Snail Mail Christmas Cards

 I just sent out my annual Christmas letter by paper Christmas card via snail mail.  Looking at that sentence, I'm struck by the archaic nature of it.  I actually have some young friends who are in their upper 20's or just turned 30, and I can guarantee not a single one of them sent out a Christmas card.  Furthermore, not a single one of them even THOUGHT about sending one much less a Christmas letter.  It is well known I'm obsessed with snail mail.  (I just finished writing letters to eleven people this week!)  However, I've just realized the number of people who do not have email addresses I send Christmas cards, has dwindled to ZERO.  Just a few years ago there were still a few people without email addresses.  

  According to Smithsonian Magazine, you're looking at the first commercial Christmas card.  It was commissioned by Henry Cole, a very busy aristocratic Londoner, who watched his correspondence explode thanks to the 'penny post' - a Victorian innovation which allowed anyone to send a letter to anyone else for a penny.  It was the equivalent of the email explosion we've all experienced.  He had an artist friend draw up this image, and then he had 1000 of these printed in 1843 on 5" x 3" card stock.  These allowed him to fulfill his obligation of replying to his holiday letters.  It was considered impolite to not answer correspondence.  Notice the "To: and the "From"?  This innovation allowed him to quickly answer all his correspondence during the holiday season.  His idea caught on and spread across the Western world.  The first American Christmas card was printed in 1875.

The company who came to epitomize the greeting card, including Christmas cards, was founded in 1915 by the Hall brothers in Kansas City, Kansas.  I'll bet you can figure out what this company morphed into....right? "The Hallmark Company".   Hallmark has been printing Christmas cards since it was founded.  Of their many innovations, they pioneered the 4"x6" folded card which quickly replaced postcards since people wanted to write a little something more than would fit on a postcard.  The folded card is now the industry standard.  People also began collecting Christmas cards - big surprise - people will collect anything.

During the 20th century, Christmas cards were so popular famous artists tried their hand at Christmas card design including Norman Rockwell (wildly popular), Alexander Calder (less popular), and Salvador Dali (complete failure with his designs pulled from the shelves).  There have been all types of designs of Christmas cards.  Surprisingly, early American cards did not have religious themes, but rather floral or plant themes.  Currently, polar bears are a big image for cards.  Hallmark still uses the most popular Christmas card design ever from 1977- over 34 million sold - which is three cherubic angels.  Last year Americans bought 1.6 BILLION Christmas cards.  I guess I'm in good company.

During the last fifty years of the 20th century, it was important to send Christmas cards WITH LETTERS enclosed to out of town recipients since most people had a class of friends who had 'moved away'.  People leaving their home towns was one of the outgrowths of WWII.  Usually, the only way to stay in touch was through the annual Christmas card.  People certainly didn't telephone 'long distance' since it was extremely expensive until the Ma Bell monopoly was broken up.  People faithfully promised weekly or monthly correspondence to friends who were moving away, but this quickly dwindled to the letter inside the annual Christmas card.  I actually handwrote my letters onto my Christmas cards until I got a computer with a printer.  

At that point, my Christmas card list just exploded.  At my high point, I was sending out over 100 cards each season.  Now, I'm considering this year may be my last year of paper cards with accompanying paper letter.  I already send out ecards using my fave card site, Jacquie Lawson.  Several of my friends have adopted using this site since it's a nobrainer if you like to stay in touch with people.  And, aren't we all far flung these days?  Currently, I'm sending regular snail mail to Mustang, Ok; Tulsa, Ok; Acton, Tx, Hurst, Tx; North Richland Hills, Tx; Arlington, Tx; Alpine, Tx; New Braunfels, Tx; Houston, Tx; Albuquerque, NM; and Oakland, Ca.  Do I really need to send Christmas letters and Christmas cards?

I think I'm just blowing smoke, though.  I'm one of those suckers who has collected greeting cards from every holiday and birthday sent to me by Drake over the past fifty years.  One of our family traditions is "Best Card".  We give beautiful cards to one another, and then we vote on who has chosen the best looking card.  It's silly, but we think it's fun.  I keep threatening to turn my box of collected cards into a collage.  One of these days.....  

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas.  If you didn't get a snail mail Christmas card and letter; well, I guarantee you will get the ecard version.  I wonder how much of my letter I can ecard?  Oh, and KUDOS to my friends who have sent me Christmas letters inside cards - especially the ones with family pictures embedded.    

Christmas Trees, 2021

          The Christmas season is kicked off.  I’ve always liked Christmas immensely, and I taught our daughter to love it as well.  I get to take all the credit here since my better half belongs to the ‘Bah, Humbug’ school of thought who interprets Christmas as celebrating a ridiculous religious tradition sprinkled with crass commercialism.  Oh, yes, he’s a real Ho, Ho, Ho killer when he gets on a BH rant.

         Our first brush this year with the 'Bah, Humbug' attitude came with our Christmas tree.  We have a flower seller whose booth is outside the local convenience store at the end of our block.  We buy flowers from him sporadically all year long.  In fact, he made up the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I’ve ever gotten for my birthday.  Anyway, back to the point…. The flower guy put out for sale a selection of Christmas trees ranging from three feet high to about six feet tall. 

I’ve said for the past month our grandson (AKA the Huckleberry) is going to have a tree at our house which is just his height, and that he can decorate with the unbreakable bedazzled felt ornaments I made.  This is a tradition which we started with our daughter.  Her first tree was three feet tall, and she could reach every branch including the top.  Tiny trees may seem small to us adults, but to a toddler, they are huge!  Each year, as she grew, the tree got taller. 

When you don't have a car you either have to pay a delivery fee or carry the tree home yourself.  It seemed a no-brainer to me to buy the tiny tree at the end of the block.  It's an easy carry home.  It even has a small sized tree stand.  All was fine.  The Huckleberry and his Grandad picked one out since they pass the trees on the walk home from school each day.  

On purchase day, they  discovered  the price was $50.  Bah, Humbug, they walked away without the tree.  I was furious.  This will be the only Christmas I will have to spend the entire season with a grandchild, and it’s not like we can’t afford the tree.  The upshot:  We have a three foot tall $50 tree in our living room decorated by The Huckleberry.  It’s a cute as a bug, and worth every penny.  He loves this tree and wants it lit the minute he arrives at our house from school. 

         Christmas Tree Saga Number Two:  Our family tradition is to buy and decorate our Christmas Tree immediately after Thanksgiving.  Our son-in-law has learned to give the Sweetpea (our daughter's nickname) free rein in trees since she and I love the decoration aspect of Christmas and the tree is the centerpiece.  My mother wrote the ‘family’ and my closest friends when she was barely one year old suggesting giving her a Christmas ornament each year.  Due to her efforts, the Sweetpea has a huge collection of fun ornaments.  The Piano Man (son-in-law's nickname) now has his collection given to him by me which we started in 2009, and The Huckleberry has his.  At this point, there are so many a six to seven foot tree will not display all the ornaments.

         This year the Sweetpea decided to go BIG.  They bought a nine foot tree!  Now, if you have the Texas mini-mansion or a sprawling ranch style home, it’s not that big a deal.  The only restriction is ceiling height.  Well, there's an 11 foot ceiling in their 1000 square foot Brooklyn apartment so, no problem!  Remember the $50 three foot tree?  Well, they paid $95 for the monstrosity they purchased.  (Our Bah Humbugger somehow thought this validated his point the three footer was too expensive.)  Gargantua is a beautiful, beautiful tree.  Its shape is perfect and the branches thick.  It does require a heavy duty stand.  To give you a further scope of the size, it took nine strands of lights.  Best of all, for the first time in a long time, ALL the ornaments are hung, and they aren’t even sparse.  Gigantico only takes up 25% of their living room space.  The Sweetpea and I think that’s perfectly reasonable.  It looks wonderful.  Let the Christmas festivities begin! 

Do You YouTube?

 If you really stop to think about it, YouTube is really amazing.  I mean who knew there were so many cat movie stars?  However, people taking cute little movies of their kitties isn't what makes YouTube fascinating.  YouTube is at its best when it shows ordinary people filming their interests.  Are there terrible films spewing hatred?  You bet.  Are there disgusting films?  Oh, absolutely, but those aren't the ones which make up the overwhelming majority of YouTube films.  My favorite films are by people who want to share and showcase something wonderful.  

I like ALL the Steam Trains Galore videos.  They are perfect for putting a toddler into a tharn state.  (Tharn is the state described in the book Watership Down in which a rabbit freezes in place.)  Thanks, Mike Armstrong (maker of Steam Trains Galore).  I am somewhat baffled about how and why steam trains are so fascinating to him; however, he has traveled around the country filming steam trains running up and down tracks.  His films are very relaxing.

I also like the MTA (transit system of New York) films showing the subway trains running in and out of the tunnels of New York City.  Another perfect film for toddler lunchtime.  It seems to be soothing to the 1 - 3 year old group.  There's no dialogue.  There's just trains running up and down the tracks between various stations.  Let's take the "A" train!

Then, there's the Dad and 10  year old son who have transformed their backyard into a Monster Truck arena.  They have jumps, mud, water, tracks, and all sorts of dirt filled amusements for toy Monster Trucks.  The YouTube films show Dad and son playing toy Monster Trucks in the awesome dirt arena they built together.

Another 'fave' of mine are the Cornell University School of Ornithology YouTube live bird feeder/breeder sites all over the world.  I've watched hummingbirds in West Texas; deciduous forest birds in upstate New York; tropical birds in Panama; and the hatchings of Owls, California Condors, Redtailed Hawks, and Ospreys.  You can even watch a Royal Albatross around on the other side of the world hatch and raise a 'chick' which when full grown will weigh in at around 20 lbs.         

Have you ever heard of Destin Sandlin?  Well, he's an engineer who makes YouTube videos applying engineering principles in fun ways.  Like graphing firing a baseball over 1000 miles per hour through a one gallon jar of mayonnaise.  He loves charts, graphs, math, and his excitement level is off the leash.  His videos are called Smarter Every Day, and he's on the same wavelength as Mythbusters. 

I recently watched a TV program called "GLOW" on Netflix.  It is a reality program about make up artists.  This career employs people not just at make up counters of department stores in malls, but also on movie sets, television sets, live theater, fashion show runways, magazine fashion shoots, and surprisingly YouTube videos.  If you want to learn how to apply false eyelashes or create a 'smoky eye', well, there are You Tubers willing to help you.  Many of them got interested in make up through You Tube.  A new career path in make up artistry is to create a series of 'how to' YouTube videos and amass hundreds of thousands of subscribers.   Manufacturers perk up and pay those folks.

"How to" YouTube videos have revolutionized dissemination of information.  Anything you need to know how to do will have not just one but several YouTube videos by self proclaimed experts.  In the world of home repair alone, YouTube has leveled the playing field.  Not everyone grows up with an expert in the family.  Anytime there was a home repair job my husband used to telephone my father or meet with him face to face since by Dad was a self-taught handyman.  His knowledge was encyclopedic.  Today, my father would be making YouTube videos.

Sponsorship is definitely a way to make money using YouTube.  If you have expertise in any field, you can Vlog on YouTube.  (The snob I am, I always look down on Vloggers.  If they could write coherently, they would be blogging!)  If you can be found by the public in great numbers, you can expect sponsorship and a certain amount of $$.  I don't think very many people can sustain a career using YouTube as their medium.  It's akin to writing a best selling novel, and then continuing to do it over and over again.  In other words, there aren't too many Stephen Kings or John Grishams in the YouTube world any more than the literary world.

It's the accessibility of YouTube to the ordinary person which makes this phenomenon so wonderful.  Who could have predicted this?  YouTubes are just one aspect of the Electronic Revolution which is now shaping all our lives.  Do you YouTube?

  

Dark Time

 When I was in high school, I had a curfew.  My father's dictum was, "Nothing good happens to a girl after midnight."  One of my vivid memories from high school is my Dad dozing on the couch in front of the TV waiting for me to get home on Friday and Saturday nights.  So, what kept me from just tiptoeing past my father's sleeping form if I came home later than midnight?  I couldn't break curfew because of my Dad's alarm clock:  Television actually SIGNED OFF THE AIR at midnight.  There was a waving American flag with the "Star Spangled Banner" playing in the background.  The song was like an alarm to my father, and my happy little ass had better be in the door before the anthem finished.  The waving flag and anthem was then eclipsed by the 'test pattern', or sometimes just 'snow' until television signed back on at 7:00am.  Here's what I mean by test pattern.  It was routinely used as a signal to viewers their TV was not malfunctioning, but rather it was intentionally off the airways.

My point is television went off the air.  Now, true, there were only three stations plus one independent station in 1966, but still, can you imagine in today's shrinking globe a main stream media provider going DARK for seven hours?  I'm not going to claim 'life was so much better' in the supposed good old days because it truly wasn't.  However, I do miss what I think of as 'dark time'.  Even in those days, the United States had a frantic pace of life compared to other developed countries, but compared to today's insistence on a 24/7 life; it was idyllic. 

Life wasn't lived around the clock.  People who worked the 'swing shift' (3-11pm) or 'the graveyard' (11-7am) were pitied.  They were so out of sync with everyone else.  Mostly nothing was open past midnight except bars, the type referred to today as 'dive bars', and they certainly didn't serve food.  You couldn't shop for groceries or for anything else.  There were no all night restaurants except at truck stops, and even back then, truck stops were not known either for their cuisine or their atmosphere.  I can personally attest to this since me and my idiot college girl friends would go to the Dinko Truck Stop outside of Norman, Oklahoma - up and coming town of 25,000 - around 3am. for a 'Dinko Darling' meal.  [Don't ask.  I can't imagine how we avoided ptomaine.  19 year old bodies, I suppose.]  My point is in 1969 in a college town, nothing was open in the middle of the night.  

These days we carry around the 24/7 media provider in our pockets.  For eleven years I monitored my father who was in a dementia care facility.  I called the graveyard shift nurses routinely, and they also called me.  (This was the easiest staff to reach for a 'chat'.)  I slept with my phone turned on to receive their calls or texts right next to my pillow.  That experience trained me to be 'on the grid' 24/7.  That night time experience also trained me to use my phone to play audio books to help me get back to sleep. 

The reality now is I read the news across two major news outlets, listen to audio books, search for e-books and audiobooks to check out for myself and Cedric from eight libraries,  daily use our family channel on Whatsapp, monitor the weather across several locations, look at recipes, find answers to knowledge questions, take pictures, make videos, play games, and clean out my email on a daily basis.  I'm ashamed to say lots of those activities go on sporadically throughout the night.  

The smart phone is so integrated into my life, I don't have the desire or will power to go off grid for more than a few hours at a time.  The convenience of having information, entertainment, and basic knowledge available constantly seems like library heaven to me.  (FYI:  I was supposed to be a librarian, and it's one of my few regrets that I chose teacher over librarian.)

I think it would be beneficial to turn off my phone for seven or eight hours a day of 'dark time' because propaganda, misinformation, data mining, and going down rabbit trails seem to be overwhelming the positive aspects of 24/7 information.  Granted, we are in the earliest days of this phenomena, but individually stepping back and reclaiming dark time in the electronic age may help restore perspective.   I’m identifying feelings of anxiety, helplessness, insignificance, and anger in myself all of which has been intensified by the pandemic phenomena.   I also know those feelings are rooted in the information barrage that is today’s life in 2021.  There are too many choices every direction I look.  I think I need some dark time.

List Making

Someone asked me the other day why I hadn't written a blog entry lately.  Well, it's not for lack of trying.  I'm being blocked by my fears and anxieties.  I can't seem to pick one topic to write about, or if I settle on one, it's too big, and I can't figure out how to whittle it down.  Just to try and 'unblock', I made a list of my concerns.  Here it is.  

The Pandemic

Climate change

Electronics outpacing my ability to keep up

Tribalization of the USA culture

 Dementia

Information Overload

Death of Civility

Public School System

Artificial Intelligence

Cyber Attacks

Wealth Inequality

Racism/Rise of White Supremacy

Facism/Socialism creeping into our politics

Social Media - too few hands holding the reins 

Lack of Trust in American Institutions

Guns - pick either side of the argument - it's all arguing; no solutions

Globalization (both politically & economically)

Solar Flares (also known as "The Sky is Falling")

California falling off into the ocean

Louisiana/Florida three feet under water

The NEXT Pandemic

The Apocalypse - (also known as World War III)

Dystopian/Utopian Societies coming to fruition

Euthanasia/Lack of Euthanasia

The Ultra Right

The Ultra Left

The Electoral College

The Death of Facts

The Loss of Journalism

Death of Paper (Books, Newspapers, Magazines)

Abortion as politics

Too many choices (you pick the product)

The Economy

The Housing Market

Do we stay or do we go?

Selling our AZ house

Cedric's World (both the micro and the macro)

The Anxiety of Weather Monitoring

North Korea

Middle East

Hunger in the USA

I didn't even PAUSE making the above list.  I didn't have to ponder.  And, frankly, I'm appalled by the ease with which the list flowed out.    I've realized mainly I'm distressed about the current climate of negativity which threads through everything.  Most movies, music, books, opinion pieces, news leads, TV shows, documentaries, etc., etc., etc. - negative.  Life around me seems to be more about "Bah, Humbug" rather than "Coming Up Roses".  The Scrooge view is seeping into my personal view of life.  Never have I ever had to search and search for optimism either externally or internally.  Life for me is always half full.  My family kids me I could find a silver lining if my arm fell off.  (I'm not exactly sure about THAT - but you get the picture.) 

I don't want anyone to think, "Curmudgeon" - (if you don't know the word, look it up - you carry a damn computer in your pocket 24/7).  I don't think life was better fifty years ago because it wasn't.  We had dirty air, dirty water, second class citizens, nuclear proliferation, the Cold War (which threatened to heat into Nuclear War), out of control diseases, and a 'hot war' to name a few.  (Again, I didn't even have to pause to come up with that list.)  

Just writing that last paragraph makes me realize every age has its burdens.  Why is it the burdens of this age loom so much larger as I ponder them?  Is it the realization solutions are never nice and neat.  Or is it once one problem solves, another one presents itself?  There's never any laurel resting.  Or does the winding down of my life making me realize the world of humans was/is/will be always infinitely messy.

So, what's the solution:  List making isn't it.  Picking something off the list and work on it? (Yes, idiot I am, I believe one person can make a difference.)  Am I too much inside my head?  Is it vague agoraphobia which came free for me with the pandemic?  Should I disconnect, and just give up?  Looking for solutions here.   Also, looking to hear what you want to read about.  Think of this blog as a suggestion box.  All suggestions welcome.  Just DON'T ADD TO MY LIST.      

Some Thoughts on Social Media

 I was browsing on a social media website today, and one person was outraged that 'over half of the posts have been removed'.   That comment sparked me thinking about the ideas and parallels between 2021 and 1881.  I know that seems like a very long time ago.  I've thought for a long time about the ascendency of the cult of money and status happening within the confines of a revolution.  In 1881 it was railroads.  It seems antiquated today to talk about railroads as some miracle technology which transformed an economy, and became a culture in itself.  In 1881 that's what railways were.  In 2021, if I talk about technology, we all know I'm referring to electronic technology.  It's a miracle that is transforming an economy, and it is certainly becoming a culture unto itself.

The Gilded Age (generally from 1881 - 1905) refers not only to the number of millionaires which arose during the period - many involved in owning or financing railroads, but also to the idea of gilt (a thin layer of gold) over the top of widespread grinding poverty, political corruption, labor unrest, and problems with ethnicity, race, and immigration.  Building railroads and all the industries which fed them sparked innovation and invention in all areas of the economy as well as severely punishing other economical endeavors.  Substitute the word 'technologies' for the word railroads in the previous sentence, and suddenly it's 140 years ago.   This rather all sounds familiar, doesn't it?   I wonder how our age will be designated by the historians?

So back to the outrage on the social media website.  There seems to be some expectation the social media platforms are public forums.  This is totally false.  There is very little social media regulation.  According to an article I read on a website called TechCrunch, there are four bodies of government which could possibly regulate social media:  (1)  The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actually regulates communication, but has no authority over what is communicated.  It's concerned with infrastructure.  (2) State Legislatures are attempting social media regulation coming at it from the concerns over privacy and use of a person's data.  California and Illinois have enacted laws aimed at regulating what's said over social media, and how the social media giants can use information.  (3)  Congress.  Well, Congress is a day late and a dollar short.  They dropped the ball when social media got rolling because Congress is filled with people who realized much too late the power of this new economy.  Think old white/black/hispanic guys.  Out of touch and out of date and so mired in gridlock, the tech giants are  gleeful.  (4)  International law - social media doesn't stop at borders.  However, the chaos of getting international regulations concerning privacy and metadata hammered out make a unified standard of regulation just about laughable.

Wake up!  When you 'post', you do so at the sufferance of the company which owns your social media of choice.  Facebook/Twitter/WhatsAp/NextDoor/YouTube/Tumblr/ WeChat/Pinterest/TikTok etc, etc, etc (and this list currently numbers in the hundreds) are all recognizable denizens of the social media world.  These companies can use and remove anything on their websites at their sole discretion.  (Google, in fact, owns this blog - since I use the app Blogger, which is their creation.) Screaming 'censorship' and 'privacy' and 'freedom of information' is hogwash because these mega companies are not really regulated by anyone.  There's no oversight.  There's no grievance process.  Here we have freewheeling capitalism at both its best and its worst. 

For many years, there have been rumblings and outright shouts about too much government.  A significant number of citizens want less regulation and less oversight at every governmental level.  Social media companies LOVE this.  It makes the majority owners of these companies the most powerful people in the world.  One thing I've always known:  Rich people take care of themselves.  They only think about the public good when forced to by responsible government. 

 2021 - Welcome to the New Gilded Age!  

I think this slogan could definitely catch on.  What do you think?    

The New and Improved MOMA

With our art loving friend visiting (and working on a Coney Island hospital project), we bought our timed tickets, donned our masks, and ventured to both the Metropolitan Art Museum and the new and improved Museum of Modern Art.  The MOMA had been working on a two year expansion thanks to the purchase of the adjoining building at their 53rd St. location.  Now, it's 'stretched' and thus expanded.  The permanent collection fills three floors shown in chronological order.  The remaining two floors house the temporary exhibitions. 

The most talked about exhibition in the City is the 278 Cezanne drawings at the MOMA.  They were a fascinating look at an artist's process.  However, there is something to be said for selection and brevity, and this exhibition is really overwhelming.  I felt like I saw everything and nothing.  Many of the drawings were obviously 'practice' in the how to process.  It was pretty interesting to see him refine his fruit.  He also drew himself repeatedly.  (The full front face is his self portrait.)  I wondered if he spent a lot of time looking into mirrors.

He also practiced drawing his art friends' pictures, sculptures, as well as copying classical sculptures he admired.  This is "Olympia", his friend Manet's famous picture which was a reinterpretation of Venus of Urbino by Titian.

 

  

While Cezanne was fascinating, the OTHER exhibition was the one which I really enjoyed.  It was an Alexander Calder exhibition.  Calder has been involved with the MOMA since 1931 - the year of his first exhibit by the MOMA.  "Lobster Trap and Fish Tail" was specially designed for the new MOMA building - in 1939.  

At the dinner commemorating the 10th anniversary of the opening of the new building in 1939, Calder also designed the ten foot long candelabra decorating the table 

The current exhibitions is full of wonderful examples of Calder's art from large floor pieces to small whimsical wire sculptures as well as his signature mobiles.  If you love Calder, this is the exhibition for you.

The third exhibition was a bit of a dud in my opinion.  It's called Automania, and it was designed to show how detrimental the automobile has been on the urban landscape.  Not terribly successful.  My favorite piece was a Judy Chicago painted automobile hood, (outrageous at the time).  The Jaguar was also so beautiful, and the chrome on the Air Stream trailer was a mirror finish.  

 

I also picked and chose some of my 'fave' pieces from a couple of floors of the MOMA collection.  I loved the new expanded MOMA.  Hope you like my pics!    

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yhfWAuPrYk6E6X2h9

 

Long Island Lavender

 One of the delights of a vacation for a curious (nosy) person such as myself is meeting people who have a passion.  Everyone is usually proud of 'their town', but passionate people are usually attached to and passionate about a very particular place or event.  On Sunday we ran into one of those people when we visited the Lavender Farm.  A woman about my age told me everything there was to know about lavender.

I learned their farm is in two parts:  A 17 acre parcel (see above), and a 31 acre parcel.  Even with all the lavender harvested, the scent was pervasive.  There was no doubt what kind of farm you were visiting.  At the farm store they were selling lavender plants (most of which were still blooming) in the size pot in which you would buy a geranium.  And, the bees were busy at work on those blooming plants.  They were also advertising their once a year lavender honey was now available.  In addition to lavender, the farm has its own bee hives.   

There's French Lavender and English Lavender.  Generally, French Lavender has one bloom per stalk while English Lavender usually has two blooms.  "F" (French) is for fragrance, and "E" (English) is for edible.  Thus, you would make a sachet out of French lavender and brew your tea with English lavender.  The lady I chitchatted with confided she drinks a cup of lavender tea every night right before bed as her sleep aid.

In July, harvest begins as the sounds of chainsaws rip through the air.  One man wielding a chainsaw can harvest one acre a day.  Prior to gas driven chainsaws, lavender was harvested using scythes.  It was a much slower harvest, and less noisy.  If you notice, the lavender plants look like domes.  That's the preferred method of harvest.  Apparently, you never harvest lavender close to the ground

19th century scythe

 The woman I talked to demonstrated how to harvest a geranium sized lavender plant you would buy at their Farm Store.  She thrust her hand into the plant about halfway between the tip end of the plant (where the bloom grows) and the soil.  Then she spread her fingers and mimed snipping the plant just above her fingers in an arc, so you would be left with a dome shaped plant.  To successfully grow lavender, you need six hours of direct sunlight and good drainage.

The store was chock full of an array of lavender products.  I was thrilled to find one of my favorite ointments for dry skin.  It is a bees wax/oil pressed with lavender oil, and I seek it out every chance I get.  I use it at night on my hands and feet since lavender is used to calm angry skin as well as promote sleep.  This store had sachets, neck wraps, bath salts, hand lotion, soap, plants, tea, honey, mugs, aprons, t-towels, and my personal favorite:  a purple t-shirt advertising the Lavender Farm.  I also bought harvested lavender in a four ounce pouch.

I plan to add that lavender to my own rose petals I brought to Brooklyn from my rose bushes in Arizona.  I'm going to be making some sachets out of the Korean silk Marilyn, my mother-in-law, gave me.  (She and Norm, Drake's Dad, spent two years on an American Air Force base in South Korea in the 1970's, and Norm's employees had full Korean ceremonial dress costumes made out of silk presented to both of them.)  Forty years later, I was the happy recipient of the silk.  Since the clothes were floor length and 'full', there was a lot of salvageable material. 

Once again, readers, you now know more about a subject than you ever realized you wanted to know.  

The Intrepid Pigeon Fighter Makes a Plea

 

Staring Down the Humans

The Intrepid Pigeon Fighter, whose fame was enhanced by several blog entries [1/30/12;  2/5/12/; 2/21/12] ,  retired from competition many years ago after winning his gold medal.  He defeated an entire flock of the rat birds on behalf of his mother.  He vanquished these pests from nesting in the eaves of her house.  He entertained thousands of pigeon fighting admirers with his intrepid battles against roosting by these vermin on his mother's front porch.  And, when the field was won, he passed on his winning techniques in the Intrepid Pigeon Fighting School he founded using his sponsorship $$.   

Upon our move to Brooklyn, NY, he closed his school and considered himself completely retired from the pigeon fighting business.  However, his outrage has been building.  While living here, he's discovered a mutated version of these so called 'rock doves'.  If you are walking on the city streets, these pigeons stare you down.  Expect to be pecked, or even flocked, if you make the unwise choice of trying to 'shoo' these so called 'birds' out of your path.  The IPF thinks these NY pigeons must be a mutation of the suburban version.  They nest on roof tops in a thin oxygen atmosphere.  Intrepid speculates there must be pigeon brain mutation since their diet is totally take-out/delivery. 

The Intrepid Pigeon Fighter is so concerned with the bold attitude of these NYC pigeons, he's willing to share all his pigeon fighting methodology and techniques with any interested New Yorker.  Just send, a stamped, self addressed envelope together with $100 dollars in food delivery coupons to THE INTREPID PIGEON FIGHTER, Brooklyn, NY 11231.  Satisfaction guaranteed!  New Yorkers what do you have to lose?  This pigeon behavior is INTOLERABLE!

Owl Sleeper

   

Social Influencing

 Hasn't life changed!  And the rate of change is dizzying.  Who can keep up?  Not me.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the glut of content, here's the solution of too much information many people have adopted:  Social influencers.  If you are old or wary or have adapted to the information age by opting out, you may not know what social influence is.  Here's a tutorial.

A social influencer is a person with a robust, even mind blowing presence on the web.  They tend to post vlogs (short videos on a topic) instead of writing blogs (a now archaic presence on the web).  Using YouTube, and Instagram, they build hundreds of thousands if not millions of 'followers' (people who watch the vlogs) and 'like them'.  Thus, social influencers tend to be industry specific (beauty, food, parenting, automotive, tech, etc.).  

Now, here's the real kicker:  People trust the opinions of social influencers over information provided by a product manufacturer or government official, or elected official.  In other words, a company can make all the advertisements they desire, a politician or official can deliver information or speeches, but they are not as believed as the vlogger.  Can you already see what's happening?  

Social influencers make $$$$ by accepting advertisements on their vlogs or just outright cash from producers of products or backers of a particular world view, and they vlog about it.  Basically, you're still being shilled even if you think you're getting an unbiased assessment of a product or idea by a vlogger.   These unvetted (who monitors their truthfulness), uncredentialled (what are their qualifications) and uninformed vloggers are the current movers of public opinion, and they are being straight up paid and manipulated by the wealthy and the political fringe.  

So, what will change a person's opinion on a topic or about a product?  Vloggers have to be aware of 'cognitive dissonance'.  This is a psychology term which means how people perceive information which is contrary to their world view.  Let's say you 'follow' one of the leading vloggers on any subject you can imagine:  beauty, parenting, politics to name a few.  One day, the beauty vlogger does a video showing how to use the least amount of make up possible.  Or, the parenting blogger does a video showing how to 'hit a toddler'.  Or, a right wing political vlogger does a video endorsing climate change.  Any one of these would be contrary to the world views of a majority of his/her 'followers'.  How does the follower of a social influencer handle the vlogger's sudden change of heart?  Not only does the loyal follower ignore the influencer's opinion, they begin to actively double down on their own world view rejecting the influencer. 

Back to the question:  How can you change a person's opinion on a topic or about a product?  It's still all about social influence.  People shift their thinking about a topic or product when they hear the contrary view from the outer edges of the social influencer's network. (This is according to a paper from the University of Pennsylvania on social networking.)  If you want to change opinions, avoid the center of a social network.  Instead, look to an influencer on the outer edges of a social network.  Instead of being one of a million, the person who changes opinions is one of 100.  

Social influence is a reality of the electronic age.  Everyone who doesn't live under a rock is being socially influenced.  Pretending YOUR opinions are not being influenced is simply folly.   As soon as information started to be disseminated more globally, people have been influenced.  Think books, newspapers, movies, radio, television, and now:  websites. 

Here's why you should care and think about who is influencing you.  The United States moves socially and politically on PUBLIC OPINION.  You can't legislate people's opinions.  People change their opinions about a subject based on exposure.  Surprisingly, exposure to local influencers are what changes opinions.  However, mega influencers (bought and paid for) drown out other voices.   The question a thinking person asks is:  Who is trying to shaping my world view? 

Letter Writing is Drowning my Blog

 I write letters.  I've been writing letters seriously since 2010.  What is serious letter writing?  Currently, my definition of 'serious' is an average of ten letters a week.  Why would I do that?  First, and foremost is because I was poleaxed for two years (2005 - 2007).  During that time I lost my job, my ability to walk, developed chronic pain issues, had three surgeries, and spent all that time house bound.  I also spent a total of eight months in bed during that two year period.  I battled not just physical pain, but mental issues such as anger and depression.  Thanks to a combination of friends and Pastor Marilyn (pastor at St. Paul UMC at the that time) I pulled through.  When Pastor Marilyn had the temerity to suggest something good was going to come from all my suffering, I cussed her thoroughly.  (Sigh....let me apologize here publicly to her.)  I couldn't imagine how anything good could come from two years of misery.

Well, good things have come from that misery.  I've always been an optimist, but now I do have a greater understanding of faithfulness.  However, that's another blog.  Back to letter writing....  That two year period in my life made me understand how reaching out with snail mail comforts people.  I sporadically wrote cards and notes to people who were ill as soon as I was up and about.  It was when I left the town I'd lived in for twenty years to start vagabonding I realized the importance of letters to maintain friendships.  Paula has written me every week (sometimes more than once) from the week I left Texas.  If we still kept paper address books, my page in hers would be multiple pages since in eleven years, I've had almost twenty addresses.

The number of letters per week I write has slowly evolved over the past eleven years.  First, I realized I should write Paula back.  Second, I re-connected with an uber elderly person (over age 90!) who I thought would like letters since those seemed a lot more natural to her than electronic communication.  Third, since I have a lot of friends older than me, some started getting sick and I wanted to be in touch with them in a meaningful way.  (I dislike sappy 'get well soon' greeting cards.)  Finally, some of my youngest friends seemed to need the comfort and stability of weekly letters.

So, at this point in time I'm writing Paula, the uber elderly, the sick/recovering, friends my age, and young friends.  Here's what I have discovered:  Sick people, even when recovered, were mum about their recovery.  They wanted to stay on the letter list!  Young friends, even when they want to be more connected by responding to my letters, are struggling with the explosion of their careers as the pandemic winds down, but they want the connectivity and don't have time to be responders.  Friends I've been writing fall into two categories - those who write/call/email/text back and those who are silent.  

Now, I was fine writing all these people and adding on to the list by chance UNTIL the pandemic.  That's when I just lost control, and my blog postings suffered.  It IS more difficult to write so many people every week when we are keeping Cedric 40 hours a week.   I'm really mentally tired at the end of the work day, so I don't tend to write during the week.  We had a solid year of nanny time during the pandemic with no breaks.  It was also hard to 'thin' the weekly letter list since we all looked forward to real mail during the pandemic.  And, if that wasn't enough to affect my blog, well, I struggled for writing topics in weekly letters beyond toddler antics, and since we weren't going anywhere or doing anything for a solid year, well blog topics were even harder to find.

If I'm going to continue my blog, I need something to change.  My solution is to move some people who just like to get letters to a monthly basis while continuing to write weekly the sick, the uber elderly, and people who respond to me.  That solution will cut my weekly letter outflow about in half.  That allows me to write a blog entry more often.  Blog entries take much more work to write than weekly letters.  First, you need the idea.  Second, you need to formulate the idea.  Third, you need to polish the formulation.  Fourth, you need to polish again.  Some blog entries take several hours to write, so I can wind up publishing exactly what I want to say.   Hopefully, you will begin reading interesting entries again because they will be better entries than the past year's offerings.

Finally, if you got moved to the monthly letter list, well, it's not because I don't treasure your friendship.  it's because I want to redistribute my writing time.  Of course, you can always fake being sick if you really, really need my idiot letters.                   

I'm Tired of the Tendril Around My Ankle

I don't know about you, but the pandemic feels like this sneaky vine which I think I've uprooted, and then I look down and find new tendrils wrapped around my ankle.  First, and foremost, even vaccinated, I worry about getting the virus.  It's not that I think I'm going to be in that teeny, tiny percentage of the vaccinated which wind up with the virus, but it's that I don't trust the unvaccinated to wear masks and social distance.

Here's what I'm talking about: (These statistics come from COVID-Act Now which has been tracking the virus since the beginning in this country.  Here's the website:  http://covidactnow.org/?s=1075235)  I looked at the statistics in three cities with which I'm the most familiar:  New York City, Phoenix, and  Dallas.  New York City:  54% vaccinated with at least one dose.  Phoenix:  41 vaccinated with at least one dose.  Dallas/Fort Worth:  44% vaccinated with at least one dose.  None of these cities is even remotely close to the magic number of 70% vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.  Why is herd immunity important?  The biggest reason is if we can achieve herd immunity, COVID won't 'linger' in the population becoming a deadly disease which will need to be continually battled year after year.

Have you ever considered WHY people are refusing vaccination?  Here are ideas:

(1)  Vaccine is 'untested' because it was developed so quickly and is therefore unsafe.  FALSE.  The speed-up of the development of the coronavirus vaccine had to do with one critical element:  $$$$$ provided by governments around the world to tried/true vaccine developers.  The vaccine platform was built on significant previous research on coronaviruses which saved years of developmental time.  Multiple approaches to developing different types of vaccines were funded concurrently.  Testing was fast-tracked using thousands of volunteers.  It quickly became obvious among these volunteers their adverse reactions were so minimal the vaccine was safe.  Today, the only people who might hesitate to get vaccinated are:  (1)  People with compromised immune systems.  (2)  Pregnant women & nursing mothers. 

(2)  Getting vaccinated is inconvenient.  It's hard to find the vaccine.  It takes hours to actually get vaccinated.  FALSE.  While both of these arguments might have had credence in the first six months of the vaccine availability, today that is no longer the case.  Here's how hard it is to get vaccinated:  WALK INTO YOUR LOCAL DRUGSTORE or DOC IN THE BOX AND GET VACCINATED.

(3)  I don't think I'm going to get sick, and if I do, so what?  Mostly, it's just inconvenient to get COVID 19.  FALSE.  This twist of the coronavirus was unknown until it began to spread exponentially.  It's taken over a year to collect data about what happens to the body when you contract COVID 19 and how it works inside the body.  What is known NOW is:  (a) more and more long term effects are being documented.  These include stroke, blood clots, cognitive problems, excessive long lasting fatigue, organ compromise, and a host of other problems - including loss of smell and taste.  These adverse effects can last months.  Some variety of long term effects seem to be showing up in about a third of people who contract the virus.  And, these are adverse effects of having the virus among people who 'recovered'.  The effects on the body of having COVID 19 are much more dangerous than effects of the vaccine.  

(4)  There was a concerted effort to downplay the necessity of everyone working together to combat COVID 19.  TRUE.  This pandemic has been the biggest crisis our country has faced since World War II.  It has, in effect, been a world war.  As a country we have failed.  We've failed to protect one another.  (We are approaching 600,000 dead of the virus.)  We've failed to see ourselves as citizens banding together and thus failed in our civic obligations on lots of levels.  (Mask?  No Mask?)  What does wearing one hurt?  Nothing.  If wearing a mask saves one other person from contracting the virus, isn't their life as important as yours?  Masking should never have been politicized.  We have not accepted the idea that we are our neighbors' keeper during this crisis.  It's known there's a significant infection period during which there are no symptoms.  Social distancing protects everyone.   How ironic it is in a nation which likes to define itself as 'Christian' we refuse to protect the people around us because of the cult of selfishness.   Me, me, me and to hell with everyone else.            

Are we deluding ourselves the virus is fading out just like we did last summer?  I think it's not an unreasonable question so long as there are so many unvaccinated in the population.  Are the unmasked, unsocially distanced unvaccinated currently fueling another big viral 'spike'?  I'm pretty sure those are reasonable questions.  Why is it acceptable to endanger other citizens?   No one answered this to my satisfaction.  

Finally, why is the presentation of facts so threatening?  According to studies done about questioning the veracity of false statements on social media by the presentation facts, people continue to believe the false statements even in the face of common sense must less actual facts.  They simply double down on non-facts, don't change their behavior, and belligerently insist their position is correct when it patently isn't. 

Therefore, if you are among the unvaccinated, I have no illusions you will change your mind after reading these facts, accept your citizenship comes with responsibilities, and make an appointment to get vaccinated.   Now, you are at least risking your health and not mine since my vaccination gives me about a 95% immunity to COVID 19.  Your irresponsibility and selfishness will probably result in continued 'boosters' which will have to be administered because you wouldn't get a vaccination to boost us as a nation into herd immunity.  If I sound angry, well, I am.  I'm damn tired of this green viral tendril clinging to my ankle mainly because of civic irresponsibility, and failure of application of The Golden Rule in our society. 

 

  

Word Power

 We all know I adore magazines.  At one point in my life, our family subscribed to six magazines.  [Time, Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, Smithsonian, Real Simple, and Texas Monthly]  Can you imagine how many pieces of 'junk mail' landed in our mailbox each week?  I haven't been able to subscribe to ANY magazines since 2010.  I reasoned as long as we had multiple addresses in a year, the magazines would just never catch up with us.  [Turns out I was right.  We actually had a $17 medical bill which never caught up with us, and even the bill collector it was turned over to never found us.  We only found out about the bill when we had a credit report run!]  In the eleven years we traveled around the country, glossy magazines have bitten the dust just like daily newspapers.  Nowadays, most people read magazines on-line.  

Last year, settled into Brooklyn, we got a birthday subscription to The New Yorker which has been a real joy.  In Sun City my magazines are bought used for a quarter apiece.  Since I'm not picky, my $.25 magazines have included but not been limited to fifteen year old Arizona Highways to ten year old Smithsonian Magazines to Cook's Illustrated to last month's Good Housekeeping, which incidentally was first published in May of 1885.  Since I've been living in old people purgatory (Sun City), I've realized elderly people still 'save magazines' some of which, fortunately for me, wind up in thrift stores.  

When I was twelve, I used to collect old paper and re-sell it.  No, I was not a young entrepreneur, my collection efforts were a fundraiser for my youth church group to afford a trip to the newly opened Six Flags Over Texas in Dallas.   We were motivated!  Our group scoured neighborhoods, accompanied by my faithful father and his pick up truck, knocking on doors and asking for old newspapers or magazines.  Since the paper people paid by the pound, finding someone who saved magazines and was willing to part with them was considered a bonanza find.

My first magazine subscription was Reader's Digest.  I started reading it when I was still in elementary school.  The abridged book at the end of each magazine propelled me into adult books.  That magazine led me into a subscription to Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and from there the leap into checking out full length adult books at the library.  My mother refused all pleas for toys, candy, soft drinks, cookies or other junk foods, but she could reliably be wheedled into book purchases and magazine subscriptions.  I was reading my own subscription to Time Magazine cover to cover by the time of was 12.

My favorite section of Reader's Digest was "Word Power".  It was only two pages:  The first page was about 20 vocabulary words each followed by four definitions.  I picked what I thought was the correct definition for each word.  Then, I turned the page where each word was repeated followed by the correct definition.  I thought it was fun to see how many I could correctly define.  The words were usually organized around a theme.  I got better and better at picking the right definition for each word.  Of course, my accuracy improved because I was now reading during most of my free time.  Nothing improves your vocabulary like reading.  It was my favorite activity as a child.  I learned to 'go away' while reading.  It was a way of getting privacy while living in an 1100 square foot house with three other people.  Nowadays, it's rare when I don't get 20 for 20 on "Word Power".

That is until I picked up the May, 2017 magazine....  What a shock to discover out of fifteen words, I was completely unsure of the definitions of eleven of them!  Was it early (ok - not early, but not senile - yet) dementia?  Were the words newfangled slang?  Nope.  They were words taken from the writings of Charles Dickens, arguably the most famous and certainly the most popular English writer of the 19th century.  Most of them are now either archaic, obsolete, or just totally vanished.  It just goes to show how words fade from usage and therefore existence.  Here's the list of the words.  See how you do at picking the definitions.  

1)  sawbones - (noun):  (a) doctor; (b) magician (c)  old nag

2)  catawampus - (adj):  (a) fierce; (b) syrupy; (c) deep and dark

3)  jog-trotty - (adj):  (a) monotonous; (b) nervous; (c) backward

4)  spoony - (adj):  (a) spacious; (b)  pun-filled; (c) love-dovey

5)  rantipole - (noun):  (a) battering ram; (b) fishing rod; (c) ill behaved person

6)  gum-tickler - (noun):  (a) funny remark; (b) strong drink; (c) wishbone

7)  stomachic - (noun):  (a) winter coat; (b) tummy medicine; (c) wind up toy

8)  sassigassity - (noun):  (a) fancy clothes; (b) cheeky attitude; (c) gust of hot wind

9)  comfoozled - (adj):  (a) on fire);  (b) pampered; (c) exhausted

10)  mud lark - (noun):  (a) scavenging child; (b) court judge; (c) ancient scribe

11)  plenipotentiary - (noun):  (a) housewife;  (b) diplomatic agent;  (c) bank vault

12)  toadeater - (noun):  (a) fawning person; (b) habitual liar; (c) gourmet

13)  slangular - (adj):  (a) oblique; (b) using street talk; (c) tight around the neck

14)  marplot - (noun):  (a) flower garden; (b) meddler; (c) fruit jam

15)  heeltap - (noun):  (a) Irish dance step; (b) scoundrel; (c) sip of liquor left in a glass

Now, we are going to discover the real word people.  If you want the definitions, well drop me an electronic line, or enjoy yourself by looking them up on the internet, but be warned, at least one of these words was made up by Dickens!   [The four I knew are: (1), (10), (11), (12).]  Is now the time to tell you I'm also enthralled with etymology?    

50 and Counting

 On Friday, April 9, 1971, unable to withstand the relentless pressure from my family, Drake and I drove to Gainesville, Texas, stood up in front of an enormously fat Justice of the Peace, and BOOM, we were married.  It was the smartest stupid decision I've ever made.  (I think Drake would concur with that analysis.)  I mean, what do you do when you meet the love of your life when you are 17?  On some level I knew I really didn't want to get married at age 20, but I felt trapped in a situation where it was either fish or cut bait.  So, we just did it.  Here we are on the day after our marriage standing in my parents' driveway.  It's my only wedding picture.  We arrived to announce our marriage.  (I'm displaying the $7.50 wedding band which I'm still wearing.)

Our daughter and son-in-law have showered us with gifts for this anniversary, and I truly loved their card which said, "Marriage is hard, but you make it look easy."  I smiled when I read it.  Oh, my.  Having an easy marriage took so much work and mental effort, I marvel at how much of the time we've been able to achieve it.  To put someone else 'first' is easy to say and difficult to do.  It's a mindset which makes married life run smoother, and the "you first" mindset has to be a two way street.  No marriage is 50/50.  No marriage is always easy or even good.  Even the best marriages can falter.

It has always helped our close friends from the early years have always identified us as a couple.  That's one of the benefits of getting married when you are still children.  When our 10th anniversary rolled around, some of those friends gave us a blast of a party.  And, yes, my hair is three feet long and curly.  Notice the 'medal' on Drake's tuxedo:  My 'friends' gave it to him for still being married to me after ten years.  (I resurrected the medal for him for our 50th celebration dinner.)  Over the years, I have to admit he's earned that medal.  (Oh, and I still have the dress - it's in my memory clothes bag.)

We had a second blow out party on our 25th.  Sarah Lynn, aged 10 at the time, and I planned it.  We added more friends, toned down the dress code - no tuxedos this time, and invited the parents and siblings.  The picture below is a recreation of one taken at our 10th anniversary party.  This party turned out to be bittersweet.  By our 30th anniversary, some of these friends had passed and we still grieve them.

At the 50 year mark, I'm not really sure why we succeeded in one of life's biggies.  I can speculate.  Our relationship started with a solid year long friendship before sex was added.  Even at 19, I realized a good husband choice would be someone who I truly liked, and who was so smart I'd never be bored.  Postponing children until the marriage was planted in bedrock helped.  Having a common background and culture helped with conflict resolution.  And speaking of conflict, learning how to FIGHT productively early in the marriage was crucial.  Knowing being yourself would never be disappointing to your spouse was also helpful.  

We try every five years to have a deliberate conversation about what we did right in the previous five years, and what we'd like to change.  Then, we project forward five years and set some joint goals.  This has let each of us grow and change over the years.  Your forty year old persona is NOT your twenty year old persona.  This year was one of those deliberate conversation years:  What we did right?  Traveling, traveling, traveling, so we were ready to step in and nanny our grandson.  What are we going to do differently?  Well, we are stepping back from full time childcare in 2022.  We are going to become A-B people.  (In Sun City terms, that means moving back and forth between only two locations.)  In our case, that will be Arizona and Brooklyn.) 

For me, marriage in my 20's gave me the confidence to step out and be successful at whatever I wanted to try.  We've thought from the very beginning that one of the big advantages of marriage was the other spouse always 'having our back'.  In my 30's a solid marriage let me pause a career, become a stay at home mom, and go back to school in order to start a different career.  For my 40's and most of my 50's I was able to concentrate on teaching.  It turned out to be my calling.  Without Drake's financial support, I wouldn't have been able to pursue a career which was a financial disaster.  (After ten years of teaching, I made less money than an Assistant Manager at Jack in the Box!)  When my health failed in my 50's, my career taken away, and we struggled to deal with death and dementia in my family, Drake was a rock.  He never even suggested bailing out even though our struggles during this period of our lives lasted years.  Our 60's were spent executing our joint vagabonding dream which we both relished and enjoyed to the hilt.

Now, at 70, I've struggled with this anniversary.  Milestones are so important.  If we've learned anything from this past year of horrors, we've realized how much we need our rituals.  Anniversary celebrations are one of those rituals.  This milestone comes on the heels of the death of our last living parent.  We are both deep into grief over Drake's mother dying.  She was a pillar in my life for more than 50 years.  Neither of us wanted a big party (even if COVID-19 wouldn't have interfered).  This golden anniversary seems to have black edges.  Our life is more in the rearview mirror than unspooling in front of us.  Those are the facts.  However, with a little help from our friends, I've been able to feel more celebratory this week.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't all due to the two bottles of excellent wine during our dinner celebration.   

Finally, I have a secret box which contains every greeting card given to me by Drake and me to him over the years.  Knowing they are going to be saved and cherished makes us both try a little harder to deliberately express ourselves with these cards on our milestone days.  As they have accumulated, the cards seem to be an endless ribbon of reminders to me of how very good life is when you have chosen the best husband in the universe.

Happy 50th, Drake.  I love you more than you will ever be able to imagine.  Jan.

     

        

Texas Rangers: Spring Training Report 2021

 For the first time in eight seasons of 'Reports', I really, truly do not know what to write.  Let's start with Spring Training.  First, Drake didn't attend a single Spring Training game.  Even last year we got to attend a couple before we headed to Brooklyn to enjoy a year of COVID-19.  This year, Drake proclaimed 2021 Spring Training  REALLY wasn't baseball.  Here are a few of the Spring Training wrinkles which prompted that opinion:  

(1)  The reappearing pitcher.  You can take out your pitcher, rest him for an inning or so, then reinsert him into the game.  What's up with that?  Rationale is you protect your pitcher's arm since they've also had a year of abnormality.  If he throws too many pitches during an inning, well, you can take him out and bring him back.  

(2)  "Rolling an inning".  If your pitcher has thrown 20 pitches, the manager can choose to end the inning and begin the next half-inning.  It happened five times in a Rangers/White Sox Spring Training game, and boy, the fans booed louder and louder.  

(3)  Some seven inning games; some nine inning game, who ever knew why?  Actually, I do - split squad games were seven innings just as a doubleheader was played last season during the regular games.

(4)  The fans allowed into the park (25% capacity) paid dearly for those tickets:  No walk up sales, and tickets sold on-line in groups of four - period.  Some tickets topped $100 each.  

(5)  Almost no TV games.  The TV commentators as well as the top radio commentator didn't come to Arizona.  There were a few games 'televised'.  The few that were televised consisted of the  commentators watching and calling the game from their Zoom meeting in Arlington.  The TV commentators were noticeably handicapped because they couldn't walk around the club and the work out fields talking to the players.  There was more radio - but it was very hard to follow since there were lots and lots of minor league players - who, incidentally, are desperate to play - they lost an entire season since there was no minor league action last summer.  

So, that all said.....  Here's what I know:  The Rangers have won more games in Spring Training that I can remember in the past few seasons.  They are a run scoring machine.  It's not been uncommon to see (or hear) five plus runs in a game.  I wouldn't call them 'crisp' in the field, but they aren't awful either.  The pitching has been sparkling or dull as dishwater.  Not too much between.

Don't look for Elvis this year unless we are playing the "A's" - he will be in green and gold.  That trade pissed me off terribly.  The clog in the infield is still with us.  Odor hasn't really played any better in Spring Training than he has the past three years.  Disappointing.  A strike-out machine with iffy fielding.  Batting average way, way below the Mendoza line (199).  The only bright news is he won't be playing second base.  That job now belongs to Nick Solak who has played solidly this spring.  Isaiah Kiner-Falefa will be the shortstop, and he just keeps getting better and better.   Third base still isn't decided:  Brock Holt, (age 32, solid player),  Charlie Culberson (31, first round draft choice in 2007 with a solid Spring) or Odor.  Holt deserves the job, and Culberson deserves to be on the team.  Odor doesn't.  However, he's being paid a butt load amount of $$, so who do you think is going to make the team?  It's not rocket science.   And, at first base, a new name:  Nate Lowe, age 25, originally drafted by Tampa Bay in 2016.  This is a breakthrough spring for him.  Guzman will make the team, but as a 1st base back up and sometime outfielder.  He's out of options, and both Drake and I think Guzman is getting ready to break out.  He can't clear waivers without being claimed by another team, and Texas has put a lot into this kid who is an amazing 1st baseman.  Joey Gallo has the right outfield spot nailed down.  He will play in every game.  He's becoming amazing.  He just keeps improving while hitting homeruns at a furious pace.  Another new name:  Leody Taveras.  He will play centerfield.  He's also only 22 years old and fast as greased lightening.  His challenge will be to hit major league pitching.  A lot of talent, but hitting is his Achilles heel.  Left field is up for grabs.  Calhoun is on the IR.  There's been a parade out there, so who knows who will prevail?  There aren't any big name players vying for the job.  

With the squirrely rules this Spring, I can't even name the four starting pitchers.  I do know Lance Lynn and Mike Minor WON'T be in Texas.  Gone, gone, gone.  Our two major bullpen guys are O U T with injuries - LeClerc and Hernandez.  The opportunity to set up and close is up for grabs.  One of the guys I'm rooting for is Matt Bush.  He battles his personal demons - (addiction problems) - and in the past year and a half he's had some serious injuries with drastic measures employed including Tommy John surgery to get him back on the field.  He's a bright prospect for closer.

Designated hitter:  Who knows?  Both Calhoun (groin strain) and Khris Davis (quad strain) [this is the guy we got for Elvis] are both hurt.  David was supposed to be the right hand bat hope.  Didn't see much before he went down hurt.   

Catcher:  Bright spot on the team.  Alex Trevino will be solid behind the plate, and Jonah Heim, age 25, has been known as a solid gloveman, but weak hitter with back him up.  He's turning that around at this Spring Training.  It will be interesting to watch him develop.  He's already been with three teams, and I think if he found a home, he could be a major surprise for the Rangers.  

The bottom line:  A 500 season would be an achievement for the Rangers and well within their grasp.  This team is going to be exciting to watch:  Lots of runs.  I'm looking a final Spring Training game against the Cubs:  It's 12 - 8 Rangers, but the pitchers are struggling in the top of the 9th.  Sigh.  They finally got the Cubs out for a Ranger win.  In Spring Training we've come from behind repeatedly even after giving up runs by the bunches.  They finished up 13 wins and 9 losses.  Respectable.  Let's hope this upcoming season winds up the same way.     

The Unbelievable Year

 I started out with the title "Our Year of Misery", and then, I revised it because I wouldn't want to read a piece with the word misery in it.  And, truthfully, this year has NOT been miserable.  We've been "all in" with a five person 'pod' which includes our only child, our son-in-law, and our only grandchild.  I've been fully engaged in helping a new person find his voice.  I had a bird's eye view watching a magnificent, vibrant city come to a complete standstill, and slowly awaken again.

However, this has been a miserable year in some way for all of us.  Some of us have lost jobs.  Our children have lost whole chunks of school.  We've all experienced real fear which isn't like going through the haunted house and it's over.  Instead, this kind of fear just lasts and lasts and lasts.  We are either afraid of getting sick with the damn virus, or we know someone who's been sick with the damn virus and is now worried about side effects.  Some of us have paid the ultimate price and our loved ones have passed either directly or indirectly because of the damn virus.   

The constant preventative measures of masking and hand washing aren't terrible, but they are annoying.  I don't mind the hand washing so much as the mask which is off-putting.  It can be hot and uncomfortable.  It impedes social interaction because as humans we read so many social clues through facial expressions.  And for us glasses wearers, I'm sick of either steamed up glasses or the 'preparation' of my glasses with fog defender each and every time I go outside.  

I'm thought I was tired of staying home, but now, even though I am vaccinated, I'm finding myself faintly agoraphobic (afraid to leave my house).  I'm nervous around other people, and I just want them to stay away from me.  In New York, I didn't have to tell people to stay away from me.  In Arizona, well, it's a different story.  No one seems to understand why I'm uncomfortable sitting inside a restaurant.  The nurse in one of the doctor's offices wanted to sit right on top of me while chitchatting.  (She wasn't doing a blood pressure check or anything else.)  She actually got offended when I asked her to back away from me.   I know I have very little chance of catching the virus at this point, but I'm still very leery of social interaction.  Part of me wonders if I will every be comfortable with social mingling again.

The litany of business failures is yet to be tallied.  I know we are going to have fewer restaurants, fewer stores, and fewer movie theaters.  I've learned our gigantic TV's can actually replace the 'movie' experience.  I already knew MOST sporting events are better from a recliner than in person.  And, I've always hated the 'mall'.  I will miss restaurants, but I can now order take out like a pro.

As usual in extreme situations, everything is not all bad.  I've learned new skills.  I've expanded on my former hobbies.  I've realized I enjoy 'virtual' bridge (card game) on the computer as much as an in person bridge game.  My on-line shopping skills are now razor sharp.  My appreciation of the small things has reawakened.  (For example, I've enjoyed watching the seasons change by observing the trees around me.)  While I've been cut off from larger outside entertainments, I've been endlessly entertained this past year by a toddler learning to talk, starting 'school' (mommy's day out), and learning how to help him manage all those emotions flooding on-line for him.  Yesterday, a thirty something (here in Arizona) mentioned they now know all their neighbors because it has become a neighborhood ritual to sit outside in the evenings on their front lawns visiting with one another across the lawns while their children run, play and ride their bikes.  Prior to the pandemic, they didn't know a single person on their street.

We have also learned to treasure our rituals.  Suddenly, high school graduations, proms, weddings, showers, birthday parties, Mother's Day, Father's Day, funerals, Trick or Treating, Christmas caroling, Christmas and Thanksgiving family gatherings, and just plain parties turn out to be events we have missed dreadfully.  I don't think we realized how important our cultural rituals really were until they suddenly vanished.  Who knew?

I'm a silver lining person, so I've been trying to think what are the positive aspects of the past year.  I'm not sure these are all positive, but in no particular order, this is what I've observed:  'School' has come out of the closet.  The problems of our public schools can't be out of sight, out of mind anymore.  The great divide most of us in the 'ed' biz have known and fretted about for eons is plain for everyone to see:  If you are poor, you have a poorer education from the get-go, and you fall farther and farther behind.  Even in the cities, internet access is not guaranteed to a child.  In rural America, the access problem is not only to the internet, but also to higher classes in math and science.  Now, this just sounds like one more bad thing, but it's really not.  Parents have had the scales fall from their eyes about how hard teaching actually is.   If nothing else, parents having to acknowledge how hard teachers work has been a wonderful moment for us.  It almost makes up for having to teach remotely.  As if teaching wasn't hard enough before......  

The pandemic has thrown the workplace into a configuration it's never been before.  The virus has proven it is NOT necessary to commute to an office each and every day.  Certainly not in the new economy world where business is done electronically.  While the blurring of work/home is distressing to Boomers, that's not necessarily the case for the X,Y,Z generations that follow us.  Of course, revamping the workplace is a nightmare for the IRS.  The tax returns for 2020 are going to be an exercise in creative accounting, and the tax auditors are going to be working lots and lots of overtime.  It's kind of a giggle to bumfuzzle the IRS.

We've all gotten a much bigger appreciation of how important freedom of movement is.  Even if your vacation time has usually been a trip to see grandma, not being able to get up and go has been a source of depression.  I'm definitely ready to hit the road.  I want to go to a goofy out of the way museum.  I need a State Fair.  Goodness, gracious, I'd even take a Country Fair.  Who knew I'd miss the Home Arts Exposition so much?  Not to mention real art museums, fine dining, the ballet, chamber music and the theater.

My final point is we can see that teeny, tiny pinpoint of light at the end of this year long tunnel.  This past year has been true terror at times, mingled with incredible boredom, but perhaps there's a big takeaway.  This unbelievable year has given us a profound appreciation for what we truly need in our lives.