Sisters

I have five sisters. They all live in Southern California and I live in upstate New York. Two of them were born, twins, after I had already left home and married. Our two oldest sons are older than my two baby sisters. Those boys love having aunts younger than they are.

I miss my sisters. For most of the happy events of their lives I was absent. I escaped a lot of the bad stuff, too, but all of it leaves me out of the conversation loop sometimes during our infrequent visits. I’m very glad I live in a time when communication is, or can be, instant. Those who deride Facebook have no idea what a boon it has been to someone like me who wouldn’t know half of what was going on in my family if I didn’t read it there.

A few years ago I wrote this poem and I feel this way about all of my sisters. As the years have passed we have grown closer – adulthood will do that. I have many common memories with my two oldest sisters, Shari and Wendy. They’ll understand this poem quite well. If you have sisters or someone who is very much like a sister, I hope this will touch your heart.  

For My Sister

Sister, you always took my side

even when I was probably wrong because

something binds us that goes beyond what

may or may not be the truth.

I’ve counted on your unqualified support

in so many areas of my life,

for so many years of my life.

I look at old pictures and smile then sadness takes over,

because we haven’t become everything we always

said we wanted to be and do. Yet here we are still,

giggling, sighing and raging over all the

troubles and triumphs of our lives.

What would I ever do without you?

Two of my sisters, Shari and Wendy, and one like a sister, Elizabeth, will be visiting us next week as will my brother, Tim, and one brother-in-law, Austin. They’re coming from California and Texas. So I’m taking a two week break from blogging. But I’ll be back mid-October to rally you on towards the holidays.

See you then!

Image: My two baby sisters, Stephanie and Pamela, and me during our sisters Southern vacation in 2011.

Adventures in Spider Land

Isn’t it amazing, amazing I tell you, how stealthy spiders are? And, gosh, the places they choose to live. For instance . . .

Yesterday was the day I decided to take down the sheers in the dining room for a wash. These are the lovely, on Sale at Penney’s, sheers I bought last year in anticipation of painting that room. That hasn’t happened yet but I put the sheers up anyway just to cheer myself. It’s been a while so down they came and I bundled them into my arms and even though they were slip-sliding away in every direction I eventually wrestled them all into the laundry room. Unbeknownst to me I had guests.

With water running into the machine, I added the detergent and began to load the first pair of sheers. As I reached down into the basket, which butts right up against the machine, I came up short. There on the white enamel surface, two inches from my nose, she sat. Or bounced. Danced maybe? Scared the poop right outta me. I popped up quicker than our grand dog when someone yells, “Squirrel!” with my hand over my heart. Where the devil had that come from???

Okay, this was no cute little, almost invisible, critter. Nope. Around here we call these Farm Spiders. About an inch long with soul piercing eyes and attitude. I’ll tell you right now, I don’t squish  the big ones. If I have my vacuum handy I often invite them to the party in my Sears 4 HP Arachnid 7, but yesterday I was without my handy spider sucker. Sooooo – I went for my spider rescue kit. Ha! Bet you didn’t know I had one of those, right? Okay, I made this thing myself. It’s a plastic cup and a recipe card I got from an author who sends recipes if you sign up for her newsletter. It’s made of nice stiff, glossy paper and this one was for crab dip, I think. Anyway, here’s what you do.

1.    Approach spider (I know)

2.    Slap the cup over spider (be quick here, spiders are amazing leapers)

3.    Slide card under cup

4.    Hang there for a second and calm yourself

5.    Lift cup, card and spider TOGETHER and carry outside

6.    Release spider onto the ground, not into the air as this can go horribly wrong with the spider perhaps wanting revenge and jumping onto your leg when you remove the card. Guess how I know that?

I followed this procedure precisely and all was well. Until I found the second one. On the kitchen screen. Probably the first one’s husband. Somewhat bigger and able to slip out of the sheers while I was dealing with his wife. I could almost hear him, “Don’t worry, Blanche, I’ll come for you!”  As he’s dodging my feet, looking for the tall grass. Coward. It was the cup for the mister, too. I imagine she's out there right now aiming one of her eight legs at him. "C'mere, Clive, I have something for you." 

Tune in around Christmas for more adventures in Spider Land. Can’t wait to dig into the plastic bins of ornaments. Perhaps Blanche and Clive's children have re-located there. Better have my Arachnid 7 handy.   

Photo: A spider on our garden post in the early fall of 2014. Go ahead and shiver! 

Of Homes and Houses

Last night hubby and I took a trip to Hudson. We needed some boring stuff at Lowe’s to fix the leaking bathroom pipes (don’t ask). I always enjoy trips at dusk and on the way home the sunset was beyond spectacular. It gave a peculiar light to all the homes we passed on the winding roads out of town.

There were three of them in a row. One lavender, one bright  yellow and one a kind of brownish pink. The lavender house was a little beat up, but I had to wonder at the color. Had the paint been on sale? Or maybe the owner had collaborated with the people on either side to make a colorful display for passersby. Impossible to know, but I’m going with the sale idea.

I didn’t have time to think more about it because soon after, on the opposite side of the road was the brown house. This one had obviously once been a church. You could tell by the windows, cathedral style. That and the double front door was a dead giveaway. Every time I go by I marvel at that window. Just inside the pane you can clearly see a tree. Bare branches, don’t know if it’s real or some gone horribly wrong craft attempt of the householder. But a tree. Really.

A little further on was an old grocery store. You know, the kind every small town used to have where the front door was practically on the sidewalk and the big glass window told you what was on sale that week? Plus they had the best cold cuts and potato salad around. The front is all boarded  up now. But in the brief moment we were in front of it I noticed something. Out of the side of the building stepped two women. They shut the door behind them and walked towards their car. I turned as we passed and saw a light beaming from an upstairs window. Wow, someone had turned the back of this old store into an apartment. How cool.

I’m fascinated by doorways. Last June I had to take a side street in Kinderhook to get around the square which had been roped off for the annual craft and food fair. As I rolled down the street the car in front of me stopped. I looked around as I pulled up behind her and on my left I saw it. A doorway tucked in and surrounded by well trimmed vines, all curled and dangling. The vegetation made a kind of tunnel and an adorable “Welcome” sign hung on an old post near the sidewalk. I had all I could do to keep from hopping out of the car to knock on that door. I imagined a gnome or a wise old owl living there.

We live in a very old house. Lots of them around here. I’m sure when people pass they wonder what it looks like inside. I do that all the time with other  people’s houses. It’s a natural curiosity thing, I guess. When we first bought our place I fell in love with the simple but elegant front hall staircase and the big dining room. And I thought we could whip it into shape in five years or so. Ha! Still working on it thirty five years later. But it’s all ours. It’s comfy and has sheltered us safely for all that time. A house that’s a home, ya know?

Image: Our domicile all decked out for fall. I'm painting the porch steps this afternoon. 

Kid's Stuff

Yesterday I had two young girls in my charge. One is ten, the other eleven. I was doing what I’ve done for years and years – trying to think of ways to entertain kids. I did it with my own and I’m doing it with my grand kids. I get paid to take care of one of these young ladies so I pay particular attention to the activities I chose. Her mom is an elementary school teacher and part time college professor. No pressure though, really.

In all my years of child care I’ve discovered an amazing thing. Kids will try anything that has even the faintest whiff of fun about it. They don’t care if it’s a game that’s been around since Noah – like kick the can or Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free or whatever we may find on the Internet – like bubble snakes or apple gack. It makes my hours with them so delightful.

The bubble snakes were found and created by our eighteen-year-old granddaughter, Elaina, who stayed with us for the month of July. She whipped up these wonders in jig time and  had her cousins squealing with delight and competing to make the longest snake. Guess who was there with the camera? See instructions below the photo if you want to try this.

Cut the end off a soda bottle, cover with a piece of old sock, dip in solution of dish soap and water. Blow. 

Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free is an old game none of us can remember how to play including Grandpa who is older than dirt. So, yesterday, I had the girls throwing a tennis ball over our low roof and calling out the words to warn the person on the other side that the ball was about to go into orbit. Then they asked . . .

“Why do we yell Ollie Ollie Oxen?”

I had a host of answers in my head like “It’s an ancient Carpathian good luck saying,” or “Cavemen used to yell it when they hurled stones at a really juicy looking mastodon.”  But instead I said, “I can’t remember, just throw the ball!”

We also do milk plates, whip up some colored foam and make funnel cakes. The cakes last about twenty minutes once they’re all sprinkled with powdered sugar or doused with cinnamon and sugar. So far we haven’t lost a single child to the vat of bubbling hot oil that’s required to make them. Might as well teach them when they’re young to be careful in the kitchen. Right?

I’ll see less of all of them now that school has started. I’m a little sad for me but very happy for them. I do have some pity for the poor teachers, though. I’ve set the bar pretty high and smothered it with cinnamon, sugar and love.

I’ll let you know what the kids report. Oh, and if you want to know how to make the foam, milk plates or funnel cakes, I can fill you in on those, too. 

Last evening I was at it again, taking an after supper walk. Hadn’t done it in a while – since early summer. But something pulled me outside and I just had to see how things were on Plum Tree, our back road.

The end of summer is like my bedroom dresser. Kind of dusty. And maybe like the leaves are ready, or almost ready, to change clothes. The lawns are weary of being cut and the squirrels dart about, looking up briefly when I pass, and then on with the business of putting by. It hardly seems possible but in a few quick months the wind she will blow and the clouds that once harbored rain will scatter snowflakes instead off raindrops.

A flight of swallows dips and dives above my head as I make my way around the first bend. Gosh, they’re pretty. A distinctive cut to their wings and swift as all get out.  What fun it would be to be up there with them instead of having these earthbound feet. But I leave them behind and forge on. One neighbor has covered his roof with solar panels. I wonder how that works and if we should give it a try. Might take something away from the 200 years of charm in our old place, though.

At the next bend I kick through the thick grass cuttings that were thrown onto the road by another neighbor's ride on mower. It will dry and blow away eventually, but I felt like a kid as the clippings flew from the toe of my sneakers. I couldn’t resist.

I wasn’t alone as I walked. Two people were behind me. A young runner with shorts and flying hair. She passed me twice and said a laughing “hi” each time. Yeah, I was going that slowly. My mind was doing just fine. It’s the joints that complain about being too old for this nonsense. I tell them to zip it.

The other girl had on a bright red shirt and held a device in her hand. I’ll bet she was Pokémon Go-ing it. Probably one had been spotted on my back and she’d soon close in for the kill. By the time I’d constructed the whole hunt, capture and victory chant scenario of her chase, however, she had dropped so far back I couldn’t see her. I walk on.

On the last stretch of road I veered off onto the grass twice. Once to snatch a bit of Queen Anne’s Lace to twirl in my fingers and once to check on the bittersweet bush. There was a lot of lace, but sadly, the bittersweet was nowhere in sight. I know it’s an invasive plant and the berries that burst bright red and orange after the first frost are deadly, butI still like it. Perhaps it had succumbed to the blight or something.

At last I turned back onto the county road, on the lookout for traffic and the odd stray deer. Lots of them everywhere this year. Summer’s on the wane and part of me is sad. But I cherish the final busy days of the season. I’m canning and, like the squirrels, putting the garden by for winter. The grandkids are excited for school to start and I wonder where the leaf rakes are. With these thoughts swirling, I reach home, collapse into my recliner and take off my shoes. It was a good walk.

It's Hot! Not For Long

On the hottest day of the year I usually find myself musing about the coldest day of the year. They tend to balance each other out and – yikes – from where I’m sitting right now it looks like we have a doozy of a winter coming. The ancient wisdom goes that way. Hot summer gets you a cold winter and vise versa. I dread both. The other two seasons can be delightful though, right? Here’s why I love them.

Fall – The garden is a weedy, rotten vegetable mess. But the freezer and pantry are full. Shiny jars of pasta sauce, jams, dilly beans, salsa and pickles sit smugly on the basement shelves. Warm stews, cozy throws and pumpkin lattes loom, begging us to hunker down and love life.

Spring – The snow and mud are giving way to little green pop-out-of -the ground things. Old Man Winter is gearing up for his last rodeo. Yay!

Fall – “Even the air is colored!” This expression of awe and delight was uttered by my sister-in-law when she and my brother visited from Texas last October. She’s right.

Spring – Earthy aromas waft up to me as I zip through the rain heading for my car to run errands. It’s enough to stop me in my tracks for a moment or two, inhaling deeply.

Fall – Kids are riding the big yellow bus again. Book bags and crayons. Homework and new sneakers. Pulls me right back into my own elementary school days of oh, so long ago. It makes me smile.

Spring – Hubby starts the garden seeds indoors. We’ll do kale again, but no broccoli raab. That experiment from last season failed. Blech. But by mid April there are little black pots of other good things all over the place, though, eager for their journey into the great outdoors.  

Fall – Please let us get through all the fun of this season before we have to think of Christmas. Okay? I want to glory in the fat pumpkins from the garden and crunch through autumn leaves and watch the kaleidoscope of color in the maple trees before I put the wreaths up. I don't think it's too much to ask. 

Spring – Baseball! Can’t wait ‘til we can get out there and cheer our grandson on. Sometimes we’ve had to huddle under quilts as we watch the boy pitch, but it’s worth it. Hot dogs, ice cream cones and strawberry picking on the horizon, too. What fun. 

Fall is coming. My favorite season until it fades into winter and brings the coldest night 'round for a visit and I begin to dream of spring. Then that’s my favorite.  Wish I could make up my mind.

How about you?

Image: “Sunflower Field” by panuruangjan      Free Digital Photos

We Have a Winner

Congratulations to our winner -  

Karrissa (Trowbridge)Howard of Houston, Texas!

Thank you, Sierra, for drawing her name. I'll be in touch with Karrissa and sending her prize on its way to Texas. 

And thank you to all who entered. Enjoy the rest of the summer while it lasts.