The Thanksgiving Guests

Worried about her absentmindedness sliding into Alzheimer's, the family kept an eye on her.  Sometimes she seemed fine, sometimes confused about where she was, or why she was there.  But she was still mostly lucid, just forgetful.

Since it was Thanksgiving there were plenty of family members to help keep track, but in the kerfuffle of getting the turkey carved and the cranberries sauced, the sweet potatoes sweetened and the green beans greened, it was all hands on deck and there was no one to watch her.

Tim, ever resourceful, led her to a large framed photo in the bookcase of the whole family at last summer's reunion at the lake, thinking it would keep her entertained.  And she seemed happy, talking away.  

When the turkey was carved and the dinner on the table she was still there, still chatting briskly away.  Concerned heads peeked around the dining room door, then retreated to the kitchen to discuss in whispers what to do.  Finally, concerned over both the rapidly cooling dinner and the lively one-sided conversation, Tim walked up and tipped the photo face down on the bookshelf.   "Come on mom, let's eat."

She looked brightly up at Tim and said "Thank Goodness!  I thought they'd never leave!"

There are moments of grace in the midst of the worst times.  But I know this: I want to go with all my marbles, not confused and afraid.  I'm not sure I have much choice, but I have good genes and I pay attention to what the researchers say might be helpful. Covering all the bases.

Do math in your head.  There's no one watching, and there's no test.  So what if you get it wrong?  Eventually you'll get it right.  

Figure out the tip without using your phone (hint: double the amount of the bill, then drop a zero.  That's twenty percent.  Don't be cheap.)

Take a foreign language, and be prepared to feel ridiculous.  Learn to laugh at your self.  Don't quit.  So what if you're the worst in the class?  It's not going to affect your GPA.  

Try the jumble, work a crossword (another hint: they get easier). Play the piano, play the kazoo.  Carry a small notebook and write down things that make you smile, things that make you think. Carry a sketchbook.  Write a story.  Start a blog. Write letters to your friends.   Do something to stretch your mind.  Push the envelope.  Push back.  

A Bigger Box

One hot summer day (remember those?) a crowd of neighborhood kids rang my doorbell.  They were so excited they writhed on the doorstep, flowing over each other with excitement.

"There's a dead bird!  On the neighbors' lawn!"  Shrill voices rose and fell, talking over each other and arguing the finer points of dead bird-ism.

I'm not sure if I remember what it's like to be a kid, or if I am still that same person I was as a kid, but I have lots of friends in single digits (and some friends nearing triple digits, but that's another story). These kids knew something needed to be done, and they knew where to come.

"We need to bury it!  We need a box!"  There is no urgency like the urgency of a child.  

In the garage, on top of the fridge was a pile of boxes I had been saving to wrap presents.  I picked out a box big enough to hold four truffles.  Or one bird.  Or so I thought. 

"Nope.  Not big enough."  I looked around - hyperbole is as common as skinned knees among the under-ten set.  All heads were nodding, all faces were solemn.  Okay, a bigger box.

I picked out another box, this one half the size of a shoebox. Nope. My Jimmy Choo shoe box?  Still too small. Really?  But they finally selected a bigger shoe box, the one Wally's sneakers came in.

I headed for Maneesha's lawn thinking pteryodactyl.  I mean, how big can a dead bird be?  We live in the suburbs, not the north woods, and I am used to seeing goldfinches at my feeder, and shy bushtits flitting away when I open the back door.  Little birds, not birds the size of men's sneakers.

It was a pigeon, not recently dead, with gashes from a hawk or other bigger meat-eating bird (and remember that when you look at that turkey).  Wasps were already swarming around.  And it was big.  Definitely sneaker size.  

Being a veteran of several prior dead bird adventures I had brought a pair of sturdy leather gloves.  I mean if we're worried about salmonella in our supermarket chicken, just think what's winging around with the pigeons.  Especially the dead ones.

Freaked out by the wasps, and egged on by each other's screaming, the decibels rose to Hitchcock film  level as I dropped the buzzing pigeon in the box and smacked on the lid.  We sat down and had an impromptu session on the benefits of nature's scavengers, the garbage collectors of the natural world, and on how annoying screaming is to everyone except the person screaming.  Then it was off to find a burial site.

So where to bury a slightly decomposed pigeon?  "The most beautiful place in the world" said Daisy.  Nods all around.  And since Agra and the Taj Mahal were too far away, where would they recommend?

"Your Garden!" they all yelled.  So a dozen kids swarmed my garden like wasps on a dead pigeon, looking for the perfect Final Resting Place.  They finally agreed on a spot just below a deep blue hydrangea, shaded by an ancient buckeye.  I dug a big hole, stuck in the box, and started covering it.

"Wait!" Daisy screamed.  "We need a funeral."  Beyond my pay grade.  Especially a pigeon funeral.  I mean, what do you say?  Sorry you're dead but at least now you can't crap on my head?  Or whirl into flight right in front of me and scare the crap out of me?  

"He needs a name.  We can't have a funeral without a name."  There went my idea for the Tomb of the Unknown Pigeon.  Oh well.

"Fluffy.  His name is Fluffy."  With apologies to bunnies everywhere, we said goodbye and good luck to Fluffy the Pigeon, tucked him in under the hydrangea deeply enough to discourage the raccoons, shed a few tears, and then all trooped off for cookies.  It's not a real funeral unless there is food.

As I'm going thru my stack of boxes looking for the right size for the gift I'm wrapping, I think of that pigeon.  And I cannot look at a naked bird (think turkey here) without thinking of the avian funeral.

There is a book, now long out of print, called Blinkie The Friendly Hen.  By Jeffrey Vallance, an artist who pushes the envelope.  It is truly food for thought.  But you might want to wait until after Thanksgiving.

Important Safety Tip

So my mom learned something today - no matter how fancy your umbrella, no matter how hard it's raining...

it's important to open it outside the car.  

It's also important to laugh.  Thanks mommy.  I have so much fun with you!

Creativity

He paints in his garage.  He's in a bunch of well-known museums and collections.  We were lucky enough to buy a painting before they climbed out of our price range.  For him painting is as necessary as breathing.  His name is Joe Loria - check him out.

I thought about him as I was sketching.  I've been thinking a lot about the need to create.

I had a gift tag craft day at my house...

Friends came, brought lunch to share, glittered and stickled and laughed and amazed me with their creativity.  

Girls rock.  My girlfriends rock.  

Especially the ones (hello Ellen) who said they were not creative, and then made the most beautiful and unusual things.  (I took notes.)

It's worth a closer look:

I have a pile of gift tags, I am covered in glitter, and I have a kitchen (and a head) full of happy memories.

So when you get a beautiful hand-made gift tag from a friend, I hope you'll save it.   A lot of love and heart went into making it. 

The Piano

When I was four, a baby grand piano was delivered to our house.  The piano movers left it in the entry, and all the neighborhood kids crowded onto the bench and banged away at the keys.  My mom let us, and she will forever be my hero for letting half a dozen sticky-fingered kids wail away on her ebony and ivory (really) piano.  And for a whole host of other things.

I remember being in my undies and a tee shirt, just on my way to a nap, enchanted with the  magic thought that this was ours, that I could play the piano when ever I wanted.

When I woke up from my nap, the piano was in a corner of the living room, looking like it was born there.  It has lived in a corner of my mom's living room ever since.

I don't ever remember not being able to play.  Debbie was - and is - way better - I remember recitals at Mrs Hinman's, in a dark serious room with solemn parents on black bleacher seats.  I remember being terrified, and amazed at how accomplished and calm my sister Debbie was.

Every Christmas there would be carols around the piano, one year with the local music teacher whose wife taught with mommy, most years with my sisters playing.  I remember late summer afternoons with the windows open playing to the birds.  

For years I have played when ever I visited.  And for years my mom has been saying "Why don't you take the piano?"  We even made a paper template, so I could see where it would fit.

Finally I was ready - I was going to put it in my office and ditch my drafting desk.  My friend Cathy came to visit and said "But the piano belongs in the living room!  It will turn your office into the piano closet.  It needs to go in the living room."  

"But there's no place to put it" I said.

"Move that chest out into the entry.  Now move that chair, and put this chest where the chair was.  Those two chairs go in the dining room, and the piano goes there."  So simple, so hard to see.  Thank you Cathy.

So I called mommy and said "Okay, I'm ready for the piano" and she said "Nope.  I've changed my mind.  You can't have it."

Oops.  I looked into renting one with the option to buy if I liked it. Our piano has a very different feel, not at all like the resistance you get from a new piano.  This one is well loved, and familiar.  It's family.

The next morning mommy called and said "Please call the piano movers before I get all crazy again."  Not crazy, just a huge change.  That piano has been her companion for more than half her life.  

It has only been a few weeks, but it feels like the piano has been there forever.  And I play every chance I get, in stolen moments waiting for Wally to put his shoes on so we can walk the dog, at night before bed.  I'm getting better.  And I'm loving it. We all need a creative outlet.  I have been sketching again (more on that later), but there is nothing like playing the piano, and I can feel a shift in the ground beneath my feet.

So here is my gift to you: do something different, something artistic.  Something you're not good at.  Something embarrassing and scary.  Do it in private, do it for yourself.  Carry a sketchbook, play the saxophone late at night when no one can hear.  Squeak away.  Learn to blow glass.  Write a story.  Do something creative - it will feed your soul.  And it will change the way you feel about the world.  For the better.   That's a promise.

Vines and Wines

Two years ago we picked our grapes on November  6th- this year it was September 26th.  It's not just when the grapes are ready - unlike the old days making wine (and I'm talking thirty years ago) you don't just measure the sugar - you measure the seeds to see if they are ripe.  You measure the acid.  And lots of other stuff I won't bore you with here.  These grapes get more tests than a cardiac pre-op patient.   

When everyone agreed they were ready, we bundled up (it's cold in the morning!) to pick.

Up at dawn, finished by the time we were craving that second cup of coffee.  With all of us picking it goes fast.

It's a small vineyard, only one kind of grape, and that on a special root stock.  Finally getting good fruit set (that's winemaker talk for lots of grapes).

We were talking with our neighbor Tim about all the testing.  He has the best advice.  "Taste the grapes.  Taste the seeds.  All this measuring of sugars and acids and phenolics...you have the best tester right inside your mouth."

He has a lab.  He has an incredible palate, and a great sense of perspective.  His wines are wonderful - full and round and rich.   Next year I'm going with the Tim method. 

Living Abroad, and Hopelessly Old Fashioned

There is a wonderful article about living in London (as opposed to just visiting - and feeling smug) by Sarah Lyall in tomorrow's New York Times.  It's witty and clever, full of thoughtful information.   Makes me want to book a flat in Firenze for a year.

My favorite quote:

"Many places (restaurants, dry cleaners) don’t deliver, and shopkeepers are either oleaginously sycophantic or icily contemptuous. I could not have been much older than 35 when I suddenly became known as “madam,” and no one says “madam” with more disdain than a 20-year-old working at Topshop, where, unfortunately, my teenage daughters loved to shop for clothes that would have looked more appropriate on prostitutes."

Oh yes.  Those clothes have crossed the pond.  Drive past any middle school  - it doesn't even need to be a warm day - and you don't have to be as old as I am to be startled.  I realize burkas are a bad idea, and wrist-to-ankle coverage went out before my grandmother was born, but I think parts that are part of an Ob/Gyn exam should not be on full display...especially in a place of learning.  Unless it's anatomy class.

Am I hopelessly old fashioned?  Is this the new norm, or just a look for the select few?  Is this what the popular kids wear, or the wanna-be-s?

Do these kids have parents?  They must...what do the parents think?  The administration?  Surely it's hard enough to get teenagers to concentrate.  How much influence does anyone really have?

What do you think?