Latest News
5

Ski the Mississippi: Citius, Altius, Fortius!

~
Olympics.svg

Faster, Higher, Stronger

This weekend a band of merry members of Anchor Yankers from the Mississippi Alton Pool swapped their boats for ski equipment. We drove to Dubuque, Iowa, a vibrant community that boasts river boating, skiing, five car garage homes and the new distribution center for Bacon Bits and Spam (the Godonlyknowswhat food stuff invented during WWII). Saturday’s daytime temperatures hovered around 12º (-10ºF wind-chill). Thick snow obscured the river valley and cemented dripping noses with upper lips. Sunday’s mercury climbed to a balmy 21º with pristine skies and 4” of fresh powder. Humans aren’t meant to hibernate – we played games in the snow.

BonnevileSaltFlats

a) Summertime Bonnevile Salt Flats or b) Snow Field in Iowa?
Ans: b

IMGP2612

Big G does a Black Diamond run above the River Valley

Summer visitors from northern US states to Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats, west of Great Salt Lake often feel chilled rather than fried, as they should. Their brains are trained to recognize wide expanses of pure white terrain as snow and ice, not blistering desert sand that’s white as angel wings.

IMGP2611

Doesn’t get much faster or higher than here. Be strong and Ski!
Photo by JAL @ Sundown.

Our family’s first ski trip to Dubuque set off a similar disorientation. Our skiing experiences were in New England where skiers ride lifts up mountains in plain sight. George and I were confused to arrive at a farming region with rolling hills, no apparent snow and no elevations that could even mildly be described as ski territory. We were more befuddled when we arrived at Ski Sundown and looked down the river bluffs at the maze of well-groomed ski trails.

The Olympics’ motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) represents athletes’ aspirations to demonstrate personal bests – the ultimate upper limit of their speed, grace, and strength on ice and snow. This year Bode Miller earned the honor of being the oldest alpine skiing medalist in Olympic history.  He’s only 36 and is considered an elder athlete. Society is weird. It expects skiers to stay fit until age 70 so they can pay reduced Senior Ski Rates but entices 60+ year old people with Senior Reduced ticket prices to sit in movie theaters snacking on buttered popcorn.

DonGeoShar

Spider Men & Sharon Apres Ski @ Sundown. Thanks for organizing the annual trips for Don’s Gang, Sharon. Photo by JAL

This year George and I, Sharon and Don (Woelbling), elder but not yet senior clan members since the beginning reminisced about our decades of trips to Sundown. Faster, higher, and stronger effects of the sport include a blown knee (darn moguls), a broken nose (darn edge boundaries that separate the slopes from the wild), elegant style (we girls don’t wear darn hats because it musses our hair), updated and stylish ski gear (darn ski shops’ end of season sales), stolen skies (darn bar tender gave me a free beer and didn’t even offer to store my skies in the free, locked corral). We watched the third generation stretch their limits on the Bunny Slope. We spat out mouthfuls of snow while trying to keep pace with last year’s novices. We’ve celebrated kids’ graduations, weddings, and careers.

As life would have it, we’ve also mourned the loss of a spouse, two sons, and a granddaughter who had boated and skied the river.

1010966_10202792262743563_775942150_n

Advice to 3rd Gen: Don’t eat or make yellow snow!” Yes, those are Gina’s triplets and Zoe! Ski Wee Champs! Photo by Shana

The Winter Olympics gather athletes from around the world to take part in games where winning really matters. When my daughter at four years young first tried Ski Wee she melted down and didn’t want to go back for lessons the second day. Sharon took her aside, ever the schoolteacher, and firmly explained, “Here’s the deal -our families boat in the summer and ski in the winter. Unless you want to be home with a babysitter while we ski, you’d better get back into Ski Wee so you can always be with us.” Great advice. Families who have things to do outside and play with friends are truly blessed. They grow together faster, reach higher aspirations, and savor stronger bonds across generations. Our Dubuque ski trips aren’t about winning. The informal motto of the Olympics is, “The most important thing is not to win but to take part!” Skiing down river bluffs beats sitting home, eating spam on any winter weekend.

IMGP2608

Ski Sundown 2014
Photo by Carrie Smith

2

Just an Old Salt Doing Time

~
QuartermasterDickLibby

Quartermaster Dick Libby, USN, an Old Salt: “Twenty years in the Navy. “Never drunk on duty – never sober on liberty.” Portrait painted circa 1834 by Charles O. Cole. Image is in the Public Domain of USA

Midship2helm

Big G @ Helm of Ex Libris
Mississippi River, Alton Pool
Photo by JAL

Midship

Midship @ Narrow River – No Challenge?

Back in the grand age of fighting sail, an oldster was a midshipman who’d acquired at least four years of seniority. Most of the crew on 18th century sailing vessels went to sea as young boys so many midshipmen were generally obnoxious adolescent oldsters.

Seafaring career ladders divided the crew by skills. The waisters, sailors with dim wits and skimpy skills worked at or below sea level doing heavy hauling. Two in ten men earned the rating of Able or Ordinary seamen that qualified them to climb the mast and dance the rat lines. These “topmen” saw themselves as elite sailors because they worked above the officers and perceived waisters, odds and sods were beneath their esteem.

Regardless of where a man had done time aboard– sailors who survived a few tours of duty and had decent story telling skills were revered as Old Salts. Any man fortunate to celebrate 66 birthdays in good health should be thrilled, as my husband is today, to be called, Old Salt.

TAB_3_Special_Offers_Tees

Smells like love to Me.

 A research study on whether or not we pick our mates according to some magic formula of DNA involved college women sniffing men’s sweaty T-shirts. The study required the co-eds to sniff through two sets T-shirts and rate each  for its intensity, pleasantness, and sexiness. It was a study where guys majoring in science and geography felt comfortable wearing their cotton Ts for a couple of nights knowing a chick was giving it the sniff test later on in the lab. The women were pysch and bio majors. The results showed women prefer the Ts of  men with “dissimilar” DNA from their own – thus variety – viva la difference – rules the Hungryfor Mates Games.  Fuhgetabout birds of the nest flocking together. Women prefer men who are somewhat genetically rather than personality different from themselves. They can detect these DNA differences by scent. We hunt our baby makers by their genomes not their trust funds. It expands and strengthens our gene pool so Baby Einsteins and Walking Dead can flourish. George was a lifeguard when we met – and I confess – the scent of his T shirts were drove me wild. He smelled of sunshine, the sea, and Coppertone.

Years later, I learned that my mother in law had used only Tide detergent for – ever!  All of those years of thinking I’d fallen in love with the scent of a sailor when in real life I was seduced by Proctor & Gamble’s laundry perfume. Perhaps the T shirt study was on to something. George and I were different but powerfully attracted to each other – despite our parents’ cautions. When we met in the summer of ’69, I was a rambunctious art major favoring floppy hats and loose academic pursuits while he favored preppy clothes, criminology, and a serious grad school fellowship. I loved rock ‘n roll – he’d played bass in a youth symphony and the accordion for grins. He loved to relax on a beach while I yearned to be aboard a boat – preferably my own. There must’ve been magic woven into his 100% cotton Ts -we’ve spent 44 of his 66 years together on land, alongshore, and afloat.

George prefers to be a deck monkey and work the winches, take the helm, and weigh anchor. I don’t believe he’s a waister even though he does the heavy hauling – he’s not Ordinary either. Let’s say by virtue of his 66 candles today that he is definitely an Old Salt with a lot of sea miles in his wake and rich with stories to share. And, no matter what detergent we use – he smells better than any topman who hasn’t bathed since the ship left port. In fact – he smells terrific – and does the laundry – like an Able Seaman First Class.

IMG_4033

66 Candles w/Amberley & Nick, Houston, Feb. 2014
Photo by JAL

2

Inboards and Outboards

~

OB&HandicappedWho among us naps in a public rest room? Last week we joined friends to see make sure our sailboats were secure in their winter berths. The forecast was for the mercury to plummet 50 degrees with 50 mph gusts. There was a great deal of ice in the harbor but the bubbler had kept our hulls bobbing on open waters. It was the flowing of beverages through the tube that connects our nose and toes that motivated a visit to Palisades – the local pub that during floods is located in the Mississippi River (http://www.palisadesyachtclub.com).

Stag

Stag on Board

Palisades’ rest rooms are coded for boaters’ ease of comprehension – Outboards and Inboards. Apparently some guys need a visual cue to get them into the right room – so a stag head adorns the adjacent wall. It’s pretty common to give kitschy names to bathrooms located in nautical communities. The names Buoys and Gulls confuse landlubbers – but Out and In seem to trigger universal understanding of the appropriate venue for males and females to find public relief. The Aussie’s have their Dunny. Thomas Crapper gave Americans the Crapper. We have our Johns and TP, the Brits have their Jacks and bogroll.

Inboard

Comfort Station for the Gulls

Outboard

Sits one – stands a few good men

Palisades’ Inboard room sits two. While I didn’t venture into the Outboard – it had a distinct industrialized look from the open door. The Inboard is decorated and has a reading lamp to create a restful atmosphere.

The stark contrast between rooms reminds us that men and women are different. While the head is the center of attention in any public maritime bathroom – the brain of a man standing in the Outboard room is very different from the brains of women chatting away in the Inboard room.

Male brains are pretty much wired from front to back and concentrate more on one side of the brain than the other. Listening to the guys play back the same conversation week after week it’s probably the right side – the part of the brain that make sense of the big picture. Because the bulk of wiring in male brains isn’t linked to the center of language guys can sum up a three hour sporting event with just a few words. Some guys criticize men who talk a lot about their feelings and describe them as a clogged head –  full of it. Neural engineering is also responsible for the male phenomenon whereby what ever is seen goes from the eyes to the rear end of the brain that is close to the command center of instinctive bodily functions – like sex. When a man sees an attractive woman the brain automatically fires up the outboard.

Women’s brains are connected from side to side in a way that engages both hemispheres. The wiring scheme of human brains develops during the crazy teen years when guys sprout facial hair and a deep love for their outboards and women begin lunar cycles of cramping. The two sides of the female brain share neural pathways that connect what they see with how they feel. Neither side functions without the other being involved. The right hemisphere is connected with the left hemisphere that commands language. This is why it’s so easy for women to share our thinking and ask for directions. Women’s brains work by keeping both sides in touch. This helps us understand why women often visit rest rooms in pairs and why guys fear their galls are in there comparing the size of their outboards.

LowerUnit

It’s not the size of the lower unit – it’s the spin of the prop.

1

Sailing a Jukung in a Bali Lagoon

~

15 seconds of Jeri and George’s 40th anniversary

2

Finestkind

~
IMG_1403

Jeri’s Sunfish, Solstice
Mike’s Unskinable Boat Afloat
Narrow River, RI

New England fishermen are as effusive with conversation as Putin is with accolades for Ellen hosting the Oscars. The watermen have a word for things that are good and wonderful – “finest kind.”  I fished around for some of the finestkind things learned from simply messing with boats.

IMGP1204

Sailboats in Bali made to make you Eat, Pray and Love
Photo by JAL

#1.  Water always wins. It doesn’t matter whether your vessel is a little plastic toy floating in the bathtub or the Titanic – water can sink it in a jiffy. The sea can mount a hostile takeover with a single wave that sweeps everything below without a trace.

IMGP1735

Fair warning worth heeding. La Jolla
Photo by JAL

Water is sneakier than the brightest of rats. It has the patience of Job to stow away in the lowest, dankest point of the boat until it is joined by billions tiny moist molecules whose sheer volume outweighs the boat and takes her down. Wakes, waves, splashes, rain, snow, ice all leave welcoming instructions for the next form of H2O to come aboard.  The majority (57% – 70% – depending on how many tequila shots you downed last night or the number of hours recently spent skiing sand dunes in Dubai) of the human body is composed of water – but it’s not enough to trump the power of a body of water, whether it’s a puddle, pond, or ocean.

IMGP1737

Baby Maggie on Board, ETA 36 hrs. w/Grandma
La Jolla, CA, 2012

Babies are nearly three fourths water which in fact makes them – as far as hydropower rules – even stronger than adults. Everyone of us was gifted a finestkind moment of triumph over liquids when we broke our mom’s water and were born wet into the world. That is why deer, the climate, and fish on the Georges Bank fear mankind – as a species – we’ve got a lot of water power to flaunt and minimal impulse control.

IMGP1205

When the tide goes out the Bali lagoon is bone dry out to the horizon.
Photo by JAL

#2.  Beauty is a beastly thing to maintain. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a 12’ plastic kayak or a 34’ fiberglass sailboat, taking care of her means providing protection from the sun (much like slathering sunscreen so you’re not bothered by paparazzi mistaking you for Dame Maggie Smith on holiday by the sea), keeping her hull, topsides and cockpit clean and buff (think a mani & pedi in Brazil), and her working parts functional (throw in a full body massage – plus tip). The finestkind moment of spring commissioning is when a skipper finishes fixing, scrubbing, and polishing only to gaze at the boat, grin, gasp and fall in love for another season.

#3. Trust thy boat as thyself. Wise sailors learn to appreciate the rule of water and the physics that separate floating from sinking. If you’re going to own a boat, no matter how many safety rules you follow, you’re gonna make mistakes. Survival also depends on a metaphysical sense of trust between you and the vessel.  Respecting water doesn’t mean being terrified all of the time. Safety rules. You’ve got to know what you can (make a call on the Ship to Shore radio, reef the sails) and can’t (navigate in fog, sleep with rain streaming through the overhead hatch) do – and when the can’ts threaten the safety of the souls aboard – what to do next. If you are comfortable alone with your boat there’s a fair chance you’re also comfortable in your own skin. The finestkind of trust between people and boats floats comfy on competence and confidence – both are born of experience and mature into wisdom.

The finestkind sense of being boaters is buoyed by memories of past days afloat that warm our souls during these frosty months when water play is simply a soggy dream.

IMG_1327

Artwork by Elle, Age 2 @
Camp Mimi, Riva Ave

3

Greetings from the Entropics, Southeast of Disorder

~
IMG_3115

Got lobstahs? @ $3.99 per lb. we gotta lotta!

IMGP2289

Before the fall there’s June Bloom.
Middlebridge, RI

Last August our Middlebridge friends bid us farewell with a lobster feast. It was a balmy August evening and we savored each other’s company late into the night. One of our friends sighed, ‘It’s amazing Labor Day is just three weeks away. Every year we think summer will last – but every Labor Day Mother Nature flips her thermostat to cold – the temperatures plummet over night and the weather turns nasty. Then everyone waves good by and we all hibernate until Memorial Day. This place turns into a ghost town – everything looks dead.”

I’ve been hibernating all year. It’s more than just being a passive New England Patriots fan – I’ve been holed up like Sri Lankan sloth bear. I can’t blame the Polar Vortex or recent snowstorm – I’ve got a closet full of winter jackets so there’s no reason not to get out. I’m not suffering from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) – in fact I’m quite cheery, content, and comfortable. I simply have no motivation or energy to venture beyond my snug little nest.

IMG_3874

The flow of entropy – the Ex Libris is going nowhere fast.

I’m stuck in an entropic free fall. My energy vaporized right after the winter solstice when winter took the season by force.

Nature is enforcing the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. To hip Newtonians, this means people who live in the colder climate zones of the northern hemisphere are quite literally, chilled out. The reason for this, physics wise, is it’s impossible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Nobody feels like working once they finally take time to chillax. Blame Mother Nature – she threw the sun in the pen with very limited time to shine in the yard. Or ask a physician and she’ll confirm that during winter a lot of people complain that they don’t feel so hot.

It’s a new year only because some old pope came up with a calendar that says so. It is foolish to decide on the first calendar day of the year to put your life in order by proclaiming New Year Resolution when most living things outside are abiding by the 2nd Law. They’ve already progressed from order to the state southeast of disorder. And that’s why setting resolutions this time of year is futile. Even the sun can’t shine for even half of the 24 hours of any given day from now until we drink green beer to celebrate an Irish saint who rid the emerald isles of snakes. Right now in the comfy confines of your winter burrow life is about as chaotic as it is going to be – and it’s not so bad is it?

Unknown

Clean Up! Clean Up! Every Brain Cleans Up!

It’s silly to think your brain can take command of your behavior and meet the challenges of resolutions that sounded good after the last champagne toast of last year. After a certain age people get excited during the season of longest nights because they can go to bed early rather than get out and about. Winter brains are in janitor mode. Brains use these long nights of deep sleeps to do some much needed house keeping. During winter naps your brain has plenty of time to do a thorough glial wash (scrubs out neural waste formally known as brain junk). While you’re sleeping the brain sucks energy from your body to rev up its neural circuits needed to clean out lots of things you really don’t need to think about and certainly can live without remembering. Nocturnal brain washing is essential for clear thinking after the morning wake up call.

During a natural period of disorder when brains are busy vacuuming and dusting it makes absolutely no sense to make unrealistic pledges to bring fresh order into your lives. We don’t have the vigor to go from chilled to warmed up with the notion of change. Accept that the bulk of your energy has been routed to the brain’s clean up detail. Use what little energy you’ve got to go with the flow. Accept that we’re all milling about in the Entropics – an imaginary island chain where we can wiggle our toes in the water and all of our energy disperses with the receding surf. Here’s where what goes around, comes around. Diddle about on the beach long enough and the sun will concentrate its energy in your toe and you’ll feel the heat and high tail it for the sunscreen. For now, abide by the 2nd Law – conserve your energy because ice cubes melt in a warm room whether or not you get involved.

IMGP0654

Winter’s sun casts long shadows to honor shortened days. IRB, FL
Photo by JAL

9

Sails and Sheets

~

IMG_3867The bard, Buffet lamented to Mother Ocean that the men who rode her switched from sails to steam. He was a pirate who arrived too late and pissed his fortune away. Today’s forecast is for bone cracking subzero temps and buckets of snow. Aside from heeding a friend’s warning of a French Toast Alert (plunder the grocery stores stocks of milk, eggs, bread and toilet paper), it’s imperative that we get a bubbler under Ex Libris’ hull before the ice damages her hull and Boat US cancels my policy for not keeping our winter berth ship shape.

IMG_3868

Like the finest silk. Thin enough to examine under a microscope.

It’s a new year and if we’re lucky, things are going to change and old habits will catch a second wind. There are a couple of changes that, personally, I find perplexing. TP is #4 on the French Toast alert.  We dealt with an unexpected change when our California crew arrived for the holidays. When Barrett visits he has the habit of sending ahead an air humidifier and a load of disposable diapers. The new quirk is that he also provisioned the upstairs bath. Not a 12 pack of Charmin. He gifted us with thousands of sheets of 100% Tree Free, Septic Safe, Single Ply Bath Tissue made from Sugarcane Husk & Bamboo. The wrapper testifies, “We believe in living well and making positive choices.”

Nick says that he butts heads with Amberley when grocery shopping because as she promised at age 13, when she grew up she would never buy generic store brands – it’s only top shelf for her. Being a CPA and proficient with counting beans, Nick protests that much of the stuff on the shelves is the same except for more expensive branding. Yet he yields on one non-negotiable point taught by his father in law – “Never choose to buy cheap toilet paper.” Barrett lives the mantra with his choice of Bath Tissue – his choice of brands is not about the room or the paper – it’s the wellbeing gained from a clean swipe and a good choice. Still, I question his choice, bamboo husks? Does he know the going rate for feeding pandas at the Washington Zoo? I do. It costs around $500,000 a year to keep two pandas healthy and content on a bamboo and Purina Panda Food diet. Our son’s Tissue must be the Johnny Walker Blue of commodes.

Dealing with bamboo and pandas is a delicate process. The lovely panda Yan Yan on loan from China to the Berlin Zoo had a hardy appetite for bamboo but died tragically. The autopsy revealed she died of constipation that triggered a heart attack. It’s a tough tush life.

IMG_2797

Chillaxin above the Bubbler

A couple of swipes of the flimsy 100% pure bamboo treeless Tissue will help you empathize with the tragic demise of Yan Yan. It’s hard to switch from trees to grass unless you’re in Colorado this week. I’m going back to Mr. Peeble’s Charmin and will save the rest of the sugarcane and bamboo for our boat. The bamboo seems to disintegrate on contact with liquids and solids so there will be little risk of a plugged head on Ex Libris – unless we arrive too late and the pipes freeze because we don’t get the bubbler installed before the big chill.

The greatest irony is, the Tissue was made in China. It’s your choice, trees and paper or bamboo and starving pandas.

IMG_3870

2

Hail the Halcyon Days at Fiddler’s Green

~
Newport

Newport, RI

Many of us spend the last couple of days of the year preparing to welcome, or hail the New Year. We raise a glass to forthcoming Halcyon days, times of happiness and prosperity.

IMG_3138 (1)

GHL on a Hobie Adventure Island, Pettasquamscutt Lake, RI

Most of us harbor vivid imaginations, left overs from childhood when imagination and curiosity were the vital ingredients of happiness. Sailors of yore imagined a blissful land where there is perpetual mirth centered by a fiddle that never stops playing for sailors who never tire of dancing. This nautical nirvana known as Fiddler’s Green has as many longitude and latitude locations as there are dreaming sailors. Time spent in Fiddler’s Green are halcyon days, calm and ruffled times when thoughts about work are forgotten and ways to relax and play are remembered and practiced.

Fiddler's Green

Photo courtesy of Fiddler’s Green in Orlando

Few among us have ever been to sea long enough to yearn for a landfall that rivals paradise, yet most can imagine a Fiddler’s Green where dreams are possible, the music doesn’t stop and dancers never tire.

New Year’s Eve is a great time to envision places to visit, quests to test our mettle, and adventures to chart. These are waypoints on the upcoming voyage around the sun. Some waypoints will be simple ports of call to replenish our stock, fix what’s broken, and take refuge from storms. Others waypoints will fuel our desire for more time and resources to raise the sails, savor the sunshine, shoulder through waves, and soar with the winds.

SolanaBeach

Solana Beach, a true Fiddler’s Green

And so it is we leave 2013 astern. My wish is that we all may sail our imaginations to Fiddler’s Green. Hail the 2014 New Year!

5

Ten Signs You are a Kindred Spirit of Father Time this Christmas

~

images

This is the first time all of the Levesques, who number a crew of 12, will be under one roof for Christmas. George and I are both the oldest members of our respective families. Age has it’s graces and its vices. Here’s how you know that Santa’s been coming down your chimney since mid 20th century. Things change and stay the same, and we all adapt or just go nuts, no not nuts – the kids are allergic and you’ll spend Christmas Day alone while they are at the ER. You have a lot frequent sky miles under the sleigh when:

  1. The kids are coming from California on Christmas Eve. Your son is a physician who specializes in diseases of the gut. Your daughter in law is a physician who specializes in birthing babies. They have two little girls, ages four and one. To prepare for their visit you:
    1. Buy only organic food because they are from California and only eat brocolli, sprouted things, and organic food stuffs crafted from soy beans.
    2. Consider bottles of hand sanitizer as room accessories.
    3. Employ the cleaning ladies to work an extra shift to decontaminate all rooms from normal living flora and fauna.
    4. Vacuum the dog.
    5. Take a magic marker and write, Organic very boldly on everything in the pantry.
    6. Black out the Born on and Dead By dates on all items in the fridge with dates prior to the 2013 America’s Cup races.
    7. Hide all nut infused foods behind the organic things in the way back highest shelf of the pantry so you can swear solidarity to the grandkids’ peanut allergies and be assured your son in law who is severely allergic to legumes considers you his favorite in-laws and not potential killers.
  2. Clean all vents etc in their hypo allergic bedroom and leave a note that nobody has slept on those “new” pillows except them. That night you and your spouse had a tiff and you slept in there is frankly, none of their business.
  3. Your daughter and son in law are flying in on Christmas Day so you:
    1. Assure her you’ll just serve crackers and cheese Christmas Eve and save the shrimp, gifts, and good wine until they arrive.
    2. Marvel that her bedroom still is decorated with spring break photos from a decade ago and her wedding dress that barely fits in the little space you left it from your spring wardrobe in her “old” closet.
    3. Change the sheets because nobody’s slept there since the last time they visited. Then sit for ten minutes trying to figure out when that was and why the room still looks like it did when she left for college, not law school — college.
    4. Spend three hours running around St. Louis county picking up a “couple” of things she really wanted for Christmas (because you inadvertently, as she patiently reminded you, did not keep in mind as you shopped that she does not have children, your grandchildren and she is your only daughter and surely she should have a little something special because she is flying all the way home even if she doesn’t need two car seats for the kids at the airport).
  4. Your middle son, wife and two grand daughters live in town. So you spend the weekend babysitting and forgetting about the Do Lists. You make cookie dough and don’t bake it so the eldest doesn’t get jealous of the one year old who “helped”. Then you take it out of the fridge the next day and marvel that it was only 28 hours later, the directions said it would keep for 24 hours, and it’s as hard as a rock. So, you:
    1. Remember both your son and daughter are anal about clean refrigerators, so you take everything out, clean the shelves and organize it by genre – even the doors and put in fresh Baking Soda and circle the very fresh Born on Date in a red Sharpie so they know you are up to date.
    2. Call your best friends who make a gazillion dozen cookies and barter for a couple of dozen.
    3. Decide “less is more” as far as the tiny village ornaments that are usually displayed on tables because both one year old grand daughters are avid climbers and cheek pocket horders.
  5. You put the expensive scotch behind the stuff you got cheap in the Virgin Islands Duty Free shop.
  6. You get sort of weepy listening to Christmas carols and remember how your Mom and you sang out of tune to your favorites. You want to call her and sing again, but as she promised, there are no phones in heaven. Smile, sing with her memory and wipe your nose on the sleeve of the grungy Santa swinging on an anchor sweatshirt you wore to do errands for 7 hours, organize the pantry and decontaminate the fridge.
  7. You can’t remember the secret ingredient of your father’s popcorn balls. You sit a moment, visualize him in his robe, his eyes glistening as you opened your much dreamed of most wanted Christmas gift in the whole world. Your heart feels like bursting when the recipe comes clicking into focus and your grin smunches freckles on either side of your dimples.
  8. You count the wine, divide by 8 adults and realize there are enough grapes for all. The spirits are abundant enough to carry us through this holiest of nights.
  9. Hear your favorite carol on Pandora and whisper “Thank You” to God, your parents, grandparents. family, and friends for all the blessings that have afforded you a wonderful life. Then pour a toast from the good stuff, toast to the memories of those who are celebrating in heaven (including my Aunt Pat who arrived there just in time the other day for the highest holiday of the realm) and wish everyone reading your blog the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of new years.
  10. Thank the kids for wanting to come home for the holidays. It makes the year.
4

Tinnitus

~
IMG_2797

Sound of Deep Sleep

It’s not what you hear that matters, its how you listen. Some of us hear different drummers and step to a beat heard only in our own heads. Do you hear what I hear? For the past couple of weeks, when all is quiet, my ears resonate with a high-pitched whine. It’s not as loud or annoying as a backyard full of circadas or a bullfrog in heat. It gives me a chance to think of other sounds of the season; carols, snow, UPS trucks, firelogs, and Salvation Army bells. Jingles.

IMG_2793

Softly – Like Pachabel’s Canon

The winds have joined forces with the cold and hammer the sail halyards against the masts. It’s a hallow sound as the sails are stored in darkened basement closets to wait out winter. Chilly gusts chaffe the arthritic joints of trees that are not likely survive the season. We’ll warm our hands with mugs of hot chocolate, pull on thick socks, toss another log on the fire, and listen to the silence of winter nights. Pa rum pa pum pum.

Bass

Noteworthy

Every month has a particularly strong grip on at least one of the human senses. March smells like worms – it’s nature’s signal that the ground is warming. July tastes hot and sticky. October’s vivid foliage sears retinas. November envelops us in the warm touch of family and friends. December saturates our auditory senses with hustle, bustle, voices silenced long ago, whispering angel wings, and familiar carols. Ding, dong.

IMGP0923

Seasonal Sounds

I like the sound of the word /tin’ nuh tus/. I know it will quiet down as my sinuses heal so there’s no reason to alter my pace for the long run. My ears are tuned to catch the cacophony of kindergarteners belting out their first Christmas concert and the scrunch of lightly frosted snow beneath my boots. The older I am lucky enough to grow, the more I relish listening to nature and people. I think this is why the last month of the year holds such a lock on our ears. There is much to be heard and enjoy – if you just take the time to listen. Tidings of comfort and joy.

IMG_1428

The magic’s in the music, and
the music’s in you.