Category Archives: Thoughts on Relationships

A Busy Day……….

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Notwithstanding the dense, honking Friday afternoon traffic that reminded us of why we don’t like the Washington, D.C. area, we have been graced with the beautiful fall weather that is a trait we enjoyed when we lived here. A number of the trees still have vividly colored leaves in orange, red, and gold. Halloween decorations abound and a long sleeve shirt is adequate.

My girlfriend and I allowed hubbies to do as they wished – her’s relaxing n front of TV with the newspaper spread around him and mine dropped off at the Metro to go down to the “Mall” in Washington with his camera. We then went to perform the obligatory weekend errands of domestic life before heading out to shop for new purse and have lunch. We caught up on everything before going to provision for the birthday dinner for our son.

I couldn’t find Newburg sauce so made a slight modification for shrimp and lobster in a lemon butter sauce in pastry shells, with roasted carrots as a side. Baked brie chunks with raspberry  wrapped in phyllo and two other French cheeses made up the appetizers. We didn’t have time to order a birthday cake ahead and instead picked up a small chocolate mousse cheesecake that was at least symbolic.

Despite the hand washing that would be required, we decided to bring out the china, crystal, and silver. After all, it really shouldn’t just sit in the cabinet all the time and it wasn’t going to be a late night. Not with expecting daughter-in-law having worked all   afternoon and dance performance for son scheduled for the next afternoon. We sent them on their way and chatted n the way that friends who have known each other for years do as we washed and dried dishes. One final glass of wine and then it was bedtime.

Killing a Flock of Birds With One Stone……..

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Center for Ballet Arts Fall Show 2013

Center for Ballet Arts Fall Show 2013

The expression, not the actuality I suppose the airplane could run into a flock, but that would be a bad thing. House sitter is ensconced and we head out today to make a quick multi-purpose visit to the D.C. area. Our schedule prevented us from seeing son perform last year. As I have posted on several occasions, he is with the Bowen McCauley Dance Company (http://bmdc.org), but the couple that saw his talent and are responsible for setting him onto the path of professional dance are Bennett and Debbie Savage of the Fairfax Center for Ballet Arts and he teaches there.(http://www.thecenterforballetarts.com)

They have three main performances each year; the Fall Show featuring the older dancers, Nutcracker in a Nutshell, and the Spring Show that showcases all their classes to include some of the cutest Kinderballet students that you will ever see. Anyway, the Fall Show often coincides with son’s birthday and so it is this year. We also have some dear friends that we stay with when they are in town. Everything aligns this year and we will stay with our friends, have the kids come to their place for birthday dinner Saturday, attend the show Sunday, take care of a piece of business Monday and return on the evening flight. Hubby wants to spend some time tomorrow wandering around “the Mall” in DC, taking photos, too. A busy trip for sure, but it will be fun, too.

The Celebration Will Continue…..

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The gathering has commenced for my father’s 90th birthday, but we did have time for a quiet lunch of catfish and appropriate fixings before I headed to the airport to collect my sister and her husband. My brother and his wife drove up to arrive at virtually the same moment. This is the first time in many years – in fact, perhaps since my mother’s funeral, that all three of us have been at the table with Daddy. There have often been 2 of the 3, but not all together. It was chattering dinner as to be expected.

The extended families of my stepmother who mostly live in the area will pour in this afternoon for cake and that will swell the crowd to around thirty, although probably not everyone at one time. I believe that my two uncles will choose to come at a later date when it will be calmer. Telephone calls came in all day on Thursday and cards line the shelf of the hutch in the kitchen.

As expected, we are gleaning a few stories that I hadn’t heard before – my grandfather spent some time as a commercial fisherman on the rivers there in Southern Arkansas. By the way, for those who assume that Arkansas is only the Ozarks, Southeast Arkansas is a large rice producer. Yes, flat and wet. My grandfather leased much of his land for this as well as cotton. The big garden and chickens were mostly for family use and the hogs and cattle were minimal sales combined with freezing meat for family use. There is a reason that none of the four boys wanted to inherit the family farm. My father did choose forestry, but tree farming of pine seedlings was a small portion of his career and that was far removed from the days of hoeing cotton.

When Past, Present, and Future Blend……

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Poignant Content Alert. At certain stages and points in your life it is difficult to not look back, selecting certain events, people, experiences, knowing that for good or bad, these are a part of what has made you, you. I know a few people who cavalierly say they never think of the past, and perhaps they don’t. I was teased a bit when I wanted the theme of this blog to be Living Forward, Looking Back, yet I think that for so many of us, that is the way we approach life. I leave in a couple of hours to fly back to Louisiana for my father’s 90th birthday, and it will be one of the moments where past, present, and future blend together. My father has now lived longer than any other member of his direct family, yet his memory is degrading. It’s still manageable, but for how long is difficult to say.

We are gathering as a family, my sister, brother, and their spouses – my hubby can’t be with us. We suspect this is the last time that we will all be together where we can celebrate in this manner, although there is the chance that my father will stabilize and the decline will achieve a somewhat steady state. That is not statistically likely, although it does happen. What we will be able to do is reminisce about those things that he wants to discuss and I will try to capture a number of the stories that he tells of his youth. Yes, it was a one-room school house in rural Arkansas and yes, they walked even though it wasn’t uphill both ways.

I don’t know if either of his younger brothers will come down – the oldest passed away a year and a half ago. My uncles may wait for a bit, so it can be “just the boys” together. I called my aunt on my mother’s side last night to let her know that we wouldn’t be driving down to visit as we usually do – my father already said he didn’t think he could do that as well as handle all the hub-bub of the birthday celebration planned for Saturday. That will be a fairly low-key event in the sense of we’re just doing cake and ice cream at the house, but with the extended family of four generations that will be present, that makes for around 30 people who will be in and out.

We will celebrate and laugh and no doubt bring up a few stories that some of us would rather forget – that little fire in the kitchen from a science experiment that was a very small, easily extinguished fire – and such things. It will be a good day and how many come after that, we can neither know, nor worry about. This will indeed be a time to “live in the present”.

 

 

 

 

What You Say Now……

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Serious Content Alert! I had another conversation recently with a friend who is bordering on exhaustion, the example of the sandwich generation who, in this case, is caught between caring for an aging parent and grandchildren. Either role would be tiring, both together bring about a level of emotional and physical drain that is daunting. The irony, as is so often the case, is that the aging parent,  when having been through this with her own parents, had talked about how difficult it was and how she wouldn’t do this to her children. Except this is precisely what she is doing. There are a number of studies that capture this dynamic and what it comes down to is relatively simple. although emotionally complex when you are the one going it through it. It is why I chose, “This Isn’t Supposed To Happen To Me” as the title for Part I of, Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We’d Rather Avoid. No matter how intelligent a person is, there is a strong tendency to believe that they will never become that querulous, demanding, confused individual who truly needs to be in assisted living. In your fifties, sixties, and seventies if you are fully functional, you just can’t imagine that your body and mind will betray you, even if you are coping with it as the caregiver and watching it happen to someone else.

The main points to Your Room are: 1) that you could be lucky, but there is no way to know how your latter years will be; 2) if you refuse to make plans and the worst happens, then what you have done is forced others to bear the burden that you didn’t intend to, and 3) you force others to make decisions for you. These are uncomfortable things to think about, and to plan for, and there is nothing that makes them easy. But, and here is the very big but, not planning doesn’t cause it to not happen. What I urge in the book, what I urge to everyone when I do presentations is this. Find out what resources are available, what resources you have, and make a plan for if the worse happens. Seek out what facilities or at home assistance is available, think through if you might have to relocate. Recognize that if you have more than one child, they may not be able/willing to share equal portions of caring for you. What to do if you don’t have children is too complicated to get into, but I do cover it in the book.

Most of all, be honest with yourself now, while you can, and it’s okay to hope you never have to deal with this. Maybe you won’t, but that’s not a good way to bet. Staying at home instead of going into assisted living is sometimes a better option (or sometimes the only option), and if so, build some relief for your caregiver into the plan. It will become important.

 

Bits and Pieces……

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Emotional Content Alert! This fast trip to Maine – up on Monday and back on Wednesday has been one of deep emotion. When a place has been a part of your life for 35 years and you say farewell for what may be many years, it comes with a lot of memories. Technically, I could have taken care of the business reasons for coming via mail. The relationship part, though, that required face-to-face for me. It was good to see my friends and to give them that last hug. This morning I checked out the B&B that I will post about later this week. I wandered along the scenic street that I’ve walked I don’t know how many times. I went into the shop that is a combination bakery, deli, gourmet foods, wine, and kitchen store. Since I am traveling with carry-on, it was a container of Maine smoked sea salt. I went into a jewelry and gift shop and found a piece of hair jewelry. I saw a lovely coral colored tunic at another shop.

I finally stopped in at the bookstore and picked up a collection of mystery short stories. It’s a wonderful store and café, the kind every town should have and I shall miss visiting it. I gathered these bits and pieces to bring home with me – all but the hair jewelry and perhaps the book are perishable, but that’s okay. I stood in the harbor on what was a beautiful morning and then made my way to the restaurant on the far side of town where had a lobster roll and cold draft beer in a farewell lunch with another friend and we lingered through catching each other up.

If I have no delays tomorrow, I will be home by late-afternoon, a full schedule ahead of me for the week. As the plane lifts from the ground, I will take that last look for the foreseeable future and I will take all those years of people, places, and things that we did with me.

Travels Ahead…..

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For reasons that have to do with fairly uncontrollable timing, I once again have a cluster of trips that I have to make close together. The late October trip is because I had to postpone the June trip because of the unexpected trip that I took in May. At any rate, I’ve got everything booked and most of the arrangements made as hubby will hold down the home front for two of the three trips.

It’s up to Maine next week with all day travel on Monday, a series of meetings on Tuesday, drive back to Portland late that afternoon and take a very early flight home on Wednesday. A slight break before a fast trip to Louisiana 2-5 October, then a fast weekend trip to the DC area 25-27 October, then the annual Thanksgiving trip to Georgia, but that is by vehicle. Aside from the fatigue of travel these days with the hassles and all that can go wrong, the quick flips become more tiring as you get older. On the other hand, they are all important, family-related trips and then that should be it until after the first of the year. We’ve decided not to do the November St Croix trip.

If I don’t get delayed on the Maine trip, I’ll be able to accomplish two important tasks (hopefully three) and see some dear friends in the compressed time. I have no idea when we might return to Maine after that, so it will be nice to make that happen. Despite the bother of air travel, I do also have to keep in mind that when covering these distances, flying is both easier and less expensive. Posting during my travels may be a bit intermittent, although I should mostly have internet access.

Oh, by the way, Damariscotta, the small town in Maine where I am going, is one of four towns that I used to create the fictional town of Wallington, Georgia for Small Town Lies and the novels in the Helen Crowder Adventure Series.

A Second Chance or Time to Face Reality?…..

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A second chance at love lost is a favored theme of Hollywood and it so happens that this month on cable, the remakes of “The Great Gatsby” and “Great Expectations” are playing. I can’t find the new version of “Gatsby” to be as good as the Redford one, but I do enjoy the Ethan Hawkes “Expectations”. Each movies deals with the question of, “If you are rejected by the one you love, is there the chance that it can work out in the future, and do you cling to that hope or walk away? I can’t imagine that readers of this blog don’t know the ending of these two movies, but just in case someone doesn’t, I won’t do a spoiler here. I will, instead, take this into the real world because I know of situations where both end results apply. In one case, it was a remarriage after a divorce and in another, it was a fairly lengthy separation (at least I consider three years to be lengthy) that resulted in reconciliation. Since the remarriage is the one that didn’t work out and the reconciliation did, perhaps the couple that separated knew on some level that there was hope, whereas the divorce and remarriage was a matter of wishful thinking.

As I have said on more than one occasion, falling in love and staying in love are often not the same thing. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I have also found that friendship can grow into love over time. People can overlook someone and later realize their mistake. In this day and age, re-connecting is more possible than in the past, but should one? And if in recognizing that you “let the right one go”, how do you approach it? Gently, as in reconnecting for friendship sake and gauging the situation? Forthright to fully admit the error and apologize as much as ask for a second chance? What say you, readers?

Of Trying and Doing…….

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Warning, serious content alert! A comment the other day brought to mind a saying that I had posted in my office way back when I commanded a fairly large company in the Army. The saying was, “Your Best Isn’t Good Enough If The Job Doesn’t Get Done.” It may seem rather blunt and there are people who work hard, try hard, and just are not cut out for certain activities, careers, jobs, or positions. It shouldn’t be embarrassing to admit that something isn’t a good fit or right match.

And with graduations all around the country and rightful celebrations, it is also important to honestly assess an individual’s known and potential abilities in choosing what comes next. It is also incredibly important to remember that there are the so-called “late bloomers” which can very often simply mean an individual hasn’t found that thing that adequately sparks their interest.

The reality is that success is not a one-size fits all, not everyone should go to college, not everyone who completes college can do so immediately, and while having a degree is in general something positive, actual employment in many fields is extremely limited. Since I have an undergraduate degree in Pre-law/Political Science, that’s a good example. I did not follow through with my plans to become a lawyer and had I wanted to pursue a career in politics, that would have likely meant a fairly narrow range of state or national level jobs unless I chose to stay in/return to school for a Master’s and Doctorate to enter the world of academia. On the other hand, the skills of research, reading and writing that I gained in my undergraduate work served me very well in the endeavors that I did pursue. Understanding the cross-over application of skills in choosing a course of study is important as is being realistic from the beginning what the chances are of working in a particular field.

Entering the skilled trades – and there are literally hundreds to choose from – is exactly the right choice for many that can lead to either a satisfying career in employment or plunging into the role of entrepreneur. As I believe I have posted before, multiple career paths are far more common now than is the enter a career  at a young age and stay with that. It is simply the nature of today’s business environment and changing jobs every few years is not the “raise your eyebrows” kind of thing that it was when we Baby Boomers were starting out.

As always, I urge the military for those who are qualified for at least a few years because there aren’t many other organizations that can teach you as much about yourself, being a team player, and understanding the value of good leadership.

Soon to Lose Connectivity……

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When I head to my father’s house later this morning, I will have no regular connectivity. They actually do have a computer that they use for limited things, but it’s on dial-up and is simply not worth the frustration of trying to deal with. I usually slip out at some point in the late afternoons and go to one of the fast food places that has wi-fi.

The last two days were filled with catching up with family and friends, although on the family side, most of the cousins were not around. However, I saw them all during the February trip and it was nice to have the extended time with my aunt and one cousin. We went through some of the old family history – by old I mean back to the 1700s – looking in the wonderful genealogy notebooks my aunt has used over the years when researching family records from Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, until settling in Louisiana. There might have been a branch that came through PA as well and the immigration path was pretty much from England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. This is all on my mother’s side and my cousin who was around for this visit will be entrusted with the records once my aunt no longer wants to deal with them. My aunt, who married into the family, has equally impressive files on her side of the family. There are of course gaps where records were either not maintained or have been lost. Anyway, one of these days, we’ll decide where to stop searching and start writing.

I have been fortunate with weather and the extended forecast is good. The drive up to Minden is about an hour and a half, but it is Sunday and there are a lot of churches along the route with quite a few no-passing zones since it is mostly two-lane state roads for the rest of the way. The terrain is a mix of fairly low hills and woods with pastures and some agriculture. The farming is pretty much all family-size places although there are cotton fields for part of the way. Okay, I have had my morning walk, two cups of coffee, and enough trail mix to get me going.  Now it’s time to pack up and get ready to head out. I have to stop at the grocery on the way out of town to pick up Natchitoches meat pies.