Just hanging

Today was a busy day as my son was passing through on his way to a big weekend of concerts and stopped by with a few of his friends from college. It is always fun to have him and his cohorts around. I certainly could not let them leave without making a home cooked meal now could I? So I made my home made sauce and they had pasta and salad and garlic bread and they were thrilled about the meal. It was the first time I was meeting these particular kids and and I enjoyed getting to know them.

So most of my day was spent house cleaning, cooking and visiting with my son and friends.

Later in the evening we watched our Netflick pick for this week, Freedom Writers with Hilary Swank. I enjoyed that movie so much, it was so inspirational. When it was in the theaters in our area the local school board bought tickets and handed them out to all of the teachers to encourage them to go and see it. I thought that was such a great idea and so unusual for a school district! I wonder how much of an impact the movie made on the teachers and if they were able to become motivated to change the way they connect to the high risk students that they teach?

Turkey Day

It is over. Company has gone home, dishwasher humming along with first load of dirty dishes, and shoes are off! My dining room table is all cleared off from my grandmother's flowered china and my laptop is back in its familiar place. I am just about ready for bed.

Everything went off as planned and the day was fun. The fresh turkey we bought from Stew Leonard's was the best turkey that we have ever had. It just melted in your mouth.

The best part of the day is having both boys around. They are like their dad with their sense of humor and make me laugh so much.

My husband and the boys decided that it would be a great time to try to get some of their grandparents stories on tape. Their grandfather lived in London during the Blitz, and they got him talking about what it was like at that time in history. He was telling us about the shrapnel bouncing off his bicycle helmet as he rode his bike through the streets of London. He and the other students would all try to compete for who had been hit be the biggest pieces. He also told us how he had to take his University exams while bombs were being dropped on the city.

I listened trying hard to imagine his other life. The life he had before my husband was born, living in London, Switzerland, and Bermuda before coming to the states and settling down. Little did he know that one day he would have a son, who would marry me, a girl who never left the farm in good old New England.

We all enjoyed the stories and I don't think we have ever heard him talk quite so much about the past. The stories are now on tape for us to pass down to the next generation who will not get the opportunity to hear these stories in person.

Sunday night and all is family

My husband's mother collapsed the other day and ended up in the hospital undergoing all sorts of tests to see what caused this incident. She is home now with a newly diagnosed condition, but it is manageable and she will be OK.

We are what is called the sandwich generation, baby boomers with elderly parents and our own grown children all of whom need our attention and support.

Both sets of parents are well into their 80's and are in relatively good enough health to be living in their homes and leading independent lives for the most part, but they still need lots of looking in on and a fair amount of help with household chores. We feel so lucky to have both sets of parents able to be in their own homes and still able to enjoy so many memory making family gatherings.

So today was a day to catch up with both sides of the family. We did some grocery shopping for the in-laws and spent a little while at their house. Then we drove across town to have lunch with my family and help out with some chores for my dad. While my husband was down the cellar doing the chores, my dad stood at the top of the stairs in his walker calling down to him. I was a bit nervous with him so close to the top of the stairs being so unsteady on his feet, but I didn't say a word to him. I know he wanted to go down stairs so badly to help out my husband. My dad misses doing those simple house hold chores for himself. He is tired of sitting around all day, not being as productive as he used to be.

We did our best to visit and help out with both sides of the family, and give them some company. We know that although our parents have their spouses, it still gets lonely for the both of them all week and they love when any of us "kids" come over to visit.

So now I am back at home to get ready for the work week. I have my lunch already made and now I will spend time doing the laundry for the week.

I don't know why on some of my posts, that the spaces between the paragraphs don't hold when I publish. My blog looks sloppy and I don't know how to fix it.

Re-connecting

It has been a busy weekend so far. Friday night, my son and his girlfriend came down from college and my older son and his girlfriend stopped by and we ordered pizza and had a nice evening together. I love when both the boys are around. I love how they have become good friends over the years.

Today we were so busy cooking and cleaning for a small family dinner party. My husband's cousin was here from Colorado. We haven't seen her for 30 years. Why the first time I met her was at her wedding and we haven't seen them since. She came East to spend time with my mother in law who is her deceased dad's sister. I think she is searching for some family history that will help her deal with her dad's passing.

My mother in law took her to the house on the vineyard where she and her brother spent their summers 60 years ago. They knocked on the door and the owners let them in to take a tour of the house. Lo and behold, much of the furniture was still in place as it was when my mother in law was a child. I know that meant a great deal to her, as she is in her 80's now and lately she has been talking about wanting to go home to the Vineyard. So she actually got to spend some time in her home from long ago.

Dinner was actually a big hit. Grilled chicken and salmon,pasta and pesto(made from our garden fresh basil), broccoli, and salad. My brother in law brought a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Everyone ate heartily and raved about the food.

I was worried about how it would go tonight, but it went so well. My mother in law was thrilled to have her kids and grandkids and her niece all together under one roof after 30 years. There has been too little family time on my husband's side of the family. On my side, my cousins are all close and have many memories that we have shared over the years.

When we kissed our long lost cousin good-bye, we promised that we would try to get together again soon and promised that we would not let another 30 years pass.

It will be interesting to see if we can keep that promise.

Under the Moon and the Stars

Yesterday we went to my niece's wedding and it was the most magical and moving ceremony that I have ever attended. My niece and her now husband have a deep and abiding love for one another and also of nature and the great out doors. They claim that they fell in love under the moon and stars as so much of their time together has been spent camping, hiking,and mountain climbing so they wanted to celebrate their union in nature.

They picked a spot nestled in the northeast hills of our state, an estate with 160 acres filled with sun flowers, English gardens, apple trees, tomato gardens, and a 100 year old barn for the reception.

They were married high on a hill top under the pergola with beautiful weather making for a picture perfect day. Little did we know that by late afternoon the whole area was under a severe thunder storm warning, and that all the areas around us had heavy rainstorms. For some miraculous reason, it never rained even one drop at the estate, which made for a wonderful evening in and out of the barn and walking around the estate guided by candles and torch lights.

The processional started down by the country cottage and was led by a bagpiper all the way up to the pergola. There is just something about bagpipes that fills my heart with reverence. It was a fairytale entrance, every young girl's dream, and it gave me the healing kind of chills up and down my spine.

The wedding ceremony was officiated by the groom's uncle and it was rooted in a Native American spirituality which included recognition of scared space, a candle ceremony to honor the elders, and a sand ceremony to recognize the influence of all the parents. It was so beautiful, moving, and filled with heart and soul.

Before the bride and groom exchanged their vows they spent a great amount of time just talking to one another about their love, relationship, and their future. And as they gazed into one another's eyes we noticed monarch butterflies fluttering about as if they knew how to make an appearance on cue.

After the ceremony, the bride and groom wanted a family and friends photo of everyone in attendance. As we were assembled on the hillside we all took a moment to witness the hawk that was soaring high in the clouds over our heads.

The rest of the evening was spent partying up a storm in the old barn, and walking the grounds in the glow of the candlelight.

The most enjoyable part of the evening was watching my sons and their cousins and how much fun they were having. They were out on the dance floor the entire night, having a ball. My aching joints have kept me from getting out on the dance floor the past couple of years, but as the night was coming to a close, I decided that I hurt anyways... so what's more pain? I got out on the dance floor for a fast dance with a couple of the kids, and then my husband came and the rest of the family came out and we danced and sang and had a ball.

I could see my husband's eyes get misty and I knew it was because the whole family was out on the dance floor together. My younger son lit up when he saw me out there and he came over to hug me and tell me he was so happy to see me have fun again. I didn't sit down until the wedding was over.

It was a feel good kind of day all around. Family, music, love, good food, nature, ambiance, hugs, kisses, connections, healing, candle light, dancing, crying, laughing, singing, unity, commitment, prayers,vows, sunlight, moonlight, stars, grateful, blessings... many, many blessings...

The Comic Spirit

It was 1964, and we were headed back from the World’s Fair in New York City. I was with my mother, my aunt, my sister, and my two cousins; it was a very big deal for us to travel to NY.

My cousin and I were 11 years old, she born in June and I in July. It was fun having a cousin the same age and we shared many experiences together over our life time.

We had stopped at the Howard Johnson’s (the home of 28 flavors of ice cream) for dinner on the way home. After we had finished eating we were able to order ice cream for dessert.

As the waitress was taking down our selections, my cousin looks up at the waitress and asks her what the flavors were. The rest of us started to laugh at the thought that she was asking the waitress to rattle off 28 flavors.

Well for some reason on that particular day, that incident made us laugh and laugh and laugh. My cousin and I got so silly that we could not stop laughing and finally we were sent to the car to calm down, while everyone else finished eating their ice cream.

We went into the car and instead of calming down, we kept laughing and laughing and laughing. As the years have passed, I don’t remember what we continued to laugh about, except laughing itself, and how good it felt to be so out of control laughing with my life long cousin. Life was good.

When my mother, my aunt, my sister and older cousin came out of the restaurant they stopped dead in their tracks to see the two of us still laughing up a storm in the car. They all burst out laughing and came over to the car amazed that we had not calmed down yet. They got into the car and we all laughed and laughed most of the way home.

Over the years, family gatherings have lessened as the family has grown so big, but we would still spend every Christmas Eve together. For years we would re-tell that story, and when we tell the story, we start to laugh, and laugh and laugh… and get everyone around us laughing.

Now we can look back and say that the incident was not a particularly funny incident to warrant all the chaos that followed. No, there definitely was something more, something on a profound level that connected us in laughter that day.

While I know that since that time, many funny things have happened to me, but when I tried to think of them for this assignment, I could not think of one. The first thing I thought of was that day in Howard Johnson’s more than forty years ago.

This afternoon, I attended a baby shower and all of my family was there. I went over to my cousins and asked them if they remembered that day in NY and what we were laughing about. You bet they did, and we retold the story for my cousin's daughter and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

So there you have it, a funny experience (which may not be that funny to some) but the bond that it provided has proven strong over 40 years later.