Another Thanksgiving and another self examination and reflection on my life. It was nine years ago Thanksgiving eve that my dear husband, Jack, left this physical life, and changed my life forever after. I think many times of both the bad and good that comes with the passage of life. I love the part of being old where I can do what I want, say what I want (without hurting anyone) and pretty much do what I want. Of course there is the other side of the rainbow, I don’t have a partner to share life with, my body is giving me more trouble than it ever did, and I could care less about things I used to think were vital, like keeping a clean house. One of the good things about that is that I can clean it up when I need to, but it doesn’t hold the importance that it used to. I can go to a show when I choose to or call a friend to go with, but when I get home I don’t have anyone to discuss it with. I can stay up as late as I’d like reading, but again there is no one to share the elements of a book. I can spend my money however I want, but fewer people to spend for. I can cook up a big dinner, but short of calling Jason, my son, to come over, I have no one to share it with. I think the two terms that most exemplify my life is freedom, but a lack of sharing and companionship.

It seems that one is not so good without the other. Having the wisdom I’m supposed to have now along with the wrinkles of getting older aren’t as much fun when you have no one to compare with, and laugh about it together. I have a card on my frig which a student gave me years ago during my teaching days that says, “It takes the rain and the sun to make a rainbow.” That is so very true, I know I am blessed to have had Jack in my life for forty seven years and the joys of being a mother and a grandmother for twenty four, and forty two years, and I try very hard to look at it that way. But sometimes it is hard, and I sit down and cry for what I’ve lost, but the next day I am grateful for the many blessings I have now. I compare myself to a family in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or many places where families are separated or even lost forever. I am lucky and blessed in many ways.

I am so fortunate to be an American and have a roof over my head, money to buy food, and pay my utilities and even some disposable income to spend. I can very well get carried away griping about the many things that are happening right now like the war, the arrogance of so many in power and our demise as a world leader, but I know it is wonderful that I have the freedom to say it. I am very afraid with the Patriot Act and other run arounds by the administration that some of those freedoms are being lost. And isn’t that why so many people want to immigrate to America? Our fore mothers and fathers felt the same way and came for that freedom. I know we need to remember that all of our ancestors came from somewhere else, because the near destruction of the Native American population left few true Native Americans.

I am late with this column, so it may not get in, but I had such a great Thanksgiving with friends at my church. Jason and I went with a family sized group and shared our thanks and our bounty. And it is truly bounty. I always feel a little guilty about getting so stuffed, but I guess I defend myself by saying it’s the American way. But that is not a good way, and I hope to go out next year and volunteer rather than making a pig of myself again. Although there is something to be said about making a pig of yourself once in a great while, so maybe it’s okay occasionally.

I am going to cut this short by mentioning just a few of the books I read this month. I read Forever by Pete Hamil which was quite a story from a different perspective. I so enjoyed that one that I read another of his called Snow in August. Not as sweeping a saga as Forever but very enjoyable and fun to read. I recommend him as a writer. He is a New Yorker and a well-known journalist which makes a great combination. I read a light novel by Nora Roberts called High Noon which held my attention for a couple hours, though not a great read.

I am now reading The Legend of Starship by Dolores Cannon. This is an interesting look at regression therapy and the work of Cannon who tells the story of a patient who lived many years ago, and relates the story of a ship crashing on earth. A fascinating look from a whole different viewpoint. I tend to believe in much that is not readily acceptable to many, so this has been a great read for me. Try something different in your reading this month!

I’ve had a stressful month and it got even more so this last week. My son is doing much better, and really seems to be watching his diet and taking better care of himself for which I am most thankful. My dog has now captured my attention with her third bout of scratching and smelling. Twice before I’ve taken her to the vet and he gave her cortisone shots and antibiotic pills. She seems to get better each time after she receives the shot and antibiotics, and as soon as they gone her condition returns. He has thought all along it might be allergies, so today I bit the bullet, wrote a check for over $300 dollars for her to get tested. I hate to see her scratching herself to death each day, and have to find out what is causing it. I hope this works and they can do something about it. Read the rest of this entry »

Another month, another hospital stay, but this time it was not me but my son Jason. He gave me quite a scare. On the fifteenth of September, on a Saturday night about ten, he called and told me he was having chest pains and thought he might have to go in to the hospital. I went down and got him at his house just five minutes away and took him to Methodist. They, too, thought it was a heart attack, because they put nitro under his tongue and on a chest patch. They were really great. There were probably about five people working on him at one time, and I was so appreciative. The doctor told us that they would not know if it was a heart attack until they got blood work and a second chest x-ray in eight hours. They admitted him and I came home about three in the morning. The doctor told him it wasn’t a heart attack on Sunday, but kept him in the hospital until Monday for a stress test.

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Another rainy spell and then hot, hot hot. I do wish it would come in moderation. It seems to come in too much, too hot or too something. I am so looking forward to fall when temperatures will moderate a little and there will be cool evenings again. I just came back from walking Kaja, and this evening, the twenty first, is still ninety one degrees and extremely humid. I come back into the air conditioned house with great relief, and I think Kaja did too. With her black fur, she is usually panting a lot after just a half hour walk.

I actually did some deep cleaning today, moved furniture, polished floors and furniture, washed windows and tried to get  more done that I have in a long time. I find that I can only do so many hours of that kind of work and then I have to rest, so I will continue in other rooms on Thursday. Tomorrow I will be teaching my water exercise class at Landmark, and then one at the YW and then work for Home Instead in the afternoon, so that pretty well wipes out my Wednesday. I find that I have to really take advantage when I am not working to get housework done. I really don’t like doing it anyhow, so it takes some planning for me to be in the mood.

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Another month, another lesson learned. Just when I think I’ve kind of got it made in this world, I get another knock on the side of my head. It’s like the Universe is saying, “Look I gave you a lesson last fall when I sent you to the hospital with a minor stroke, but you didn’t heed the lesson, so I guess I have to give you another.” I spent the last weekend in the hospital. I went in on Friday night, had two units of blood, had a test on Saturday, another on Sunday and the final one on Monday. I was bleeding internally and was down to a hemoglobin count of seven when it should be fourteen to sixteen.

I was up most of the night on Monday the sixteenth throwing up and having diarrhea. I then spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday in bed feeling weaker and weaker and finally had enough sense to call the doctor on Wednesday. When I went in on Thursday, she was shocked that I had no color and knew I was anemic right away. She called on Friday after getting the results of the blood tests, and told me to go to the hospital for a transfusion and tests. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that Mother Nature is not able to do things in moderation. Maybe we, particularly me, could take a lesson from her. We need rain, but get so much that it almost drowns us. Then it gets so hot that we, particularly me, can not stand to go out in the sun. I know that I tend to work in spurts and starts, but that has been about the only way I could do it in the last month. As I said last month I had taken out my front lawn and hoped to plant trees, shrubs and flowers, but it has been quite difficult with this changing weather. When I said I hoped to get the planting finished by this summer, I didn’t know how true that might be. It has to be cooler to plant, but I also can’t plant in mud. This may be one of my many lessons in learning patience.

I started out this morning to walk Kaja, my dog, but we had to come back in because it was pouring so hard. I hope I can get out between showers. She is such a good dog and seems to be able to wait forever to get out to do her business. I hope the rain does let up soon. Well, we finally made it out between rain showers or rather little thunderstorms, because it was raining so hard at times. It is so overcast this morning, the 23rd, that it looks like evening. I’m sure that will change once the sun comes out.

I love having Kaja as a companion. She is so accepting, provides me with unconditional love, is so glad to see me when I come home and only expects me to feed her. What more could you ask of a friend? I think dogs and cats are such great house mates, and I love having Kaja, and Tawny, my cat. And when I get a little irritated with the hair when I need to vacuum so much, I think of that my friend Cindy says, “You trade the hair for the love.” I think I get the better deal.

I worked very briefly at the Moss Avenue sale last weekend for Global Village which I usually enjoy, but this year it was just too hot. I actually sat back in the shade and folded brochures most of the time I was there. There were enough people working that didn’t seem to mind the heat so much, and I appreciated them. That is still one of the volunteer jobs I do that I feel very good about. I hope by offering fair trade items and being a not-for-profit store, we can slowly begin to make a difference in the world. If you haven’t been to our store, check us out at 1308 Sieberling in Peoria Heights right around the corner from the big stop sign on Prospect.

I actually am embarrassed to admit that I totally forgot to work at Gobal Village on the 7th which was one of my scheduled times, and I guess in getting ready to go to a conference, I totally lost track of time and didn’t get there. I’ve been volunteering at Global Village for over five years, and that is the first time I missed. I really regret that, but it taught me to focus a little better and not get distracted.

The Conference I went to was called Unitarian Universalist Women’s Connection, and it was sponsored by the District group of which Peoria is a part. It used to be called Universalist Unitarian Women’s Federation, and I was active for many years. It has reformed in this district and taken on a new name. I love the time spent with old friends, walking, listening, attending workshops, reading and generally relaxing for the weekend. The Conference was held at Pilgrim Park which is a church Camp and quite nice. For many years we attended this early summer conference at Allerton, which is a Conference Center at Monticello owned by the University of Illinois. It is a wonderful, elegant former estate and  is a beautiful grounds facility, and we are going back next April for our fiftieth reunion. I have attended many of the last twenty five years and come to love it and look forward to being with women for that weekend.

One of the things we do is bring our books and sell them at a minimum amount. I picked up a wonderful book called Hanna’s Daughter by Marianne Fredriksson, which had been owned by a good friend, Betty from Oak Park. I think we all chose books because of who had owned them before, for we know the people and know the books will be great. It turned out to be a really interesting book about Norway and Sweden, and I am going to look for some more books by her. I did not know this author before, and it’s always good to be introduced to a new, interesting and exciting author.

I’ve read several other books this month including a new one by Alexander McCall Smith, who I’ve mentioned before. This one was entitled The Good Husband of Zebra Drive and was actually advertised in Newsweek with a full page ad. It is one of the Botswana stories that Smith is so good at writing. He was born there, and is now in Scotland where he also writes several series: The Isabel Dalhousie; The Portuguese Irregular Verbs; and the 44 Scotland Street. All are entertaining and light hearted, and I love relaxing with one of them. I also picked up a light novel by Anne Rivers Siddons called Sweetwater Creek. I have read many of her books before and they are great summer reads. I read much lighter novels in the summer and very seldom read non fiction. Hot weather seems to go with lighter reading. I actually do read heavier stuff, but love to go to bed at night in the summer with a light read

The other author I’m reading is Ray Bradbury. I am on the Peoria Reads Committee and his Farenheight 451 was on a list with several other classics for us to consider for Peoria Reads. I chose to reread that one over some others I had read, and got excited about reading him again. I finished Dandelion Wine and have Farewell Summer by my bed for my next read. They are so powerful, have such great descriptions and the power of his words is enormous. I need to go back and reread many classics long forgotten, because this is almost as good as finding a good new author. One of the others I read from the list that was new on the list was Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya another very good read. He is described as “One of the Nations’ foremost Chicano literary artists.”

I’ve also discovered again that a movie theater is a great place to go on a hot afternoon, and my friend Carlette and I have gone to see “Away From Her,” “Waitress,” and “Knocked Up” in the past three weeks. They are in the order of quality, the first being very well done and intense, although hard to watch. Julie Christie stars as an Alzheimer’s patient, who goes from her home to a ‘facility.’ The second one was cute, had a different slant on the plot and Kerri Russell was refreshing and delightful as the Waitress.

Third was a shock! We chose to go just to check it out because of the rating of four stars. I hate being considered an old fuddy duddy, but it was TOO MUCH! I have walked out of a couple movies before and I almost did with this one. ‘It had a different plot slant also, but every other word was the f word. I like to think I’m pretty tolerant, but I’m with Jerry Klein on this one. What has happened to the English language that young people think this describes everything. My ears were tired of hearing this trite phrase that younger people seem to think is the only way to describe anything is to say f—.  I’m going to suggest they put the age of the reviewer on the reviews because only a very young, naive, unimaginative person would rate this a four-star movie. He or she needs to go back to English class!

I mention Jerry Klein because he sometimes gets irate over the changes in our society that are inevitable, but his language and writing are top notch, and I respect him for this. He probably would not go see this movie, and I’m not sure who else should. No one in my opinion! Go see “Mighty Heart.” That is our next choice.