I did something last week that was so far outside my comfort zone that I could barely bring myself to unclench my hand to do it. All my life I've tried to avoid it. I had spent months looking at the elements, trying to figure another way out. It was something I had never done before in my whole life, no matter what the circumstances: I threw out those little pieces of soap that are left when you use the bar up till you can't hold onto the nub any more.
There were about five of them sitting around the soap caddy in the shower. They just stayed there, taunting me. In the past I have always been able to mush them onto the new bar of soap, or use them until I could barely see them and the last sliver the size of an almond slice fell down the drain. Something is different about the Dove soap these days. I don't know if it is harder, or shaped infinitesimally differently, or what, but try as I might, I couldn't get the old chunk to stay on the new one. Then the new one would get used up, the old piece was still in the dish and then there was a new new one and it would start again. Before you knew it, there was a whole litter of those little suckers and something had to be done.
It took me almost a month to get up the courage, although I had been toying with the idea for quite some time. And then....I just grabbed them and tossed them. It was very, very hard. I can't quit thinking about them.
"I've been rich and I've been poor and rich is better." Mae West said that first but I can relate. Not that I've really been either, but let's say that I've been richer than I am now, and poorer too. It doesn't matter how "rich" I was, I still could never give in to wasting something. You know those pump bottles of hand cream? When you can't get any more out you can take a kitchen knife, cut around the bottle about a third of the way up from the bottom and there is still an inch, maybe more, of good cream in there. Same thing with liquid dishwasher soap. Don't believe my kids if they tell you I take the toothpaste tube to the garage and run the car over it to get the last little bit from the tube, but I am a pretty strong squeezer!
Here's one I bet you didn't know. The straws from Quick Trip can be cut in half to a size to use for kids' cups (bring them home when they give them to you at Olive Garden or wherever) and they then fit in the dishwasher on the prongs of the top rack and you can just keep on re-using them. And, of course, I always take my cups back to QT for refills. (They go in the dishwasher too.) You save a dime on your next drink.
My mom used to go to the Goodwill that was on the street behind our high school while she waited for me to come out sometimes and I thought I would just DIE. "Don't tell anybody you're my mother!" Now some (most) of my favorite clothes are from Goodwill. I do draw the line at re-using aluminum foil or washing zip lock bags to re-use. My mom did that. Come to think of it, she cut up the plastic bags from the cleaners and used it instead of Saran wrap for wrapping leftovers. There are levels to which I won't stoop. But I do re-use stuff. What used to be pickle jars now hold home-made strawberry jam (Yes! I washed them.) and those plastic bags from Wal-Mart line my trash cans. There are Christmas gift bags here that have gone back and forth between Robyn and me that are older than the grandkids.
Okay, so I'm cheap. I admit it. But, guess what! If you live long enough things tend to come around. When I re-use stuff now it's called "Re-purposing." When I use real plates instead of disposable ones and cloth napkins instead of paper ones (no, paper towels are NOT napkins, that's just tacky) it is "Gracious Living". And not wasting gas by letting the car idle while I'm just sitting forever in the drive-through, or especially if I am already home and gathering up my stuff or talking on the phone is "Environmentally Friendly."
Now, if I could just think of a way to re-cycle some of this extra weight I'm carrying around...
P.S. Just so you know, I couldn't stand it. I dragged the soap pieces out of the trash, soaked them in a bowl of water until they were about the consistency of cookie dough, wrapped the dough around the new bar and now it is good and stuck and it's like the large bar instead of the medium. You suspected it all along, didn't you?
Monday, January 16, 2012
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
O Christmas Tree
I walked out to the parking lot at Wal-Mart yesterday through their Christmas tree lot. They had about nineteen trees, three of which were standing upright, and there was no pine smell! I went over to one of the trees wrapped up in netting and sniffed it and…nothing. I don’t know what was up with that. I’m sure they were real because there were needles on the ground but, nothing!
When you buy a “real” Christmas tree part of what you are buying is the smell. Our first Christmas tree cost the grand sum of seventy-nine cents and was about two feet tall. This was a good size for our student-housing apartment in college since it was the size of a bread box. And besides, we were going to be gone the whole Christmas break but we just couldn’t resist having a Christmas tree that first year we were married.
When you buy a “real” Christmas tree part of what you are buying is the smell. Our first Christmas tree cost the grand sum of seventy-nine cents and was about two feet tall. This was a good size for our student-housing apartment in college since it was the size of a bread box. And besides, we were going to be gone the whole Christmas break but we just couldn’t resist having a Christmas tree that first year we were married.
We bought two boxes of little ornaments that were, I think, thirty-nine cents a box and dumped my brush rollers out of the bucket I kept them in….(what, you don’t know what brush rollers are? Those instruments of torture like little porcupine logs women used to put in their hair at night and try to sleep with them sticking into their scalps so they would be beautiful in the morning but who could be beautiful with no sleep? Do I have to tell you everything??)…Anyway, we dumped the curlers out of the bucket, set the tree stem, I mean trunk, in it and filled it with rocks and it made a pretty good tree stand. We were college students. They innovate. The teeny ornaments, the last one of which is on our tree today, made it one of the most beautiful trees we have had over the years.
The next year when Dennis had graduated and we had real jobs we bought our first normal size Christmas tree and normal sized ornaments. Our angel looks like Carol Channing and is still on the kids’ tree. I made some lovely ornaments with little cork balls covered with sequins and beads threaded onto straight pins stuck into the cork. Very chic.
The next year when Dennis had graduated and we had real jobs we bought our first normal size Christmas tree and normal sized ornaments. Our angel looks like Carol Channing and is still on the kids’ tree. I made some lovely ornaments with little cork balls covered with sequins and beads threaded onto straight pins stuck into the cork. Very chic.
Tinsel back then was the aluminum kind that came in long strands and there were two schools of thought for applying it: laying it on strand by strand, the RIGHT way, which could take until Ground Hog's Day to finish the whole thing so usually the tree had tinsel about two-thirds of the way up. Or standing about three feet back from the tree and tossing it, which some people though was hilarious! When we discovered those fat trees that don’t have room between the branches and the kind of tinsel that was like a furry aluminum rope you wound around the tree instead of hanging the silver strands it was quite a relief, I’ll tell you.
Getting the tree home was another adventure unto itself. The year we had a tiny Fiat convertible we drove it home in freezing sleet with the top down and the tree sticking up from the back seat. Usually it was crammed into the trunk of the car, the trunk tied down with rope borrowed from the tree lot guy, and we tried not to hit too many bumps. And then we had to get it into the house...wait! You’re supposed to saw some of the trunk off so it can absorb water...back outside, then into the house again, backing through the door so the branches don't all splay out on the door frame. Figure out which is the “good” side that will be facing the living room, and fit it into the tree stand.
Getting the tree home was another adventure unto itself. The year we had a tiny Fiat convertible we drove it home in freezing sleet with the top down and the tree sticking up from the back seat. Usually it was crammed into the trunk of the car, the trunk tied down with rope borrowed from the tree lot guy, and we tried not to hit too many bumps. And then we had to get it into the house...wait! You’re supposed to saw some of the trunk off so it can absorb water...back outside, then into the house again, backing through the door so the branches don't all splay out on the door frame. Figure out which is the “good” side that will be facing the living room, and fit it into the tree stand.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Dennis and I never fight. We did fight a lot before we were married. I guess we got it out of our systems then. But since we were married, we don’t. I have heard many times that if you don’t fight you don’t have a good marriage but that’s just the way it is. We are never so adamant about something that it is worth hurting each others’ feelings and besides, when those guys who write the books about fighting have been married fifty years like we have and still want to be together, they can call me. Except---
One time a year, when we would try to get the Christmas tree straight in the stand, something just came over us. Dennis would be lying on the ground twisting those pins into the trunk that are supposed to keep the tree up, I would be holding the tree and he would say “Move it over.” I would move it over. “No, I said over!”
“I did move it over.”
“The other way! Not that much! Back the other way.”
“Do it yourself then.” But, of course it took two people. And it went on until the thing was as straight as it was going to get and we were exhausted and soon the tree was beautiful again, at least in our eyes, and the annual fight was forgotten.
A real tree will give you pine needles in the carpet till Easter no matter how carefully you choose at the tree lot. I’ll tell you why. Unless you go out and chop it down yourself it is likely that your “fresh” tree was cut down in August. Really, August! I’m not making this up. I used to work for a railroad and typed up bills of lading for the trains bringing in the trees and they started shipping them in August. So you have to keep it watered really well and check it each day in case the tree was really thirsty that day or the dog has found it a convenient water bowl.
It’s been a few years now that we have had an artificial tree. The cost of the real ones just went through the roof and this one has paid for itself by now and it is really very pretty and we don’t have to go out in the freezing cold wandering through tree lots looking for one we both think is perfect and there won’t be pine needles in the carpet after we take it out.
But I think I’m going to go find another lot when I go out today and walk through and sniff the trees. Surely there are some out there that still smell like Christmas.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Run For Your Life, The TV News Truck Is In The Neighborhood!
A frightening trend has been going on according to the Television News reports: Fat people have no heads. Have you noticed? Every time the news does a report on obesity, which is about 3.2 times a week, they take their cameras to the streets, pan the crowd, and lo, and behold! Not one fat person out there has a head. There are plenty of huge stomachs, the approximated size of Volkswagen Beatles, plenty of legs like tree trunks stomping along, and the occasional, perhaps female, derriere whose owner, if asked to "Move your rear" would have to make four trips. What has happened to these poor peoples' heads? And if they have no heads how is it they are able to eat enough to maintain that girth? And why do I identify so closely with these headless creatures? I have a head and the rest of their anatomies bear a sad resemblance to mine, so does that mean my head is endangered? I worry about these things!
Television is a medium all to itself. They are unusual creatures there. We once had a white cat with blue eyes and everyone who saw her asked if she was deaf. Apparently the gene that causes the combination of blue eyes/white fur also causes deafness most of the time. I tell you this because I think that there must be a "Journalism/Attractiveness" gene since there are obviously no talented journalists who are not reasonably attractive or they would be on the national news programs. Even when a correspondent is reporting from a war zone, wearing a helmet like a turtle's shell and wind whipping sand around his or her head, the hair, though flying, still looks soft and supple, and the make-up is in place.
And, curiously, television journalists never age. This would be a great gene to have. Yesterday I saw Barbara Walters interviewing the president of Syria on Good Morning America. Admittedly, she began her career when the standards for beauty were somewhat different than they are today, but, my gosh, the women is, I think, ninety-eight years old and she doesn't look a day over sixty. Or maybe fifty in my case since people were asking me how I liked being sixty just a few days after my fiftieth birthday. I may have the anti-journalism gene.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and television weather people, excuse me, meteorologists, are exempt from the need for the "Journalism/Attractiveness" gene to secure a job unless they are in the major markets. The network weather reporters must cross-train so they can sit in the anchor seat on holidays when the Talent want the day off and they must also look good announcing the floats coming down the street at the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year's Day or holding onto poles with the wind knocking them off their feet when standing outside during a hurricane instead of high-tailing it out of there like sane people. Willard Smith doesn't count. He is a throw-back to another age, since he is over one hundred years old, and must have sneaked in from a station in Lower Boise. Local meteorologists can, and do, look like real scientists, which they are. Their anchor desk partners, though, still adhere to the strict standards of beauty/reporting that the major networks do since they may, at any moment, be called up to The Bigs.
Another standard that television news people meet is that not one of them even approaches obesity even though the morning shows, at least have cooking segments with banquet tables laden with every food imaginable and they all gather round at the end of the show to taste oysters sautéed in champagne or some such by Emeril Lagasse at nine o'clock in the morning, for goodness sake! And not one of them has ever said "Yuck, how can you eat this??" but finds it fabulously delicious. It may be because they have no feet or legs. Perhaps they borrow them for the trip out onto Rockefeller Plaza for the food. Or maybe only morning anchors have to have legs. It is probably a temporary condition and they will shed them like tadpoles in reverse once they secure positions at the evening news anchor desks. You've never seen legs on any of those people, have you? I believe their bodies are intact only from the waist up.
Maybe there is radiation or something leaking from the television cameras. The anchors have been exposed to it for a long time, hence the elimination of their limbs. Fat people are only photographed from afar, so it is just their heads....for now. Forget all that scare stuff you hear about watching too much TV. It's being on TV that is dangerous. If I see a news truck in the neighborhood, I'm out of here!
Television is a medium all to itself. They are unusual creatures there. We once had a white cat with blue eyes and everyone who saw her asked if she was deaf. Apparently the gene that causes the combination of blue eyes/white fur also causes deafness most of the time. I tell you this because I think that there must be a "Journalism/Attractiveness" gene since there are obviously no talented journalists who are not reasonably attractive or they would be on the national news programs. Even when a correspondent is reporting from a war zone, wearing a helmet like a turtle's shell and wind whipping sand around his or her head, the hair, though flying, still looks soft and supple, and the make-up is in place.
And, curiously, television journalists never age. This would be a great gene to have. Yesterday I saw Barbara Walters interviewing the president of Syria on Good Morning America. Admittedly, she began her career when the standards for beauty were somewhat different than they are today, but, my gosh, the women is, I think, ninety-eight years old and she doesn't look a day over sixty. Or maybe fifty in my case since people were asking me how I liked being sixty just a few days after my fiftieth birthday. I may have the anti-journalism gene.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and television weather people, excuse me, meteorologists, are exempt from the need for the "Journalism/Attractiveness" gene to secure a job unless they are in the major markets. The network weather reporters must cross-train so they can sit in the anchor seat on holidays when the Talent want the day off and they must also look good announcing the floats coming down the street at the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year's Day or holding onto poles with the wind knocking them off their feet when standing outside during a hurricane instead of high-tailing it out of there like sane people. Willard Smith doesn't count. He is a throw-back to another age, since he is over one hundred years old, and must have sneaked in from a station in Lower Boise. Local meteorologists can, and do, look like real scientists, which they are. Their anchor desk partners, though, still adhere to the strict standards of beauty/reporting that the major networks do since they may, at any moment, be called up to The Bigs.
Another standard that television news people meet is that not one of them even approaches obesity even though the morning shows, at least have cooking segments with banquet tables laden with every food imaginable and they all gather round at the end of the show to taste oysters sautéed in champagne or some such by Emeril Lagasse at nine o'clock in the morning, for goodness sake! And not one of them has ever said "Yuck, how can you eat this??" but finds it fabulously delicious. It may be because they have no feet or legs. Perhaps they borrow them for the trip out onto Rockefeller Plaza for the food. Or maybe only morning anchors have to have legs. It is probably a temporary condition and they will shed them like tadpoles in reverse once they secure positions at the evening news anchor desks. You've never seen legs on any of those people, have you? I believe their bodies are intact only from the waist up.
Maybe there is radiation or something leaking from the television cameras. The anchors have been exposed to it for a long time, hence the elimination of their limbs. Fat people are only photographed from afar, so it is just their heads....for now. Forget all that scare stuff you hear about watching too much TV. It's being on TV that is dangerous. If I see a news truck in the neighborhood, I'm out of here!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Language Arts
I'm going to start taking my own reading material when I visit Josh (otherwise known as "my-son- the-doctor") and Jerilyn. They have a whole library of books but if you only have time to read a magazine it is true doctor's office style: The first one I picked up Thanksgiving week-end was from May of 2008. I think it was called POPULAR SURGERY or something like that. There was a fascinating essay on "Preventable Morbidity in Mature Trauma Centers". I just skimmed over it, of course. I think there was an article called "Fun with Enterocutaneous Fistulas" and possibly "Whipples Gone Wild, A Panorama of Pancreaticoduodenectomy," but I may have those titles mixed up.
The pictures were equally mesmerizing, but I won't go into details because some of you may be planning on eating dinner right after you read this. Suffice it to say they hit new heights in graphic portrayal. Fortunately the captions under the pictures were written in Medicaleze, a language I have yet to master, so I wasn't sure if I was looking at the inside of someone's stomach, a swollen spleen the size of an SUV or a tumor in the shape of South Dakota recently removed, yet lovingly preserved for posterity through the magic of photography.
Josh began learning this language in his pre-med classes even before he got to medical school and he loved to regale us with it. Show him a rash on your arm and he would nod sagely and say "It's probably raftdaftikitis, whobucktikitis, tillyumacknitis of the brain. Your little flee-aflipper is very, very bad and your ring-a-tinga-tinger has been sprained." Or something like that. And we bought it every time. Well, his dad and I did. Brothers are a little less easily impressed and it didn't take Jake long to wonder if he was being wolfed. "Don't ask him!" he would say no matter what the question. "We have to leave in an hour and a half and it will take more than that for him to explain it."
Fortunately, or maybe not, the further Josh progressed in his education the more taciturn he became and now it is not easy to get any information out of him at all. Surgeons are trained to take everything in stride and unless there is arterial bleeding or near lack of brain activity he says "It'll be fine." and won't tell us anything. I hear him dictating over the phone sometimes but that is a dialect of Medicaleze that they taught him in med school, called "Talking-Faster-Than-the-Speed-of-Sound" that only highly trained medical transcriptionists can understand.
What worries me is that this language thing may be hereditary. While we were visiting, David, his sixth-grade son, was copying letters from the Russian alphabet and trying to learn how to pronounce them. He had progressed to that after working on Greek last week and his mom said he asked about Latin today. Can Medicaleze be far behind?
I think it's because there are no good magazines to read at their house. What happened to the HI-LITES subscription David had?
The pictures were equally mesmerizing, but I won't go into details because some of you may be planning on eating dinner right after you read this. Suffice it to say they hit new heights in graphic portrayal. Fortunately the captions under the pictures were written in Medicaleze, a language I have yet to master, so I wasn't sure if I was looking at the inside of someone's stomach, a swollen spleen the size of an SUV or a tumor in the shape of South Dakota recently removed, yet lovingly preserved for posterity through the magic of photography.
Josh began learning this language in his pre-med classes even before he got to medical school and he loved to regale us with it. Show him a rash on your arm and he would nod sagely and say "It's probably raftdaftikitis, whobucktikitis, tillyumacknitis of the brain. Your little flee-aflipper is very, very bad and your ring-a-tinga-tinger has been sprained." Or something like that. And we bought it every time. Well, his dad and I did. Brothers are a little less easily impressed and it didn't take Jake long to wonder if he was being wolfed. "Don't ask him!" he would say no matter what the question. "We have to leave in an hour and a half and it will take more than that for him to explain it."
Fortunately, or maybe not, the further Josh progressed in his education the more taciturn he became and now it is not easy to get any information out of him at all. Surgeons are trained to take everything in stride and unless there is arterial bleeding or near lack of brain activity he says "It'll be fine." and won't tell us anything. I hear him dictating over the phone sometimes but that is a dialect of Medicaleze that they taught him in med school, called "Talking-Faster-Than-the-Speed-of-Sound" that only highly trained medical transcriptionists can understand.
What worries me is that this language thing may be hereditary. While we were visiting, David, his sixth-grade son, was copying letters from the Russian alphabet and trying to learn how to pronounce them. He had progressed to that after working on Greek last week and his mom said he asked about Latin today. Can Medicaleze be far behind?
I think it's because there are no good magazines to read at their house. What happened to the HI-LITES subscription David had?
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The Top Ten Things I Am Thankful For
10. THE CLEANERS: Where else could I get 5,322 wire coat hangers and have them twist together into a mass the size of an oil rig and cling to the rod in my closet?
9. SAM'S CLUB: Where else could I purchase a bag of shredded cheese of a quantity to feed the whole Occupy Wall Street group and have it take up one fourth of my refrigerator?
8. ATTORNEYS: Without attorneys, how would I know not to use my electric hair dryer in the bathtub or not to eat the tempting little packages of silicone that come in shipping boxes?
7. CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS FROM THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: They keep me humble remembering that they speak more English than I do Farsi and trying to devise new ways to communicate to them what I am asking that might be answered within the parameters of their written scripts.
6. THIS LOVELY NEW BLOG SERVER: When else would I have been able to recall a whole vocabulary that I thought I had erased from my mind after Junior High school?
5. E-MAIL: In what other medium would I be offered fantastic products that will enhance many amazing parts of my anatomy or learn about the dozens of, uh,...physically needy young men in my very own community who are anxious to meet little old ladies such as myself?
4. AUTOMATED RECORDED PHONE CALLS: They give me hope that I am not as stupid as they may think because not once have I stayed on the line and waited for someone to come on and pitch a product I don't need or solicit for a charity that is wasting it's money on administrative services like them.
3. TELEMARKETERS WHO CALL ME ON MY CELL PHONE: Because of them I have an automatic check to make sure my phone is working and ready to receive calls and give employment to those nice folks at A T &T who make up my bills.
2. MY MEMORY: I'm so glad to be able to think back to when I was a kid and the fun things we did and ....What was the question?
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON I AM THANKFUL THIS THANKSGIVING SEASON******
1. THIS BLOG: Because no matter how often I do something else that makes me look and/or feel like an idiot, at least I can say to myself "Well, it will give me something else to blog about."
Please enjoy this time to remember what you and I are really thankful for: Our Lord, our families, our free country and the privilege of communicating with friends like you.
9. SAM'S CLUB: Where else could I purchase a bag of shredded cheese of a quantity to feed the whole Occupy Wall Street group and have it take up one fourth of my refrigerator?
8. ATTORNEYS: Without attorneys, how would I know not to use my electric hair dryer in the bathtub or not to eat the tempting little packages of silicone that come in shipping boxes?
7. CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS FROM THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: They keep me humble remembering that they speak more English than I do Farsi and trying to devise new ways to communicate to them what I am asking that might be answered within the parameters of their written scripts.
6. THIS LOVELY NEW BLOG SERVER: When else would I have been able to recall a whole vocabulary that I thought I had erased from my mind after Junior High school?
5. E-MAIL: In what other medium would I be offered fantastic products that will enhance many amazing parts of my anatomy or learn about the dozens of, uh,...physically needy young men in my very own community who are anxious to meet little old ladies such as myself?
4. AUTOMATED RECORDED PHONE CALLS: They give me hope that I am not as stupid as they may think because not once have I stayed on the line and waited for someone to come on and pitch a product I don't need or solicit for a charity that is wasting it's money on administrative services like them.
3. TELEMARKETERS WHO CALL ME ON MY CELL PHONE: Because of them I have an automatic check to make sure my phone is working and ready to receive calls and give employment to those nice folks at A T &T who make up my bills.
2. MY MEMORY: I'm so glad to be able to think back to when I was a kid and the fun things we did and ....What was the question?
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON I AM THANKFUL THIS THANKSGIVING SEASON******
1. THIS BLOG: Because no matter how often I do something else that makes me look and/or feel like an idiot, at least I can say to myself "Well, it will give me something else to blog about."
Please enjoy this time to remember what you and I are really thankful for: Our Lord, our families, our free country and the privilege of communicating with friends like you.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Occasionally Friendly Skies
My sister flew in from St. Louis last week-end and I picked her up at the airport. She came because it was her birthday and Southwest had $39 flights! You just had to book them during a certain period of time, fly certain times, wear blue eye shadow when you flew and type with your left hand. Okay, not the eye shadow. But you get the picture. There are great fares out there but you have to be savvy and flexible. And she did miss the $39 window, but she was able to get a flight for $59.
Quite a contrast to last month when we were trying to figure out how we could all fly to New Hampshire to be there for our nephew's memorial service, but given the short lead time, $1600 to $2100 ticket prices for the two of us, and Dennis's physical limitations, it just couldn't seem to be done even though Dennis and Jake spent two whole days online and on the phone trying to make it work
Our son, Josh, was able to go from Oklahoma City, though, and he texted "If you are ever in the Detroit airport at breakfast time, don't eat the food." Yes, he had to get up at five in the morning to have a lay-over in Detroit to get to New England. After seven hours in planes and airports he did make it to Manchester. We flew to San Francisco for our twenty-fifth anniversary--no, it wasn't a bi-plane!!--and had to go from Oklahoma City east to St. Louis before we went west to California. No wonder they complain about the cost of fuel. They add it to the price of a ticket, of course.
Yeah, I know I say this all the time, but things sure have changed since the old days. And, no, we didn't fly with Orville and Wilbur! There was a time when Dennis flew every week. He got a certificate from United Airlines once because he had flown 100,000 miles in one year with them. He looked up his old frequent flyer record to see if the points would still apply for us to fly to Manchester but when he called they said 1984 was a little too far back for them to honor them.
When we lived in California I flew much more often too. There was a "Red-eye" flight between Los Angeles and St. Louis. You left around midnight, flew through the night and arrived the next morning. There was a reason they called it the Red-eye, of course. You just thought you were going to sleep the whole way there and arrive refreshed and ready to go.
It was always exciting arriving back at LAX hoping to see a celebrity or two. We saw Walter Matthau and his wife once. She wore white make-up so pale she kind of glowed, like the moon, and had at least forty-five pieces of luggage. They didn't fly in our part of the plane. And there was a lady on one of our flights who had a role on "Dallas" but I didn't know her name. She didn't seem to know mine either. Can you believe we saw Bob Hope once, talking on a pay phone calling for someone to come pick him up? I wanted to offer him a ride but Dennis didn't think it would be a good idea.
Naturally I always dressed up for flying back then and looked very sophisticated and important. I think people were looking at me wondering what TV show they had seen me on. I just smiled slightly in acknowledgement so they would realize I was flying coach with the "little people" because I was researching a role or something. Of course, that time I was five months pregnant and took my shoes off on the flight but my feet were too swollen to get them back on by the time we arrived and I had to walk through the Los Angeles airport barefoot, the sophistication level may have been a little low.
Children used to get to fly free up until they were two years old, and Josh was always excited to get to go when we flew. He would watch the plane come up to the window and jump up and down with excitement, but by the time we went down the concourse and got on he would say "Where's the plane? Where's the plane?". It doesn't look as big or even much like an airplane from the inside, more like a city bus that has been micro-sized but smells worse.
There were meals served on flights back in the old days. Real china plates and little Barbie-size silverware, People joked about the food being bad but at least they gave you something. Now you are lucky if you get half a can of Coke and a bag with 13 pretzels in it. What's up with that, anyway? You pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket and they can't give you the whole can? Please!
So now American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy reorganization. I think they should take a page from Southwest's book and offer some really good prices and get a lot of people flying. I would even wear blue eye shadow for a $39 ticket.
Quite a contrast to last month when we were trying to figure out how we could all fly to New Hampshire to be there for our nephew's memorial service, but given the short lead time, $1600 to $2100 ticket prices for the two of us, and Dennis's physical limitations, it just couldn't seem to be done even though Dennis and Jake spent two whole days online and on the phone trying to make it work
Our son, Josh, was able to go from Oklahoma City, though, and he texted "If you are ever in the Detroit airport at breakfast time, don't eat the food." Yes, he had to get up at five in the morning to have a lay-over in Detroit to get to New England. After seven hours in planes and airports he did make it to Manchester. We flew to San Francisco for our twenty-fifth anniversary--no, it wasn't a bi-plane!!--and had to go from Oklahoma City east to St. Louis before we went west to California. No wonder they complain about the cost of fuel. They add it to the price of a ticket, of course.
Yeah, I know I say this all the time, but things sure have changed since the old days. And, no, we didn't fly with Orville and Wilbur! There was a time when Dennis flew every week. He got a certificate from United Airlines once because he had flown 100,000 miles in one year with them. He looked up his old frequent flyer record to see if the points would still apply for us to fly to Manchester but when he called they said 1984 was a little too far back for them to honor them.
When we lived in California I flew much more often too. There was a "Red-eye" flight between Los Angeles and St. Louis. You left around midnight, flew through the night and arrived the next morning. There was a reason they called it the Red-eye, of course. You just thought you were going to sleep the whole way there and arrive refreshed and ready to go.
It was always exciting arriving back at LAX hoping to see a celebrity or two. We saw Walter Matthau and his wife once. She wore white make-up so pale she kind of glowed, like the moon, and had at least forty-five pieces of luggage. They didn't fly in our part of the plane. And there was a lady on one of our flights who had a role on "Dallas" but I didn't know her name. She didn't seem to know mine either. Can you believe we saw Bob Hope once, talking on a pay phone calling for someone to come pick him up? I wanted to offer him a ride but Dennis didn't think it would be a good idea.
Naturally I always dressed up for flying back then and looked very sophisticated and important. I think people were looking at me wondering what TV show they had seen me on. I just smiled slightly in acknowledgement so they would realize I was flying coach with the "little people" because I was researching a role or something. Of course, that time I was five months pregnant and took my shoes off on the flight but my feet were too swollen to get them back on by the time we arrived and I had to walk through the Los Angeles airport barefoot, the sophistication level may have been a little low.
Children used to get to fly free up until they were two years old, and Josh was always excited to get to go when we flew. He would watch the plane come up to the window and jump up and down with excitement, but by the time we went down the concourse and got on he would say "Where's the plane? Where's the plane?". It doesn't look as big or even much like an airplane from the inside, more like a city bus that has been micro-sized but smells worse.
There were meals served on flights back in the old days. Real china plates and little Barbie-size silverware, People joked about the food being bad but at least they gave you something. Now you are lucky if you get half a can of Coke and a bag with 13 pretzels in it. What's up with that, anyway? You pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket and they can't give you the whole can? Please!
So now American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy reorganization. I think they should take a page from Southwest's book and offer some really good prices and get a lot of people flying. I would even wear blue eye shadow for a $39 ticket.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Sam
I'm not feeling much like blogging today. My heart is too heavy with the loss of our nephew, Sam, who was killed in a car wreck yesterday. Just a few thoughts about his short life.
*********************************************
Sam was a kid that the Lord really wanted to be born.
When I first started "going steady" with Dennis in my senior year of high school people at school would say "You mean OWEN Carey's brother???" My future brother-in-law, was, how shall I say this? A hell-raiser. He was constantly in trouble with some authority or another. Even after he did a tour in Viet Nam and returned, when you thought he might have matured, he finally wound up fleeing to New Hampshire a few steps ahead of the cops.
He got married there, had a couple of kids and then one day we got a phone call from him. "Guess what! I'm a Christian now!"
We turned to each other and said "Sure. Wonder how long that will last."
But we were amazed and thrilled to find that God had done the changing, not Owen, and the guy who never did anything in a small way became an evangelist, a preacher, a church planter and is still, despite our initial doubts, so "Radically Saved" that anyone around him wants what he has.
Along the way there were more kids born, five, in about ten years time. Owen was gone a lot and Esther, his wife, was worn out! In fact, there were difficulties with her fifth pregnancy and she had to be hospitalized for several months. It was time to stop. No more kids. Of course I was very discreet in my suggestions. "Stop!" I said. "You're crazy!" I said. "Owen, you need to take care of this." I said. Not that I ever interfere in anybody's private life.
Owen just smiled and instead of telling me to mind my own business, said "I'm waiting on God." And God wanted Sam to be born.
He was the last, the baby. He had some learning challenges so Esther spent more time with him than she had the others because she both home schooled him and drove him several hours a week to special classes. Owen was able to spend more time with him as Sam's basketball career took off. Did I mention he grew to be six feet, eight inches tall?
Sam was recruited to play basketball for the local college, then he played a season in Uruguay, a season in Germany, and then this year, with the NBA sitting out and Canada still going strong in basketball, Sam was recruited to play there.
In between basketball seasons Sam met Kayte and this summer Brayden was born. I've been following them on Facebook and you've never seen a prouder daddy. Brayden had some severe health problems when he was born, and Sam was constantly with him. When Brayden finally got to go home from the hospital and Kayte went back to work, Sam was a stay-at-home dad. Brayden was no bigger than the palm of Sam's big hand at first, but Sam changed diapers, gave baths, rocked and fed, the whole nine yards. Or is that full-court press?
The basketball season started and Sam left to go play basketball in Canada to support his family. He couldn't be home every day but the communication was constant. They Skyped so Sam could see Brayden and Brayden could see his daddy. Then on Tuesday Sam had a few days available and he was headed home to his family.
We'll never know what happened next. Was he hurrying too much? Probably so. Did he try to make the trip on too little sleep because he was so anxious to see Kayte and Brayden? Maybe. The emergency crew did all they could do. The doctors did all they could do. It wasn't enough. No matter what the cause here on earth, God was ready to take Sam home.
Twenty-six years is such a short time. Sam packed them full of life. Our hearts are breaking here on earth but we are grateful for those twenty-six years. They were exactly the length of time God planned for him.
*********************************************
Sam was a kid that the Lord really wanted to be born.
When I first started "going steady" with Dennis in my senior year of high school people at school would say "You mean OWEN Carey's brother???" My future brother-in-law, was, how shall I say this? A hell-raiser. He was constantly in trouble with some authority or another. Even after he did a tour in Viet Nam and returned, when you thought he might have matured, he finally wound up fleeing to New Hampshire a few steps ahead of the cops.
He got married there, had a couple of kids and then one day we got a phone call from him. "Guess what! I'm a Christian now!"
We turned to each other and said "Sure. Wonder how long that will last."
But we were amazed and thrilled to find that God had done the changing, not Owen, and the guy who never did anything in a small way became an evangelist, a preacher, a church planter and is still, despite our initial doubts, so "Radically Saved" that anyone around him wants what he has.
Along the way there were more kids born, five, in about ten years time. Owen was gone a lot and Esther, his wife, was worn out! In fact, there were difficulties with her fifth pregnancy and she had to be hospitalized for several months. It was time to stop. No more kids. Of course I was very discreet in my suggestions. "Stop!" I said. "You're crazy!" I said. "Owen, you need to take care of this." I said. Not that I ever interfere in anybody's private life.
Owen just smiled and instead of telling me to mind my own business, said "I'm waiting on God." And God wanted Sam to be born.
He was the last, the baby. He had some learning challenges so Esther spent more time with him than she had the others because she both home schooled him and drove him several hours a week to special classes. Owen was able to spend more time with him as Sam's basketball career took off. Did I mention he grew to be six feet, eight inches tall?
Sam was recruited to play basketball for the local college, then he played a season in Uruguay, a season in Germany, and then this year, with the NBA sitting out and Canada still going strong in basketball, Sam was recruited to play there.
In between basketball seasons Sam met Kayte and this summer Brayden was born. I've been following them on Facebook and you've never seen a prouder daddy. Brayden had some severe health problems when he was born, and Sam was constantly with him. When Brayden finally got to go home from the hospital and Kayte went back to work, Sam was a stay-at-home dad. Brayden was no bigger than the palm of Sam's big hand at first, but Sam changed diapers, gave baths, rocked and fed, the whole nine yards. Or is that full-court press?
The basketball season started and Sam left to go play basketball in Canada to support his family. He couldn't be home every day but the communication was constant. They Skyped so Sam could see Brayden and Brayden could see his daddy. Then on Tuesday Sam had a few days available and he was headed home to his family.
We'll never know what happened next. Was he hurrying too much? Probably so. Did he try to make the trip on too little sleep because he was so anxious to see Kayte and Brayden? Maybe. The emergency crew did all they could do. The doctors did all they could do. It wasn't enough. No matter what the cause here on earth, God was ready to take Sam home.
Twenty-six years is such a short time. Sam packed them full of life. Our hearts are breaking here on earth but we are grateful for those twenty-six years. They were exactly the length of time God planned for him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)