Sad

Just returned from our home-style restaurant (see previous blog) and observed something that made me sad.

At the table next to us sat a little boy about four, his dad, about 40 and the dad's dad, age around 75. During the meal the 40-year old's cell phone went off at least three times. Each time he answered and talked long and loud. One call was about scheduling his son's surgery for next week. No, I did not need that information but his voice was clearly carrying over to the surrounding tables. He addressed another caller as "Mr." and spoke with a tone of voice indicating to me that Mr. Somebody was indeed, somebody important. Again, I did not care.

What I cared about was the lack of interaction between the three of these guys. The young son ate in silence. The older man ate in silence. The middle guy talked. When he was not on the phone he talked about a trip he would be taking to Florida and then a trip he would take to New York over the July 4th weekend.

I admit it is hard sometimes to interact with those of another generation, be it older or younger. And yes, older folks can be hard of hearing. And younger kids can be ignored rather easily over grown-up conversation.

Of course, you are thinking, she doesn't know what the situation was. She is just guessing from this one observation that dad is a little 'into' himself, ignoring the two men who should mean the most to him in the world.

What am I really thinking about this.

I'm not happy that this guy could not extend the courtesy of turning his cell phone to vibrate in a public place. And before you jump to conclusions, yes, I always turn my phone to silent when we enter a public place. And yes, it does bug the heck out of me when I hear my husband's phone ringing out loud and clear with the Ohio State fight song. But that did not happen this morning.

That's what I think about it.

Futball

Sunday afternoon and I have my TV choice between golf, tennis, NASCAR, poker, baseball, animal Frisbee competition and futball. Yes, yes I could read a book or heaven forbid finish that pesky paper I wrote about yesterday but I opt for the European Championship Final in futball between Germany and Spain.

Ninety minutes of non-stop activity this game ended in a 1-0 victory for Spain. The Scottish announcer, first name Adrian, narrated. He came out with such verbal nuggets as, "I know you're lapping this up. I'm so glad you could join us," called one player the "Peroxide Bombshell," called the Turks the "Cardiac Kids from Turkey" which I thought had been trade marked by the Cleveland Browns, and the player who scored, "tucked it into the corner of the old onion bag."

Poor Germany was "again the bridesmaid."

If you've noticed, soccer is the global sport. If you've read "How Soccer Explains the World" by Franklin Foer you are aware of the importance of this game around the world. But not so much here in the USA. Not much action I've heard people say. Just teams running up the field and down the field, repeated until the final whistle. Although, think about it, there is something to be said for anyone who can run for 90 minutes especially while being chased by angry folks from another country shouting who knows why and calling you who knows what.

There was great security at this game today. Security personnel placed about four feet apart around the sides of the field and nearly three dozen additional in the goal areas, all facing the crowd. I don't know what ticket prices were but I do know that sometimes you volunteer to be an usher at a venue so you can get in free but here you couldn't watch the game. You had to keep your eyes on thousands of fans dressed in Halloween type get-ups. Surely their mothers did not see them leave the house. Oh wait, some of the most colorfully dressed were my age. If you read the above mentioned book you will note how the population of the world decreases after some soccer games and not in a 'natural cause' kind of way. Thus the watchful eye of security.

In Spain a major electronics manufacturer promised that if one bought a big screen TV to watch this match and Spain won, he would refund half of the purchase price. He's going to be out a pretty penny on this one.

I'm not thinking anything very profound about this except to ponder if our cultural arrogance has prevented us from joining with the rest of the world around this sport. Perhaps we like action and injury too much. Although with the death rates around the sport of futball we might feel right at home.

That's what I think about it.

Procrastination

I'm taking a summer class.

Greek!

And I have a paper due.

Next Tuesday!

And I've known about this paper being due next Tuesday since, let's see...April.

I am creative with my excuses and alibis for delaying getting it finished. Heck, I'm creative at finding excuses for not even getting it started.

The weather was really good last week and the porch and a few good recommended books took precedence. Another day, I wanted to spend some time with my daughters; it was a birthday after all. One day I determined to get up early and begin but got hungry and felt 'called' to our favorite restaurant for breakfast with Jim. When I returned home it was too late to get a good solid start on the paper. Too much caffeine another morning made me jittery with flight of ideas, nothing very scholarly unfortunately. Yesterday, just as I was preparing to put my name on page one, the cat got a hair ball. Today I am marveling at how lame these sound although they made perfect sense at the time. And right now, with the books spread out around me and the syllabus in front of me, it is much more enjoyable writing to my faceless blog friends (no offense implied to anyone).

Like a kid in a classroom I look at every car that passes the house, observe birds out in the lawn, rabbits chewing away on the same Hosta that came up in spite of their being desecrated last summer by the same bunnies. I can hear the news on TV coming from the next room in the house and wonder what my friends are doing. I look around this room for distractions and finding none, sit back and close my eyes and make up some glorious story about a student who was able to graduate with honors in spite of never having handed in a paper on time.

Back to reality. Tuesday is coming.

Just a Heloise Tip

If you are in a restaurant restroom and you notice food between your teeth, your earring post can be removed from your ear lobe and used as a make shift toothpick.

But be careful, earring posts can be sharp.

Don't ask me how I know this.

You're in the Army Now

You've probably seen pictures or read news stories about army buddies getting together year after year to recount their experiences in the military. My husband does not have a support group like that and as a result, I get to hear stories about his time in the National Guard.

It was in the 60s. Many people thought that the National Guard was state-side and thus not seeing any action. Au contrare. My husband was on duty during the worse flooding in Newark, Ohio; the trucker strike in Richfield, Ohio where armed citizens stood atop overpasses to shoot at big rigs as they careened down the highway, and he was in uniform at Kent State (now you might want to know that I also was at Kent State at this time, but not in uniform...but that is a story for another day).

I am in full 100% support of our troops. I have always felt that they are well-trained and led.

That said, my husband's military training leaves me puzzled.

One fine morning at Fort Knox, he and three others were ordered to get their driver's licenses for a 'deuce and a half' (see photo). These trucks are troop transports. The Sergeant who had been given the order to test these fine recruits bundled them into a jeep and went on a search for a truck in which to test their abilities None was to be found. Not wanting to fail at following orders, the Sergeant diligently looked all over the base for a truck, for an hour and a half. No luck. And so, he drove back to headquarters and signed all their licenses. They had all passed.

My ponderings? How much do these trucks cost to replace? What about pilots? Do they have 'real' licenses to fly? And tank drivers? And cooks?

My husband was in intelligence. It's scary really, but I still support our troops. One hundred percent.

That's what I'm thinking about today.

Respect

Last week one of my grand daughters and I began what will be a massive project. Ever her mother, she is starting on her senior project now (it is due next spring before graduation). This bio-book, as I call it, is sort of like a written scrap book where there is more writing than pictures but the pictures are scrap booked (see previous blog on my prowess in this area).

Half way through the morning we needed to put the project aside (we are in the picture sorting stage) to deliver food to the church for a funeral.

At the church we noticed four friends around a table. I knew all of these folks. I thought my grand daughter might remember most of them. Did I mention that three of the four were men? We walked up to the one woman and I said, “Norma, do you remember my grand daughter, Taylor?” Immediately two of the other men stood up for an introduction.

Stood!

Like you see in movies!

Like you are taught, or were taught, long ago in Manners Class!

Oh, how polite! How respectful!

And boy did we talk about that on our way home. About the respect men show women and how she, Taylor, should expect that level of respect from the men in her life.

The fact that these two men were from Haiti and the third from this culture may say more about the manners in Haiti than southern Indiana but that’s another story for another time.

And don’t think you won’t be walking through this Senior Project with us during the next year. I already wake up thinking about the work ahead of us.

That’s what I’m thinking about things today.

Everyone Knows Your Name

Just got back from breakfast at our very local restaurant.

Like the TV serial Cheers, at our place everyone knows your name. Also like Cheers most of the regulars know everyone else’s business. It’s a place that when they see you pull into the parking lot they put the coffee and ice water on the table. Our favorite server, Annette, waves from a distance but if busy, is not able to come over to the table to chat until our meals are ready. She already has them on order long before we walk in the door. There’s something to be said about predictability.

And drama.

Like the other TV sitcom, Mel’s Diner, there is a lot of drama at our local eatery. Drama on the job when one server steals tips from another’s table and drama in the personal lives: boyfriends, ex-husbands, kids running amok, serious illnesses, divorce. jail. And then there are the customers who order water or coffee and bring their own treats from the local bakery and play cards all morning with their friends, all in their eighties. When I’m eighty maybe I’ll have that kind of nerve.

Twice we’ve seen the police talking to cooks and bus boys at the back door of the place. My imagination runs wild but I’ll wait to report on that when I see it in the newspaper.

The food is good. And cheap.

No one is in a hurry for the table to be vacated and we sit and drink coffee and work the morning Sudoku, crossword puzzles and word scrambles.

And listen. We hear Bible studies in one corner, in another home builders on the phone with their work crews who are already at a job site, a pastor meeting with two of her parishioners, job seekers being interviewed for jobs, a regular who is now walking with a cane.

And a 101- year old who could not even be four feet tall driving into the lot in a huge battleship of a car. When she parks, and it takes awhile, one or two of the servers will go out to the car and help her in. She comes in early but always orders lunch.

And cell phones. Especially the hot-shot builders who have not located the vibrate button on the phone. And others who think, like my parents did when it was long distance, that one must talk really loudly to be heard on a cell. One 70 year old teaching another of equal age how to text message.

A little snippet of life in this city. That’s what I’m thinking about.

A Good Idea

I’ve waited two weeks to process the following event. Even now I’m not sure I can do it justice.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I believe in the local charity which was putting on the fund raiser and wanting to support them signed up for….a scrap booking marathon. Twelve hours of cutting and pasting, or trimming, cropping and adhering, in the words of the professionals.

The Armory was lined with tables where 200 avid and very serious ‘croppers’ sat, spreading out their projects within their four foot table space. Ok, 199 serious scrappers and one novice. As fancy rolled cases were brought to the tables I dragged my supplies packed in an airline carry-on. I quickly emptied the case and tucked it under my table.

Whirring little machines and efficient desk-top rounds filled the tables. Borrowing a pair of scissors, I began, determined to finish a 20-page album by evening.

We broke for lunch. We broke for dinner. We broke for classes on scrap booking techniques. We broke for chair massages. We broke for door prizes. Well, they did the breaking. I sat cutting and measuring and keeping my eye on the clock and the goal, and except for the food breaks, I scrapped…as they call it.

And I finished, completing the project in time to win three of the door prizes.

In many gatherings, after winning one prize a generous and modest person would ask to be eliminated from additional prizes but that was not the case with this group. It was dog eat dog. In this case receiving was more blessed than giving.

The best part? “Spring Break with the Grand Parents” is now ready to gift my twin grand daughters on their 14^th birthday next week.

That’s what I’m thinking about.

Tempus Fugit

A while back my daughter and her husband were going on a trip. They were not taking their four daughters. That’s really why we moved here. To be a daily part of our family and help out whenever we could.

I figured I would be asked to supervise the kids while the parents were gone. A few days before her parents were leaving I was having lunch with my oldest grand daughter. I casually told her I would probably just stay at their house for the time her mom and dad were away.

She looked at me from across the table and said, not unkindly, “Gramma, I’m almost 20.” Gazing at her, I dug deep in my heart and pondered, “Where did two decades go and how did they go, wherever they went, so fast?”

So I stayed at my own house, providing some home cooked meals, a little transportation, keeping my cell phone all night for emergencies that never happened.

And pondered the passing of time. That’s what I’m thinking about.

Starting out good

Well it’s Saturday.

The lawn looks good thanks to Kinder Lawn Service who came twice this week.

The flowers are all watered thanks to the rain.

I hear the skittering feet of mourning doves as they make their way across the roof to watch for falling seeds from the bird feeder.

Car Talk is on PBS in a few minutes.

A family down the street is putting out treasures for their yard sale which has been advertised all week.

The two mares in the corral behind our back fence have given birth to beautiful little colts of one sex or the other.

This has started out to be a very good day indeed.

What was that again?

Went to Haiti a couple years ago. While walking from my hotel to the school I greeted a group of young teenage youths. They followed me for a little while shouting, ‘Hey, blond,” but aside from a smile I didn’t’ turn around to chat since I didn’t know Creole and they apparently knew limited English. I did however walk a little taller with a little catch in my step, thinking that they had mistaken my gray hair for blond and that I was being given quite a nice compliment. I was feeling very youthful.

Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t keep my feeling of pride to myself and could hardly wait to tell our host at the school what the boys had called out to me.

And it wasn’t blond.

Apparently the word blond has a similar sound to the Creole word for ‘old woman.’ I think more specifically it means white hair but whatever.

Wish I hadn’t been so proud and had kept the compliment to myself.

I could have gotten a lot of satisfaction from that…if I’d just kept my mouth shut and not boasted about it.

Probably a lesson in there somewhere. That’s what I’m thinking about.

Books I've read recently. Read at your own risk.

The Translator by Daoud Hari

Praying in Color by Sybil MacBeth

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Admittedly I have a schizophrenic reading plan which amounts to no plan at all. Often I simply like the cover of a book, "hey", I think, "nice color; matches my deck chairs, I'll read that." Other times a book is recommended to me and I read it wondering about my friends' taste in literature.

Sometimes it's the subject, other times it's the author, often it's a book on sale. I read when I fly (see previous blog post on flying) where I tear out each chapter as I read and leave it in the seat pocket in front of me because I hate to carry useless, extra baggage. As the book gets narrower and narrower I get nearer and nearer my final destination. The downside to that is the inability to go back and re-read parts I missed, or misread. Since I'm flying I don't ever 'get' the whole plot of a novel. The cheaper and simpler, with the biggest print available, the better.

Right now I'm reading...ok, I haven't started it yet, but I see it sitting over there on the shelf... Prince Caspian. Probably made the mistake of seeing the movie first. The good news would be that the sound was on during the entire movie (see previous blog about Indiana Jones).

So that's what I'm thinking about today.

One Pet Peeve

There are not too many things that bug me. I can usually laugh at a detour, a missing page in a book, a canceled appointment. In the cosmic scheme of things I view changes like these as quirks of life, in some cases unnecessary but inevitable.

However every time I drive behind a truck I see a sign that makes me kind of mad. Posted on the lower part of the door is the sign, “This truck makes wide right turns.”

As if posting a sign makes it a legal maneuver.

If I were to make a wide right turn, crossing the lane line, I could be pulled over by a friendly officer and given a ticket. Even if I posted a sign on my back bumper reading, “This car makes wide right turns and may carry toxic waste and the driver carries nothing larger than a ten.” Still illegal.

Perhaps if I posted this additional message, “This car pays $400 in road taxes per year,” although this is small change compared to what companies pay to keep their trucks on the road.

Yet it doesn’t seem fair. I spent several weeks in high school driver’s education learning to stay within my lane. It seemed important at the time.

That’s what I’m thinking about.

Raccoons and Mourning Doves

As I sit here typing the area is under a tornado watch. There seems to be a lot of weather in southern Indiana.

Although we were lured here with the idea of milder weather, three weeks after move in 19 inches of snow was on the ground. That is a lot of snow regardless of your perspective. I wonder now why we had never questioned the purchase of a 4-wheel drive vehicle by our son-in-law.

Then a year later there was a deadly tornado.

A few months ago we lost roof shingles in a high wind and had that damage repaired just in time for the rain.

Every spring the floods come. Often we will need to find alternate roads to get to our home as water covers the roads and fields. We can look out over the flood plain and see pick-up trucks in ditches where drivers were certain they could make it through the water.

Once in the middle of the night an awful rattle shook the walls. I woke up and, having lived in southern California, said, “Earthquake” rolled over and went back to sleep. Not so my husband who has not had the experience of living places other than Barberton, OH. He knew what had happened also. A raccoon, hungry and after a mourning dove, had climbed up the corner tree, jumped to the roof of the house, landing on the dove where a raucous fight for survival had taken place. As they slid off the roof scratching and clawing to stay upright they had hit the metal soffits and had rattled the house before falling to the ground. Dressed, with flashlight in hand, he walked around the outside of the house looking for carcasses. Imaginative if a bit far-fetched.

Today the temperature is pushing 90. Humidity is high.

There is a lot of weather and there seems to be more drama with it here than where we were.

Sky is looking a little green-gray, that ugly here-comes-a-storm color. Better unplug my computer and get to the basem…..oh yeah, we don’t have one.

So that’s what I’m thinking today.

The Belle of Louisville

Last weekend seven of us drove to Louisville to spend a leisurely afternoon on The Belle of Louisville, one of the last paddle wheel boats on the Ohio River.

Lunch was a feast, eaten as we slowly made our way away from the dock and into the middle of the river heading upstream.

With a soft breeze blowing and sunny skies we sat on the deck listening to the DJ play songs from the 60s and earlier. And we sang, oh did we sing. At the top of our lungs with hand gestures spelling out YMCA, or YMAA, for those who could not get their arms going fast enough, shoulders moving to the music.

The boat was not even half full. A group of young women was hosting a party for a friend getting married soon. Another circle of ladies was celebrating a safe return from Iraq for one of their members. A church worship team danced and clapped to the music; a birthday group had a time lighting a candle in the breeze. A single person out for a day away lolled on the deck. In front of the DJ, on the middle deck dance floor two dozen or more young adults with Downs Syndrome danced, the entire trip, moving to the music and singing.

There is not much to see or point out on this trip. It’s not like a cruise around New York City where everywhere you turn you see some well-known landmark, or on the Amazon where you would watch out for anacondas and other wild things. Two sights pointed out to us were Jeff’s boatyard, a mile-long factory which was closed on Saturday, and the water level for the 1936 flood. Oh, and the first home for the founder of Papa John’s pizza…or was it Jimmy John’s. You get the idea of the excitement.

We lived on a lake once and the Portage Princess, the local tour boat floated past our house. Like this portion of the Ohio River the Portage Lakes had only so many landmarks to point out to cruisers and so you take what you can get. When homeowners would improve their properties along the shore the boat owner would announce that to the cruisers on their next voyage. And so, one day in June as I was sitting on the deck reading the paper I could clearly hear the Portage Princess passing by on the lake. I put my paper up in front of my face and yes, you’re correct, I really didn’t want to wave at the nice people gawking at our house which between last season and this had a new boathouse and dock. I could hear the cruise director announce the building of the boathouse and dock and, he actually did, the suggested cost for such an improvement.

Water doesn’t need shore sights to be enjoyed. The idea of getting away from shore, moving slowly with someone else at the wheel, feasting on food we neither prepared or cleaned up after (sorry about that sentence structure Amanda), music that took us back to a simpler time and friends surrounding us, now that was worth the price.

That’s what I’m thinking about today.