Sisters outdoor quilt show

Quilted car

Hugo Cabret quilt

     The tiny high desert town of Sisters, Oregon stages an outdoor quilt show every July.  They close the main street, and volunteer  firefighters hang  quilts from walls and balconies throughout  the town.   Quilt lovers from all over the US and Canada swarm in, oohing and aahing and buying fabric.   Judy and I have longed to go to the show, but even the handicapped parking lot is a distance from the quilts, and Central Oregon can get very hot in summer.  This year the temperatures were due to remain in the 80s, and friends alerted us to a charter bus that would drop us off in the center of town.  So off we went.

My favorite

Fire lookout on Black Butte

    When Judy was a young surgical nurse in her thirties, she spent a lot of time in the Sisters area.   During the bus  ride, while the forests  we were passing through changed from Douglas fir to Ponderosa pine, she told me stories of her adventures.  It was a treat for me to get a few glimpses of Judy's life before we met. Here is one story:   Once Judy climbed Black Butte.  She was almost to the fire lookout at the summit of the mountain when a ranger told her to run.   She  had to race down the mountain just ahead of of a thunderstorm.
    There were over 1300 quilts displayed this year  in Sisters, and we wanted to see them all.   There were old- fashioned quilts and contemporary quilts and an Elvis quilt. There was giant quilted sphere and a quilted minivan.   There was a whole set of pieces inspired by the children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  The coffee shop sponsored quilts from a women's co-operative in the coffee-growing region of Uganda. My favorite of all was a  traditional pieced quilt that hung outside of the Stitchin' Post fabric shop.  My mother would have loved that one.

Judy with equipment and mascot

Detail

    For this 38th annual festival,  the town was well set up to accommodate thousands of tourists, almost all of them middle -aged women.  There were water refill stations, folding chairs set up in every inch of shade, and plenty of bathrooms.  The Lutheran church sponsored a buffet lunch, and enterprising boys bicycled down the center of the street puling a  cooler with  bottled water for sale.  The easy chairs in  the quiet Paulina Springs bookstore provided us a respite when the sun and the crowds got to be too much.

Becky

    Judy brought three tanks of oxygen on the trip, and rolled them around the town on a walker.  A few weeks ago  our friend Roxy made two puppets to keep  Judy company when she is tethered to oxygen.  The puppets went along with us to Sisters.  Sweet Becky sipped iced tea with Judy, and read some picture books, and petted a few dogs.  But it is fierce fighter Bo, named for Queen Boudica the warrior queen, who has become  Judy's constant companion.
     We were quiet on the bus going back to Portland.  There was a woman with a strong Texas accent  sitting two rows ahead of us.  She talked non- stop during the three hour trip to Sisters.  By the time she had talked non-stop for the three hours back, I felt like I knew her life story.  I was no longer annoyed by her, but grateful for the entertainment during the long ride home.

Bo

  
  
  

New car

New car

    One car at a time is my limit.  I don't want to research, shop for, bargain for, finance, register, repair or maintain more than one car at a time.  I held to this boundary  even long ago in my mean- mother phase of life.  When Paul was sixteen and eager for wheels,  I told him to put the wish out to the world.  Sure enough, my mother's neighbor Mrs. Ozur offered to give her old Chevette to Paul instead of to the Salvation Army.  Paul gave it new brakes and made some minor repairs, and reimbursed me sometimes for his insurance premiums.  He made jokes about  his "'Vette" to his friends who were given fancy cars for their birthdays, but he took care of it and drove it safely.    I only  dealt with one car at a time.

It served us well

Signs of age

     In our life today, we have a Prius, which I researched, shopped for, financed, registered, and insured 7 years ago.  We also have a 1996 Mercury Mercoux that we inherited.  It has been time to put the Mercury out of its misery for several years now.
     We thought that a minivan might be useful for getting oxygen into and out of the back seat.   Later on, we might need to transport a scooter or a wheelchair. I brought home the Consumer Reports auto issue, got advice and recommendations from my car- loving son David, and began a mental dithering dance about choosing a replacement for the Mercury.  This went on for about a year.
   Fortunately, Judy has a different approach to acquiring cars than I do.  One Saturday, after a late breakfast at a nearby restaurant, Judy said, "Let's just look at a few vans."  We drove two Toyota Siennas that seemed much too big.  The young saleswoman, who hates selling and really want to be a mechanic in civilian life as she was in the Army, suggested a Prius V. We drove one, and  Judy said, "This would be fine." Nothing about the whole universe of possible cars, nothing about shopping or bargaining, nothing about the dimensions of oxygen concentrator or scooters, just "This would be fine."

Mission accomplished

    The next afternoon, Judy took good neighbor Robert with her for moral support, and they went back to the Toyota dealer.  Four hours later, they came home with our new red Prius V.  It really is fine.
     Nowadays, just as  we have a gaggle of geese stopping traffic when they cross our roads, and a murder of crows cawing in our woods, we have a smug of Priuses in our driveway.
    The first day that Judy drove to the coffee shop in her new car, she came home raving about how wonderful  it is to hear music while driving again. (The radio in the Mercury has been defunct for years.) "How did the oxygen fit?"  I asked.
"I forgot to take it," she said.
A new red car beats oxygen any day.
  

Music makes us happy

Picking and grinning

  It was 98 degrees outside, but that did not stop us from driving out to the country for a picker's party at Sally's house.  Judy played the autoharp along with a roomful of dulcimer players.   Most of them had their sheet music on iPads, allowing them to avoid dealing with  heavy 3-ring binders.  One woman even used a foot pedal that changed the pages on her iPad.  Sally taught the group to play the ukulele.  I sat outside under a  maple tree, singing along with people playing old hymns on  fiddles and guitars and accordions and dulcimers.

Fuey with Blue Hawaiians

 Sally's Ukulele lesson

    Judy and her ukulele group provided background music for a luau to celebrate Ruth's and Ed's 80th birthdays.  They had a grand time rehearsing at our house, and then  sat in the gazebo in Ed's glorious garden, strumming and singing and laughing.  Fuey served drinks dressed in  her authentic muumuu.
    Sharon and I went to the opening of  show by an artist she has bought a large piece from, and from there to.  The artist's wife introduced herself as "Elizabeth the Third."   I tried to ignore the salmon knife she was using as a belt ornament.  The artist expounded on why he calls his show "The Brothel" and made lots of references to Picasso and Zeus and ancient and modern Mayan history.  It was the kind of mental adventure that  I would have loved a few years ago.  That evening, it made me more than tired.  I kept thinking about Laurie Anderson's song "Difficult Listening" and realizing that I was no longer up to Difficult Looking.

Rehearsal

Ed's garden

    From the artist's opening, we went directly to  a musical performance  by my friend Chuck Barnes and his banjo, who promised "mellifluous, and occasionally superfluous, genre-bending banjo interpretations of favorite songs." As we went in,  I was feeling old and set aside from life by gloom .  But as Chuck with his banjo  and the lovely Dr. Lois Leveen with her accordion played through their list of "toe-tappers, heartbreakers, and rabble-rousers," I felt happier and happier.  Chuck is  a native of Newfoundland. By the time he  got to the promised Canadian content, which included Leonard Cohen's Halleluja, I felt joy.

Chuck

Puppies in Eden

Merle Great Dane puppy

Birthday kids

  Many of you have heard  Judy tell stories about the dog of her heart, a merle Great Dane named Sheba. Judy has rarely been without a dog in her life; these past few petless years after the death of our Shih Tzu  have been an aberration.  I  swear that I am willing to have another dog, but Judy has hesitated.  She finally admitted that she doesn't want to burden me with a dog who will live longer than she will.

Lisa

   When Judy and Robert celebrated their mutual birthday, neighbor  Janet astounded us with the present she offered to Judy.  She said, "If you want to get a Great Dane puppy, we will take it when you can no longer take care of it."

    After a night's deliberation, Judy sadly admitted that she cannot physically handle a Great Dane puppy.  Her shortness of breath is getting worse.  The latest CT scan showed a disturbing progression of scarring in the past six months.  Oxygen helps, but bending to care for a big, strong puppy is out of the question.

At Rose's party

       These bright blue June afternoons  in Oregon make me think of  Shakespeare's Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?  The rain has stopped, and  we mark the month with garden parties.    At Rose's party we wore hats.    At Lisa's we celebrated the solstice among her flowers.  I console myself in gardens.  It's a way to return to the garden of Eden, before decline entered our lives.
  

Lisa' garden

  

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.