Blue eyes

 Charlie

 Simone

Rapunzel

          Six of us drove up from the graduation party in the Woodlands to visit Dave and Courtney in Bryan.  I looked for longhorns to point out to my sisters and brothers-in-law, but we saw only  regular cattle in the rainy Texas countryside.  Maxine greeted us in her Rapunzel dress, and gave her great-aunts a tour of the Ninja castle.
    We ate a fine meal and lingered at the table while Mike helped Maxine string a necklace.  As we sat later delighting in Maxine and Simone dancing, I kept noticing Simone's dark blue eyes.  My grandson Charlie has blue eyes, too.
    I am happy about the blue eyes.   I am not just "isn't- that- something" pleased to see their blue eyes.  I am really, inordinately thrilled that two of my five  grandchildren have blue eyes. Where does that come from?

Beautiful brown eyes

      I love brown eyes.  I have spent many years in wonder at the brown eyes of my sons and grandchildren.   And yet, I am tickled pink that my recessive Irish traits are showing up.  Blue eyes remind me of my sisters and my brother.

Blue-eyed brother

Blue-eyed sister

      When I told Courtney how amazed I was at Simone's blue eyes, she remarked on the (very slight) differences in skin tones and hair color in the Texas family.   Maxine was full of questions.  "Is it better to have light skin or dark skin?" she asked.
 "Well, with darker skin you tan easier," Courtney offered.
 "And you don't get wrinkles the same way when you are old," I said.
 Later, when Maxine and I were doing a puzzle showing ballerinas, she instructed me, "You do the dark-skinned ones and I'll do the light ones."  Where does that come from?

Blue-eyed sisters

Blue-eyed sister

Which is better?

Judy rides the bull

Bull rider

        My brother Don rented a mechanical bull for the party to celebrate his four children's high school graduation.  "We are  in Texas," he reminded us.

Eileen, Dan, Natalie, Pat

Four college tuitions?

Natalie with Mary and sister Michelle

     Natalie, Dan and Eileen  and Patrick each graduated summa cum laude.  Here's a link to a story in the local paper about them:  .http://fatcatwebproductions.com/the_paper/content/graduate-spotlight-woodlands-college-park-high-school Dan will study chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.  Nat will go into the Liberal Arts Honors  program there, and Eileen starts with the elite Dean  Scholars group in the natural sciences.   On Friday all three returned enthused from a week's freshman orientation on the campus at Austin.  Pat will have to wait until August for his orientation week at Georgetown.  Their friends are nice kids who greeted each other with hugs  and mixed happily with the large number of cousins and adult relatives gathered in Don and Mary's back yard.  

Maxine at slide show

Simone 

     The Maryland contingent was strong. Mary's parents were there, and her three sisters and their families, and my sisters Florrie and Vonnie and their husbands.  A couple flew in from Syracuse, where Don and Mary lived when the quads were in  preschool.  David, Courtney and the girls drove in from College Station.  Maxine watched the slide show of photos from the graduates' lives, and Simone enjoyed the pool.

    Judy was using oxygen most of the time in the  humid climate of Houston. She kept the prongs of the cannula in her nostrils and rolled the concentrator behind her.  We have named it "the beast."

Mary to Judy: How are you really doing?

     My brother's back yard is terraced. The bull was placed  on a small level piece of  lawn down a steep grassy path from the patio and pool.  Judy congratulated the quads, mingled with the crowd for a while, and then started down the hill toward the bull.  Mary's  brother-in-law carried the oxygen concentrator behind her, judging the distance carefully because Judy was still attached to the cannula.  Judy slipped off her shoes, removed the oxygen from her nose, and climbed onto the bull.  It didn't throw her.   Then she climbed off and reattached herself to oxygen.  Brother-in-law Dan carefully helped Judy and the beast back up the hill.  Judy  beat the bull!

The great dance

Chuck at the grill

      Sheila is famous for her parties and Chuck is renowned for  his barbecue, so I was really looking forward to the shindig for Sheila's big birthday.  I heard rumors: Chuck had cleaned out the garage to make a dance space.  There would be a contest for the best present that symbolized what a person needed to thrive after age 60.

Sheila's pond

     We arrived armed with a garden troll and a cartoon book called  Great Sex after 50 and other Lies  of Old Age.  Chuck was in serious barbecue mode on the deck.  The youngsters were playing croquet on the lawn of Sheila's upper garden.  Sheila was showing off the arbor that her son Max had built for her.   Max's mother-in-law was holding court with her teenage grandsons, watching the ducks on the pond.  The three guest dogs studiously ignored each other and stayed calm in spite of the crowd.

Sheila and the Graces

   We sat with Sheila's brother Dennis, up from Eugene, to eat the best ribs  I have ever tasted.  I tried to sort out who was who and how they were related.  Sheila collects people and enfolds them into her life.  Once, when I asked her how a young man  came into her circle,  she ended the story with "Yes, that's Jeff.  He's one of mine." (As a birthday present, Jeff helped Max make the arbor for Sheila's Cecile Brunner roses.)

Opening gag gifts

Judy in the arbor

   As it grew dark, the dancing began.  The fluid graceful  hippies who had met at a Bollywood dance party, the young women with their stylized moves, the old women, all of us were eager for whatever beat the DJ provided.  Max's father-in-law  danced for three solid hours, keeping up with three young men.  "John sure enjoys his grandsons, " said Sheila.  Chuck wove in  and out of the dancers, keeping time on a wooden gourd,  handing out tambourines and shaking eggs.  At one point,  the seventeen-year old who could mimic Michael Jackson was paired with Sheila's middle-aged upstairs neighbor.
    Since I first got a clue that dancing was about more than happy exercise, I have felt awkward at best on the dance floor.  I have become accustomed to sitting out the great dance between men and women.   But at Sheila's party I rocked with the best of them.  When the DJ finally played a slow number, my lady Judy and I swayed to the music, holding each other close.

  

Events in Evanston

Ballplayers knitting

Jack raising money

Charlie

    It was an action-packed weekend with Paul's family in Evanston.  On Friday afternoon Jack and Charlie ran in the Dewey School Fun Run.  Tina had been at the school all afternoon, setting up the circular running track, arranging registration and water bottles, pizza and snacks.  The boys and their schoolmates prepared to run  around and around the track after we all pledged money to support the Dewey School PTA. Jack was on the cell phone at the last minute, asking for a contribution from his grandfather in Virginia.  Paul arrived from work and began to time the runs.   Jack and Charlie each ran two miles straight, and thus got a bonus contribution from their parents.  As I watched the kids running around in circles and the parents cheering for each lap, I thought about the dance marathons and flagpole sittings of the Great Depression. I remembered about the shortened school year in Oregon.  How do we get from Fun Runs to stable funding for the public good?

Snow Globe Mules 

Stage mother

    That night Paul's band, the Snow Globe Mules, played a rock show at the Elbo Room in Chicago.  The same neighbors I met at the school yard and the ball fields are part of Paul's group.  Paul composes the songs they sing.  He was worried that I wouldn't like the show, and warned me to bring earplugs.  I  forgot the earplugs, and I loved the music.  I think the Snow Globe Mules are probably pretty good.

Waiting to sing

    Saturday morning part of downtown Evanston was roped off for the 25th annual Young Evanston Arts festival.  Jack's and Charlie's art pieces were displayed, and Jack's chorus performed.  Jack and his friends and I traded tongue twisters as diction exercises while they waited.  They had me stumped with "unique New York."  Jack, who is just emerging from a 5-month bout with the aftermath of the norovirus, struggled to keep from coughing during the performance.

Warming up

Sam learns to knit

   Jack's baseball game was held at a park at the end of their block.  While Jack covered the infield, Paul and Charlie warmed up a pitcher and Sam learned to knit with a spool.  At the next game, Charlie hit two home runs and tagged two sliding runners out at home.  The opposing coach came over and joked, "I want that player tested for banned substances."  When the son of the third base coach  was slightly banged with a ball, the other fathers covered for him while he comforted his son. These men are friends, neighbors, band members, coaches and school boosters.   I was struck with the tenderness of the fathers.

Charlie in the action

  Tina and Sam, meanwhile, were helping with the church rummage sale and then attending a 4-year-old's birthday party.  We all met up for  a brief stop at home, and then walked the six blocks into town to dinner at a Thai restaurant.

Jack's turn as goalie

     On Sunday we ventured into the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, where we ate lunch, went to a load-your -own frozen yogurt place, and reveled in the great selections at the Women and Children First bookstore.
     Then it was time for soccer.  Jack and Charlie both prefer baseball, and say they won't play soccer again next year. "Why?" Paul asked Charlie, "You are so good at it and you seem to enjoy it. " "I just like to be in the action, " replied Charlie.
     On Sunday evening, we savored a dinner at home.   As we sat down in the dining room to Tina's spaghetti Bolognese, Sam, who can read and count to a hundred now, announced,  "There are six people in our family."He beamed with satisfaction as we lingered over the meal, talking and enjoying each other's company.
    

Sam

Crossroads

Home oxygen set-up

     Judy has come to  a milestone that she didn't want to reach:  the doctors have suggested that she begin using oxygen with activity.  Oxygen is the one thing that medicine has to offer that will prolong her life, they say. They tell her pretend that it's a pill.  It will help. But Judy is dismayed.  "I think of it as a dividing line," she says.  And, "I didn't think this time would come so soon."
   The oxygen company delivered standard  tanks the day after the doctor prescribed oxygen.  Judy pulls the tanks, which last about one hour, behind her in a rolling duffel bag. She drags a tank behind her to use the oxygen when she goes to her ukulele lessons and when she walks at the mall. She uses it when she walks from the parked car to her destination. I think the oxygen makes her feel better and less tired, but she won't yet grant it that power.  She just quietly uses it, and doesn't complain about having a shadow.  When I tell about what  it was like to have toddler and not be able even to shift your weight, much less leave the room, without upsetting him, she makes no comment.

Elegba

    I learned from Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock about Elegba, the Yoruba  god of the crossroads.  Elegba has been called a divine trickster.  When you come to a crossroads, you must make and offering to him. The best offerings involve doing something silly.  Judy's offering at her crossroads was to go without oxygen on an airplane trip to Fresno.  She then stayed without oxygen in the foothills of the Sierras at a week-long  autoharp festival.
    Even for those of us on Medicare, long delays related to insurance put us in the position of doing risky things. Judy is supposed to get a portable oxygen concentrator, which lasts about 3 hours and can be used on an airplane.  The insurance company has not yet given the OK for the concentrator, so Judy  went on her trip without oxygen.   Thank goodness, her only scary time was when she was at an altitude of 6500 feet.

Makeshift portable oxygen

     Yesterday the doc called Judy to say he wants her to take a high dose of Prednisone for 6 weeks and then to taper off it.  There is a chance that taking the steroid will act as a shock treatment to stop the momentum of the scarring of her lungs, at least for a while.  The drug will weaken her immune system and make her more vulnerable to pneumonia and other infections, which are lethal threats to her compromised lungs.   Judy will have to take an antibiotic along with the steroid.
    I have heard that high doses of steroids make people irritable and aggressive. (Can I go live somewhere else for 6 weeks?) Judy anticipates that they will give her a voracious appetite, and is thinking of strategies to keep from gaining weight.   Both of us are saying, "Wait a minute!  What's with the high- level medical treatment?  It's just a little cough, shortness of breath, and fatigue, isn't it?"
   I think Elegba is laughing.
    
  
  

Bird songs and witches

Barred owlet

     I've been going on  birdsong walks early in the morning at Tryon Creek State Park. I'm  pleased to be able to distinguish a few calls and songs and connect them with the birds I can see in books.  I'm learning to spot birds and appreciate their fuzzy outlines; someday I will be adept at using binoculars. I like walking with  birders because they pause for long periods of time on the treks up the steep hills that lead from the creek bed.  The pauses allow me to get out of survival- breathing mode and enjoy being quiet in the woods.
    There is a raven's nest in Tryon Creek Park now.   Ravens have been gone from the Willamette Valley for almost 150 years, after having been wiped out by the settlers who objected to the threat to their crops.   (The predecessor to today's Christmas bird count was the Christmas bird kill.)  This week we heard the raven's call, and saw an adult fly into the nest.

Judy carved this raven mask

    We paused on the path near the barred owls' nest.  Sharp eyes spotted on owlet in a cedar sapling right near the path.  There were two adult owls and an older juvenile perched in a high, wide  semi-circle around the sapling, keeping an eye on junior.  The owlet was about 6 or 7 weeks old, and  close enough to the ground to be threatened by one of the big dogs that owners sometimes allow to run loose in the park. We stood and watched  for a long time.  As we left, our leader was exultant.  "Next stop, the nest of the ivory-billed woodpecker, " he joked.

Happy leader

Sentinel

     One summer  I helped a young friend with her newborn twins, mostly by holding the babies.  Their older brother, Julian was 6 years old.  He asked if I wanted to see  his fort.  We went into the back yard, duck under the fence, and crawled into a low cave of pine branches.  I couldn't sit or stand upright, but it was fragrant and cozy and special to Julian.  When it came time to leave, I was afraid that I couldn't bend enough to get back under the fence to get out.  But I did, and we stood still for a little while, waiting for me to be able to move. The wind was blowing the silver-leaf maples, rustling the leaves high above our heads. Julian  said, "Let's watch," the way  a kid would suggest "Let's play this game."  So I stood with a wise 6 -year -old and learned about  the game of watching.
     Years ago my friend Jeremy led a group of us on a trip to  his childhood home, Zimbabwe.  In preparation he sent recordings of the songs of some of the birds native to the country.  One of our first stops in Zimbabwe was at a bird sanctuary, where we gazed in wonder at the strange birds while Jeremy shared his knowledge of some of their traits.  I remember that exotic refuge these days as I tromp around in an environment that is so familiar to my eye.

Sentinel

     On the birdsong walk in Tryon Park, I was to be able to hear a Wilson's Warbler as he marked the perimeter of his territory.  He needed the right bugs, the right openness to sunlight, the right moisture, hoping to attract the right mate.  The bird's behavior is  so specific to one particular place in one particular forest, with its own history.   I remembered a woman at a talk on earth-based religions saying, "I am a different witch in Oregon than I was in Kansas.  The corn here needs different prayers."
Some birds fly high and some fly long, but the grounding  place has to be just right.

Hanging out with the beloveds

Donna tries out new knee

     We were in the bar of Huber's, the oldest restaurant in Portland,  celebrating Donna's new knee.   The outing was Fuey's idea. "I could have sent you flowers or a plant, " she said to Donna, "But I thought this would be much more fun. " The three autoharp players sipped their Spanish coffees, while I, the  designated driver, savored strawberries in lemonade.

Fuey

     Fuey told tales of fishing and smoking salmon in Alaska in the '70s.  "It was a blast, " she beamed,  "I didn't want to leave."  She talked about covering  the night shift in an 11-bed hospital, when so many nurses were gone for World War II. Fuey was only 16, but the  head nurse slept upstairs, and could be  called on  for any emergencies.   Fuey reflected on her mother's more circumscribed life in small California towns, an intellectual life filled with books and music but not much adventure. " I made a list once of all the things my mother didn't get to do."  She talked about how her parents treated her.  "It seemed like they thought the sun rose and set on me," she beamed.  And then she mused, "Sometimes I wonder how my younger sisters felt about it."
    Fuey is one of the people I think of as"the beloveds."  My sister Rose is like that, and my friend Nell.   They reflect a sense of having been cherished from birth, of feeling that sun and moon rising and setting on them throughout childhood.  It is wonderful to be around them, to dance in the happy circle they cast.

Nell tires out the ukulele

     Judy and I felt cherished when we went to dinner at Betsy and Les's. Betsy's gracious and perceptive welcome brings out the uniqueness in each of us. The conversation was rich, as always, even though we were fretfully aware that the second bomber in Boston was still at large, and that our young relatives there were living in a locked-down city.  We kept coming back to the question that nagged us--what makes a young man set a bomb in a crowd?      I am always fascinated to hear Les's perspective, and usually want to have more time trading ideas with him.  Sometimes he comes to our weekly coffees with Betsy, but those mornings are usually reserved for us girlfriends.

Dinner at Les and Bety's

     The meal would meet with the approval of the hippest Portlanders--comfort food,  expertly prepared,  using the best ingredients. In this case, brisket and kugel.  The view from Betsy's place is so fascinating that I kept interrupting the conversation  with,  "Oh, look at that!"  and "What is that building?"  It felt as rude as someone watching television during dinner, but I could barely help myself, and our old friends are indulgent.
    This time of year, the flowers are blooming for all of us.

Our lilacs