New baby

    

Simone Chimaydrolma Kalil

     Courtney and David's  new baby Simone was born on Tuesday, May 22, weighing in at 6 pounds 12 ounces and screaming right away.  Courtney had a short and straightforward labor; she and the baby came home from the hospital the next day. For the trip,  Courtney dressed the baby in a kimono that David had worn home from the hospital as a newborn forty years ago.

Talented already

Content

     Simone is strong and thriving.  She gained 12 ounces in her first week.  She has found her voice, and tells us about her digestion.   She is becoming calmer about all those uncomfortable sensations.  She can already go four hours between feedings.  Her curled-up legs are unfolding, and she can kick.  Her neck is strong enough for her to move her head from side to side.  Her Uncle Paul laughs at me for considering my newborn grandchildren  advanced, but what else can you say about talent like that?
    Her Tibetan middle name, Chimaydrolma, was given as a blessing by David's lama.  It means "the immortal Tara."  This will not be a timid girl, although she hasn't quite grown into "Simone Chimaydrolma" yet.    All of us, especially Maxine, still refer to the baby as Ziggy, the name Maxine chose months ago.

Big sister

    Maxine is a loving big sister.  She holds the baby carefully on her lap, and helps with diaper changes.  This morning, when I was driving Maxine to preschool, I heard her singing in the back seat, "I have a new girl baby sister, a girl, girl, girl baby sister."
     I arrived on Sunday and will stay until June 10.  I am besotted.

Blissed out

    
    
  

Mary and Jeremy visit

  

Jeremy pondering bees

      Now that we are both in our sixties, it doesn't seem quite right to describe Mary as "my oldest friend".  However,  we have been friends since we were 16.  She  cut the cord when my son David was born.  Her husband Jeremy is dear and thoughtful, one of my best sources for new ideas and analyses.  We had a fine time together when they visited last week.
     Jeremy is a beekeeper and an expert on honeybees.  The first thing he saw when he stepped into our back yard was a swarm of bees in our dogwood tree.  I tried to convince him that I had cued the special effects in order to give him a grand welcome.
        We toured the Rhododendron Garden and the Japanese Garden, and Mary did prodigious work in our garden.  Jeremy fixed our broken lamps.

Mary

View from our guest room

  
    Sheila came for a walk and tea.  Betsy and Les invited us for coffee in their 23rd- floor aerie with their spectacular city views. We had such engrossing conversations that none of us wanted the morning to end.

Author and Powell's Espresso book machine

    At Powell's City of Books, we witnessed an example of the revolution in publishing when we saw a demonstration of their new print-on-demand book machine.  The machine prints the pages, cuts and collates them, prints the cover, and binds the book, all in about ten minutes.  The author was hovering around, as anxious and then as proud as the mother of a new baby.

Joyful Lois signing books

Clowning around at the party

     My friend Lois Leveen's new book, The Secrets of Mary Bowser, was  published on May 15 the traditional way, by HarperCollins. It is fiction based on the true story of Mary Bowser, a former slave who returned to Richmond to spy for the Union by pretending to be an enslaved maid working in the Confederate White House. Jeremy, Mary and I  were part of the packed house at Powell's on Friday night when  Lois read from her book. We then made a brief stop at a party honoring Lois.

At the Japanese Garden

      All too soon, Mary and Jeremy left to go home to their grandchildren and their honeybees in Pennsylvania.  Such good times with good friends!
  

Among the many arts

     Lately I have been enjoying the work of actors, authors, and other creative people.

Black Pearl sings

      Judy and I  went downtown with Betsy and Les to the Gerding Theater to see Black Pearl Sings.    It is an adaptation of a true story from the 1930s.  John Lomax, folk song collector from the Library of Congress, heard the singing of Hudie Leadbetter in Angola Prison Farm  in  Louisiana.  Lomax brought Leadbetter, known to us as Leadbelly, to New York to perform.   In  the play Susannah, a  folk song collector, meets Pearl,  who is in prison in Texas for murdering a man who needed killing.  Susannah helps Pearl get  parole, and leads her to New York to sing at Carnegie Hall.  Pearl dresses in her finest clothes.  At the Gerding, the audience gasped when Susannah brought out prison stripes for Pearl to wear at her performance.   Pearl's singing was strong and rich throughout the play, with Susannah's Appalachian tunes as a counterpoint.

Goats for the old goat

     Sheila and I went to the screening of a documentary about Ellen Ratner, political commentator for the Talk Radio News Service.  Ratner spoke after the screening, and inspired all of us with her drive for humanitarian work in South Sudan.  For her sixtieth birthday, Ratner founded a charity called Goats for the Old Goat.

Proud Pat with her books

     My friend Pat Lichen, author  of Kidnapping the Lorax,  organized a  successful Author's Fair at church.  Over 40 writers participated in workshops and sold lots of books.  I was in my church lady mode as I helped at the accompanying bake sale.

Sheila's new puppy

    Sheila and I drove  on Saturday to the county fairgrounds at Canby for the Master Gardeners' plant sale.  The nursery growers of Clackamas County filled the fairgrounds with glorious plants.  Sheila adopted a new pet.

Bryan Bowers

      Later Judy, Donna and  I drove south to  a small American Legion hall in  Salem to hear Brain Bowers, preeminent autoharp player and storyteller.    Brian gave  his usual fine performance, but I couldn't help but notice that most of his songs were about old age or death.   We had some time before the show, so I explored the grounds of the Chemawa Indian School.  The cemetery, from 1886, is closed off by a chain link fence tenderly topped with artificial flowers.

Chemawa totem pole

Bob Moore signing his biography

    On Tuesday I talked to Bob Moore, founder of Bob's Red Mill here in Milwaukie.  A few years ago Bob to celebrated  his retirement by  giving his very successful nationwide company to his employees.  This year he and his wife Charlee gave $ 5 million to  Oregon State University to found a center for research and outreach in the fields of nutrition and childhood obesity.

    

Maxine dancing November 2011

     My favorite art of the week came during a Skype call with  Maxine.   Maxine is preparing for a dance recital next week, and  she showed  us her some of her moves.

Maggie in Evanston

      I had  a fine time in Evanston last weekend visiting  Paul and Tina and Jack, age 8, Charlie, age 6, and Sam, age 3.

Sam rocks

Cool glasses

     I arrived to delicious grandson hugs on Friday.  Sam is into costumes these days, so he wore his tiger outfit.  We ate a   quick dinner of  baked penne with Bechamel  sauce (even Tina's leftovers are superb).  Then we went out for some Chicago night life:  Paul and Tina's good friends Jason and Emily performed at a farm-to-table restaurant/music space.  It was a happy, friendly  crowd of  music lovers who conversed eagerly with me, even though I was the only one in the room wearing glasses that were not cool, retro, or black-rimmed.  As we walked back to the car through the Chicago night, I refrained from saying what was going though my head, "It's after 9 o'clock!  Isn't it wonderful to be out in the city at night?"

Books change lives

Dragons of Blueland

        On Saturday morning we went to the Evanston Public Library.  Paul is in a two-man book club with Jack, and also one with Charlie. Charlie and Paul each checked out  a copy of   Dragons of Blueland. Jack and Paul found  copies of  Diamonds of Darkhold,  the #4 book in Jeanne DuPrau's Book of Ember series. Charlie couldn't wait to delve into his book.   Sam was just happy to have his very own book.   Jack looked for cookbooks to bolster his collection of recipes from around the world. Tina, meanwhile, found information to help her get practice for a mosaic tile mural she is planning to create  on a blank concrete wall in her garden.

   In Evanston, you can walk most places you want to go.  We crossed the street to a buffet lunch in an Indian restaurant.  During  the rainy afternoon we hung out at home, playing music and games.  Jack and Charlie worked on the kid blogs set up through their school.  Jack writes restaurant reviews and book reviews.  Charlie worked his way through the  spelling of  his first online book review.    We had turkey with mole sauce in burritos for dinner, then talked into the evening.

Baseball

Chess club

Checking out a worm

    On Sunday morning Jack made Mexican hot chocolate for us while Tina prepared elaborate Greek bread for her dining club.  I read Bad Dog, Marley to Sam about forty times.  Paul and I had a long walk around his neighborhood while Tina took the boys to a birthday party.

Charlie sizing up the competition

Heavy load

     There are three parks within two blocks of Paul's house.  Late Sunday afternoon  we walked to Mason Park to play baseball.  Three other boys joined the Kalils in batting and fielding drills.  Even Sam threw and hit, before he got distracted by the playground equipment.

     I walked Jack and Charlie and their backpacks the two blocks to school on Monday morning.  They arrive at 8 on Mondays in order to play chess.  Tina and I dropped Sam and  at  preschool and  then headed to a world of wonders,  a Midwest garden center. After school, a gang of boys clustered around a Beyblades box ( a kind of contest with tops), with Charlie right in the middle, holding his own against the 5th graders.

Charlie wins a bey battle

      On Tuesday morning Tina and Sam drove me to the airport.  Sam, in his skeleton costume, gave me delicious grandson hugs and kisses goodbye.

Cottage cleanup

Spindrift

    I went back to Manzanita last weekend to clean Spindrift, the library cottage.  The building has been in almost constant use  by library staff since the 1920s.  The cottage is rented for a nominal fee ($65-$75 per night), for Friday through Sunday or Monday through Thursday nights.   Each renter is required to clean well after her stay.  So the cottage is continuously occupied and theoretically cleaned a hundred times a year.  Nevertheless, Spindrift is a century- old wooden building on a small rise above the beach on the Pacific.  Like any centenarian, it has  needs.  We set aside two weekends per year for cleaning, repairs,  and upkeep.

Sami

     There is a lot of competition to reserve nights at the cottage.  Anybody who is over 21 and has a permanent job with the  library can rent the cottage, as can retirees.  There are about currently about 500 people working for the library system.  Not everybody is interested in Spindrift. Some come from families that have houses at the coast.  Some cannot spare the time off or the rental fee; some don't have  transportation.  Some don't want to do without TV.  And some object to vacations where they have to cook and clean for themselves.  But those who love the cottage love it, and enter a drawing three time per year (winter, spring, and summer) to reserve time there.  Participating in the cleanup weekends by cleaning for 6 hours gets you a coupon  for priority in the drawings.

Don with scale model of cottage

     Can you clean for 6 hours in one day?  Neither can I, so I planned to work at it  on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning.  It's a 2 -hour drive through dairy farmland and over the Coast Range to Highway 101 south.  All  the way there I listened to the CD that my brother -in -law had made me, Weepies and Gospel, a great combination combination.  I also prayed that the younger cleaners had left some stand-up jobs to be done.
     When I got there, tall Matt Yakes was on a ladder cleaning and oiling the wood ceilings.  Washing the insides of the windows (one of my favorite jobs) had been done, but I  got to work cleaning out the pantry, cabinets and drawers.  Sami and Don arrived, Sami to arrange for repairmen  and Don to do special projects.

Tasha, children's librarian

Travis washing outside of windows

    Sami, Don, and I spent the night. Don is a model railroader, and he brought out some  articles about my Uncle John that he was saving for me.  After we had watched the sunset and eaten dinner, Don got out his electric blue Stratocaster and played what he calls geezer music.  We sang along, "Run- run -run- run -runaway."   Sami is writing a book about the history of the cottage,  and  I have  done some research into the early days of the property. We  got into long discussions about the fascinating romance of Mary France Isom's daughter Berenice.
   On Monday morning reinforcements arrived.  Travis tackled the outside of the windows, and Tasha scrubbed the fireplace screen before started in on the yard.  Galen and I put in new shelf paper.  Then I left to drive home, singing all the way.
  

Easter

Camellia blossom

Judy's tulips in the rain

     The crescendo of birdsong fades just as the light is coming up.  The lawn across the cul-de-sac looks like it is frosted, but the rime is just heavy dew on thick, thick grass.   The sun shines on  the andromeda and through the top of the Sequoia.  The camellia outside our window is in full bloom, and grape hyacinths invade the yard in a riot of purple.  The earth smells wonderful.

Me in a choir robe?

     At Easter I joined the church choir to add my voice to the Hallelujah Chorus. We sat facing the congregation.  They were stony-faced during the long sermon about transformation, but when the Hallelujahs  began, they smiled  and sang along. I saw a few tears.

Rob and Hattie

       After church we went to Janet's sister Nancy's for lunch.  Nancy and Rob live in the country, 15 minutes from here.  In addition to teaching and driving truck, they raise a few cattle for freezer beef, and tend a small orchard.  Janet and Robert were there, and their daughter and son-in-law, Kelli and Randy. Janet and Nancy's parents came, and Robert brought his mother in from her memory care unit.  Family friend Beverly and her brother, both in their 90s, entertained us with stories of growing up in North Dakota.  Carol, a former colleague of Nancy's, talked abut her volunteer work and her home maintenance adventures.  Rob's daughter Abby came in  towards the end. The true guests of honor were Nancy's granddaughters, Annie and Hattie, along with their parents.  It is a rare treat for Nancy and Rob to see the girls, and they savored every minute.

Waunita's Easter cake

     I grew up with large family dinners at holidays, always with  singletons and family friends folded in.  Here in Oregon, where Judy and I have no blood relations, I am  grateful to the clans who include us as family in their gatherings.

Orchid from Janet

     On our kitchen windowsill, cuttings of daphne odora from Nancy's front yard are rooting.  The fabulous scent fills the house.  The morning light shines through the orchid on our dining room table, now in its second year of bloom.  Some days it doesn't rain.  It's finally spring.

Manzanita vacation

  

Sunset at Manzanita

     Judy and I went to the Oregon Coast last week with Rose and John, their daughter Jessamy, her husband Rob, their three children Josh, Megan, and Jamie, and the lovely dog Bree.  We stayed in a house with glorious views. Out the front windows we saw the sand and the ocean and the sky, and out the side windows we looked up at Neahkahnie Mountain.  In the early morning light and at sunset we could see the spouts of the gray whales migrating up the coast.

Rob and Bree

     We watched Josh ride his skim board at low tide, and Megan and Jamie jump puddles.  John and Rob took long bike ride in Nehalem Bay State Park, where John saw seals in the water.  Bree and Rob took long walks exploring the beach.

     We played  games.  The math whizzes among us played a "simple" game where you make the numbers on four dice equal the number on two others, using any combination of functions:  addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, factors or factorials.  Got that?  I didn't either.  

Josh and Megan play pinball

Megan and Judy play Look! Look!

Jess and Jamie play speed Scrabble

Rob and Bree

    There was lots of reading going on, and we finished some puzzles.  Jess, Rose, and Judy made fantastic food.  Megan taught me to fold paper to make a fortune teller like the ones we made in grade school.

Jamie and John 

Megan

      

We had a leisurely  discussion about a name for David and Courtney's new baby girl, due in May.  Megan and Jamie have read a series of books called Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and that led them to suggest Greek names.  Artemis?  Thalia?  John suggested Zorba.  Jamie, who is just beginning to read, had a good idea.  She found her fairy book, and said, "There are lots of names in here."  She went though the book and picked out the proper names. We tried each one out.  Fawn? Fern? Daisy?

Judy and Bree

   My friend Sheila Sullivan came down for the day on Friday.  Rose and Sheila and I walked through the fine shops  on Manzanita's one commercial street.  As we looked at the expensive baby clothes made of soft cotton and bamboo, I hesitated to buy. "Maybe I'll come back tomorrow, " I hemmed and hawed. "Why?" Sheila nudged.    Three Sullivan sisters browsing; how I wished there were more!

Jess

   We took plenty of time for just gazing out the windows and being lost in thought.

Jamie

 Mostly we enjoyed the beauty and delighted in each other's company.

Josh and Jamie