September 1st again. I have lots to remember that happened during the last part of August and the first week in September. Fifty-eight years ago today I had my last child – a beautiful blonde baby boy. He was born in the Navy Hospital in Norfolk Virginia. What a delightful little guy he was. In fact, except for frequent attacks of severe croup during his first six years, he was always easy to care for and a very good kid who was a pleasure to raise
Thirty two years ago this last weekend my first husband, father of my children, died in the Naval Hospital in Long Beach after a long struggle with asthma and clogged arteries. He was too young to die – only 59 years old. It doesn’t seem possible it happened so long ago. Time sure does fly.
I was thinking yesterday about how fast time goes by when I watched the Parkview Little League team from Chula Vista win the world’s championship from the Chinese Taiwan team. It amazes me that little boys could grow so much and get so much ability to play ball in only twelve or thirteen short years. Those boys are really good! I watched their unofficial welcome home on TV last night and each one was given a chance to say something. The microphone was a little intimidating to some of them, but there was not a shrinking violet among them. Most of them were not only assertive but sounded entirely confident, even bold. And what beautiful kids they all are! They are a wonderful credit to the whole community – all of San Diego County. They have to start school tomorrow a day late, but on Friday night the city of Chula Vista will honor them with a short parade and a ceremony.
Last but not least, I couldn’t believe my eyes today when I heard a lot of squawking from our little flock of colorful 14 mixed-breed chickens. I looked out the window and saw what I thought at first was a large hawk. He was perched in a pine tree and his body was partly concealed so that all I could see was his large head and shoulders peering down at the chickens. Then I took more notice that the part I was seeing of him was all white. We don’t have any white hawks around here! What I was actually seeing was a good-sized eagle. In fact he was big enough to carry off at least three of our cats (one at a time that is) and one of them, little yellow Sunny-Boy, was right out there where he could be caught. Well! I grabbed my trusty manzanita cane/club and toddled out there and yelled at him, but he had already flown away as soon as I was out the door. I guess I’d better make a habit of taking a walkabout every hour or so to protect our critters.
My daughter Jane did the driving today so we could pay the rent and I could do some monthly errands and buy a few groceries. I needed some oatmeal, raisins, and molasses to make a couple of cookie recipes in Jane’s Los Angeles Times cookbook. I bought bananas and Cool Whip for a banana cream pie too. Guess I should have bought some Granny Smith apples for an apple pie as well. I make mostly apple, lemon meringue, and banana cream pies. We haven’t had a good enough oven to bake much for a long time until we moved into this little house the end of June. The stove here is a good one.
I think the time may have come for me to give up driving - at least until I get over being dizzy so much. I have an appointment with a new doctor in a couple of days. I’m way overdue for tests that I’m supposed to have every two weeks. There was some kind of silly rule that I couldn’t make an appointment with a new doctor for what became almost six weeks, and my old doctor is almost sixty miles away so I ended up without any medical care for most of the summer, and for the past week and a half I have been without two medications (that are not all that important.) I’m hoping after I see Dr. Marshall and get my meds straightened out I will feel that is safe again for me to drive. I hate to take up Jane’s time and I don’t get to poke around the way I would if I were alone. But I know the time is coming when I won’t be independent any more and that’s just the way it has to be.
It is almost time for Craig Ferguson and I feel like listening to his foolishness, so I’ll say good night to anyone who lasted through this meandering post. Good Night!
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Comments: 32
Interesting
Take care
always nice to read your posts. take care
We care.
What a sight you described. I want that eagle to hunt elsewhere but enjoyed envisioning the sight.
I'm glad you're smarter than I was about the driving thing. If I had been, I would probably still have my licence without all the hassles of trying to get it back later.
So much history we all have going around in our heads, don't we? I'm welcoming great grand babies here, but remembering my own when they were tiny. A baby at church looks so much like my oldest son, that it makes me tear up. He is clear across the country and stuggling with a slipping job at 49 and a half. No telling when if ever again I will see him and his wife. All his kids are scattered now. Mississippi, New Mexico, California, Louisiana and he's stuck in Tennessee which he doesn't like. He was born in the West but has been East since he got out of the Coast Guard in 1981. He talks about retiring here but with the economic disaster we've had, now he is just silent and sweating out his job. My heart breaks for my kids right now, the ones in their 40's who have lost so much they've worked for and their kids, who are just starting out and can't even find jobs. They're all back in school and working a mim. wage jobs to keep body and soul together. Very tough times. Most are turning toward the medical service fields.
Well, now you can say your conversations are one sided. Ha ha!
I had a heck of a time with getting the car away from my mother.... but that's another story for another chat.
Keep those articles coming, Ruth. We love them... and you.
You pies sound so good. I wish more people around here at more pie, I would gladly bake a few but most of the pie just goes to waste and waist if you know what I mean :)
I hope all goes well at the doctors and he can find something to help you out with the dizzy spells. Take care and enjoy.
I'm about to have a small dish of ice cream before starting bedtime activities. Perhaps, when life is less hectic, I'll make a banana cream pie.
Sorry to hear you've had to wait to see your Dr., but at least you're going now and you might not have to give up driving. I've never seen an eagle up-close and would love to read more about that, too.
You can write any way you want, but then later, take parts and write more on it all - people still read and I really enjoyed this. I also know what it's like to have a bad, very small stove, where it's so hard to bake anything (it's driving me nuts!). So glad you've gotten a good one now.
Take care, safe is good,
Hugs,
Marilyn
That sounds like good advice to write further articles about things like the eagle. Maybe I could do a post about local birds. I rescued a tiny cactus wren from one of my cats two weeks ago
with many thanks for posting here
Mark
I have seen eagles even closer to town than we are here in the San Diego area. When I was still working back in the 1980s I had a friend who lived on high ridge and there was a pair of eagles on a nearby promontory. That was within five miles of Embarcadaro in San Diego. There are still a lot of places within housing areas that are almost inaccessible to humans where rabbits, coyotes and predator birds still survive.
I have been listening to a lot of Zydeco and bayou music lately and always think of you when I do.
In fact I kept a weekly column going with just such material. It paid me $50 a week, which covered all my expenses at the time. Readers would say they felt like we were old friends talking, which was a lovely compliment.
After we held a Celebration of My Husband Robert's life, I had a stroke. I just got home from the hospital yesterday. I have little control over my left side, so I won't be driving for a while.
But that is okay, because I am home with my critters, exactly where I want to be.
More on that later.
Now I'm just failing for more reasons than old age. I'm thankful for my pets too. I just had old Billy put down. He was suffering from something that made him very thin, just skin and bones, even though I fed him extra canned food. His hind legs didn't work right any more either. He used to be a standoffish cat and once bit my thumb right to the bone, but for the last few years he became very loving and wanted to lie right beside me all the time. I had a hard time deciding to put him down. I get a lot of comfort from my cats - especially my beautiful long-haired Buddy and gray tabby Tiger Tom, the wild cat that moved in with me back up at the horse camp. They are both especially loving. I have only seven cats left from 17 ten years ago. Coyotes got most of them in spite of Smokey's efforts to protect them. They hunt too far from the dooryard sometimes.
Jane has new rules - No more cats in her room. One small timid female, Cleo. has moved in with me. It took three days for her to get up courage to explore the room and find out that my cats won't hurt her. Most of Jane's other cats visit me every day too.
I hope you will feel better soon.
with inner ear imbalance when I was 47, and have to be careful still if I turn my head in bed to the left, otherwise okay that way. That blood thinner is a dangerous drug, I hope you can keep getting the check ups you need. Please take good care of yourself, love, Elsie