushed out of my brain with all the cooking, dishes, and homework help in the intervening time, and there were 4 proctors for a big room of 50 or more people. I believe I owe more to my son for knowing how to operate Windows.

Now at Full Circle, the lecture room IS the lab. My first day was in a room with 7 computers in it. Only one other student was in my room for the day! I had also wondered if I would be the oldest student in the place - maybe, but my instructor admitted to having 4 children 20 - 28 and being a neighbor of one of Bob's cousins. She had the rearmost setup, linked to a big monitor in the front. As she pulled up start, clicked buttons, dropped down menus, etc. she could see what we were doing and could individually guide us. Each course has its own book, written by the staff, in which we are free to write and highlight - they even throw in the highlighter.

And they spend the full day immersed in a course. Tuesday was Intro To PC; Wednesday was Intro to Word 2007; and Friday was Word 2007 Intermediate. i only have 2 gripes: one, is that my bum leg is acting up; and two, is that Word 2007 totally revamped its user interface and I can't practice with Word 2004 at home!!!!!

More band craziness

Dimitri Shostakovich, Festive Overture, Opus 96 All my WHS band classmates have this number permanently tattooed on their brains - unless stroke has caught up to them. M. Frang wanted to score big with this against the bigger Muskegon schools, and all that happened is we beat Montague, the archrival across the river. The Montague director, Mr. Flahive, said our lead trumpet in '69 sounded like brushing with Vote toothpaste (geez, does that admission age me). So when we returned from area band/orchestra festival, that lead trumpet, son of the Methodist minister, wrote an endorsement for Vote toothpaste all over the bandroom blackboard.

In 1975 the San Diego classical radio station played this to mark Shostakovich's death. Boy did we have some phrases wrong.

I took a music appreciation course at Saddleback College back when I only had one kid, and wrote a compare and contrast essay on this piece and Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Overture. Scored an A.

Later I taped the LP that WHS Band cut in order to play the opening fanfare (repetitiously, if necessary) to blow my teenage son out of bed.

About 2000 I was substituting at Mission Viejo High School and examined the teacher's CD collection in a free period. I literally screamed when I saw the contents of one: The Eastman Wind Orchestra conducted by Donald Hunsburger, featuring Opus you-know-what. Hunsburger was the arranger who transcribed the work for bands. Of course I went out and bought it!

Last, but not least, while hunting for links I came upon this commentary/program notes. Everyone at whom Mr. Frang threw a baton should read this. After all that miserable practice someone should get a good belly laugh!!
PS. Always thought as much. I had suggested it in my essay.

Fire in Coatesville, take 3 (for me)

Scuttlebutt in the comments under the Daily Local News article on last Tuesday's fire suggested they might have a 'person of interest' under interrogation. A more concrete finding is the shoeprint taken from my neighbor's back yard.

However, more 'persons of interest' need to be tipped on and taken in: another fire last Friday destroyed a mobile home in East Fallowfield township on the south edge of South Coatesville. No injuries, thank God.

I talked to my neighbor today and confirmed two things: one, that someone was sleeping in the back room when it was torched, her ex-husband. They have a truce concerning his visits to the Coatesville VA hospital when he's sick, so he can stay in town. There are no motels close by. And two, I must have been the first one to call in the fire. She said I had her address off by two digits, and I labeled its flash point the back porch when it was the back wall. Hey, I was looking off my back porch into the smoke.

Thank you, Lord, That they are alive, safe, and still have the house.

Wednesday Bob shoveled the walk on the north side of the house....and noticed prints going as far as the doghouse for the cats on the back porch, and returning the way they came. Was it the pyromaniac? Did he/she see the neighbor's yard light? Think the 'cat'house contained a dog? Notice the light was on in the kitchen?

Or be repulsed by the hands of the guardian angel? We could use Gen. Archangel Frightful Michael on this watch.

Some Good News

Last night around 8 pm, I got a phone call. My sister Grace was calling.....from her home. Sprung from the Big House!!

After seeing the kind of treatment his mom was getting in OK City, my nephew Aaron decided he could cover the basic care if the physical therapist could come to the house. SOMEBODY agreed. So Grace is confined to the sofa - but her boys are happy to see her.

Never mind getting food that a hospital/institution won't give you!

Let's try again on the Alla Barocco link

In case I didn't get the title to be a hot button, try this for Alla Barocco. When you get there, scroll down to Alla Barocco and choose the right play button: gray for lo-fi, black and green for broadband. I finally looked in blogger 'help'.

Tom was kind enough to create a file to place in our iTunes, and I can forward it if anyone would like a copy. Playing this, the Star-Spangled Banner, and our fight song (plagiarized Notre Dame Victory March) was the cost of getting into the school basketball games for free.

OK Nikki or Daniel, how do I link in jpegs?

Sundays on the Phone with Mom

My experiences in 3 months of rehab in the Payson (AZ) Care Center taught me a lot about accepting things I can't change. Things like not being free from pain, being able to move my body freely, being able to move about the building, being in a place with no family or friends whatsoever, or being able to leave that prison. I learned to adapt. When I got placed on a commode without being sure my call lights were in reach, I did'nt howl 'help me' like some residents would, because I knew the nurses and aides had become hardened to it. So: (tune: Camptown Races)

"I can't reach my call lights here, scuba, poobah,
I can't reach my call lights here, oh scuba day.
One's stuck in the can, (In the bathroom which I could not yet move myself into)
One's stuck on the left,
The third one's stuck in the middle of my bed,
Somebody help me please!"

After three repetitions help came. "Susan, you're fun-nee" said the aide. The nurses would ask me for prayer if it looked like a hard day was coming up. The only grouch I had in the room was the night nurse with the 2am bedpan, and once physical therapy proved to her that I could get out of bed without falling her mood improved immensely.

I was shocked when my mom got caught in the 'automatic' door at the Whitehall Shell/A&W/Long John Silver's and it broke her pelvis. Didn't she carry enough weight to cushion the blow? or to have her bones built up to avoid osteoporosis? This was the beginning of the end of her independent living - at age 70. She's in a wheelchair, walking hurts her back.

"Mom, it just kills me that you have to be in a home," I'd tell her. "Your mind is still there." Since I was in California, my youngest sister did the actual placement, and I'm sure she feels worse for having had to be the one to do it.

I used to feel bad about calling her - until I'd walked a mile in her shoes in Payson. I lived for calls from my kids and was overjoyed when they got up the gas money to visit - Twice. Now I make a point about calling every Sunday, and if I miss, make an extra call. She says some weeks that I'm her only "visitor".

Since my middle sister in Oklahoma fell and got lumbar fractures, she has been in rehab in Oklahoma City since August. None of her immediate family can drive from Lawton, so she's up there alone. I swipe my daughter's cell phone and set up a 3-way call. Grace is harder to get to - bedridden - so she gets a cordless phone from the nurses' station. Then I call Mom, who usually gets a push to a phone in the hall. Mom asks about the weather, the usual how's the grandkids questions, and then sits back and listens to Grace and I go at it. Mom wishes the phone had 4-way so we could include sister Deb, niece Brandy, or even Great-great-aunt Capitola, who is 105, lives with a 65-year-old granddaughter, and has cheated the nursing home twice. "Nurses in homes are so busy, Aunt Tola, that you probably get better care from Carol."

Mom and Grace got extra calls on Wednesday about the fire. Take no chances having them fret about the national news.

Lord, You sure are teaching us patience with these (medical) high-maintenance bodies!!!

Fire in Coatesville, epilogue

I was interviewed by the Coatesville police, fire marshals, and PA state troopers. No news people, however. The only thing totally destroyed in the fire was a waist-high Rubbermaid storage shed and its contents. The occupants' peace of mind, however, is another story.

News video is available for the websites of the local tv stations: KYW - 3, CBS; WPVI - 6. ABC; WCAU - 10, NBC; WXTF - 29, FOX. When the camera looks straight at the fire damage, look to your right beyond the white house next door to the brick house and the yard above the 4' stone wall. That's our back yard, between the stone wall and the wooden fence.

Also news on CNN and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Inquirer site says a disabled relative was sleeping in the back room where the fire started. Bleep! I'm glad I was fast on the dial thumb.

OOPS

How DO I get that link to become active? An alternative is to Google "Alla Barocco" and select "shan1975's soundclick station", which is how I found the mp3 file.

For all Band alumni, esp. Whitehall

There is a link to an excellent MP3 of "Alla Barocco" by Giannini at this site: http://www.soundclick.com/members/default.cfm?member=shan1975&content=station&id=403184
Choose Alla Barocco by Goose Creek Bands from the page.

The title means "in baroque style", but the composer put the subtitle Folk-Rock under it. Our band would play it to warm up the crowd before basketball games and between the halves. It made a great alternative to the marches, show tunes, and baaaaaad arrangement of "Sweet Georgia Brown". (It was bad because it had been simplified too much. People kept trying to swing the rhythm like the famous whistling rendition for the Harlem Globetrotters. Mr. Frang, the teacher, kept throwing fits at us.)

One cup of lemonade, in an economy that's been throwing lemons. I think I ought to find a recording of The Boss' "Glory Days" to go with it.

There was another fire in Coatesville last night:

Too close for comfort!!!!!!

Last night, around 9:30, two of my girls were in the kitchen and one was in the dining room on the computer. (The phone jack is in the dining room.) I was watching TV in the living room waiting for the timer to go off for the loaf of bread in the oven.

The younger 2 smelled smoke, and thought the bread was burning. The older one looked out the back door, saw the flames, and shouted “There’s a fire!” The girls handed me the phone to call 9 1 1, because they figured I'd get the address right. I dialed on the run and saw the flames for myself. As it was, I heard the sirens from the nearest firehouse before the dispatcher finished getting information from me.

The first fire engine arrived just as I hung up the phone. I think a cop was just ahead of it, because someone with a male voice was blasting the flames with an extinguisher.

This was not a vacant house. There were people inside watching TV, who knew nothing until a neighbor across the street knocked on their door. The vacant house between my house and the torched house was unaffected.

Police, fire, ATF, and news agents were running all over the neighborhood between houses. The police and fire marshal took statements from my daughters and me. Chester Avenue was blocked off all the way from Oak Street to Lincoln Highway, its whole length. My girls said the fire engines in front of the house and behind it were there past 1 am.

Now there is an ABC channel 6 newsvan in the alley and plenty of lookie-loos going by.

Someday soon this psycho is going to trip up, I pray.

Re: comments and contacts

So, how about someone commenting besides my own (smart-aleck) kids?  If google registration is a hassle, use the email address in the upper right.

I managed to email someone from my old high school class this week.  He managed to escape from Whitehall to Arizona.  He happened to mention that he discovered another 'classmate' has composed music when he helped his daughter do some research for an assignment.  I hit the google and found this man is an instructor and a composer-in-residence in South Carolina.  Nobody knew this at my 25th class reunion in 1996.

My son Thomas phoned tonight, and I mentioned this person to him since they were both trumpet players in high school band.  (Thomas actually pulled down a music minor in college, and sings with a church choir.)  After he scanned google on his computer, he had one thing to say:  "If you get ahold of him, Mom, would you ask if he knows Robert W. Smith?"  

Have you seen this yet, Jon? :)  I think you'd like my son, if you don't already have one like him.

For those of you not in the know,  Smith is a prolific composer of band music frequently inflicted on high school band students of Tom's age, just as James Ployhar was such a composer when I was in band 38 years ago.   

I am a band-o, the daughter of a band-o, and mother of a band-o.  Band-o's Rule!  (This was my reply to an orchestra kid who said "band-os s*ck" when I was substitute teaching.)  

Recipes welcome

I did name this 'cheesesteak' and 'shoofly pie'.  And I am a recipe collecting junkie.  I would welcome any contribution of vegan recipes in the Orthodox Christian fasting (lent) style.  Since my husband interprets the guidelines strictly - no vegetable oils, and everyone has to eat the same way he does. On the other hand my youngest loathes all vegetables except string beans and spaghetti sauce.  So I have war in the kitchen.   Kathy or Nikki, help?!

Computer School

For any of my old acquaintances reading my last post and wondering, "Accident??", I should clarify things.  I totaled my Caravan on the back of a slow-moving 3-axle dump truck west of Winslow, AZ, in 2006.  I now own a permanent handicapped parking placard, a cane, and enough hardware south of my left knee to sell to the Chinese for scrap, as my son Tom put it.

Because of same, I qualify for vocational retraining from the state of PA, since I can no longer tolerate standing in one place for more than a couple of minutes, or walk more than the length of a WalMart to get to the restrooms.  Goodbye skating, cross-country skiing, sledding, or even a good hike.  Goodbye lab tech, substitute teacher, or even librarian (I did interview, and was passed over).  Never mind I did volunteer library work for my kids' schools 14 years.

And it still hasn't dawned on my husband that MOM is not 'official' work experience, even though We Girls Know Better.  Roseanne was right, if the kids are still alive at the end of the day, mom's DONE her job.

So after so many dud resumes and applications, and my husband hiring on as a local bus driver - and being fired, I'm being set up to go to a local business school to become a Certified Medical Administrative Assistant.  Doctor's secretary, that is.

Once upon a time, i.e. when I was in high school, wasn't all one needed to work in an office were courses in typing, bookkeeping, and filing?  Now one needs Microsoft Certification, Intermediate, in Word and Excel, QuickBooks, an O-fish-al CMAA course,  course in HIPAA (those annoying privacy practices), insurance coding, and an online course in medical terminology.  And to think I never wanted to get good at typing because I was going to be a Scientist, not a Sexatery.  Who knew Bill Gates was going to overturn the business world so that the best businessman entered his data himself? (sexism intended here)

Prayers appreciated as I start this in February.  At least medical technology doesn't scare me; chemistry and geology have $1.98 words.  Try igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary; or our grad school favorite, biopelmicrite, which means petrified doo-doo from ocean bottom bugs.  Coprolite is the same, from dinosaurs. Or try pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is a lung inflammation caused by inhaling microscopic silica particles blown from a volcano; e.g. breathing Mt. St. Helens ash. (If you are reading this, Bill R., smile, since you inflicted this word on Anne in 6th grade.  Yes, Anne got the extra credit. I can hear Tom laugh.)

If I can figure out a Schatzger 6 fracture (how my leg got wasted) I should spout gobbledygook as well as any doctor.

For Everyone I've gotten Away From

My son has always suggested that I write a blog.  Perhaps this is so he can just cruise a website rather than log into his email.   But maybe he also hopes to connect me to people I've left behind.

Jesus Christ, in the flesh, never traveled farther than 200 miles from his birthplace.   In contrast, my parents took me back to their native Michigan when I was 17 months old.  Thanks, US Army.  I've always been the one who got looks when I answered "Where were you born?" with "Texas", when the rest of the family said "Michigan". The next 'big' move occurred when they bought their first house, when I was 3 1/2.  I attended school at Reeths-Puffer Elementary, outside Muskegon.

When my dad's brother was killed in an industrial accident, my parents chose to move closer to his widow and 2 sons, in Whitehall.  The jump from elementary to junior high is a big deal, but when you change school districts too?  I had to start over with a new set of friends and acquaintances.  At least I graduated from high school with them.

The next move, at least, was my own choice:  college.  Michigan State was the big pond for this little fish.  Lyman Briggs College made a home-y corner of State for a lot of students besides me.  I followed one of them to California, hoping he'd change his mind about breaking our engagement.  How dumb of me.

So I've spent the biggest part of my life in California, first attending grad school at San Diego State University, working at the University of California, San Diego, and living in San Juan Capistrano as a professional mom. 

(My husband Bob, who I met at UCSD, was even more paranoid about moms staying home with their kids than I was.  I figured that since my mom ended up working when my kid sister hit kindergarten, I would be too.  But Bob thought women only work to buy luxuries.  Well, this move to Pennsylvania proved to be a luxury for which my wages should have paid.  He went into hock to do it while I was in nursing care for the accident, and we're still paying now.)

When Bob's  mother died in 2006, he inherited her house in Chester County, Pennsylvania.  Since it is virtually impossible for a family on one income to afford buying real estate in California, unless that one income is 6 figures, we thought that our standard of living would improve here by owning this house.  Ha Ha.

News Flash #1:  Medical insurance consumes a third or more of our income.

News Flash #2: Real estate taxes are billed for the whole year at once. (county, city, school)

                               If all three of them billed simultaneously, we'd lose the house.

News Flash #3: Food doesn't get any cheaper here during the summer, in spite of Amish farms 

                               being so close.  In the winter most of it still comes from California.  $4.00 gas

                               still applies?

Chester County itself is not so bad; there are Amish farms in the east and the Main Line Philadelphia suburbs in the west.  I consider "California east with snow" to begin at Downingtown, 7 miles east of us. 

 However, we live in Coatesville, which has made the national news lately with a rash of arson fires.  How many crazies are out there??   Plus this town has mixed ethnically and racially since business at the local steel mill tanked in the 1980s.  On my street are Blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and whites.  A nearby cheesesteak restaurant is owned by someone Chinese - or are they Vietnamese?  I heard someone call Coatesville "Philly east".  We may get Philly TV stations, but Philly is 45 miles away - almost in another world.

So here I sit,  between remembrance and old age; between my daughters and my husband, who want different things (my son having stayed in California); between wanting a job because I don't have enough credits for disability, but wondering if the family will free up their demands on my time, cooking skills, sewing skills, and organizing this house which still bears the stamp of my mother-in-law.  Between Philadelphia and Lancaster, new and old, cheesesteak and shoofly pie.