Full cycle

The last supper at the family homestead

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A year ago yesterday we gathered for the last semi-full family dinner at my parents' house of 60 years before moving my father to his assisted living place on the 18th. Our last supper was not elegant — pizza and wine, but it was all we could muster as we gathered up my father's belongings. We all knew the change would be momentous, the end of an era, but being good stoic New Englanders, we did not really go into all that.

A year later, my father has survived the full cycle, seen the seasons and how they affect the pond outside his window, a pond that is most likely a blur. A year ago, he would ambulate, dress himself and move with relative ease. A year later, he is a prisoner in his body that is becoming increasingly rigid. He can no longer walk or dress or bathe himself — that all went within two months of his moving to his place — and he can barely feed himself. His mind, however, is as sharp as ever.

My mother is a helium balloon, rising higher and higher above the earth as her mind decreases. That is a whole other reflection.

And the house, the house. I still grieve it. The table, chairs, sideboard, a pair of candlesticks, and painting all now live with me. I don't have the wonderful black and white floor, which my mother loved because it reminded her of the 16th-century Flemish paintings. I am sure that that floor no longer exists any more than the kitchen and bathrooms we left behind. The house remains in my memory, where it is safest. One can never, ever go back.

And in that year, too, my father's cat, Pico, has come to live with me. He has settled in and my father misses him terribly.

As I have said often to others, I do not claim exceptionality in all this. Most adult children go through this same process. That said, I still feel it.

Poor neglected blog

Time to say goodbye... goodbye to this stonewall my father made over many years, goodbye to the house where I grew up, the home my parents built in 1953, before my time.

My summer and fall have been spent moving my parents, and then cleaning out a house-load of sixty years for its sale. My siblings have also been a part of this endeavour. Compa has been absolutely stellar in her efforts to clear out the house.

Consequently, this poor old blog has suffered, missing out on photos of Mission Farm in the summer, of my veggie garden, of fall foliage, of the CATS — the clowder now includes Pico, my father's cat, and is minus dear, dear Sophia, who joined Agatha in the heavenly catnip patch... Sophia died 26 July. I haven't even had a chance to mourn her.

We baby boomers are all struggling with elder care and, in those cases where they have not down-sized, their stuff. From all accounts, their generation saved stuff. A lot of stuff. Enough stuff to be equipped for Armageddon. I have heard of one case where the adult son had filled 19 twenty-yard dumpsters and was still counting. In our case, we are only on the third dumpster.

I will walk out of my parents' house for the very last time ever this Tuesday. Part of my heart still thinks I am floating in some surrealistic sort of dream. However, the sight of certain pieces of furniture in the vicarage reminds me that, no, it is not a dream, it is very real and from Tuesday forward, a major chapter of my life ends. My parents are still alive, in different places, but the house that served as our focal point and gathering place shall cease to exist for my siblings, our spouses, families and me.

Goodbye beautiful stonewall. May the people who move in appreciate it as much as I have.

Photos from my hometown

Here are some photos from my hometown in Connecticut... that area got smacked by a nor'easter that took down a lot of trees.


The rectory to the local Episcopal church is right next to this library. Evidently the priest went upstairs to see a huge tree swaying right and left in the storm. It obviously did not fall on the rectory but in the front yard to the library.


Lots and lots of scenes like this around town.


Down by the beach. Some places ended up with six inches of sand in the road.


This is surprising to me — I didn't think there were star fish in the Long Island Sound but a whole bunch of them washed up on the beach. This girl was putting them back into the water.

My parents (in their 80s) have been without electricity since Saturday at 4.00. They are bundled up, cooking on sterno, worrying about the cat (is he warm enough?). Tonight they will go out for dinner regardless the state of electricity. (Rumour has it the power company is getting closer because they want to get the elementary school up the road open for tomorrow.)

This is peanuts in the scheme of things (except for the families of the six people who were killed by falling trees) but it shows the fragility of our environment, not to mention that the weather this winter has been totally nuts.

Sunday night feline frolics

OK, here is the weekly round up of our favourite felines in their action poses.


La Doyenne engages in her usual take over of nice places.


The gurlz took over the radiators in the living room, MABFP


And la Doyenne.


By evening she had managed to detach the little furry ball and now I have no clue where it has disappeared.


It's not that he wanted my potatoes (with their tumeric, cayenne pepper, French herbs and olive oil); it's that the toaster oven is warm!


He looks as though he is about to sneeze but he did not.


I found this Springbok jigsaw puzzle at the guest house and have borrowed it. I am pretty fussy about puzzles; Springbok (the vintage ones) are the best because the pieces all have irregular shapes. Most puzzle pieces are pretty boring: squares with 'innies' or 'outies' and no variation. I grew up doing 'zuls with another family — fiercely competitive (you get to look at the box top once and that is it) and having looked at the assortment of Springbok puzzles that came out in the 1960s and 1970s, we did a fair amount of them. So working on this puzzle has been relaxing and a bit of memory lane. But when I used to do them with my family and family friends, we did not have participation from cats.


Note how close everyone is. Rare thing.


Having all four in such close proximity is nothing short of a miracle.

The puzzle is now about half done — it is completely framed, the circular business is finished and now I am working on the middle part (it's of the universe). I have to finish it this week because we are having guests for lunch on Friday.

For Mac users (and maybe others)

From my father:

Always have Firefox active and one or more windows open.

After the cat vaults onto the keyboard and all the applications start shutting down, when it reaches Firefox, it asks if you want to save all the windows and tabs. Walk away. Later, come back and it will tell you that the Restart/Shut Down/Log Out/whatever has timed out. Reboot the other applications you want to work on.

In today's exercise, I discovered that way that Pico had tried to log me out.

The night before Thanksgiving

Turkey on the New Jersey Turnpike — Tammy the Turnpike Turkey, captured on the 19th after spending two months hanging around Exit 14B (by Newark Airport)

(There are lots of turkeys on the NJ Tpke as well as everywhere else.)

I am sooooo glad I am not in a car or airplane trying to get from here to there on this crazy night. For nine years I would slog my way up the NJ Tpke from Princeton to Connecticut to visit my parents. My first year I was stupid enough to leave during rush hour and paid dearly for it. Subsequent years I would go to the usual 5.30 evening Holy Eucharist with laying on of hands and anointing, have something to eat and hit the road about 8.30. I'd get to my parents' about the same time but with far less stress. (I did learn the hard way one Christmas Eve that the rest areas do close at night.)

Then there was the year (1988) that my parents and I flew to Denver for my niece's baptism/Thanksgiving. After that awful trip, my father vowed he would never ever again fly on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I agree.

I am always wistful on Thanksgiving — I miss my father's parents at whose house we always gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. I stumbled across a whole set of photographs I took of their house a couple of years before my grandmother (a widow by then) sold it. It's weird to see where the furniture, rugs and wall hangings ended up. So there's always that twinge that accompanies the day... I guess when there is a family tradition as strong as that one, it is hard ever to find a replacement. [Later I will scan a photo of the house.]

Friday cats

It has been a while since I have put up photos of the kittehs on a Friday night.


Yesterday was my father's 85th so Compa and I went down to the 'rents for dinner (and the night since it is about 230 miles one way).

Here is Mr Pico on his perch with the fall colours in the background.


How can you resist picking up such a handsome feller?


He likes to tunnel under his catnip pad.


Every trip down I get sent back up with stuff (much to Compa's distress). But I had seen this basket in the attic and knew it would be a perfect cat basket. I took the blanket/rug and put it in the basket and Young Guy discovered the basket first.


Not to be outdone, La Doyenne has discovered it, too. I'll go downstairs now and see who is in it.

Reflective tonight because when I got home there was a call to go do last rites for someone in the ICU. Since the person is on life support, the guardian will wait to make decisions in the morning. So rest, dear child of God.

Bernie Sander's town hall meeting

Given that his town hall meeting was at the Unitarian Universalist church right next door to my church, I figured I should show up [it's the only time our parking lot is stuffed, sad smile]. It's a pity it was there because the church only seats 200 and there had to have been about 500 people. So 300 poor souls ended up standing in the blazing sun while the rest of us sweltered in the stuffy but shady church.

Bernie started off by saying that many town hall meetings have been disrupted by loud protesters and that 'this is not the Vermont way.' For the most part, people kept things in check but, oh!, the anger that is out there is scary. Worse, the gullibility of people is depressing.

It didn't take too long for someone to make a veiled reference to 'death panels' and an hour later someone came out and spoke of 'euthanasia.' Bernie emphatically refuted that nonsense. There was one woman bordering on being out-of-control who brought up the 'socialist' bit as in, 'I don't want my country to become socialist.' And there were those who said they did not want a single payer system.

Bernie retorted: How many of you want to see Medicare go away? No one raised their hand. How many of you want Dr Dinosaur [Vermont-based program that guarantees medical coverage for children] stop? No one raised their hand. How many of you want the VA to go away? Only a few hands. Raising his voice: THOSE ARE SINGLE PAYER SYSTEMS!



I left after an hour and a quarter mostly because I couldn't countenance the anger in the room. It was disturbing. I had gotten the flavour of it. I was discouraged but not really surprised to see signs like: Barack Hussein Obama (that was the barely in control woman) and there were a bunch of people dressed up like colonialists à la Boston tea party (there's some organisation out there).

On the other hand, there were more supporters than not, though not in an overwhelming majority.

As I sat there, I thought back to General Convention... Since there were people outside, Bernie would take four pro and four con questions from inside, then go outside, do the same... sort of shuttle diplomacy. He also answered and commented on questions so I doubt more than 35 people actually got to speak.

There were cards for us to fill out so I did, reflecting on my $815 trip to the ER, how the woman who stitched me up didn't see that money and how for someone without insurance, that could put them over the edge.

Now to get ready for family visiting, the Feast of Saint Mary tonight, and tomorrow.

Quick catch-up

Too, too much going on to write much (it's too late first of all). So a bunch of photos and then I am off.


Yup. Another ding. This time, smushing my finger between the garage door handle and a sharp bolt on the lawnmower. As soon as it happened, I knew it was a trip to the ER (on Saturday night when I hadn't finished my sermon!!!), so I grabbed a book, my iPhone and didn't take off the iPod shuffle and headed off. Two and a half hours, one tetanus shot, three xrays, and six stitches later, I was released to the cool night.


SIL, BIL and our great nieces/God-daughters arrived Sunday night (of course — you always entertain just before leaving on a trip for 16 days). They don't live with cats so were fascinated by the four. Orange Guy watched them put every toy the cats own on the floor for sorting. Thank you, World's Best Cat Sitter!


So it was work during the day and entertaining at night. Tuesday/Wednesday we spent the night at the local camp ground. It POURED. Here is God-daughter younger playing in the mud.


For a short while we had a view. We also had the whole park to ourselves, it seemed. Too much mud and rain.


We got a fire going but as soon as we put the water on, the rain came down in torrents and put out the fire.


Fortunately, we had a lean-to where we had set up the big tent the day before. The adjacent lean-to, though reserved, was empty, so we set up the small tent where Compa and I stayed. So we all ate dinner under the lean-to and then retired to our respective tents under our respective lean-tos where we kept dry. What dismal weather.

That's life in a nutshell.

Off now to General Convention.

Fun association

Someone on my Facebook page referred to his being a Mac user as a Mac-aw. I like that reference simply because I like the birds.

A family with whom I stayed in El Salvador seven years ago has a scarlet macaw like this one; he made a lot of noise and also a bit of a mess in his large cage (he was outdoors and had a good-sized enclosure). I have three precious feathers of his; yellow, blue and red.

More important, my great-grandparents had a macaw named, Arthur. The bird would cry out for the dog, a German Shepherd, scolding it. The family would come home to find the dog cowering with this bird yelling at it. One (in)famous day, my great grandmother came home from errands to find the milkman trapped in the pantry (which led to the backdoor). Evidently when he knocked on the door, the bird called out, 'Come in!' So he did but when he went to leave, the dogs wouldn't let him leave. He had been stuck in the house for some time, worrying about his milk and all the rest perishing in his truck.

From one mac-aw to another.

Spring in the south

Here are some photos from my visit down to my parents' house in Connecticut.


I have always taken for granted that there is a brook that runs through the backyard. If my parents were trying to build their house now and not in 1953, they wouldn't be allowed to since it is in a flood plain. We know that well! The basement has flooded on a regular basis, aided by willow tree roots.


I am not sure if my father is still the number one hammer thrower or ten-pound weight thrower in the 80+ age-bracket in the US but he has been recently. On the far side of the brook he practices on a platform he made. It's a whole other world there.


Nearby, on the other side of an old New England stone wall, back from the days when the area was given over to onion fields, lies Pixel underneath a nice piece of slate. Her grave is the only one of the cats to have such a marking; only my father knows where the other cats' remains lie.


Closer to the house, underneath the apple tree that has been there for over 50 years, is a wonderful field of crocuses. Many have naturalised and many have been moved around by critters.


My mother has taken lots and lots of photos of Pixel over the years so she put out two she had submitted into a photography show. Pixel had treed a mouse (in the right photo) and my father saw her in action.

My father said he can go for about half an hour without thinking of her.

Sigh.

More Pixel Pix

My parents have put away all her toys, her dishes, washed all the towels on which she sat. I'll go down and do feline bereavement work early next week.


Christmas 2002


Looking inside at Pixel on her tower


Pixel snow ballet


Christmas 2002


Christmas 2002


Christmas 2003


April 2005


July 2007


July 2007


Christmas 2008

These are the photos already shrunk down. I have others. And my parents have hundreds.

Off to the 'rents

Off to the 'rental' unit... four hours down south.

As I pray for Mark's mother, Anne, who fell and broke her leg (at age 90) this past Saturday, I fret about mi madre, whose short term memory is getting more and more befuddled. I haven't seen my parents since September but the phone messages recently received say it all.

The photo is from May 2007, as she watched the Beloved Cat, Pixel, have her breakfast. Pixel is now 18.5 and mi madre 81 so they are sort of in the same age bracket.

Meanwhile, mi padre still holds the national hammer throw record for 80+....

As folks said in the comments at Mark's blog, this ageing process is tough.

Send 'em along in whatever form

Send along your prayers in whatever form however you do them for my mother who passed out yesterday and was diagnosed with shingles (ouch). I can't help but feel there is something systemic going on since she has had this infection in her leg since the fall, she has some funky skin problem around her mouth and now this.

I am not sure my father ever bargained for being the caregiver but that is the role he is now assuming.

The photo was taken this fall at our last meal together at the New England Culinary Institute's restaurant, Main Street Bar and Grill in Montpelier on the occasion of my mother's 81st.

Look at this!!!

Here is my 84 year-old father who voted for a non-Republican presidential candidate for the first time in his life.

Easter Tuesday

I took a day off and went over to Mad River Glen, thanks to a parishioner who gave me a VIP pass (i.e., free ski pass).


They've just finished rehauling the 1949 or whatever single chair from a smelly diesel engine to something far kinder to the environment. MRG also prides itself on not having snow making — while that drives away some folks, it saves a bundle in energy costs... and, yes, MRG is therefore less crowded.

I didn't take my camera, which I regret, because it was a 110-mile view day: I could make out Mount Washington and the Prezzies quite well. Camel's Hump was magnificent and while the mountain had undergone a severe coating of ice, the ice-encrusted trees looked gorgeous, like sparkling diamonds in the sunshine. This photo, taken on Easter, is snagged from the MRG website.

It being Easter Tuesday, a day when I usually am catatonic and tired, I took it easy. I couldn't have done more than I did — 10 runs and not all on the black trails, in fact most weren't though an advanced intermediate here is a black trail elsewhere — I haven't skied since last year and last Thursday I gave blood. That combination made for tired legs though they seemed to get stronger as the day went on. While I didn't do a lot of moguls, the few I did felt good.

Most of all, it was wonderful to be outside on a spring-like day (in the high 30s-low 40s) in the sun.

The roads are beginning to get interesting — the short-cut over to the Mad River valley is getting a little gooey.

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The whole point of the day was to 'get out in the world,' like other people, get out of the church and just go and do something. It also is a way of connecting with my family because my father taught us all how to ski. He won't ever go skiing again, something that makes me very sad, so I do it for him. As he emailed me today, ' It's been many a year.....'

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As a point of comparison, here's what I wrote about MRG last year.