Life Goes On

My mother-out-law was in Michigan last weekend. Judy asked if we were having problems with the blog again. She was probably concerned that bugs had returned to the apple. But this time, that isn’t the reason, I haven’t published anything in two weeks.

I tried to write about the silence and the guilt. I tried to write about the strange dreams and scary nightmares. It was oddly comforting to vent, but the outcome wasn’t enjoyable to read. I thought of a tribute page with excerpts from the emails and cards we received, but Brian advised me that those were sent in private, not for publication. I tired to write about Lucy, and the laughs that she was still capable of extracting from us. But I couldn’t stay in the moment long enough.

But even without the blogging, slowly and surely life went on.

My sister Karen brought her family and our Mom over for Mother’s day. We had a simple cookout and kept the sadness to a minimum. Last Saturday, we drove to Holland to see Judy and Len who were visiting from Phoenix in their Prius. Lunch at the Journeyman Cafe in Fennville was great and pizza at the original Fricanno’s in Grand Haven was just as good, in a very different way. We even saw 6 foot 2 nephew Alex in a soccer game. The best part of the trip was that Lucy sat between us the 3 hours there and the entire 3 hours back. A paw on the hand brake, her gaze out the front window, just like Anioł in her younger days. Just like Ani.

Brian left for the West coast early the next day. That morning I opened an email from Alicia Reyes, our ex-next door neighbor and our only friends in Adrian. She had sent it while we were in Holland. “Will you both be home tomorrow afternoon? The kids have something for you all to remember Aniol”

A happy reason to clean the house. They arrived, on schedule, as the clock chimed 4, Alicia, her husband Santos, their two big Goldens and Jose and Marcia.

The kids and the dogs had brought over a memorial plaque. Alicia handed to me while Jose and Marcia were playing with Lucy and Sophie. “I’ll wait until the kids are here,” I said. “No,” this perfect mom warned, “it will make them cry. They were crying over it at home.” So, raised almost right, I did as I was told. Then I teared up. I have a feeling Alicia was taking care of me too.

Then Marcia came in, and also raised right, noticed I hadn’t opened the card. So I did.

“Losing a pet is losing a good friend” the card said. And inside, “Hope time will help to ease your sorrow.” It was signed “Jose + Sueño and Marcia + Sonya”, the dogs signed too, of course.

Their gift now lays in the garden, right in front of the Blessed Virgin. I visit it every time I am out with Lucy and Sophie. (I can’t refer to them as simply “the dogs”, not yet). Having this wonderful group of people join me and the rest of all of you who remember Ani was a very healing moment. When we first moved to Adrian almost 8 years ago, Marcia and Jose were still toddlers. The kids learned to trust the black dog in our yard and the black dog learned to trust them.

Their memories of her join mine and Brian’s and everyone else’s. There’s a great big black fluffy fur-ball of memories for me to hold onto. I thank them and I thank everyone who remembers her for reminding me of all the joy she brought to life.

The visit itself reminds me that life and love go on, with or without us. For now, I’ll take the with.

In memory of a faithful friend and companion, rest in peace.

--David

Love was blind

This morning our friend Anioł passed away.

Ani has been in my life for 15-1/2 years, and in Brian’s for 13. She lived from coast to coast and died in between. Words cannot describe her loyalty, bravery or stoicism (in the ancient Greek sense.)

Ani was half blind before she was a year old and fully blind since 2004. But until the end she made her way through the world with determination. In the old days she ran and swam with the best of them, more recently her walk was slower but no less sure. She has taught me the meaning of not giving up and the true sense of beauty.

She was a trooper, but at 16 her long life finally took it’s toll on her body. Her Vet told us that she was in pain and there wasn’t anything else we could do. She was able to spend the last few days with us eating whatever we could think of that she loved. Her appetite, which she had lost when faced with a prescription diet, returned with gusto and she feasted until the last moment.

I would write more about her life, but that will have to wait awhile, until it’s a little easier to laugh. Until then feel free to visit the Anioł photo album.

Brian and I wish her fields of high wavy grass to bound through, a cold swim in the water on a hot day, an open window, and a world of love.

I will always remember how she saw me through some of the darkest moments in my life and walked with me through some of the best.
I will never forget how she helped me walk up the hills.

She was a great pal.

- - - David

"Ask the animals, and they will teach you." Job 12:7-10

May I?

May Crowning is a tradition that goes back as far as ancient Greece.
Another way to celebrate Spring.

Sing gaily in chorus;
the bright angels o'er us
re-echo the strains we begin upon earth

It’s May, go out and crown the nearest virgin.

I found one in my back yard, but she’s hard to catch. So I crowned the Madonna instead.

May is the month of mothers, the month of the earth finally warming up and sprouting growth. May is the month of planting, the month of renewal. And at last, we can go outside and sit on the freshly mown lawn and breathe it all in.

Go outside and crown someone, crown a friend, crown a mother, crown yourself.

This time of year, we all deserve a tiara.

Happy May, to one, to all.

Bring flowers of the rarest Bring blossoms the fairest,
From garden and woodland
And hillside and dale;
Our full hearts are swelling,
Our glad voices telling
The praise of the loveliest flower of the vale!

-- David

The (Scheduled) Return of the Traveller

Brian may not know exactly what day it is, but he does know that it’s time to come home.

An e-mail from Singapore. “I don’t know what day it is, so . . . “ I was instructed about the future status of our bank account. Singapore is expensive and funds were getting low. Luckily there’s an automatic deposit tomorrow that will enable there to be beer in the fridge for his return.

Yes, Brian is finally coming home, and just in time. All these days alone with the three dogs, 10 so far, has left me feeling like barking at the mailman and thinking constantly of food. But the on time departure came a little too close to going the other way.

A previous e-mail stated, “Earlier today I thought I was going to have to stay for a couple more days, then we got word that the government extended the deadline two weeks! Up and down. Anyway, now I come home. ”

So for me it’s a relief to just know that he’s actually coming back, and for Brian it’s the end of a long time far, far away. Now all he has to do is make the flight. He’s asked me to get involved, “Call my cell at 3:30 p.m. EDT. The cab is picking us up at 4 a.m. and I’m setting the iPhone alarm to 3, but call just in case at 3:30 p.m. EDT “ I'll do my best, but hope I don’t get distracted by any squirrels in the yard.

And let’s hope it’s a safe and gentle journey. All 21 hours of it.

Oh, and he’s scheduled for a trip to Utah on Monday.

Arf!

- - David

The Never-Ending Story

Prunus x yedoensis, the Yoshino Cherry tree,
is in full bloom right now in the Dennis Street Garden.

Ginny called, my contact with civilization. We’re confiding with each other about our canine elder-care issues. Ginny’s Nala is suffering with pancreatitis, daily therapy at the Vet, and like Anioł, the pangs of old age. Anioł has another bladder infection to add to her other long term issues.
Ginny and I sigh, worry, and offer each other encouragement. It helps, we plod on with our caregiver duties.

The conversation turns to our yards.

Ginny says, “I got some raking done, are you done with your garden yet?”
I say, “It’s never done . . . there’s always the next thing to do.” An obvious comeback, but true.

There is always an overwhelming amount of projects to do outside. Wasn’t it less than a month ago that the snow was deep and I was itching to dig? Less than three weeks ago I was posting photos of the first flowers to come up in the woods.

Now all the shrubs and trees are in flower or bud. The perennials are creeping up. I’ve been shredding leaves for days and edging the beds and moving things out of storage, repairing hoses, and yep, weeding.

AND there is so much more to do. I try to keep focused or I end up running in circles. Actually, I’d end up running in circles more than I already do.

Is this the lesson of gardening? Staying calm, staying focused? The plants themselves are slow and deliberate and definitely on their own schedule, not mine. Can I learn to do things at Mother Nature’s pace? Enjoying the process, not the finish that will never come? Is the Zen of gardening within the grasp of this westerners mind?

Probably not, But I can try.

Janis, my sister (in-law), has caught the gardening bug in Seattle. She uses it as an escape from her life of retail, (like I used to.) Janis emails me and lets me know what projects she is working on, what’s blooming, what’s next. She asked what my current favorite plant in our garden is.

Two days ago it was the Bridal Wreath Spirea with it’s thousands of teeny cascading white flowers. Yesterday it was the Yoshino Cherry tree, which is in full bloom. Today it’s the yellow tulips which opened up this morning.

Tomorrow?

- - David

iChat, bChats, weChat

Brian appears, from Singapore, on my LIving Room computer.
David manages to talk back.

Old dog, new trick? Anything is possible.

Brian was living his life at 3 A.M. on Tuesday, and I was living mine at 3 P.M. on Monday. The thing is, we were doing it at the same time, together, sort of. Brian was talking to me from the future on my computer screen. Is this a rift in the space-time continuum or what?

Some of you, fooled by the fact that I actually have a blog, may think I am somewhere near being computer literate. LOL. Nothing could be further from the truth. When I went to college, computers were punch card eating machines that we took a bus to on North Campus. I remember long nights of trying to key in code for the simplest mathematical functions . . . and failing. Now I have an iMac.

Today, here I am using a computer to talk to Brian, “face to face”, live from Singapore. Twelve hours into the future and half way around the world is no barrier to out chatter. You should also know that my experience with video conferencing or whatever we were doing on iChat has been limited to leaning over Brian’s shoulder and talking to Parker and Jeff in Seattle. Now, at least I know how to open it by clicking on an icon on my screen and then clicking on a few other icons when they make little noises.

I love the 21st century.

-- David

image: Wikimedia Commons

He's Here Today, Gone Today

postcard of Tokyo photo: Aichi University of Education Library

Brian got home on Saturday from his latest trip to California. And today I took him to the airport for his flight to Singapore. He’ll be gone for at least 10 days. His new job is involving more travel than we’ve known so far.

When Brian and I went to Paris, it was the first time he’d had been outside North America. We’d been to the Canadian Rockies for our honeymoon and then we traveled to Mexico for my 50th. He travels well and although he doesn’t share my fervor for art museums and marathon walks, he does share my love for exploration.

Now he’s on his way to a world I’ve never seen outside of Art History books. The first leg of his trip is a 13 hour flight from Detroit to Tokyo. Since Japan is 13 hours ahead of us, and across the International Date Line, he will be landing after 5 p.m. Monday, Tokyo time. After a brief layover he’ll get on a 8 hour flight to Singapore, landing there at 1:45 a.m. on Tuesday. That seems like a little more flight time than even I would love.

Due to the lack of flight time while he worked at WebMD, my golden elite husband has been down graded and is flying coach. I just hope he survives intact. But Tokyo’s Narita Airport is supposed to be amazing. Changi airport in Singapore has been described as one of the most amazingly efficient airport of modern times. So at least he’ll be in good hands.

Here’s to our traveller, may he become upgraded again soon.

- - - 大卫 (Dà wèi) David

Nice Lyrics, but can he dance to it?

Pope Benedict XVI met with United Nations International School music students during his visit.
Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

this is excerpted from an article from the New York Times

In Speech, Pope Urges Promotion of Human Rights

UNITED NATIONS — Benedict XVI, who was a young German prisoner in the war that forged the United Nations, addressed that body Friday as pope, insisting that human rights — more than force or pragmatic politics — must be the basis for ending war and poverty.
“The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security,” Benedict told the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters.
“Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace,” the 81-year-old pope said.

. . .

And in a passage that will have particular resonance for the current United Nations leadership, which is trying to establish the right of the outside world to intervene in situations where nations fail to shield their own citizens from atrocities, the pope said that “every state has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights.”

. . .

“If states are unable to guarantee such protection,” the pope said, “the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations charter and in other international instruments.” In an apparent allusion to countries that claim such international actions constitute intervention in their national affairs, he said instead they “should never be interpreted as an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty.”
He added, “On the contrary, it is indifference or failure to intervene that do the real damage.”


Copyright 2008 April 18, 2008 The New York Times Company By WARREN HOGE and IAN FISHER



hmmm . . .

Intolerance teaches hate. Hate has lead to oppression and violence. How many gay children have to suffer, how many have to die? This may be the forced out “lapsed-Catholic” in me speaking. But the Vatican’s militant stand against, and open coffered support for the suppression of ANY gay rights might justly call for a little intervention.

See you in Rome?

- - - David

THIS Isn't a Dream!

map from the U.S. Geological Survey

Why is the bed shaking?

Brian’s not home . . . how can Lucy possibly have managed this one, she’s in her crate.
Did I leave the washing machine running? Sophie? The bed WAS shaking, and I could hear something outside moving.

An Earthquake? I had felt this before, but I used to live in Seattle. It IS my nephew’s birthday today, so maybe it was just my sister waking up and realizing that her eldest was turning 18.

It’s almost 6 A.M., So I’ll get up. Turned on the news. Nothing.
Had my coffee, read the FREEP, still nothing on television.
So I went on the internet. Nothing . . . nothing . . . AH there!

One of the first entries to post was from Wikipedia: “The April 18, 2008 Midwest Earthquake, the largest ever recorded in the state of Illinois[1], (Magnitude 5.4) occurred at 4:37am (5:37 EDT). It was centered near West Salem, Illinois, specifically 38.520°N, 87.873°W[2] and felt as far away as eastern South Dakota, including Cedar Rapids, IA”
You gotta love Wikipedia, they scooped the local news AND everyone else on the internet.

Others soon followed:
From The Evansville Courier: “The shaking, which started at about 4:35 a.m. CDT, lasted about 10 seconds. Early reports at the put the preliminary magnitude of the earthquake at 5.4 and the epicenter six miles east of West Salem, Ill. about 44 miles northwest of Evansville.”

From the Chicago Tribune: “The tremors could be felt in downtown Chicago at the Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Ave., for about 20 seconds beginning around 4:40 a.m. Numerous people from across the Chicago area reported being awakened by rattling windows and shifting furniture.”

Now the local news is all over it, you’d think they’d be embarrassed coming late to the party, but no, they never are.

The funniest part to me, Brian is in California, of all places, and missed the excitement. That’s what he gets for leaving Adrian, (the epicenter of Lenawee country).

But back to TOP story.

A big STOLAT to Jason.

Not many of us here in Michigan have the earth move on our 18th birthday.

- - - David

A New Leaf

Tour Guides: liaison between view and viewer

Famous 60’s Disney Tour Guide Julie Reihm and Mickey Mouse

Wednesday, the journey continues.

I’ll be attending training this week to be a tour guide at Hidden Lake Gardens. I don’t know what exactly the job entails, but it sounds like fun for a know-it-all.

Being a “Master Gardener” means doing 40 hours of volunteer work the first year, to me that’s a bonus. Since I’ve left the store I’ve been looking for the next big thing. A lot of you have heard me sigh when asked, “What do you see yourself doing?” or even better, “What would make you happy.” A lot of times the answer, after the sigh, involved plants.

I can see myself in a smock and working in a greenhouse or a garden shop. There’s even a farm in Ohio called The Chef’s Garden that sells specialty vegetables to restaurants from NY to Vegas (baby), but the commute was a bit much to consider. I dream of owning a tree nursery, tending the stock with the dogs at my heals.

I have loved growing things since my Granny gave me a blue spruce when I was a toddler. I grew a pea patch by the side door in Grosse Pointe. I pulled up cement in the “back yard” of my New York apartment, hauling bags of dirt in my boyfriend’s Porsche from New Jersey. In Seattle the vegetable beds began, Brian and I dug up the yards of our rental house and spent thousands of dollars on things we just left behind. And here in Adrian, the beds and borders get bigger every year. Now, I’m afraid, this enthusiasm may develop into fanaticism. Can an addictive personality prove to be an asset? We’ll see.

I’ve signed up for almost every volunteer opportunity Hidden Lake has for the months of April and May. I’ll be at the Earth Day fair that the good sisters at Sienna Heights are organizing. I’ll be at the plant sale at Hidden Lake on Mother’s Day Weekend.

And this Wednesday i’ll be joining the ranks of revolutionary costumed docents, flag carrying sprinters, mouse-eared automatons and the safari jacketed alligator wrestle-farians bringing fun facts to the masses.

Can’t you just see me leading a group of school kids into the woods?

Hope they bring more than bread crumbs to leave a trail back to their bus.

- - - David

November 1958 Disneylander, © Disney