Good afternoon.
That is the one blossom squeezed out by my large, professionally pruned coral tree. For years, it has managed to put out one flower about the time the leaves came out.
Coral trees are bare in winter, and before their leaves come out in spring. they are supposed to be covered with a glorious garment of red flowers. My tree would not do that. For years, it was kept in a pot and dutifully filled its job as a small tree in a pot in my front yard in Misson Hills. Then it did the same down here until finally I decided to put it out in the front yard, upon which it obligingly grew huge. I assumed that when it had done that it would cheerfully bloom for me. The most it ever put out was one flower lost in the early leaves in early spring. I thought this year, being pruned and rejuvenated, it would bloom like everything. It didn't.
Next year, starting in January, I'll fertilize every week without fail. Surely then it will show us everything it's got. I hope. YAZZYBEL
Good morning!
I have a recurring vision of Brownsville, Texas, my home town.
I don't know when I saw it. Possibly I saw it many times. It's a simple picture, in the poorer part of town. A simple lot in the town, with a humble unpainted residence on it. Lots of greenery, trees, bushes, grasses. Yellow sunshine, lots of yellow morning sunshine, and overhead a huge sky of perfect cerulean blue with white cumulus clouds. But the focus is on that spot on the ground, that little house, those plants, that greenery, that yellow sunshine.
The sunshine was truly yellow in those days, there in Brownsville, Texas, in the morning. The first thing that struck me upon waking up in Berkeley, California, was that the colors of California were very different. There is a lot of orange, and the shadows are blue and purple. The shadows of Texas--well I don't know what color they were then. The color of welcome shade. True yellow would have true violet as its shade but it seemed to me to tend to brown.
I don't know how or where that vision was fixed upon my brain, that particular moment in time and space lodged in my consciousness. But it's just there, ready to pop up out of its own volition once in a while, when I think of "home." How pretty and how nice.
There are other visions, like down around the area back of the Missouri Pacific station near the river and back of the El Jardin Hotel at night. It's dark (there were not as many electric lights in those days) and it is a little misty, and there is a mystery there that I have envisioned a thousand times as it came to me. That's beautiful too, if a little scary. I probably saw that sight out of the window of a car as I was riding around after sunset, propelled by my unthinking parents into a vision I'd not forget. I wonder why I kept these things, or why I was given them in the first place. Haunting scenes that are just there within me, that come back to visit me now and then. Does everybody have them? I think they must. YAZZYBEL
Good morning.
Yes, Gentle Readers, that was me yesterday, in my clothes of many colors and patterns. You can't see the shoes but I assure you they were as described. I didn't hear any complaints.
And there below is the hero of the driver's license struggles, looking chipper. He looks good enough to have gone to Early Church with me, but of course he would not go. He rushed right up to get his picture taken when I got home, though.
Well, c'est la vie.
And that's the way it is, this morning of Monday, April 2, 2012. YAZZYBEL
I know I said I wouldn't do it this year, but--it is April Fool's after all. So, Happy Birthday, Frank Parker--guess it's your 83rd. Wonder how I knew that? So, April Fool's,--and forgive me.
Yesterday I talked on the phone with Gwen L. there in Denver, CO, also a long ago Brownsville-ite whom I hadn't spoken with in ages. We had a wonderful laughing chat of remembrance. One of the best things about being old is that your friends are in the same boat and you find that you STILL have a lot in common, just like the olden days.
This morning going to church I decided to emulate the fashion magazines and see how many different patterns I could put together successfully. I wore tan pants, brown tee, desert-sunset horizonally striped vest, Ralph Lauren plaid blazer of dark olive, dark blue, and wine, and to top it all off a silk scarf with black and white leopardish design and those gold medallions etc. that were fashionable not so very long ago. Piled it on together. Think I 'll take a photo to see how it all came out. Oh , and on my dainty feet were gray socks and Mexican looking sandals like huaraches of the lowest order.
Today is Palm Sunday and church was different but the same as always, just like always. We all had a piece of palm leaf to hold up at the appropriate moment. Thank goodness I was aware enough to leave mine at the door when I left rather than bring it home and see it wither away for fear of throwing out. They supposedly collect these leaves and burn them for next years Ash Wednesday ashes, so perhaps I'll see my leaf again. Transformed.
On the way home I bought a raisin pinwheel doughnut from Sunny Doughnuts, the best doughnut shop around. And I stopped at the Goodwill to look for the random VHS tape, getting harder and harder to find. There at the Goodwill were racks and racks of new clothes. NEW clothes, I tell you--from Coldwater Creek, Chicos, and upscale dept. stores..I got a suit and a dress and nobody will know. Since nobody reads my blog.:( except for a faithful few whom I appreciate for sharing my life.) YAZZYBEL
Good morning! For once, it is early in the morning and I am ready for breakfast. But Theo is not up, so am writing a bit.
Yesterday we spent the morning at Sharp Hospital ER in Chula Vista. We went there because, as I was preparing breakfast, Theo came in and gloomily announced, " I just took 24 units of R."
He takes two forms of Novalin, N and R. N is the long-acting, taken to carry him over a number of hours as his pancreas fails to do its job to handle the blood sugars. He's supposed to take 24 units of that in the morning.
Instead, he took 24 units of R, the quick-acting one which goes to work instantly with a pow. He was supposed to take five. That's a lot of R. So I immediately gave him some granola bars, and he took glucose pills of which he had only two. We called the Kaiser nurse who after much questioning asked for me and said, "He isn't making any sense," and recommended that we go to the ER.
The Kaiser ER is about 20 miles from here over freeways congested by early morning traffic, so we opted to go to a local hospital, and chose Sharp, as we've tried Scripps before on a similar venture and got bawled out...Sharp was very welcoming. They have a beautiful hospital here. My two younger grandchildren were born there so the hospital is about sixteen years old, as Isabel was born there when it was about new.
The people were really nice. And in the lobby they had one of those huge ice-water and lemon-slice configurations which I thought very thoughtful and generous of them. In all we stayed about four hours, while Theo was put on a line and they observed him to see that he was going to be OK.
As we left, I remarked to Theodore that old age used to be marked by inactivity and repose (supposedly) instead of the frenetic activity we now undergo when a crisis arises. Old photos show folks on long porches in their rockin' chairs. They sat in those chairs for as long as they could, then they fell out and went down for the count. I don't say that we don't have it better today. People can go on for years and years, with periodic rushings to hospitals or calling the first responders.
I think it's strange, though, that though they can prolong life (they being the doctors and health care providers) , they cannot do the basics of making it easier like having a simpler care system for the elderly. People who call in daily to help people not take 24 units of R when they should be taking N; people who come and help out when what's needed is just some stronger muscle power; a hospital system that can be closer to hand if we do have to dash out in a car (I told Theo that if he keeps this up we should move to Santee where the Kaiser ER is).
I am a poor caregiver in that I get impatient and resentful. I've felt that I have done my share--and yet, no one ever determines their share because our share is appointed by God. I guess. And I get hacked when the doctor or nurse turns to me and says,"This is going to be up to you." Yesterday the doctor asked, "Have you thought about what to do to keep this from happening again?" I said, "Yes, we have already discussed it. I will keep the R in the kitchen where I am usually preparing the meal as he's supposed to be giving himself the shot. He will come and take it there in front of me."
But those of you who know me know how irksome I find that role. God give me the grace to be more gracious in it. YAZZYBEL
Yes! The Universe has suddenly spoken with a loud affirmative. Theodore Neff has PASSED his driver's license tests, both parts, written and actual, with flying colors.
I knew he would ace the written, now that his brain is cleared of excess water to a large extent. The driving test itself was more of a problem. No wife can say with impunity that she knows that hubby aged seventy seven will pass that test. But he had room for twenty errors, and he only made ten. That's monumental! HOORAY.
But is he happy? Packing his bags for a nice long trip? No, he has looked for and found something else to be gloomy about. The big winds of the weekend blew down a portion of our back fence and we are exposed to the neighbors' vagaries, and they to ours. Dang. There goes a lot more money to the fencers. And the kitchen has yet to see one destroyers' hammer or cheerful make-readier even, for that matter. Grrr. But I will not be gloomy. There's lots of joy here in Mudville; Mighty Casey came through, and I say, HOORAY> YAZZYBEL
Good mid-day!
The above title an essay in itself and should be spread over three days' writing. But I shall try to cram it all into one brief and well-trimmed posting.
First, Cherry Bread. Yum, yum. Since we are still operating in a severely curtailed and hardly operative kitchen, I decided to buy a box of bread mix and make some Cherry Bread. How easy it is, with a nice box of mix by Krusteaz. I bought the Country White flavor, but now think I might have done better with the Hawaiian, which is sweet. But it's also yellow and I like the idea of white bread with red cherries. I had a package of dried cherries which had already long stood opened, and I just mixed up the bread, the yeast, and the water in a mixing bowl as directed on the package. Then I stirred in a lot of cherries as tons fell unexpectly from the package.
Choosing the "artisan" method, I didn't even have to knead the bread...just let it rise, punched down, put it onto a baking sheet, let rise again, and baked it at an unknown temperature (same old oven) for an indeterminate amount of time. I let it bake until it was brown and crisp. It came out delicious, though nothing as fabulous as it wd've if I'd used FF's wonderful hot roll dough. It had a soda bread quality to it though it was a yeast bread. Like a huge oval biscuit. It sliced well and made wonderful oven toast. I speak as though it were in the past, but there's still plenty left after yesterday's snack and this morning's toast.
Now, Miss Read. Miss Read is an English authoress of whom I don't know enough, except that she wrote many many books about a little village named Thrush Green. I have not read many of these books, but I can see that they have a value as consoling books of old age. Open one and you're transported to a very pleasant place presided over by a good Omnipotent Deity (Miss Read), full of very human people with all their failure and fallibilities--and their goodness.
The one I'm reading is called, "Affairs at Thrush Green," and unless one looked closely it might not be distinguished in any striking way from its mates. I also have, "The School at Thrush Green," and it is about two spinsters who keep the school there. The same characters people all the books, with new folk added from book to book to keep up the spice. The writing is not folksy--I would not like that. It is plain. Plain English. With a guiding Brain behind it all. Very satisfactory.
There's one section where two good ladies are lamenting their new cookbooks. The decimal system has come to Britain, and they are furious not to have the new recipes using their familiar kitchen measures--"good Christian pints!" They refuse to change their ways and plan to hang onto their old cookbooks. I'm with them; I like my pounds and ounces and am perfectly satisfied with them, even though kilos and such have been part of our lives since infancy thanks to Mexico.
Now time for the reprieve. Taterton has come up to the reckoning: his driver's license is at stake. His doctor is anxious for him not to drive...but he sent us in the wrong direction for the cause of T's forgetfulness. It was not really the neurologist we needed; it was the young cardiologist who pointed out that not taking his Lasix, old racehorse that he is, was what fogged Theo's brain with water...now that we are on the Lasix on a more fastidious basis, Theo's brain is doing well. He only missed two on the written test; now he has to do the driver's test which may well bring us down at last. We shall see. YAZZYBEL
