Home At Last

   Bethy has been re-united with her sister, or close relative.  She and Georgia are walking around, scratching and pecking as if they were  never separated.  All the time she was being searched for, she was at roost in a tree for the  night.  Such is the way of the chicken.

If a tree....

...falls in the forest, and there is no one around to witness  it,  has the tree still fallen?  The answer is yes:   a great big tree, in our yard and not very far from the house.  The branches are too thick to see if there is a bear underneath. 
       Unfortunately, since it missed any structure, except maybe a bluebird house, insurance will not cover, so if anyone knows a lumberjack......

Sounds in the Night

  It's 1:25 a.m.  and  I'm sitting at the computer, the kitchen windows open behind me.  The other 2 inhabitants of the household have been asleep for hours.  Suddenly a noise, a strange scrambling, scratchy crashing sound, with about 5 stages of intensity, seems to be close to the house.  But there's nothing there, except the trees in the back.  No train has gone by.  I look out the window, I call out.  No response.  I conclude (sort of) that a tree must have fallen in the wooded area out back, and the sequence of different levels of sound must mean it has hit other trees and brush on its way down.   That has to be it, I tell myself.  But what causes a tree to fall when it's not windy?  Something or somebody climbing it?  It made a loud noise.  A raccoon maybe, certainly not a bear......

Dance Move

I've been watching John Lindo dancing the West Coast Swing, and Derek may have to step aside, at least for that dance.

In any case, what the WHAT?

   Not that it affects me in any way, but why do people say it is rude to use upper case to communicate on the internet?  It is the same as shouting, they attest.  I agree that unwarranted loud speech can be jarring, and hard on the ears.  But, really, is reading slightly larger script an assault on the senses in any way?  "Ouch, those bigger letters hurt my eyes.  How rude!"  I think it likely that back in the infancy of computer-ese, someone for some reason objected to reading something written in all caps, and so the mantra began. The seed  of nuance was sown.  I mean, of all the stuff that's posted on the internet, stuff that could rise far above the level of rudeness, it seems likely that writing in block letters would not even make the list. 

Flight of the Hen

   I was alone in the living room when there was a knock at the door, about 20 minutes before 10:00 p.m.  I hesitated to answer it because I had just come across an episode of the cancelled "Rake" on Fox network.  The show was doubtless a rerun but new to me since I've only seen 3 or 4 episodes.  I sacrificed the resolution of the plot to answer the door.  It was Nellie and her younger granddaughter, Cheyenne I think her name is.  Nelly said she needed help; she had lost her chicken.  It flew over the fence.  The chicken is described as white, a Leghorn, lays eggs,  and can fly.      I told her it's probably roosting in a tree somewhere, that's if her dog didn't eat it.

June 26, 1934

     On this date, 80 years ago, Mary Agnes Donovan married Charles Anthony Madigan.  There is no one left to recall the day.  There is not much that remains of the memory.  There is a photograph of the bridal party, one picture only.  Sad to say, I know so little.  Maid of Honor was Helen Cecelia Donovan, sister of the bride, and best man was Frank Madigan, brother of the groom.  The bride wore a dress borrowed from Frank's wife, Mary Doherty Madigan, which  was returned shortly after the wedding.  Frank was the younger brother and his wife was 5 years younger than the bride;  perhaps they were married shortly before and perhaps the dress was worn at their wedding; there is no longer any way to tell.   The picture shows a pretty dress, mid length, which would have been full-length on the owner.  Probably the ceremony was conducted at St. Augustine's in Lansingburgh; that sounds familiar, as if my mother told me.  I don't know who the guests were, other than the wedding party.  I'm thinking maybe just a private taking of the vows, but of course with a Catholic priest. I would have thought Agnes, younger sister, might have been there, but probably not their mother, because she didn't travel after her son died in a construction accident in Troy.  The other 3 parents were all deceased by then.  I think the picture was taken by Lloyd's of Troy, probably the major expenditure, because there was no money, the wedding being right on the heels of the Great Depression. 
      My mother said that she told people, when they inquired where they went on their honeymoon, that they went to Niagara Falls. That was the trendy spot for honeymoons back then.   But they didn't; they went to their new home.  I'm not sure where that was, but I think it might have been in the building which once stood at the entrance to the Valley Falls Mill site.  I know so little, and can't believe I never learned more about their early days.  I hope that the day was beautiful and that they were happy to be together.

For the Birds

Maya Angelou may have know why the caged bird sings, but I wonder why the birds in the trees behind my house are singing at 4:30 in the morning.  The sound is pleasant, I don't mind hearing them, but why?  They can't be feeding.  It's still mostly dark.  It doesn't seem like mating calls either.  Aren't they done with that, for now? Most of the  calls sound cheerful and happy, though there is that kind of mournful cooing sound.....

Superior Autobiographical What?

     A phenomenon for sure, and very rare, occurring in only a few of hundreds of millions.  I'm willing to concede that total memory recall does exist in extraordinarily exceptional people, though I do not believe that Marylu Henner is one of them.  I would expect that a person possessing such an ability would be such a remarkable being that their abilities would be put to use in some deep and dedicated manner that would not readily transfer to appearances on television talk shows where their astoundingly superior memory is tested by the host's throwing out a "random" date and asking what  day of the week it fell on.  Or else  the menu question: "What did you have for dinner on August 7, 1987?"  Well, I had barbecued ribs.  How about you?  
    Be that as it may, I have similar memory recall of many people and events from my past: it happens all the time where I have a crystal-clear recall of a certain happening, though it never includes the date, or even the season of the year, unless it had bearing  on what happened.  Likewise what I was wearing, or what I'd eaten that day.  And I suppose the memory-time would probably comprise only a fraction of a several millionth span.  Moreover, I don't think there could exist any confirmation of the memory.  E.G. Our first grade teacher had a Balloon Man statue encased in her glass-fronted bookcase.  One day, another class, probably third grade, was paraded in to see the statue.  They seemed like big kids and I didn't know why they were there.  My memory extends just so far.  The third grade teacher had in her room, I was to find out a few years later, a globe of the earth, about the size of a basketball, or maybe a little smaller.  She warned anyone who came near it to be very careful because they would have to pay for it if they broke it, and the cost was $35.  That was such a  terrifying thought, the amount being more than my family's household budget for a whole week, that I stayed far away from the entire area where the globe sat.
      In junior high, a classmate revealed she had observed that the boy who sat in the seat in front of her had worn the same socks for 2 consecutive weeks.  When I mentioned that fact to her years ago, she had no memory of it.  On class picture day, which occurred every 2 years then, (because who would need a picture of their child every single year; they don't change that much), the teacher had her picture taken then also.  When she announced she would keep her picture to scare away the rats in her basement, I totally believed her.  I can venture to say with confidence that not one of these mundane memories which are stuck in my head forever, along with thousands of other snippets, were ever recalled by any of the others present, not for longer than the time of occurrence.
       I can recall a college professor presenting his side profile to our economics class and asking if his nose looked stereotypically ethnic. It did not, being short and straight.  I can't say what day of the week it was, though it would have been either Monday, Wednesday or Friday, because economics classes were 3-hour credits and met on those days, where the softer, 2-credit classes were Tuesdays and Thursdays. 
      I have some vivid snapshot-memories of people from the past, some of whom I hardly knew, who would have been surprised to be so remembered, assuming they had any inkling of who I was.  I have never been reminded by another person of any glimpse they recall  of my intrusions into their stores of memory, and am pretty sure that none exist.  I think I would sense it if someone were conjuring up a memory of something I had done or said, or even been involved in.  The past is dead; let it rest.

Crusade

     I am haunted by the terrible sight I saw on the news this week.  It was in a parking lot, near the Salvation Army collection receptacles.  The bins, multiple bins, were stuffed to overflowing.   Worse still, the areas, in proximity to the bins, and far beyond, were strewn with stuff:   bags, boxes, filled garbage bags, dishes, pictures, couches, chairs, skis, bicycles, mattresses, baby equipment, chairs, toys, books, knickknacks.  Name it: it was there, on the ground, recently rained on.  The news story was,"Are there too many donations?"  The answer has to be yes.  In this case, the community had held a village wide weekend garage sale, and in many, or apparently most, cases, the unsold stuff had been donated or dumped near the Salvation Army donation bins.  The Salvation Army spokesman assured the reporter that everything would be picked up by the end of the next day, and I'm sure that happened.  I would suspect most of it would be deemed garbage after its time in the rain.  The S.A. probably had to accept responsibility for the dumped donations, even though it's clearly written on the bins not to leave anything outside them.  The problem is caused by too much stuff.  Everybody has too much stuff.  Way more than is needed. 
       A solution would be to collect all garage sale items and crush them, to forbid dollar stores and souvenir shops to sell all that crap, and to prevent people from buying more clothes or linens or such until they can prove that their old items have worn out. Doesn't it tell us something when every single magazine, every talk show runs a feature on how to de-clutter?  Too much stuff is a nightmare!

Rabbit: Run!

   Nature, so we are led to believe, equips its creatures with means to survive, highly effective in some species, not so much in others, but in the case of the rabbit, seemingly non-existent.   When I look out my kitchen window, I frequently see a rabbit.  I gather that the rabbit must see me too, or at least some shadow or movement because invariably the rabbit will freeze, motionless. I don't see that as protection at all.  The brown rabbit has been eating the green grass, so there is no color camouflage.  Its long pointy ears are erect and its big round eyes remain open.  No brown rock ever has ears or eyes, so if that's what it's going for, it loses on two counts. If it collapsed its ears or even closed its eyes, maybe it could somewhat blend in, but no, it keeps its entire configuration as a rabbit.  It even looks like prey to me, and I don't eat rabbit.
    Nature must regard rabbit life as expendable.  I seem to recall that rabbits are the only animals that can mate and become impregnated at any time, without the strictures of a mating season.  Maybe Nature considers that enough of a trade-off:  instant gratification is worth the risk of sudden, unprotected death.

No, not that poultry story, Ben, ....

..  not the story of how your mother went hysterically ballistic when she found a sparrow sharing the shower with her, not the one about the man my father knew who let his chickens into the house at night so they could roost over the kitchen stove, not the time a tom turkey fiercely attacked and battered  a toddler Dorothy, not about the time my bantam rooster, Dick, got drunk and threw up after eating the residue fruit from my mother's homemade dandelion wine, certainly not the story of a persistently egg-bound hen who caused me to swear off eating eggs for life, not the story of two young chicks, one half-pink and one half-green, given to us after our cousins  tired of their store-dyed Easter presents, nor the grim tale of an aggressive rooster who claimed the garden as his domain until the day my mother clocked him in the head with a pail and knocked him permanently senseless.
      This is the story of a chicken who, after eating gravel as grit to digest its food, as chickens do, had a large enough chunk embedded in her crop that sickened her. She couldn't eat, turned pale and listless, a sad sight.  My mother could feel the mass in its crop, just below the surface. My aunt and uncle were visiting, and while my mother held the chicken in her arms, palpating the mass,  Uncle Tommy used his pen knife to slit the skin, beneath the feathers, and, Voila! removed the offending piece of stone.  A surprisingly bloodless operation as  I saw it, but then I was so little I wasn't in position to  get a good view, and there were all those feathers.  My mother was prepared with a needle and thread and quickly sewed up the incision.
    The chicken was set on the ground and scurried away.  Well, not exactly scurried---that chicken was never again able to regain a normal chicken's gait.  Something about the hasty suturing or the even hastier incision connected the chicken's leg to its neck or head in some fashion, understandable to anyone familiar with the anatomy of a hen.  For the remainder of its days, every step the chicken took forced its head to bend forward and downward.  That limping chicken really stood out in the flock

Side of the Law

   "Be careful of men wearing hats."   Not just any old hat, but fedoras and on men wearing suits, in the middle of the week.  If such men were to present as customers in the confectionery store where I worked behind the counter as an eleven-year-old,  I was to abandon a certain usual practice.  This practice was to take from a customer a piece of paper, usually wrapped around one or two dimes or else a quarter, and put it in a drawer under the counter.   No words were spoken: the paper spoke for itself, as for every ten cents in the folded up little packet, the paper would have a combination of 3 numbers written on it.  No problem doing that, except for the specter of those men in suits, with hats. Actually, there were a few times when fedora-clad men did appear in the little store, and, most worrisome of all, they did exactly what I'd been warned they would do.  They stood in front of the wall-length magazine rack and browsed through the wide array of magazines.  Never, though, during those visitations did anyone ever attempt to hand me their "lucky numbers."  It is certain that all the inhabitants of the underworld where I resided would have quickly seen through the cover of anyone wearing a suit and a hat not on a church day.  Even  a child knew who the bad guys were. 
      I must add though, my numbers running days did not last for long, ending at the death of the male co-owner of the store.  The wife did not continue the life of crime.
        (Tip of the day:  8-0-8  )

Look it up!

   Do  you realize that no matter how arcane, obscure, or just plain stupid you might think your  question to be, that somebody else has already asked it on google or yahoo or such.  You are not unique in any way.

Let It Be Known

   Today is my birthday.  I hereby proclaim that I am old, but I am not yet a project.

Insulation and Realization

   The years, four of them, that I taught in Cambridge are like a golden entity in time, our lives defined by all that's happened since as an appendage to that moment in time.  I know, from our frequent though sporadic contacts, that the others feel that way as well.  It's kind of jarring to realize that our children are now  twenty years or so older than we were then. 

Just Dessert

   Valerie, who weighs seven pounds, ordered dessert after lunch, crème brulee, I think.  Barbara and I, considerably  heftier, decided to forego the additional calories.  The waitress re-appeared with a very generous serving of Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting, and presented it to Barbara and me, on the house she said.   One serving dish, two forks, we each began on one side and met in the middle.  We ate it all, feeling justified because after all, we'd said no, our intentions had been good.

Ask and Tell

   We're all familiar with "Don't ask, Don't tell,"  but more fitting might be "Don't tell until you're asked."   TMI is anathema. 

See you next year.....

Parting words, times three, on July 9, 2013.      We had finished lunch at the Dorothy O'Day Pub, and were promising each other that we would meet again next year to continue our annual ritual.  I know it's not unusual for people to stay in touch with each other for an extended time, but I've had a number of  friends  in my lifetime who have been lost in the passing of time, so the three of us comprised the longest lasting circle of friendship I've known.
      We came to know each other in 1965 when  the cycle of retirement affected a rural school and a large number of young teachers were hired in a single year.  There were a number of us hired and as it turned out most of us were in our 20's and unattached.  So we had several years of interesting social interactions.  Barbara and Valerie were fresh out of service in the Peace Corps, each having been assigned to different countries in Africa.   Since I'd had nowhere near the experiences they'd had, I could well have felt intimidated, and probably would have later in life, but then we were on the level playing field that accompanied the bond of youth.  There were about a dozen of us in the same period of employment category, but the three of us were the only ones who stayed in touch with each other on a regular basis.    Most of the others moved far away, or else their circumstances led them on differing tracks. Valerie and Barbara maintained sporadic contact with a few geographically connected to them, and we recalled them in memories at our lunches.  Pat, an exchange teacher from England during that time, returns to the USA every 5 years or so, and her former host family invites "the group" to  a gathering where many more attend, though, at her last visit, there were some who demurred due to health issues.
     The three of us met in the restaurant, with no knowledge of what had befallen us during the year since the last summer's lunch.  Previously we'd shared news of our different jobs, our children, and then our grandchildren, as well as catching up on news of  people we'd known.  But this year, our conversation took a different direction, one not so familiar to us. 
     It turned out that all 3 of us and also Valerie's significant other, had undergone knee surgeries in the 2013 calendar year.  Valerie's friend had a total knee replacement in January, Valerie had TKR in February,  Barbara had had laser surgery on her knee in March, I'd had a TKR in May.  We even compared knee scars in the ladies' room.  We'd all had different stories, and though I don't believe  we had any desire  to focus on our health issues, it was quite interesting and even fairly amusing to swap tales.
   That would be the last time the three of us would be together.  Even today, at Barbara's lovely memorial service, Valerie was not present, but on a trip to Italy scheduled to offset the tough winter her friend's health problems had levied on them. 
    There were over  a hundred people at the church where the memorial was held, a service which had been arranged by Barbara in the scant four months between diagnosis and death.  There were no pastoral clichés at this service;  every speaker, every hymn and every passage were personally applied to the uniqueness of the person she was.   Her brother, her two children, a young second generation cousin who had been tutored by Barbara in French and was graduating with highest awards in that subject, were all visibly moved by their loss. Her brother and others commented on  the irony of Barbara's having taught AARP sponsored Defensive Driving courses though her own driving record was notoriously bad made me remember what she'd said to me at out last conversation.
      She'd told me that after she'd had  a serious accident in which her own car had run over her leg that she was going to sell her car and not drive anymore, on advice of her doctor and family. I said that type of accident, where her car had slid out of gear, could have happened to anybody.  Her words were, "Well, Mary, my driving record is far from stellar."   She had a way with words.
     Tomorrow morning she will be interred in the Cambridge Cemetery, next to her husband. They said she  considered Cambridge her home because that's where she raised her family and buried her husband.   I'd been planning to attend, but am now having second thoughts.  I ran out of tissues during today's service.  It's somewhat strange, I suppose, but the parts of the service that are intended to be comforting are the parts I find most heartbreaking. 

YouTube, Carry Me Away

Sleepless night, so caught up on The Stella Sisters---fantastic, Neymar---also fantastic, and "Hairless Rat Taking A Bath"----so creepy.

Remarkably Unremarkable

    It has been a full year since I have been employed.  It is the first time since I was 11 years old that I haven't had the responsibility of some sort of job, a lifetime statistic that has significance only to me.  There is not a single person on earth who would know that, or care to hear of it, so I commit it to the sanctity of you, O Blog, wherein this bit of my life story will reside throughout eternity, or until deleted by a single keystroke.

Kasey, Howard and Me

  Back when the world was about a decade and a half younger, and I was driving  to Argyle or Salem just about every weekday, my guilty pleasure was to listen to Howard Stern on the car radio.  He was not yet mainstream and in truth was pretty much of a pig. One of his guests was a daughter of Kasey Kasem's.  I'd never heard of her before, and was rather surprised that she was such a dirty girl, talking about her "landing strip" and such.  She wouldn't have needed to do that, I thought.

Ride Away

    Last summer, I had my old Sears Exercise bike hauled out of the basement, and ever since have pedaled about 5 miles a day most days, not very much, I know. It takes about 15 minutes and I am sitting down.   I turn on an old radio that has been set on one station for all of my rides: Kasey Kasem's Top 40.  The familiar tunes and his voice take me back and help me pass the time.  He sounds so confident and eternal........

Happy Birthday, Maybe

I know June 9 is her birthday, and I think the year was 2005.  So in cat years, she's younger than we are.  Pretty much all she does is eat and sleep, so we're on the same page there.

For the Birds

    After I planted my vintage flower seeds, I had second thoughts and did the same for the old vegetable seeds, opening all the little packets, combining all their various contents and planting or burying them, as fortune will have it.  This morning, the birds are scratching away in those 2 little plots.  They're taking their chances, those birds.

Mass Burial

    Yesterday I prepared a plot in my yard over near the shed, a plot only about one foot square. In it I placed the commingled contents of about two dozen packets of flower seeds accumulated over the years for  planting seasons that never came. They are packets of morning glories, nasturtiums, marigolds, salvia, and so on, some quite expensive, some complimentary.  The packets, most of them, are dated for use over a decade ago, so it is highly likely that the interment plot is indeed a grave.  As my mother used to say about any living or potentially living thing, let's give it a chance.  She never was much for following the guides that suggested thinning rows of seedling plants either.  So, as is said, it's worth it if only one little life is saved.
      (I also have a similar number of dated-long-ago vegetable packets, but don't feel quite the same about them, and anyway, have no convenient place to put them in. )

Trash it!!

   I'm not one for wasting food, though lately we do throw away a lot of leftovers.  Even with a small roasting chicken, there is usually some percentage discarded after its 3-day stint in the refrigerator.   I remember when my mother and her sister cooked, if there was half a cup of peas left over, they would save it to have with their tea the next day.  So I do believe in not throwing out anything salvageable. 
    The other day, during  a TV cooking show, the host announced not to throw away corncobs after the corn had been removed for a recipe.  They have uses, he said.  I put down what I was doing to see what stripped corncobs could possibly be used for.  "Save them in your refrigerator," he advised, "and throw them in the pot when you're making stew or soup.  They'll give it a good flavor."  Two of the other co-hosts chimed in with other ways that cobs can be used in cooking, but I was too turned off at the idea of eating anything flavored with old cob that I didn't even listen any further.  Anyway, I don't believe that any of them would ever use old corncobs for cooking.  They are just fodder for the trough of commercial television. 

See Something, Say Something

"He  unbuttoned Corduroy's shoulder straps and put his overalls in the dryer." 
    That line always bothered me when I used to work with young children and "A Pocket for Corduroy"  was a book widely recommended for use in the primary grades.  A popular unit used in the schools was to have the class read the book and then do an activity based in it.  Crayon drawings of little pockets, or sometimes little fabric pockets were designed by the kids and then posted on the classroom walls.  An important book and lesson, evidently, but really, what message is being delivered?
     Corduroy, a toy bear, accidentally becomes separated from his owner  while searching for a pocket of his own.  Near closing time, alone in the Laundromat, he encounters an artist who helps him out of his wet clothes and dries them for him, before leaving him there.  Socially conscious as I was, I thought it was a wrong message for little kids, who in this story identify more with the bear than with the character of the child who owns him.  Corduroy can walk around and can think.  He should not accept being accosted at night by a strange man in a Laundromat, even if, or especially since, he was an artist.  Corduroy should not passively stand by while the stranger takes the little bear's  pants off and then puts them back on.  The manager of the laundromat was there----help was available.  Corduroy, your search to find a pocket could have led to disaster.  Do not wander away without telling anyone, do not crawl into what looks like a deserted bag, do not let yourself be picked up and de-pantsed.   And if anything amiss did happen, and you were afraid to tell Lisa, just know that it's not too late to seek counseling.  
       Next review of overrated read:  " The Velveteen Rabbit"

Trivial? Or Traumatic?

   Yes, I do read Dr. Komaroff's Health column in the Troy paper.   Even though such writings are obsolete in the time of Google, the newspaper is a considerable financial investment in nostalgia, and today's issue was only 16 pages long, so it's a must read. 
    Dr. K. 's advice this day is to keep a journal as a possible means of relieving stress, and, My Blog, you are my journal.  A college study discriminated between journal entries that were traumatic as opposed to trivial and determined that writing about traumatic experiences resulted in the use of fewer pain relievers.
    I don't get out much any more, so my experiences are not only few, but of such a nature that trivia and traumatic are difficult to separate.  Who knows what the lasting effect of an experience may be. My outing was attendance at a political function.  Well, I don't mean to be modest;  I, as an officially elected committee person, was an integral part of the meeting, in case you have any desire to combine the trivial with the traumatic.
   One of the speakers, a no-longer-young gentleman, (euphemism duly noted here), told a joke.  Here it is:
            An elderly couple was returning from church.  The wife was driving  when her husband suddenly, though not unexpectedly, died.  Since they were nearby the funeral home, she decided to drive directly there. The funeral director commented that her husband was wearing a black suit, perfect for the burial.  But the wife said no, she wanted him buried not in his black suit , but in a blue suit.  The funeral director said he'd see to it, and indeed the funeral went as planned, with the deceased attired in a nice blue suit.  When the wife went to settle the bill, the director said there would be no charge for the suit.  He explained that the same day as her husband's death, another man also died and he was wearing a blue suit.  Coincidentally this man was the same size and build as her husband, and his wife wanted him buried in a black suit, not the blue suit he was wearing. "So," said the funeral director, "I just switched heads."

   

Invisible No More

   I'm used to having become one of the invisible people.  For years, no one has much noticed what I say or do.  At first it felt  rather insulting to have become so unnoticed, but gradually I got to kind of enjoy it, or at least appreciate the anonymity that movie stars and celebrities say they miss in life.  After all, President Obama said in a recent interview that what he missed most was being able to go for a walk and sit at a public cafe and observe people about him, without any attention on him.  But I think my status may have changed from being unnoticed, and not because of anything positive. Today I was trying to open the umbrella over a table at an outdoor eating place. I couldn't reach to push it up all the way, so I stood on the bench to try to push it up as far as it would go to engage the locking mechanism.  A man, another customer, came hurrying over to help me; he said he was afraid I was going to fall.  I didn't think I looked that frail; I would have had no problem if I'd been about two inches taller.  I do appreciate gallantry, from the not-so-young-himself man on a motorcycle, but how freakin' old  does a person have to look to be protected from opening an umbrella?   I'm afraid I know the answer to that.