The Taste of Hope

A week before Christmas, Diane helped purchase food for 30 Angel Tree families:  5 cases of precooked hams, 80 pounds of oranges, 60 pounds of sweet potatoes, 8 pounds of butter, 6 cases of canned vegetables and fruit.  In Sam's parking lot, a man offered, "May we help you?  Those look heavy."  Indeed, each case of ham weighed 40 pounds.

On Saturday before Christmas, church youth will deliver gifts and meals to the Angel Tree families. The surface of this charitable event looks simple enough.  Pluck a paper angel from a tree.  Read the names.  Shop.  Wrap up the gifts and  deliver them to the church office.

For a family to land on an Angel Tree, it must qualify as "needing help."  Imagine what needing help might mean:  alcoholism, health disabilities, lay offs, divorce, abandonment.  These very terms imply complexity and confusion or desperation, and more significantly, children at risk.

As a teacher Diane witnessed impoverished adolescents raising themselves.  One young man fell behind in his studies because he was caring for little sisters, dressing them for school, feeding and bathing them, putting them to bed.  He was sixteen; the girls, five and six.  The mother was in and out, mostly out.  Teachers sometimes drove the boy to the grocery store.

A recent article in The New York Times featured a New Jersey family on the edge of losing their home.  A company had pink slipped the father when he reached the eighth year qualification for pension benefits. The mother worked for the IRS, which provided health insurance.  The father worked any jobs he could find: pizza delivery, school janitor, Quick Stop clerk, part-time low wage jobs, two or three at a time.  A car's transmission went out.  A child became ill.  A local food pantry plugged the creeping gaps of hunger.

The face of need isn't always easily recognized.  The home may be in a nice neighborhood, the kids playing in the yard, the mom washing the car.  The mom, a divorcee, pays the bills but has trimmed out vacations, air-conditioning, and roast beef.  The ham in an unexpected care box of food will be the family's holiday meal instead of a hamburger casserole.

Born in 1932, Herb knows how steamed wheat and lard gravy can quiet rumbling bellies.  Today he will eat anything put in front of him.  After Diane's father graduated from high school in 1932, he worked on farms for shelter and food. At 21 years old, he weighed only 115 pounds.

The refrigerator might be low on food in our family households, but probably because Mom didn't have time to go to Kroger.  Our grandchildren might have soup for dinner tonight but baked salmon tomorrow.  They thrive on scrambled eggs, hamburgers, grilled chicken, salad, pizza, smoothies, ice cream and cookies.  For this we are grateful, but we also don't forget how hunger robs the spirit of hope, how difficult it is to weigh more than 115 pounds when crops fail and chickens die, how delicious an orange from a church care box tastes on Christmas Eve after a week of steamed wheat and gravy, how comforting a stranger's assistance was for Diane and her children one lonely, hungry night in Mono, California.

Love came down at Christmas.  This isn't a belief; it's a life.  Here, here is love, in a box of food for your family.  Eat and know you are loved.

Postscript:  Today after writing this holiday essay, Diane met friends at church to bag donated rice, which comes in 50 lb. bags.  The women attempted to drag the heavy bags from a pantry closet, across a lobby floor, to the fellowship hall where they planned to measure and pour the rice into small bags.  A disheveled man clad in soiled winter wear and resting in a lobby chair, looked up.  "Let me do that for you."  He didn't look like he had enough energy to stand, much less hoist a 50 lb. bag over his shoulder, but that's exactly what he did, as if it were no heavier than a feather. His smile revealed missing and rotted teeth, his greasy hair needed washing, but he didn't hesitate to do what he could do, lift heavy bags.  This holiday essay seems quite appropriate in the light of that simple act.

December 18, 2014.

A Simple Truth

"I just wanna say, now that you're  old enough to know the truth," I said to a grandson early in the day before we all sat down to turkey and dressing. 

"What?" As in, What outrageous detail are you going to insert into my head this time?  Sam barely looked at me. He had that look a teenager gets when he knows you are up to something, eyebrows cocked, chin lowered, eyes focused on a possible incoming text message, tuned to two realities, there and here.  

I continued. "Those pilgrims weren't exactly saints.  They were starving.  They stole food from the Indians, from their cache of food, during the starving time.  And Squanto was an opportunist..."

"Oma!"  Said a granddaughter as if they hadn't heard all this before.  "Sam's not old enough to hear this."

And so it began...Thanksgiving Day.

The house filled with familiar fragrances: a roasting turkey, boiling potatoes, lingering coffee, and...nail polish.  You probably didn't know that Thanksgiving isn't a proper holiday in some places without the fragrance of nail polish.  In the 'K' home, nail polish means the oldest daughter is home from Kansas University and is perched on a stool at the kitchen bar and doing her nails while plotting her Black Friday foray.

"Just remember. You're on a budget," said her mama.  Her dad sang out, "She's on a budget, a budget, a budget.  She's on a bu-uh-uh-uh-uh-get..."

At the very least, to prepare a thanksgiving celebration takes two days and a proclamation by George Washington.  But this rite of gratitude, as we know, has become colored with mythic oral histories and generations of family brush strokes.  Corn pudding.  Cranberry salad.  Pumpkin pie.  A football game buzzing in the background.  An unfinished scrabble game.  A dog alert to crumbs falling from the counter.  From over the river and through the woods to over the continent and through baggage claim.

William Bradford didn't have football games and TV in mind when he established the Plymouth settlement in December 1620.  In 1789 George Washington couldn't have foreseen today's luxurious living, its electric ovens, espresso machines, and trips to Whole Foods in automobiles.  To tell the truth, Squanto was looking for an advantage when he befriended the pilgrims, so he definitely wasn't thinking about us, couldn't have imagined how we could google the truth about his tribal difficulties.  I'm just sayin' -- Something about the proportion of myth to cumulative, epic celebration reveals how challenging simplicity can be. 

Nevertheless, President Washington understood this much when he proclaimed on Thursday the 26th of November in 1789: we would have a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”   We would feast and remind ourselves to be grateful.  Which is exactly what happens.  Churches and families invite strangers to tables.  Families reunite and friends gather. Repeatedly. Historically.  Faithfully. 

Here, we Presbyterians and Catholics took our places, said a blessing, crossed ourselves.  "Father, son, and Holy Spirit."

Pass the mashed potatoes and gravy...Mom, is there more dressing?...  Have some more turkey...

Then...The finishing touch. Going around the table so everyone could say what they were grateful for.

"I'm grateful for family," said the dad.

"I'm grateful for how KU is going to beat UK in basketball this year," said the KU coed.

"No way!" said the dad, a UK grad.  "Not a chance!"

"I'm grateful for my brother."

"I'm  grateful for my sister."

"I'm grateful for all of us being together," said the mom.

And the grandmother (that's me, the irony queen):  "I'm grateful that no one reminded me of the time I backed your van into a mailbox, shattered the rear window and destroyed the rear door, glass spilling around the kids in the rear seat."  

"And she took us to Mellow Mushroom afterwards and asked us not to tell you when you called!"

"Mom!  Really!?"

"Well....they were hungry. You deserved a good night's sleep and daylight to recover from the bad news."

"I'm grateful she only hit a mailbox," said the grandfather, my succinct husband, a man of few words.    

My son-in-law grinned. He was probably remembering the cost of leaving his children with us, his in-laws, for a week four years ago while he and my daughter went house hunting in Omaha:  $4000 out of pocket to avoid an increase in his auto insurance.

"You kids clean up and then we'll watch a movie and have dessert."  The mom settled back to visit with her parents.  

The kids scattered after clearing the table.  We could heard them upstairs behaving like cavorting puppies.  Pans and dishes clanked and clattered in the kitchen.

"Jim?"

"Never-mind.  I'll do the dishes," said the dad.  Let 'em be."  Like Squanto, Jim is a man who recognizes how to gain an advantage.  Sometimes, love is just that simple.  

Still Growing, Still Here

There is a difference between aging and growing. Aging is what we see in the mirror; growing is the vital ingredient mirrors don't show:  the saucy verve, the sculpture, the adjustments.

Growing up is what my seven year old grand daughter is doing.  She tells me about reading books and drawing pictures.  She wants me to know she's bigger, smarter, and faster than her little brother whom she adores but must surpass  as it is her responsibility to him, to lead, and teach and boss around.

Once upon a time I grew taller and taller and finally stopped at five foot five.  I've shrunk;  gravity has had its way with me.  All that pounding on my joints from walking around on this ol' earth has ground down my softer skeletal tissues.  No matter how much I hold  in my tummy or stretch to the skies, I am today five foot four.

Once upon a time I also had a little brother to boss around and teach.  What a bogus exercise is lording it over a sibling.   Today the man, my little brother, is six feet tall, a father, a husband, a business man, and one of those respected individuals none of us would wish to be without.

Sometimes I grow too much.  I am not a dieter.  I eat, usually three times a day.  I also enjoy wine.  So I carry at least ten or fifteen pounds more than my imaginary image of myself.  I can weigh between 135 pounds and 150 pounds any given year depending upon whether I drink wine once a week or twice a day, or eat sandwiches or half a salad for lunch or skip desserts altogether or indulge in a chocolate cherry cheesecake on my birthday, everyone else's birthday, or for breakfast.

My skin grows -- actively, vitally, egregiously-- reminding me I'm still very much alive with hundreds of skin tags and a host of subcutaneous keratosis, brown crusts mixed with soft freckles. My bones are growing: bunions and calcifications of tendons.  I also have a growth with a fancy name on my left hand and which I am told will eventually prevent my hand from making a fist.  I think my ears are bigger.  My nose seems longer as well.  There is this loose flap developing under my chin.  I'm a little afraid of what might happen to me around thanksgiving.  I might be misunderstood as fowl.  And sometimes when I go to brush away a hair from my lapel I find it is attached to my chin and must excuse myself from polite company in order to pull it out with pliers.

So you see I am very much alive and well for all to see-- and hear.

Behind my friendly smile and kindly ways, I have strong opinions.  Just get me started.  I'm against all manner of things:  intrusive noises like the torso thumping bass from passing cars or my neighbor's mind numbing, after midnight hard rock; I am against cities without sufficient sidewalks and bike paths, like my own city;  cable TV monopolies; unqualified political candidates; greedy wealth; dirty clothes and messy rooms; stacks of paper; weedy yards; waste; inefficiency; war; gluttony; meanness; and opinionated people, like myself, so I try to be quiet.  It's not easy.  I am known to some of my friends as "Bossy Pants," a nickname truly and proudly earned.

I can't believe I am seventy-two.  Inside me is a silly child who loves ice cream and bright colors, striped socks and bling; who enjoys snuggling and teasing; who feels like running on the wind across a ridge, picking flowers in a meadow, and splashing across rocks over a stream. All the roles I imagined as a child, those unaccomplished ones -- flying like a bird, being an orchestra, painting like Mary Cassatt, or winning a Pulitzer Prize -- I still aspire to despite the obvious futility.

Yesterday I hacked away at the soil with a spade, pruned rose bushes, divided perennials.  I told myself not to talk to myself as I worked.  That's what old people do, talk to themselves while they garden.  Don't be old, I say.  I had two hours, three at best, before my right foot would give out and I'd need to head in for a shower, an ice bag on my ankle, and a snack with Naproxen.

In the evening I dressed for dinner, in slimming black and a dotted pink silky blouse and pink crystal and gold jewelry.  Not too bad, for seventy-two, still upright, still stepping out, still growing.  Just be kind, I reminded myself.  Not too bossy.  Not too caught up in yourself.  Your problems are nothin, Honey.  Not yet, not today, not tonight.

Forward Ho!

On August 24th at 3:20am, an earthquake struck Napa, California.  Cabinet doors flew open.  Bottles and glasses tumbled onto tile floors.  Containers of  leftovers jumped from refrigerator shelves onto floors.  Outdoor sculptures walked.  Bricks fell from a chimney injuring a sleeping boy.

The currency of injury in a disaster is commonly calculated in dollars, that is, millions of dollars.  The soft calculation of human vulnerability eludes quantification.

I'm currently in Napa, fourteen days post-earthquake, in my friends' great room.  Their broken glass and sticky food mess is now a tale for dinner conversations.  The gas fireplace in the corner, although twenty inches from its proper perch, looks solid, the only evidence of its displacement a gouged hickory floor.  Fruit trees, vineyards, and soft hills stretch northward and disappear.

We feel safe, on solid ground.  We hike.  Our conversations weave through travel tales, recipes, grandchildren antics.  Yet, the effects of the earthquake show in the Napa Register feature articles, the portable water tank in the driveway, and a repairman's arrival -- like flies at the table.

I hate to say it, or even think it, but an earthquake event does reveal how annoying are flies at a picnic table, how frustrating are cancelled flights, and how worrisome are droughts, not to mention the awful results of betrayals and vitriolic outbursts out of the mouths of people with whom we share space -- on airplanes, in grocery lines, at family tables.

"I just can't go there," says a favorite friend.  Exactly.  Why walk through a chasm when you can walk along a clear path?  "What's done is done," says my brother.  "I stick to now."

Forward, my friends.  Let's go forward, I say.

"If you fall on your face, you're still moving forward."  -- Victor Kiam.

Back to School

When I was a child and summertime shifted to school time, I rebelled mightily.  My mother would  do everything but pour ice water on me to raise me from my bed.  I fussed about my clothes.  I didn't like this color or that sock.  My shoes were too clunky.  I didn't need a jacket.  I dawdled at breakfast. I drug my feet right to the front door and down the sidewalk, across Hillside Drive, down the steps and past the estate along the shaded road leading to Hoover Elementary School.

My mother sent me out the door with a kiss and good wishes for the day, closed the door, prayed I would actually arrive at school, and waited for the principal's phone call. In those days we children walked to neighborhood schools.  No one worried about our being abducted.  We children all converged onto one safe road that led past an estate whose grounds looked something like Calloway Gardens.  

The estate's grounds captivated me.  I knew every hidden entrance, every hole in the fence, every break in the shrubbery.  I allowed the estate gardens to abduct me on warm, sunny mornings.  It was easy to succumb and slip away from my schoolmates and brothers.  I'd sit down to tie my shoe or hang back while the others walked on ahead.  Like Peter Rabbit I'd slip through shrubbery or squeeze through a gate to explore winding garden paths through boxwood mazes and perennial beds until the gardener caught me at the koi pond.

The gardener was a quiet Japanese man who, in broken English, always asked me why I wasn't in school.  I'd usually lie and say school was closed or school was opening later.  Who knows what went on in the background.  The mistress of the estate surely played a role.  Perhaps she was the one who called Mr. Lyons, the principal, each time.

Mr. Lyons would eventually appear and walk me to school and my classroom.  On my worst day-dreamy days, I'd do nothing but draw doodles all over my papers, write poems, or plot my next escape.  I was eight years old and long term consequences about being unprepared for the world of work meant nothing to me.  I was already reading Mother's books and Daddy's newspapers.  Worksheets and beginner books bored me.

My sweet, cuddly second grade teacher once left her notebook on her desk.  I saw her notes on me.  I was apparently socially awkward, withdrawn, and recalcitrant.  I preferred painting endlessly at the classroom easel and writing limericks.  She had difficulty getting me to focus.  I stared out the window.  I wanted to skip recess.  I passed all my tests and scored high on the California Achievement tests but wasted time in class.

My witchy, anxious-ridden third grade teacher slapped me for refusing to read aloud "Run, Spot, run. Stop, Spot, stop." books.  This stinging event happened in front of my reading circle group.  I ran home and refused to ever return to school, ever again!

The slapping must have been the final straw for everyone.  Mother put me in her Chevy and drove us to school where I sat in a reception area while she talked to Mr. Lyons in his office.  Thereafter, I attended third grade at Hoover Elementary as Mr. Lyon's special student in his office at my very own special desk.

Sometimes I still dawdled, but not so much. Sometimes I slipped into the estate garden but only to walk a purposeful detour along its more interesting paths to school.  I didn't want to be late and I didn't want to disappoint Mr. Lyons.

The Recall Notice

My step-daughter Michelle and I were visiting on the phone in May when she surprised us with this: "We received a recall notice for our van. Guess what? Something is wrong with the park shift lock!"

My head quickly shifted to a scene in our driveway five years ago. Our three-year-old grandson Jacob had climbed into the van behind the driver's wheel and succeeded in releasing the park shift lock. The van rolled forward on the incline while Jacob steered it toward his father and grandfather who were standing next to the greenhouse. Jacob's dad ran toward the van, opened the driver's side door, and mashed down the emergency brake at the last second. Jacob's grandfather, by crab walking sideways and pushing against the van's hood, managed to get out the way just before the van stopped against the edge of the greenhouse.

"Dad, I was driving!" Jacob shouted.

With a catch in his voice Grandfather mumbled, "Once I was run over by a bicycle but never before by a van!"

Dad didn't know whether to be relieved or angry. "Jacob, what were you doing? How did you get your foot on the brake? Are you okay? I told you not to get in the car!"

We tried to sort it out. Jacob didn't appear to be precocious. He was just a little feller with an adventurous spirit. Maybe he stepped on the brake pedal and moved the shift lever. His dad thought perhaps he himself had failed to put the car in park, not that that idea made sense.

Since no one was injured, we breathed sighs of relief, rebuilt the edge of the greenhouse planter, and admonished Jacob for climbing into the car to pretend drive. The incident joined other family lore about mishaps and unsolved mysteries.

Note, we never once wondered if the vehicle had a faulty shift lock. See how trusting we are about auto manufacturers? Since we average 15,000 miles per year in our Toyotas, Acuras, and Hondas, we need to feel safe in them. Safety recalls happen to other people.

But here it is, published in September 2013, the answer to an oddity which could have turned deadly had circumstances shifted slightly: a steeper incline, a locked driver's side door, a crippled grandfather. Five years had passed between our incident and the recall notice. In our denial we had failed to report the incident and thus are a bit chagrined by our naïveté.

________
Toyota Announces Voluntary Recall of Certain Sienna Vehicles

September 26, 2013
TORRANCE, CA September 26, 2013 – Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. today announced that it will conduct a voluntary safety recall involving approximately 615,000 Sienna minivans from Model Years 2004-2005 and 2007-2009 to address problems with the shift lever assembly.

Because of the potential for damage to the shift lock solenoid installed in involved vehicles, there is a possibility that the shift lever could be moved out of the “P” position without the driver depressing the brake pedal. This could result in a vehicle roll-away.

All known owners of the subject vehicles will be notified by first class mail to return their vehicles to a Toyota dealer for replacement of the shift lock solenoid with a new one.

Detailed information is available to customers at www.toyota.com/recall and by calling the Toyota Customer Experience Center at 1-800-331-4331.

Paths

Robert Frost left us thinking about two paths converging and our taking the less traveled one. I've always wanted to discuss this idea with the poet. One path coverages with another so continuously, finding a less traveled one could be as elusive as containing a cloud.

I've placed a photo at the bottom of the page of a less traveled road. Deer graze along its edges. Ranchers drive Ford 250's from mile section to mile section. Sportsmen hunt in the adjacent fields. Electric poles and barbed wire line the roadway. The road itself has been well groomed, graded and graveled.

Less traveled compared to the highway three miles to the west and less traveled than the street I live on, this road is not silent. I hear my shoes crunching on the roadbed. The "bobwhite" calls of quail and the gobble of a turkey mix with birdsongs. Tall grass rustles in the pastures.

The people who live along this road go to their grandchildren's ball games, care for ailing neighbors, manage flood control, teach school, repair machinery, support their churches, and buy groceries. With every use of this road to town, to the funeral home, to church, to school, go people with plans and concerns.

The people I know along this road have chosen to live here because they grew up nearby, worked elsewhere, and returned to open a B&B on a hill overlooking a small lake. That's why I know them. We stay at their B&B.

This isn't a road in a place I would choose to live. I like city life and its stimulating choices. But I also like retreats where I can feel centered. I like knowing I can catch a plane, rent a car, and drive three hours to be at this quiet but not silent place with its less traveled road, with its deer, quail, and wild turkeys, with its rolling pastures and sweeps of wild flowers.

In the city the wheels in my head barely halt even when I sleep, but in this country place where people are spaced miles apart and the horizon stretches into forever, my mind turns off. I can sit quietly without jumping up to do chores. Here I am not in charge of clean linens, or breakfast, or weeding. Here I don't maintain the lane or manage the fishing dock.

Believe, me. I find God everywhere, not just at quiet retreats. I, however, sometimes need to drop my organized life in order to feel how spiritually intact I really am.

We are on hugging terms with our hosts who are tethered to this place of refuge. "Alice," I said, "thank you for making such a place for us and others. It is work, I know, but it is also a gift."

As for Robert Frost, I want to say, if I were coming out of the woods on a snowy evening, I, driven by curiosity, might also choose the less traveled road, but not always. Sometimes I have had to travel along worn pathways to get to a less traveled one.

The Red Zone

I was going along through life on auto-pilot -- grandchild cared for in Atlanta, bills paid, travel plans for the summer lined out, grass mowed, weeds pulled, prayers said -- when my husband called with this:

"Diane, what's going on?  We're overdrawn at the bank!"

"Impossible," said I with the confidence of a veteran user of spreadsheets and budgeting.

"Better check because our balance is deep in the red zone."

Indeed, we were overdrawn and incurring daily penalties, $25 a whack for each insufficient fund guaranteed payment. I had no idea why until I returned home and saw that Lowes had double posted a hefty April credit card payment, twice debited from our checking account and eighteen days later credited back.  The overdraft penalties had happened within the eighteen day lapse.

To add to the drama, on the day I discovered the cause of "We are WHAT?!" We had our puppy to deliver for boarding before 2pm and a plane to catch at 4:15.

I dropped in at the bank to solve the problem.  In my mind, all the bank needed to do was return the $295 in penalties to us since Lowes was responsible, not us.  Seemed like arriving at 11AM would be plenty of time to fix all this.

EXCEPT as Tina, an assistant manager of the Campbell Lane branch, explained, "Lowes made the mistake so they need to make this right with you."

Thinking:  Hmmm, I'm gonna walk into the customer service desk at Lowes and ask for $295....

"Tina, I'm not so sure this is going to work, my walking into Lowes from the street.  Might work if you go with me and explain all this to them."

Tina grinned. "Let me check with my manager.  Give me a minute."

I called my husband to alert him. "This may take awhile."

.......

While the managers at the bank rightly concluded the $295 would be Lowes' responsibility, I insisted upon my utter ineptitude and incompetency, not to mention my emotional instability, to the extent that I needed to remain glued to the bank's customer service chair in Tina's office while Tina called the manager at Lowes.

Chad, manager of Lowes, referred Tina to Byron of the credit card service company, who could not  see double postings. (We couldn't see them either since they weren't listed on our Lowes credit card statement.) Byron told us to call Chad back and have Chad confer with his local IT department.  Only now Chad was unavailable according to J.R.

"J.R., I really need to talk with Chad."  A masterful communicator, the even tempered Tina, who had accepted her task with friendly vengeance, finally secured Chad's undivided attention.

The clock had been ticking away during phone calls, audio menu options to match our needs, negotiations around assistant managers, and research about when the two debits occurred, exactly what time (4:46p on May 2) and when the credit was posted (May 20).

I studied my watch and hoped my husband would remember to pack the phone chargers.

Chad wanted us to have the $295, and he would get to bottom of this, but first he had to figure out why a clerk managed to debit our account twice without my knowledge and exactly where did the money go, and why 18 days later the error was credited back to us without the credit card processing company ever being involved.

Tina said she would personally go to Lowes to pick up the money and deposit it once Chad concluded his investigations.

"Go, catch your plane.  And have a wonderful time at your grand-daughter's graduation."  I felt like Tina was my new BFF and wanted to hug her.

Happily, we made our flight since Denver storms had delayed flights to the Midwest, although we regret the eight planes damaged by hail and the inconvenience to other travelers making connections through Denver.

The next morning Tina called with good news:  Jennifer, the Lowes accountant, had called, Could Tina come by for the money?

Thanks to Tina, Chad, and Jennifer, the $295 is now safely in our account and available for spending.

Money does strange things to folks.  If it's ours, we want contrarily to keep it and spend it.  Money is never ours, although we act as if it is, and we certainly resent and perhaps feel victimized when someone else has the unauthorized use if it.

We say money isn't everything but then act as if it's right up there next to oxygen.

Which reminds me of how airplanes have pressurized cabins and in the case of ... well, the unthinkable, an oxygen mask drops down and you must first attach it to your face before you assist someone else.

Oh Where, Oh Where?

My wallet disappeared on Friday, my leather black and red Lodis wallet suggested by a friend on a November shopping spree in 2004, my wallet with the pull out license and credit card insert that fits perfectly into a jean hip pocket, my wallet with its debit card, two credit cards, membership cards, my license, and 18 dollars.  AWOL!

I discovered my wallet's absence on Monday morning at 10:30 when, at Kinko's the salesclerk said, "That will be eleven dollars and forty-three cents." A woman fishing into her purse knows what is there; hers is a confident, familiar act, her hand like eyes. My husband would have to dump my bag upside down to find a rock in it.  I can find a stray menthol lozenge in a split second.

"Oops!"  I said.  "Must have left my wallet on my desk.  I will be right back."  And so it began, the spinning search for the wallet.

Life must go on.  One cannot push a pause button to look for a wallet.  My day took off without the wallet, sans identification and money.  Instead of focusing on the business at hand, my mind slipped into replay mode:  Where had I been?  I sent texts to friends.  Maybe they had seen it.

"Sorry.  Haven't seen it."

The wallet's absence sliced through Monday's schedule, serious discussions at a board meeting, companionable conversations with friends, a dinner party, and an evening concert.  It was bedtime before I could look under sofas, through pockets, and into cabinets.  Defeated, I slept fitfully.

Tuesday's sunrise woke me.  Typically, not an early bird, I jolted out of bed and renewed the ruminant search.  No activity had occurred on our bank accounts, so the wallet was secure, but secure where?  Behind the washer and dryer.  Under a bag in the car.  On the deck.  In the greenhouse.  Beneath a boxwood shrub.  Maybe our pup had carried it off.  Under beds.  Into closets. To his bed.

By noon I had given up.  "I'm gonna have to put a stop on all the cards," I said to my husband who was quietly finishing a turkey sandwich.  I had spent lunchtime reviewing for him my replayed scenes from Friday.  He said nothing.

I dialed the bank's number.

"Stop!  Found it!"  And there it was, in his hand, my precious wallet -- ice cold.  "Found it in the freezer."

Honestly, there is a logical explanation.  A frozen pork loin, a distracted mind, etcetera.

But..

As one friend said, "I have been meaning to talk with you about your habit of wearing your bra on the outside of your blouse...just saying."

......
“Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side!”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

First Love

“I make it easier for people to leave by making them hate me a little.”
― Cecelia Ahern, The Book of Tomorrow

I was 19, a time still fresh in my memory but honestly so long ago I should have left it behind in life's wake of marriages, deaths, children, and grandchildren.  And who knows? This story might be colored by my needs today.  I'm incapable of parsing events then and now into evidentiary facts, so convinced I am of the emotional lesson.

I was in love. Ridiculously, blindly in love with a handsome fella, so handsome I found it hard to believe I'd landed him with so little effort, standing in line during freshman orientation, drinking coffee, lightly talking about where we were from.  That day stretched into lunch together, a walk in a nearby park, and one date after another, delicious kisses, and well, let's just say it was difficult to concentrate on writing essays about Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Faulkner's "Bear." Somehow I managed to memorize how DNA and RNA differed and could categorize periods of art history in spite of my preoccupation for my handsome boyfriend who pulsed within me like electrical current.

The handsome one modeled for Los Angeles magazines between semesters.  His blue eyes weren't just for show; they were invitational as in "Tell me." His neatly cut bronze hair polished his clean cut appearance, his athletic body appearing casually confident.  We met after classes, talked every day, played together, laughed and cried together.  We admired gardens and enjoyed art.  We danced on Saturday nights and attended church on Sundays. I liked how his gentleness contrasted with his athletic energy.

And then after two years of long walks through neighborhood gardens, golf and tennis games, weekend ski adventures, long bike rides through the countryside, beach adventures, and studying together, something changed. A tilt.

The clues were subtle.  He called less.  He was concentrating on his studies. He said less.  The distance morphed to irritations, misunderstandings, and confusion.

He wasn't seeing someone else.  He just wasn't present.  He became my opaque dinner companion and my silent dance partner.

I liked him less but loved him more.  It felt odd.

I waited as if suspended.

Whatever was happening, I could not dislike him, much less hate him.

And then the spring semester ended. He came to kiss me goodby.  I was returning home for my summer in San Francisco, he for his summer in San Bernadino.  The kiss was unlike any in my experience, a kiss, I now know, filled with feelings of failure and grief, but warm with affection and care.  He had decided love wasn't enough.

His Dearest Diane letter arrived two weeks later.  He had dropped out of school.  He had failed to meet his parent's requirements for his remaining at Willamette University.  He believed he wasn't good enough for me and there would be no changing his mind.  He had to carve out a new pathway.  He apologized for the confusions and misunderstandings.  He realized he had tried to make it easier by distancing himself. I had surprised him with my patience and acceptance while he had anticipated my learning to hate him.  He would never forget me and love me for ever. But it was over.

I don't know about him.  But I have never forgotten him, and in a way I have always loved him, as he was then, not the man he became, but the man he was at the time.

Take Shelter!

Our puppy, little seven pound Ollie, has achieved a predictable set of circumstances in our relationship that enhance his security.  We humans, his caretakers, sit in chairs to read, sleep in one bed, eat at a table, work at desks, dig in dirt, and drive away in a car.  Ollie understands he must not bother us when we eat or sleep, that the living room is out of bounds, and that if he acts agitated near the back door he gets immediate access to the back yard.  He has safe zones: a kitchen throw rug, a corner of a family room sofa, a pillow on the office floor, and in worst case scenarios the "you can't catch me space" under our king size bed.

So when suddenly the other night when the TV bleeted beep-beeps and its screen switched to a deadening black and white scrolling alert message: TORNADO ALERT in the following counties....until midnight.... Take cover.... and when just as suddenly the TV went silent and blank, and we normally quiet humans jumped into action, first to stick our heads out the front door to listen to warning sirens and check for swirling skies, and then began tossing coats and boxes out of a hall closet, Ollie froze on his haunches, cocked his head to the side, and looked at us like we had lost our minds.

From Ollie's point of view (indicated by italics) we were making a mess of the hallway and engaging in disorderly behavior. Usually we only put one or two coats onto the sofa, which is a signal we are planning to put Ollie behind a gate in the laundry room and abandon him for a few hours.  Are they going to wear all those coats? Cautiously sniffing at the floor, Ollie edged closer to the closet.

"Herb, Ollie is scared.  Poor baby.  Come here, Ollie.  Here, baby," I said, making encouraging smooching sounds.  Just as Ollie looked as if he might trust me, the eight foot stainless steel telescope for viewing wild life in the tree tops, and which we had stored in the closet behind the coats, crashed to the floor.

We're being attacked.  Run!  Ollie yelped, reversed course, and stopped a safe distance away next to the glass french doors.

"Glass!  Herb!  Ollie!  No!"

"Just a minute.  I'm getting batteries for the radio. Stay put."

"Here, Ollie.  It's okay.  Here, baby."  Smoochy, smoochy, smoochy.

Ollie lay on the carpet with his head down on his paws, eyes raised suspiciously, as if to say I've got my eyes on you, and I am not getting into that closet with you.  Papa will save me from all this nuttiness.

Herb swooped Ollie up off the floor and handed him to me.  "It's okay, Ollie. You're safe now."  I cuddled the squirming Ollie to my breast in a life saving grip.

Le' go of me.  I want outta here!

Herb handed me a jug of water, a blanket, two flashlights, a cell phone, a rain coat, and a pair of shoes, then went to check the skies. The closet was in the middle of the house underneath a staircase but the glass doors were only eighteen feet away.  "Herb, this isn't safe.  Those glass doors!  This is not going to work.  There's not enough room for you. "

"It'll be fine.  Here, I'll show you."

Now what?!  Papa is crawling in here with us?  I'm getting out of here!  Ollie wriggled free and tore for under the bed. Herb elbowed me in the chin and squashed my left thigh.  We struggled free and went after Ollie, who, sensing an ambush, fled from under the bed and raced down a short hall to the walk-in closet.

The dog has more sense than we have, I thought. "There's no glass anywhere near the walk-in closet. "

Ollie crouched in a back corner under hanging dresses and watched us, his trusty caretakers, discuss the merits of sitting in this or that closet.

"The mirror is made of glass," said Herb.

"But it's not a bank of French doors to the great outdoors!"

"This isn't in the center of the house."

"I like being with all my shoes.  Hmmm.  What should I wear while waiting for the maple tree to fall on the house?   Hiking boots or these new red patent leather Brightons?

Herb shook the radio.

What's that red box in Papa's hand?  The red box, a portable radio, squealed like a stuck pig.  I'm going to upchuck, right here, right now.  I've had enough of this!

I heard the ominous stomach pumping sound of a dog planning to vomit.  "Herb!"

"Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"

So there we were, sitting on the closet floor, listening to a local radio station. "Winds up to 70 miles per hour moving through South Warren County with potential tornado activity...."  Ollie was losing his dinner.  Our own dinner of chili and corn bread was cooling on the stove.  Our TV cable service had freaked out.  Lightning was crackling in the trees outside, and our power was flickering.

All tuckered out, Ollie, sunk into my lap and fell asleep.  I could use a pillow myself, I thought.  Of all the things we hadn't remembered for our vigil, a pillow!  Because waiting for an all clear when nothing tragic going to happen is really, really, really boring.

Slippery January Trickery

January finished yesterday.  As we slept, February arrived and brought sunshine and sweater weather.  My neighbor, an indoor lady, was sitting on her deck this morning, the sun splashing golden light on her hair.  A purple glow rose from the surrounding woods and faded into an iridescent haze as filmy clouds drifted eastward.

January is a tricky month here in Kentucky.   Temperatures can drop precipitously by 40 degrees, from highs to lows, from sunshine's green promise of spring to ice's advantage over reliable navigation.  On Sunday we could be trimming shrubbery; on Monday spreading salt on a slick back porch.

Unlike our Southern neighbors, Kentuckians are generally prepared for snow and ice with salted and plowed roads.  No preparation, however, can alleviate the paralyzing power of frozen water falling earthward. When a vicious ice storm shuttered Kentucky in 2013, 525,000 people were left powerless when tree limbs couldn't support the extra weight of ice.  Exploding trees sent wooden shrapnel flying across yards, hammered cars, and punched through roofs. Hazardous electrical lines lay across roadways.  The storm was the worst recorded in Kentucky history.

Typically, storms do not close Kentucky highways and strand motorists. But every winter, snow and ice storms do topple rotted trees onto power lines, which happened in our neighborhood last week. We lose power for a few hours, and occasionally for a few days.  Our customary January weather, however, is scattered with welcoming thaws of thin layers of ice, flurries of birds at the feeder and on the hollies, and human flutters of preparation and caution.

A snow prediction causes a run on grocery stores, as if we were in little house on the prairie and blizzards were going to strand us for a month.  Soon after folks have stocked up on milk and eggs, the predicted storm drops an inch of crusty snow, ice forms overnight after a daytime thaw, and folks slip into slow time.

It won't  do to rush around on ice patches.  If we expect to drive off in a big hurry, we will be disappointed.  The car windows will need de-icing.  The garage door will need hammering to release a tenacious icy grip.  The car will slide on the incline, the tires straining to track.  The effort with extra layers, gloves, and scarves drags on us.  

On a recent Diane Rehms broadcast, Isabel Allende said, "January is an introverted month...a good time for writing."  I agree.  It's also a good time for baking, painting, reading, and watching movies,  a great time for catching up with friends or for quieting oneself.  It's even a good time to bundle up for a long walk just to experience the thrill of crunching snow underfoot.

It was in January that our lovely Rocio, an exchange student from Mexico, discovered snow as we drove westward across detouring backroads toward a family reunion.  As we worried about running out of gas and dying from hypothermia, she pestered us about  playing in the snow until we finally stopped and showed her how to make snowballs and snow angels.  A normally three hour drive took over six hours, not an event we would voluntarily choose, but one which resulted in delicious hot chocolate at a quick stop and a peek through the keyhole of her wonderment.

Our young pup in his first experience with snow approached it suspiciously.  "You want me to pee in that!?" We gleefully, and dishonestly, stomped around as if we always went out in the middle of the night in pjs, boots, and robes to whoop it up in ice and snow.  Now Pup charges out over the deck, slipping and sliding, tasting snow, and expecting us to keep up while we shiver in our slippers.  He's a convert, you see.  He has discovered the fun side of icy January nights.

There are anecdotes for January's chill and thaw.  Florida escapes, indoor gyms, yoga, closet cleaning, movie theaters, soup suppers with friends.  It just won't do to bemoan weather.  Like a sudden increase in cash flow, January weather provides time flow.  Winter has rhythm, a steady pulse.  The heater fan purrs in the walls, ice crackles along the eaves, and woodpeckers peck at the trees.  January encourages an extra cup of tea or coffee, morning omelets, and baking, if not for the calories, for the fragrance of pumpkin bread or apple cake.

Although we bemoan the chill in our bones, we also hover expectantly for a morning snowfall, wishing for two or three inches to blanket the grass, frost tree branches, and quiet the neighborhood.  We like muted evenings of reading by the fire, wearing smart wool socks, and snuggling under down comforters.  Unlike our grandparents we don't have to chip ice from the pump, sleep in unheated rooms, and milk cows before sunup.  January for us is easy time, slow time, with adventurous possibilities: chain sawing a toppled tree, wheeling a sliding car, and searching for candles, not to mention, heating a house when the power fails.

It's temporary, January.  After all, it did leave yesterday.  As for February, today's balmy day is likely just tricky weather, a false precursor of forsythia and daffodil blooms and hikes in wild-flowered woods.