Living In Bucket In Palm Tree...Wish You Were Here!

Can you stand to read one more post about birds? It’s what’s going on around here these days. You cannot step outside without hearing “Cheep, cheep, cheep” from every corner. The nests are so well camouflaged that, though I can clearly hear the babies, I cannot see them. Given the season that is in it and her own personal, feather-raising adventures, I invited my friend, Mme. Dove, to do a guest post today, in which she will recount for you the disastrous turn events took in her life, and the lives of her children this past weekend. Here she is………….


"We've been living in the trees out behind MB's house for a couple of years now, my mate and I. This spring we found the best location ever for our nest, between the fronds of a palm tree not far from the house. The fronds provided shade and privacy, and their sharp barbs ensured that Mrs.Hussy Squirrel, and her cheeky, unruly children wouldn't be poking their inquisitive noses into our nest. Not being a place easily slithered to, we also thought our eggs would be safe there from snakes. All in all an ideal location. Monsieur Dove and I got busy. We gathered twigs and Spanish moss from nearby trees, and soon had a cozy place in which to raise this year's nestlings. In due time I laid the eggs and we took turns sitting on them to keep them warm. We were so proud of our sweet babies when they finally hatched!

And THEN, just when they were within a week of starting their flight training, along came The Bean. The Bean, in case you were not aware, is MB's son. He pretty much single-handedly takes care of the garden, but this particular day he had help. His Dad, known in blogging circles as the OC, was home from the still-chilly north for a surprise weekend visit.It was a beautiful day and they had taken it into their heads to do some drastic pruning. Which was none of my business, of course..... Humans will do what humans feel moved to do..... At least not until The Bean approached my tree, brandishing some lethal-looking loppers. I tell you, I almost had a heart attack. My children are so quiet and well behaved, he had no way of knowing they were nearby. I fluttered close, but to no avail. Before I could blink, my precious babies and our lovingly constructed nest went crashing to the ground. The Bean spotted my lovelies immediately and bent in consternation to pick them up. He cradled them so gently, while my poor heart throbbed in my breast.

"Please don't hurt them," I silently pleaded.

He looked around and saw me sitting on the wall, watching helplessly.


He murmured something softly to me and reached for a little bucket on the ground nearby.


Ever so carefully he eased the remnants of our nest, along with my two bewildered babies into the bucket. They made me proud, they sat so still. As I watched anxiously from my perch on the wall, The Bean reached up into the palm tree and wedged the bucket securely in place.


Then he and the OC looked expectantly from it to me, talking softly to me all the while. Though I longed to go and comfort my little ones I thought it best to wait a while.....What will our neighbours think when they see me sitting in a white plastic bucket where our lovely comfy nest used to be? They might think it's the very latest in modern dove condos! Although it is a bit primitive. It doesn't look as nice as our traditional nest at all, but what do humans know about weaving twigs and fur and feathers together to form a safe and comfortable home for the likes of us? What they lacked in nest-building skill though, they made up for in trying to make amends for their clumsiness.....Most importantly,and to my great relief, junior and his little sister seem none the worse for the mishap, and I'm hoping we'll be right on schedule to start flight training in the next few days."


Afterword by Molly, [who always has the last word, at least around here.]
I wondered about Monsieur Dove. He was nowhere in evidence when Cyclone Bean descended on his family's nesting quarters. Was he some kind of absentee/deadbeat dad, the kind who stick around just long enough to donate their DNA, decide that the long hours and emotional drainage of child rearing is not for the debonair likes of them, and wander off in search of adventure and fulfillment elsewhere? Mama Dove certainly looked like she was coping with her disaster all alone.

But this morning, when I went outside early to check on the residents of the world's ugliest bird nest, I found, not only Mama Dove's head peeking up from the white plastic rim, but Papa Dove's too! Photographic evidence below.



So he's not a deadbeat dad! He has not absented himself! He's right here pulling his weight. Maybe he was away on family business? And now he's back to be the chief flight instructor? Although, when I was learning to drive, my dad, all breezy and confident, drove me down to the Dock Road for my first lesson. Half an hour later, chastened and trembling, he drove me home and handed the keys, mutely, to my mother......Which just goes to show that hair on your chest and a deep bass do not necessarily make you the best choice for driving/flight instructor. So now the whole Dove family is reunited. As we watch those fledglings learn to fly we'll be feeling a little parental pride ourselves.

Note to the worried: Do not fret. He-Who-Barfs-On-Quilts is on lockdown until all these babies are airborne!

Late breaking update: Out to have another peek around sundown tonight, ever-present camera in hand. Junior [below] did not like the flash and fluttered off like an old pro to another tree!


Little sister was not so brave. She needs more time. Maybe she'll take to the air tomorrow.....



Meanwhile, these older fledglings were spotted relaxing in the


bushes in front of the house.....And from the bathroom window this morning I spotted another patient dove mama sitting in another nest in another tree at the side of the house. As I mentioned earlier, you can't step outside these days without hearing a chorus of "Cheep, cheep, cheep!"

"Soft Day, Missus"

“Soft day, Missus,” farmers would greet my grandmother, lifting their caps, as we clopped along to the village in the pony and trap. A “soft day” in Ireland is a rainy one. The greeting is like a benediction though. There is no complaint in the words. They know the rain is necessary. Besides, how do you think they keep those forty shades of green in top shape for the tourists?

“Soft day my arse!” I can almost hear my sister snort.
“’Tis her head that’s gone soft on her. Romanticising this bloody weather that has my heart scalded, and her sitting like Lady Muck in the Florida sunshine!”

Snorting sisters aside, I know whereof I speak. Because…..drum roll please…..We had a lovely soft day HERE today!

The “gentle rain from heaven” has been caressing us all day. Welcome, not only because we’re parched for a drop of moisture, but also because we’re on the threshold of hurricane season and wondering what meteorological atrocities the Weatherman In The Sky has in store for us this summer.

When I returned from the Cave of the Ancients this evening I was loath to go inside, so went for a stroll among the trees out back. The air was soft and misty. At first it seemed quiet but then my ears tuned to the raucous ribbiting of rain-thirsty frogs. As I came back towards the house, a couple of birds started making an awful racket, screeching at me, and swooping close. If they’d just kept quiet I’d never have known they had babies nearby. They made the same racket last night when they saw our Great White Hunter [Casper, the recently disgraced-for-barfing-on-my-quilt cat] on lizard patrol [wonder if there was chewed up lizard in the ignominious puddle?]out around the pool. They couldn’t tell that he couldn’t get to them from there. All they knew was there was a four legged predator on the prowl. Between the flapping and the squawking it didn’t take a genius to understand their anxiety.

But I saw no sign of a nest. What I did see, as I strolled slowly by some bushes, was that little fellow up there, all by his lonesome. Might have been his first time out of the nest. Inexperienced enough to know no fear, he just cocked his head and looked up at me, seeming to listen intently as I crooned at him, while mom and dad had conniptions on the roof.

I ran inside to get my camera, almost expecting they’d have whisked him away when I came out again, but no. He was still there, waiting to have his picture taken! Given the soft day that was in it and the fast-fading light, I was lucky to get the shot. And then I scarpered so mom and dad could get on with it.

Here’s wishing you some “soft days” to soothe your soul.

Not Talking to the Cat

Most Likely Suspect


Washing cat barf out of the largest quilt I've ever made was not on my to-do list today. Digging a certain unfinished quilt project out of the closet in the spare room was. Imagine my chagrin then, when I went trotting in there and saw a crusty, dried up puddle of cat barf in the middle of the bed. And not JUST in the middle of the bed. In the middle of the QUILT that was covering the bed. A disgusting puddle of yellow cat-stomach liquid crowned with a hairball, surrounded by half-digested cat food.

I was not happy.

Some rules are no-brainers. If you want to experience Molly-love, it goes without saying that you should not barf on the quilts. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. The OC is aware of this rule. At least I assume that he is since he has never, not even once, barfed on one of my quilts. The fact that he is, in fact, a rocket scientist probably gives him an edge over the cat. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him barf anywhere since the long-gone days of his exuberant youth. Speaking of which, we still have one exuberant youth in residence who has, on occasion, overestimated the tolerance of his stomach for certain liquid refreshments. But, mindful of the above-average need for Molly-love [and mollycoddling!] when one is feeling poorly, he has always managed to avoid voiding his stomach contents on a quilt. Wise move.

The cat is less wise. There are ample tiled surfaces around here on which one could, if so moved, barf. I will not be pleased one way or the other. Barf on tile is a minor annoyance. Easily mopped up. Barf on carpet is a pain in the petoot. But barfing on a quilt is a major infraction which will result in me giving the cold shoulder to the barfer for a prolonged period of time, equal to, or possibly longer than the time it takes me to clean up the mess.

That's why, today, I'm not talking to the cat.

Most days we are on cordial terms. If he's not happy with the amount and timeliness of his feedings, all he has to do is talk to me. And I take care of it. I'm agreeable like that.

And if his litter box is not cleared promptly of objectionable material, a word in my ear will set the world to fastidious rights. I'm agreeable like that too.

But barfing on a quilt moves you to the other side of the fence. To enemy territory. You become Felinus Barfus Non Grata. You might be made of stone for all the attention you get. Your most piteous yowling falls on deaf ears. Your efforts to ingratiate yourself are spurned. Doesn't she understand that when your stomach is in a knot you need the comfort of a quilt under your tail while you expel the cause of your discomfort from your interior? There's no comfort in a cold tiled floor.....And so she's been ignoring me all day. Oh sure, she fed me. But beyond that--- emotional starvation. No companionable chat. No sweet nothings in my ear, no crooning about what a great fellow I am and where would she be without me? None of that. Just grunting, and gnashing of teeth, and quilt hauling to bathtub, and splashing of water therein, and vigorous scrubbing and---could it be?? cat-cursing under her breath?? Not a blessed word thrown my way all day. Pray that her ire will run its course and we'll be on speaking terms tomorrow!

"The Lady Who Runs The Vacuum Cleaner"

Mothers Day? What was that? When I was growing up, you didn't have to worry that you’d forget and she'd have her feelings hurt. There were other, more pressing things to worry about in the fifties. People were still adjusting to the upheavals caused by the war. It wasn’t ‘til I came to America that I learned there was a special day in May for remembering and honouring mothers. And even though life and relationships are fraught with complicated, not easily pigeonholed feelings, this day is all about flowers, and candy, cloying sentiment and warm fuzzies. But, as I see it, if you don’t love and honour your mother every day you live, one day in May will hardly compensate.

Reading my history notes last night, I came upon Garrison Keillor’s column. Which is one of the reasons I don’t just throw old newspapers in the recycling bin----I might miss one of his gems. How can you not love a man who could write something like this:

“Mothers were, at one time, young women with Possibilities who might have taken a different route and become glamorous and powerful figures in size two dresses and instead found themselves cleaning up excrement and jiggling colicky babies to get them to stop screaming. They hardly ever get to London anymore or have time to read James Joyce. They sit down to dinner with adults and feel brain-dead. A bouquet of flowers hardly seems compensation enough. How about a million dollars and a house in the south of France?"

Do we, in fact, stop being who we used to be as soon as we give birth? Do we become “just the lady who runs the vacuum cleaner?" I think that happened to me. I went through the motions, I cooked, I cleaned, I loved, I comforted, I consoled, I rejoiced, I burst with pride, I ached,I propped my eyes open with toothpicks, I laughed, I sobbed, but a part of me was somewhere up in the attic, wrapped in mothballs, covered in dust.

Or do we become someone better? I went up to the attic a few years ago and rummaged around ‘til I found that old self. I dusted her off and aired her out to get rid of that camphor smell. When I unfolded her and shook her out I found she still had the long legs---BUT---not a varicose vein in sight! Her hair was brown and wavy and her face smooth and unlined. Sigh. I found her a little naive, but I liked her a lot and thought she still had possibilities.

So, if you're finding your mum a little boring, slap yourself, and realise she used to be a real person before you came along and she devoted herself to teaching you how to fly instead of learning herself. She used to have dreams of her own, but now all her dreams are for you. She used to sleep at night, but now she can't close her eyes until she hears you opening the door at midnight so she knows you’re safe. She used to be able to kiss the hurts and make them better, but now, she has to stand aside and let you deal with the slings and arrows all by yourself. She would like to sweep you into her arms and make the world go away, but it would be undignified. She has to trust that all those flying lessons are about to click and you’ll soar off into the blue all by yourself.

Meanwhile, if she's still alive she'd probably get a big thrill if you called her, or, gasp, wrote her a letter. The postal service, world wide, is still one of the best bargains out there. Use it!
And if she has already gone to her hard earned reward, Plant a flower in your garden, or in a pot on the windowsill and call it by her name. She'll know.

Happy Mothers Day everyone!

Where, Oh Where Has My Little Sis Gone?

"Oh Where, Oh Where Can She Be?"

When we were young, and still the centers of our own universes, my sister and I wrote letters. Dutiful, sisterly letters. It wasn’t that we fancied we had anything beyond parentage and nationality in common. We didn’t. The gaping chasm of six years between us blinded us to any common interests. But we did stay in touch. Especially after I got married and blithely betook myself to the other side of the world. Leaving her, at the tender age of sixteen, to cope with “situations” on the home front as best she could. Truth be told, it never occurred to me that problems in the grown-up world might be any of our concern……. She was young. She was brainy. She was gorgeous. If I thought about it at all, I figured she’d be fine. Besides, we came from stoic, taciturn types and if she wasn’t fine she’d keep it to herself. Not to mention that there was another tall, gangly, taciturn type-in-the-making lurking in the shadows who could be relied upon to take her away to the seaside with her bucket and shovel if things started to get out of hand.

Then along came the children, and the letters dwindled to a truly miserable, barely discernible trickle.

We were up to our oxthers in poopy diapers and runny noses, pink eye and ear infections, PTA meetings and doctor’s appointments, sneakers and wellies, schoolbags and lunchboxes, supervising homework and helping in classrooms, living and loving, laughing and lamenting------turning into grown-ups------on opposite sides of the world.

When we finally came up for air, the world had changed. We’d changed from girls into women who were mothers, the boys we’d married had turned into men who were fathers, the babies we’d borne were no longer darling extensions of ourselves but- gasp- individuals with ideas and aspirations of their own. We’d been over-worked and underpaid and seriously sleep deprived for so long, we didn’t know if we could survive in, and adjust to, this strange new order.

In between the great gaping gaps in communication, we’d been thrown together by the deaths of, first, our dad, and ten years later, our mum, may they rest in peace. And two overseas assignments which took us respectively to Germany and Belgium, which if you’ll look at your atlas, you’ll see are MUCH closer to Ireland than, say, California, or Montana! And I gradually came to realize that I had a treasure, right there, under my nose, masquerading as my no-account, bothersome kid sister.

So, you can see, e-mail and the internet came along at exactly the right time for us. After we overcame such technicalities as my distrust of new-fangled gadgets and anything electronic…….

And then, the icing on the cake, blogging! I was in heaven when she finally caved and started a blog of her own. Now I could tap in regularly to what she was thinking, not just the tailored-for-me content of her e-mails. It doesn’t get much better than last November’s NabloPoMo, when I was guaranteed a Rise fix every day for an entire month…..

And now all’s quiet on the Notimetodonothing front. Those old dinosaurs are turning into fossils. And one asks oneself

“Where did she go?” and

“Doesn’t she have anything more to say?” and

“Hey! Get back here---you’d just got me hooked!” and

“Don’t trifle with me---post something already!”

It’s all due, I am sad to report, to a death in the family. The sudden and unexpected demise of Rise’s computer. It was so young. Barely two years ago it came to live with her in it’s shiny new box; so promising…... so lovely…...and such a lemon. Those in the know opine that it must have been a Friday afternoon/Monday morning job.

The computer specialists have been to her house. They've examined the patient. They've poked. They've prodded. They've probed. They've stood around the sickbed, stroking their beards, and have sadly shaken their wise and grizzled heads and pronounced it well and truly a goner.

As you can imagine, Rise is distraught at her loss. She even succumbed for a while to a mysterious virus, and took to her bed. But, occasionally, her daughter’s computer was left unguarded, and she snuck on there and snooped around, and subsequently wailed to me that it’s DEADSVILLE in the blogosphere of late, and someone needs to do something about it! She has plans to procure a new machine and when she does, watch out! She’ll come roaring back, with knobs on.

This Day Will Not Come Again....

Don’t buy me diamonds, though I’m partial to pearls!
Don’t feed me caviar, I’d rather have---squirrels---

[well, maybe not quite, but I'm being creative...]

Don’t send me orchids or lilies or roses.
If you love me just take me where wild flowers growses.


Walk with me ‘neath trees of fantastical shapeses,


And wander in fields on erratical traipses.



For music we’ll tune in to buzzing of beeses
And soft moaning whispers of breezes in treeses……



Okay, so I'll never be Poet Laureate, but I seized the day! Yesterday's gone; tomorrow's a closed book, but today I was happy, here, now, on a morning walk, with flowers and trees, chirping birds, sunshine, buzzing bees, and a boy, jogging in the green stillness who loves all these…..

Lessons From A Quilt

Ta-Dah! That's a Molly Bawn drum roll. An insipid little squawk I realise, but it marks a momentous occasion. I finally finished "the star quilt" for my Little Grandson. I'll be accepting pats on the back at the end of this post! I started this quilt when LG was born. This summer he will be four. Yes, I am suitably ashamed, though, in my defense, it should be noted that I did make him an interim, machine-stitched quilt, so he wouldn't be quiltless!

But now it's really finished! It's even in the mail. At the post office yesterday, the man behind the counter asked if I'd like to insure my package. Hummph! I've heard some horror stories of quilts made by friends being lost in the mail. For items made by hand the only compensation one gets is replacement of the materials used! How would you even begin to put a price on something stitched with love for a small boy, son of someone who was once your small boy? I decided to take my chances.

Four years is a long time. In my grandson's case, it's a lifetime! In that lifetime, making this quilt for him, I learned some lessons, some of them quilt related, some totally not.

I learned that---

I love figuring out new patterns and techniques.

That piecing goes quickly for me.

That things slow down at the layering stage,

And barely crawl at the basting stage. Yawn!

That even the most daunting journey/intimidating quilt is made one step/stitch at a time.

That there’s good reason to use black batting on a dark quilt---what was I thinking?

That a black quilt and a white cat should not be left in the same room together,

Because, the white cat is fatally attracted to the black quilt.

That masking tape is a white-cat-owning-quilter’s best friend.

That nobody calls you at four a.m. to give you good news.

That only a lunatic would do this much hand quilting on a quilt for a small child.

That by the time all the hand quilting is done the child will no longer be small.

That what I have to say is not always as important as listening to what someone else has to say.

That I should never say “It’s almost finished,” because, the quilting gods/goddesses will hear and punish me for excessive optimism.

If my mouth is closed my foot cannot be inserted therein.

If I didn’t blog I’d get a lot more quilting done.

If I didn’t quilt I’d get a lot more blogging done.

If I didn’t blog or quilt I’d read more.

If I didn’t blog, quilt or read, my house would be much cleaner.

If I didn’t do any of the above, I’d have to shoot myself, and then it wouldn’t matter.



Lest the quilt seem too staid for a small boy, I used this playful fabric for the backing. Since I love how Erma Bombeck compares children to kites, it seemed fitting. What I would like more than anything is to see my son's face when he sees the quilt. It's taken me so long, he thinks it's just a story I tell, this Star quilt, a figment of my imagination.

But it is no figment.

It's REAL and it's FINISHED!

"Lemon Tree, Very Pretty..."

Friday morning, dark and early, an hour down the deserted road to the airport, we learn the flight’s been cancelled. His attempt to return to the frozen north foiled, the OC cannot help but grin at the prospect of an extra day in La-La land. Land of parental dotage, confused and confusing wife, offspring irreverent and obstinately un-humble, choruses of groans when all you want to watch on television is golf and soccer --- enough to make a guy pine for a cold and lonely hermitage in the north, were it not for the possibility of one more round of golf in the balmy sunshine, an afternoon nap, perhaps; maybe even a little puttering in the garden…..

Lazy, lolling-around afternoon, no rush, no urgency. Then out of nowhere, a wild hair. He must prune the lemon tree. Never mind that the targeted branches are half way to heaven. He will not be deterred.

“The Bean will do it!” I protest. The Bean, in his opinion, does not approach such undertakings with the proper degree of enthusiasm or gravity.

“I will not push you around in your wheelchair when you fall and break your already dodgy back!” I threaten.

You've heard of “pissing into the wind?”

Yeah.

He was going to do what he was going to do.

The ladder was extricated from the garage and hauled to the hapless tree. The necessary, lethal-looking surgical tools were located. From there it was all go. Up he went and commenced with the lower branches. Dutifully I stood below, collecting them as they fell, burying my nose in their intoxicating perfume before carting them off to the tree branch cemetery at the back. Even as he climbed higher, and stretched more precariously, he seemed solidly planted. I was at the ready to catch him as he fell. Rigghht…….Having long ago lost my taste for “holding the flashlight,” I wandered off.....

A cardinal was lecturing us, loudly, from a nearby tree, possibly warning us not to darken the door of his nest. I fetched my camera, hoping for a picture of his piercing redness and cheeky stance. He led me a merry dance though, flying over the roof to a tree on the other side, then, as soon as I’d followed and found him, back again.

Entertaining myself thusly, I rounded the corner of the house and came upon this fine fellow,


enjoying an evening repast on the front lawn.
He froze.
I froze.
Very slowly I lowered myself onto the path. Nary a twitch, but he kept his eye on me. I inched closer,lowering myself further until belly met path, the better to get a tremor-free shot. He was very co-operative and held perfectly still while I clicked, but seeing that I wasn’t going away, he gathered up his fluffy cottontail and bounced off into the bushes.

The OC, meanwhile, dodgy back unscathed, descended from the ladder to admire his handiwork. Gathering up the remaining branches, I murmured admiringly at the lovely job he’d done. I showed him the fruits of my grovelling about on the front path.
He smiled and echoed my murmuring.

And so it goes.

Saturday morning, at the same obscenely early, dark and quiet hour, he went winging north, to the cold but peaceful hermitage. And here am I, wondering again exactly what I’m doing here…..

When besieged by doubt there’s only one cure---Start a new project.


Which is exactly what I did.

Hand piecing, my lovelies. ‘Tis good for the soul.

"The Tedium Of Decrepitude"

I just read Anna Quindlen’s latest offering “Good Dog. Stay.” All eighty two pages of it. Thirty one pages of print, fifty one of photos. Not exactly a daunting read. But she got me thinking. Pulitzer prize and best selling novels notwithstanding, she is never intimidating. She could be my sister, my next door neighbour, or me. She writes about the plain topics that concern ordinary people like us.

In this instance it is the putting down of a beloved family pet, Beau, a black Labrador who has been part of her family’s life for fifteen years.

“I’ve put in my time around people whose bodies were failing, who were clearly marooned in some limbo between illness and death. I hated the way the medical profession felt obliged to continue to poke, to test, to treat, even when cure or comfort was not in the cards. With people, it’s assumed you’ll do everything; with animals you have the luxury of doing the right thing. A Supreme Court justice once said that one of the most important rights is the right to be left alone After nearly fifteen years of loyal companionship, Beau had earned that right.”

My mother-in-law has also earned that right. She is eighty eight years old. She weighs about ninety five pounds. Her back hurts, her bones are riddled with osteoporosis, her hearing is shot, her false teeth don't fit properly and her heart is weak. And you could eat, not only off her kitchen floor, but off the floor in her garage. Her windows sparkle, and dust is barred from entering. She makes me look like a wimp, though I do not even aspire to such paroxysms of cleanliness. She has good insurance, so doctors continue to poke, to test, to treat, and to prescribe more pills, and she goes along with it all, hoping, if not for a cure, for at least a little comfort, a little respite from pain.

She had a recent alarming jaunt to the hospital in an ambulance when her lungs were filled with water. She’d thought it was the pollen in the air that was making it so hard for her to breathe. It wasn’t a sure thing that she was going to make it. They dried out her lungs in the ER and hooked her up with a mask to help her breathe. I waited with her until they had a room for her, and while we waited she talked, yes, even with the mask! She wanted to be sure I knew some things, wanted to be sure things would be done the way she wanted, and she kept coming back to one thing......

She wanted me to tell the doctor to just give her a shot, to hurry things along!

“They’re not allowed to do that Grandma! That’s what got Dr. Kevorkian thrown in jail!”

But she wasn’t convinced. It seems to her such an eminently sensible solution. She’s in pain. She’s elderly. Nothing they do will make her better, or restore her to her former, legendary vigour. So, if she’s ready to go, and they have the means to make the going painless, her attitude is “Why not?” It could never be that black and white for me. I'd hear the voices of the nuns in my head, insisting---
“God gives life, only He is allowed to take it away.”

But she has things she wants to see resolved before she goes, so she rallied, with the doctors' help. Her lungs are working reasonably well again. She’s home now, enduring what Garrison Keillor waggishly calls “the tedium of decrepitude” for another while! Her windows sparkle still, her floors are spotless, and the dust flees in terror before her broom. Life is good again, for now. She will see her Pride and Joy, the OC, this weekend, and life has no greater pleasure for her than that!

Anna Quindlen’s book also reminded me of a sad day when I had to take our first child [pre-Liz!], our beloved black lab, Suzy, to be put down, and of yet another when the OC and I both took our Maggie to the vet for the same purpose. It felt strange to be making life and death decisions for other living creatures. But it felt right too, to put an end to the pain and misery old age had brought them. After all the joy they’d brought to our lives that seemed like the least that we should do.

Wordless Wednesday

Random Easter Thoughts

The nuns were constantly coaching us --- to say our prayers; to offer up life’s little frustrations for the intentions of the poor souls in purgatory; to say “aspirations” under our breath in idle moments, as a sort of insurance policy to help us get into heaven; to avoid occasions of sin; to guard against impure thoughts; to practice self denial at every opportunity, the better to discipline our bodies and our minds, and, in Lent, to go to Mass every morning for forty days. The next step would have been a hair shirt under our gymslip. It’s a wonder any of us grew up normal at all.

As we moved into our teens we’d press them for specifics. “ Impure thoughts” and “Occasions of sin” were wide-ranging topics. We were bright enough to pick up on their hints that everything we daydreamed about, anything that might give us pleasure, probably fell under the above headings. We also mutinously thought that a lot of what they passed off as “gospel” was utter rubbish. But the Church still had a stranglehold on every aspect of life, and so we kept our skepticism to ourselves. They could guilt us into the motions but they couldn’t control our motivation.

Pedalling like mad to Mass every morning for the forty days of Lent, for instance. Braving the wind and the biting February cold, at a God-awful hour each morning, instead of being tucked, snug in bed, getting the 8-10 hours of shut-eye required for healthy growth. Not out of piety, though that was what everyone was supposed to think. Oh no. ‘Twas all a cunning plan to arrive at the altar for communion at the same time as a particular bespectacled, blond lad. With a little strategic planning a person could even maneuver themselves into position so that, seemingly by utter chance, they’d end up actually kneeling beside said lad. And then a person would be on cloud nine for the rest of the day. From the distance of forty years later, it makes me think of a dog chasing a cat. Does he really have any clue what he’ll do if he catches it?

Those forty days seemed like an eternity back then. Not any more. Here we are, on the day before Easter, and Ash Wednesday seems like yesterday. No more pedalling like a wild woman in the half-dark of forty early mornings. Though when I do go to church these days, it's for the right reasons!

Even though we weren’t as pious as the nuns would have liked us to be, I miss the certainty of those times. I miss the rituals. I miss the way the year was sectioned off in parcels. There were the summer holidays, best times of all, then there was Advent, and Christmas, then Lent. And, if you managed to slog through those dreary, purple-draped days, you were rewarded at Easter with the arrival of Spring, and a new outfit to wear, and a big candy-filled chocolate egg from Cadburys. We’d all give something up for Lent, candy most often. Forty days and forty nights without chocolate! No wonder we could hardly wait to rip the silvery paper off our chocolate Easter egg! But not so fast! First we had to go to Mass and then eat our breakfast. Only then……

Easter dinner was a special, best cutlery, good china, leg of lamb affair, with a strong possibility of trifle for dessert; an airing-out-the-sitting-room-and-inviting-Auntie-Ita-over kind of event. Special. Exciting. Fun.

We never seriously questioned the basic beliefs we were taught. Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, had the same beliefs. Priests were like little tin gods. No one would dream of questioning them, or of being less than completely respectful to them, and we all know the sorry end that led to. Turns out they were all too human after all.


I still think about what I’ll “give up for Lent” every year when Ash Wednesday rolls around. Some things are easier than others. I’d probably more easily cut off an arm than give up drinking tea. And my feeble attempt to deny myself that jolt-me-awake cup of coffee in the mornings never made it out of the starter's gate. But I think they were teaching us something deeper. Not just to give up candy, or sugar in your tea, or coffee, or cigarettes, or desserts. They were teaching us to control our appetites, rather than letting them control us. All those exercises in self denial taught us mental discipline. They were good for us, though we didn’t think so at the time. Like Latin verbs. Who knew then that the day would come when we’d actually be glad we were forced to study that stuff?

Easter, to me, is about new beginnings, about it never being too late to start over. The resurrection symbolizes that. Or more secularly speaking, the phoenix rising from the ashes. But the old lessons from the holy nuns were hard learned. So I still say my prayers on occasion, though these days it's more like firing off an e-mail to the Big Boss now and again. I still offer up life's little frustrations ---crazy drivers, traffic jams, mal-functioning computers --- for the intentions of the poor souls in purgatory. And I have been known, in tense situations, to whisper "aspirations" under my breath, though not always of the prayerful variety. Occasions of sin and impure thoughts are fairly thin on the ground when you're looking sixty in the eye, so, since I've been such a model student, I'm hoping some of those deceased nuns from days of yore will wedge a saintly foot or two in the pearly gates, so I can slip through without trouble when the time comes!

I wish you a Happy Easter, Happy Spring, Happy New Beginnings!

Good Guess, Velcro!

My quilt was not the first picture in the last post. My superpowers don't extend to popping out a full size quilt in twenty four hours!
Sorry to disappoint, Rise. That Ocean Waves quilt won first prize in the pieced category, very deservedly too---it was the first quilt she's ever made! I wasn't quite that ambitious for my first quilt. It was a Trip Around The World. And it has taken a few trips around the world, and is worn and faded, and would hurt your eyes, so I won't show you. But the cat loves it, and that's what matters around here.



Velcro has such good taste! The one she liked best is mine. Probably a bit too cutsie for my sister! I don't usually do cute, but I had some Debbie Mumm fabric with little girls on it, and one thing led to another, and I enlarged one of the girls on the copy machine, and used an applique version of her in the center and did an Irish Chainy thing around her, with red fabric I got in Germany a gazillion years ago, and dolled her up with bits of ribbon, and flowers, and beads in her hair, and outlined her in black embroidery, gasp, pant, and quick layered and pinned and machine- and hand-quilted, and slapped on some binding, and pricked my fingers a million times in my rush, and by golly, I must be out of my mind, it's only a quilt challenge for the love of Mike, not the Indianapolis 500, and I'll never do THAT again!! Amen.

On The Therapeutic Powers Of Quilting

Sometimes, in the on-going battle of the sexes, you need a member of the opposition on your side. And so it was that I went to see my therapist last week.

I’m a simple, uncomplicated person with simple, uncomplicated needs. One of which is to be accepted "as is." The Logic boat, alas, left the dock long ago, without me. Ditto for HMS Rational Thought and HMS Emotional Equilibrium. Their absence, however, is amply compensated for by my wit and charm. Not to mention my humility. These are not new revelations. We need to get over them already, and move along. Sometimes we do, but occasionally we stumble.

My brain, whose workings seem perfectly normal to me, operates in ways mysterious and exasperating to the above-average male.

He wants the short answer.
He is not interested in the ramifications of THIS point of view, or in a treatise on why THAT course of action MIGHT be better.
He wants to cut to the chase.
He wants to dispense with the bullshit.

He wants brevity, above all, it being the soul of wit.

I, unfortunately, don’t do brevity.

He wants the “yes,”
Or the “no.”
Without the preamble.
And I am unable to deliver.

And so the sparks fly.

Which brings us back to my therapist, who is quite famous. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Dr. Bernina? He has coaxed women all over the world in off the ledge, again, and again, and again.

And since he operates the Central Florida branch of his practice out of my sewing room, he can usually fit me in at ten seconds notice. Where else could you find such convenience?

In addition to my male-induced stress levels, our quilt guild’s challenge was due on Thursday. This year’s theme was Black and White with a touch of one other colour.


We’d had three months warning, and I had amassed a variety of suitable fat quarters, but because of my procrastination superpowers and life's pesky habit of interfering with quilting time, I had not started anything. All was not lost however. I still had twenty four hours.

Quilting is a lot like writing. If you’re feeling uninspired you just have to start writing down words, and moving them around until they start making sense. Likewise with a quilting challenge. Thinking is good, but action is better. You have to dive into your stash and start moving fabrics around, and see how they work together, and hope that the juxtaposition of one with an unlikely other will start pistons firing in your brain. Then all you have to do is make sure your fingers are nimble enough to keep up.

And keep the coffee coming……

So, early Wednesday morning, fortified with coffee and oatmeal, I slipped into Dr. Bernina’s office. The gentle, hypnotic hum of his voice had the desired effect. I started with only a hazy idea. But by noon we were smokin’!

Lunch------never occurred to me.
Supper……a cup of tea.
At midnight we were still huddled. The good doctor shared his insights.
Something coherent was taking shape.

Creative juices were flowing. I was even feeling benign towards persons male.
At 6 a.m. as the sun came up, we were into the final furlong, the doc and I.
At 7 a.m. I put the last stitch in my quilt and emerged triumphant from his office. Time to hit the shower, me and the sandpaper that lined my eyelids.

My entry was not brilliant. At best it was cute. But at least I had done what I had, belatedly, set out to do.


An impressive number of guild members had spent time with their therapists too, with satisfying and creative results.


Various ribbons were handed out, one even finding its way onto my little offering. But before you go slapping me too hard on the back you should know that it was for third place in its category, which had four entries in all!

Best of Show went to an exquisite wall hanging, designed and appliquéd by one of our most talented and artistic members. Her appliqué is amazing, and if you zoom in close you’ll see the beautiful beadwork on the flowers.


Never underestimate the therapeutic powers of making a quilt! I expect to be pleasant company for the next few weeks, thanks to Dr. Bernina. I will even try to be brief, pithy, and as succinct as it is possible for a person to be who chewed a big chunk off the Blarney Stone.


Men everywhere should just accept that women are never going to have thought processes exactly like theirs and love us JUST THE WAY WE ARE.

Of course there's always the danger they’ll expect us to reciprocate.
I’m not sure I’m ready to give up trying to get them to think as we do, which, as any sane woman knows, is infinitely the better way!

Look What I Found In My History Notes!

It's Monday. Clean-up-after-the-weekend day. Vacuum- straighten- tidy- pick up- laundry-day; toilet-scrubbing, rubbish-binning, cat-litter-changing, lists-for-the-week-making day.

Slight diversion from the riveting morning in the boondocks routine provided by the bird in the garage trying to commit hari-kari on the window. Finally manoeuvered him out the door. Hope he has enough brain cells left to find worms for his dinner....

Back to the riveting stuff. Yawn.

Aha! The accumulation of various parts of last week's papers, derisively referred to as MB's History Notes. Among which pile I found an article that led me to this u-tube clip. I hope you find it as hilarious as I did! And speaking of moms, if you haven't visited Lily [of Not In Your Ear fame] at her new digs, stop in and see her today. Your funny bone will thank you!

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And The Loser Is........

I had my camera in the car yesterday, intending to show my M-I-L the pictures I’d taken of our guild’s challenge quilts. At least I thought I had..... But when I got to the Cave I couldn’t find it. Never mind. It’s probably on the kitchen counter. I’ll bring it tomorrow.

Today is that tomorrow.

No camera on the counter.

No camera on, in or under the washing machine, the bed, or the sofa.
No camera on or under the tables or the chairs.

Panic in my throat. Where did I put my beautiful camera?

The sewing room! Maybe it’s in the sewing room.
No camera in the sewing room.

Becoming irrational now. With rapidly blurring vision I check the fridge, the stove, bathrooms, drawers, garage.
No camera.

The car. It must be in the car! That’s where I intended to put it.
No camera in the car. Nada, nothing, zilch.

Tears.
Wailing.
Palpitations.
To no avail.

No camera anywhere.

Already in the doghouse this week for….
Being too emotional,
Ditto irrational,
Ditto hot tempered,
And unwilling to listen meekly to lectures on my shortcomings.
I’m almost sixty, after all, not six.

I didn’t think it could get any worse. See what I get for thinking?
I can’t believe I’ve lost?...misplaced?.....or had stolen? my insanely expensive, wonderful camera, bought for me by my underappreciated, extravagantly generous, long suffering husband.

How could I be so careless?
I don’t deserve to have anything nice.

I cannot live with this shame.
Marikosan,bring me my sword.....

Calm down;
Let’s not be hasty;
Dry the tearful torrent;
Cold water on swollen eyes;
Comb the hair;
Big, deep breath.
There….doesn’t that feel better?

Er……No.

A recap---
Where did I go yesterday?
The library.
Target
Recycling.
The Cave.

Could I have forgotten to lock the car door?
Could someone have dared to open it and have taken my camera?
I have an optimistic view of people. Unless someone is obviously a villain, I assume decency.
I am not often disappointed.
Nevertheless, I am in the habit of locking the car, and never leave tempting goodies in full view of the curious, or persons with dubious intentions.

Glum, dejected and disgusted, I still had things I had to do. First stop: the Post Office. Half way there I glanced towards the passenger door……

And what to my incredulous eyes did appear???? Drum roll please!

My camera!

The case just barely peeking up from between the door and the seat! Where it had fallen, I now vaguely remember, going a little fast around a corner yesterday.

The nuns were right. There IS a God, and He is merciful to miserable sinners like me. And I just may have to go to church tomorrow. And my trust in my fellow man is intact.

You can put away the sword now, Marikosan.
We won’t be needing it today.

Three Words.......

Project.................Finished....................Miracle!

Tell Me A Story

“Tell me a story,
Tell me a story,
Tell me a story before I go to bed”.

It’s not just little people who love stories. Or maybe the fact that I love a good story, deftly told, means that I never grew up? If so, I have lots of company!

For a while there, when computers were taking hold, and the internet was in its infancy, we worried about books. Would they go the way of the dinosaur? Would they become a quaint relic of the Olden Days? Because, no matter how good the story, reading it off a computer screen just can’t compare to snuggling down in your warm sofa with a good book on your lap. So I’m very happy that, when the dust settled, books were alive and thriving. If I don’t have a great read under way, to read every night before I turn out the light, I feel something is missing from life. And when I find a really good book, I almost hate for it to end.

That said, there’s a book meme doing the rounds. I found it at Lily's. She found it at Daysgoby, who found it at….well, go look for yourself if you really want to know!

The rules are:
1. Pick up the nearest book/your current read [at least 123 pages.]
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

If you make the rounds of people who’ve done it, you can have a small sip of a lot of books, kind of like a wine tasting, except you’ll be tasting with your eyes and your imagination, not your tongue. Unless your name is Suzy, and you are the reincarnation of our first black lab…….

My current read is “Mothers And Sons” by Colm Toibin, a fellow countryman of mine, and, incidentally, another winner of the International IMPAC Literary Prize for his novel “The Master.” “Mothers And Sons” is a collection of his short stories.

Sooo, to page 123, fifth sentence. And then…..

“The tune, Lisa thought, was banal and derivative. When Julie had finished singing, Shane stood up. “The words are cat,” he said.

Well. That doesn’t give you much of a taste, does it?. Please Teacher, can I read from a different page?? I’ve read two of the stories so far. I started with the last one in the book, which immediately made a Colm Toibin fan of me. Then I read the first one. Nobody said I had to read them in order! I think I’ll read “The Master” when I finish with this book, in spite of sighs from The TBR Pile. The local library has several of his books, so, my reading life should be full and satisfying for quite a while.

So now, go thou and post likewise. Tell us what you're reading.

Stealing Horses In Norway

At the library last week a man, who seems in every other way a polite and civilized person, elbowed his way to the top of my To Be Read Pile. His name is Per Petterson. I was heading out the door when the New Book section whispered to me…….

“Molly Bawn, come see my lovely wares,” beckoning.

“It’ll only take a minute!” wink, wink.

“But, but….” hesitating, then lost. Because I spotted this:




And put it under my arm, and THEN headed out the door.

Which is not fair to Khaled Hosseini, or J.M.Coetzee, or Barbara Kingsolver, or Louise Erdich or Kurt Vonnegut, or Nancy Mitford, all of whom have been patiently waiting, enduring the accumulation of dust on their covers, only to have upstarts like Mr Petterson elbow their way in and refuse to take a number and wait their turn. It’s a cruel world on my night table…..


Trond Sander, a man of sixty seven, retires from life in Oslo to live alone in the woods by a river in eastern Norway…..Maybe I’m just partial to hermits. After all, the OC has definite tendencies in that direction… ….Mr. Petterson lured me in.

His sentences are long. I usually don’t like it when sentences run on. I get confused and lose the thread. But his, though long, move with the ceaseless murmur of quiet stretches of river, sometimes rising to a roar at the rapids, but propelling you ever onwards, until suddenly, you’re turning the last page and you don’t want to leave that cabin, or those piney, Norwegian woods, or those memories he’s caught you up in….

It’s a simple story of a man trying to live simply. He brings no television with him to the woods. No washing machine. He’s left no forwarding address. He’s looking for peace. He chops wood for his fire. He goes for long walks with Lyra, his dog. He helps his strangely familiar neighbour. Plots how he will fix up his dilapidated cabin……

But another, not so simple, story is unfolding. His new situation brings back memories of a summer with his father when he was fifteen, in a similar cabin by the river, and how the events and revelations of that summer changed him, broke his heart, and set him on the road to becoming the man he became.

This book set me thinking how much I’d like to revisit my childhood. The setting for “Horses” is Norway, but it’s really about another foreign country, the past, a place to which, once we have left, we can never return, but which provides background music for the rest of our lives. A child has a child’s understanding. But there are layers of meaning in what is said, and in what happens, that only begin to dawn on you when childhood is far behind, and you wish you could go back to investigate further, but the fog is too thick and you can’t struggle through, no matter how hard you try.

I loved this book. Since it was written in Norwegian it would have been out of my reach without the talents of Anne Born, who translated it to English. Even though The Pile is high, I’ll continue to check the new book shelf. Washing windows and scrubbing floors, and all the necessary daily chores have to be done, but they can wait if I have a chance to be “Out Stealing Horses.”


Note: In case you need further persuasion, "Out Stealing Horses" is the winner of the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize. I had never heard of it, but upon investigation I have found a whole trove of former winners to add to my TBR pile. I can hear sighing on my night table already!

Another unrelated note: The dead have risen over at Lily's place!

Long Ago and Far Away....

....sixty years ago today, a little boy was born.....


Happy Birthday to You,
Happy Birthday to You,
Happy Birthday Dear JB,
Happy Birthday to You!

We're keeping the rocking chair and the slippers warm for you!

Let Them Eat Cake

When a magazine arrived in the mail last week with this recipe*, I knew I’d have to try it. Lent is not a time to be making luscious desserts, but I thought I’d waive all that, just for Valentine’s day. I have neither a houseful of ravenous children as I once did, nor even a husband at the moment, but my father-in-law, as previously documented in these pages, has a highly developed appreciation for such delicacies. And there’s always neighbours and friends. Righto! No further excuses needed!

Soften the cream cheese and the butter, bring the eggs to room temperature. Melt the preserves. Puree the raspberries. Measure the sugar, sour cream and flour. Pound the cookies for the crust. I was all business. I love to bake!

Baked the crust, and cooled it while I mixed the batter. Wrapped the springform pan in foil, poured the batter in, set it all in a water bath, popped it in the oven, and triumphantly set the timer.

Turned to the task of cleaning up my mess, only to find a stick of butter cowering behind a bowl, instead of being in the oven, in the batter, where it belonged, for crying out loud!

Drat! Blast! And worse! What to do??

I lifted the pan out of the oven and stared glumly at the pink lusciousness, so nicely nestled therein. G-r-o-a-n. Nothing for it but to dig it all out, beat the butter into submission, then slowly add spoonfuls of the batter and hope they’d blend together.

As I ever so carefully spooned the batter out of the pan, I noticed that water was leaking in at the bottom! More incantations. Careful mopping of the offending liquid. What to do now? Set the pan on a plain cookie sheet and put the pan of water on the bottom shelf. Problem solved. Spooned the somewhat lumpier mixture back into the pan, put it all back in the oven and asked the Holy Ghost to please let it come out right. It was out of my hands now.

This kind of scatterbrainedness is not without precedent. When I was growing up the McD family lived across the road from us. Every neighbourhood has their version of the McDs. While Mr. McD was at work, Mrs McD was off God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what, leaving the children to run wild. Two teenage daughters were probably supposed to be minding the younger ones, but they were more interested in boys, and busy running wild themselves.

Eve McD was my age [about nine or ten], and though I knew my mother preferred me not to play at their house, when Eve suggested, one aimless afternoon, that we could make a cake, the temptation was too great. We foraged around the McD kitchen until we had assembled all the likely ingredients----flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla and anything else we could remember having seen our mothers put in cakes. We were pretty proud of ourselves! Soon we had a very respectable looking batter. We found a cake pan, greased it as we’d seen our mothers do, turned on the oven and popped our cake in.

Soon the McD house was full of the wonderful aroma of baking. After ten or fifteen minutes we peeked impatiently in to see how things were progressing, since that aroma was making us drool. Our eyes bulged in disbelief! The pan was full of what looked like melted butter. Appalled that we might NOT be eating cake soon, we looked at each other in bewilderment and tried to remember what we had done……We’d beaten the butter with the egg beaters until it was creamy….We’d poured in some sugar [it was all guesswork]… We’d nervously broken in some eggs, and picked out the bits of shell that fell in……..but…….had we ever put in the flour? Aha! No Holmes, we hadn't! There it was, untouched, on the table. Not to worry. We could add it now. Out came the pan. In went the flour. A little judicious stirring, and before you could blink, our concoction was back in the oven.

We both agreed it was the most delicious cake we’d ever eaten!

And my cheesecake? SCRUMPTIOUS! Proving that even the DAFT can bake….



*From the February/March issue of Cooking Pleasures.