What I F-ing Hate!!!

So, I sign out to my blog this evening and--WHAT THE HELL?--someone, who knows who, decided to change the way it looks when I sign on to my blog.

I can't even explain how distressed and upset I am about it all! My screen looks nothing like it did the last time I signed on. I have more frigging options about what to do that I want! What I want is to 'publish' or not. That's all. Don't give me 'save' and 'preview' and 'link' and 'compose' and 'insert image' and 'insert a video' and 'insert a jump break' (what the hell is a "jump break" and why would I ever, even if I lived forever, want to 'insert' one when all I want to do is type and then 'publish'.

Bern and I often discuss that we might have to, someday, have a smart phone. Her theory is that checks and cash will cease to exist and the only way to pay someone for anything is with a smart phone. I scoff and laugh, but then they changed--without asking--my blog page and I wrote a thing about my glasses just to see if I COULD publish it without screwing up. And though I think I did, I still feel violated and abused that my blog page got all complicated without my permission, no one ever asked me.

I stay with AOL though everyone hates it, because it seems not to change as much or as fast as everything else on line. But even that is not safe. I am constantly asked whether I want to change my 'background' even though I don't give a fig about the background in any way, shape or form. All I care about is the 'foreground' where I surf the web and send and receive emails. Could I find an web service that would stay forever the same because that's all I want--what I know and am familiar with and trust....

Which brings me to our kitchen. Bern wants to 'redo' our kitchen. Now, granted, the dishwasher doesn't really work and several of the cabinet doors are held shut with rubber bands since the magnets have somehow stopped working and the water drips from the faucet all the time no matter what we do (short of calling a plumber!). I'm fine with the kitchen. It what I know and understand and am familiar with and trust and know how to work around.

Of course I'm the one who told our daughter Mimi years ago to stand on the rubber mat I put in the basement in front of the clothes dryer so she wouldn't be shocked when touching it.

She said to me, "Baba, get a new dryer!" (She calls me 'Baba' from time to time and I love that and it made me realize how right she was.

Bern wanted to talk about her ideas about the kitchen. I told her the absolute truth: "Darlin'," I said, "I'll be happy when you are happy." So, we're going to do it though it gives me the hebbie-jebbies to think things are going to change....

Besides, we've had the roof replaced and the house painted this year and, along with that, I'll be able to deduct the cost of the kitchen 'redo' from our income taxes next year because, as an Episcopal priest, I don't pay taxes on any 'housing expenses'. I deduct toilet paper and paper towels, which most people can't.

I'll get used to the new kitchen and used to the new form of my blog. I can adjust and move on, after all--even though I don't want to.

And if Romney/Ryan get elected they'll go after my housing allowance deduction since only clergy have it and no clergy are rich. No longer can I deduct garbage bags and dishwashing soap as God intended me to.

But that would be a 'change' I'm not sure I could endure--Romney as president.

However, I don't want to get into politics. I just want my blog to look the way it did a few days ago.

I'm going to try to send you this now, if I can manage it.....

The glasses that work

About 8 months ago, I got new glasses.

Let me tell you right now that I never felt confident about my choice when the doctor said, "This one...or this one?" Not once. Not ever.

So, I got these new glasses (did I tell you this before? I'm feeling like I did. If I did, well....I'm getting old and forget all sorts of stuff....) and after a few weeks, misplaced them. They were these cool clear frames, which was probably why I didn't find them, they were clear and I couldn't see them....who knows?

So I got my old glasses out, which are black frames with clear semi-circles under the lenses. Very Retro. Lots of people several decades younger than me told me they liked them or thought they were either "cool' or 'boss', neither of which terms I trust to mean what they meant to me decades ago.

So the truth is, I see better for 6 months now out of my 'old glasses' than my new ones. I just tried again, looking at the screen with my new glasses for a line and then my old ones--which are much 'cooler' and much more 'boss' anyway.

Which goes to show you, when you make a choice that is so close it doesn't deserved to be made, more often than not, you'll choose wrongly.

Ponder that, just as a rule of life, for a while.

Well......

Happy, happy birthday babies...

Today Morgan and Emma turned 6.

We were there in NY University hospital when they were born. Mrs. Chen, their maternal grandmother was there too. Cathy, Morgan and Emma's mother, had been on the 'multiple birth floor' of the hospital for a couple of weeks because the doctors knew the twins would be early and they wanted them to be 'later' early.

Some wonderful nurse called us and let us know that she'd stop on our floor and we could see them for a moment before they went to the post natal care floor. She pulled two baby carts out of the elevator and Mrs. Chen and Bern and I saw them, all wrapped up and with little hats on. They were so tiny--Emma 4 pounds 12 ounces and Morgan 4/8. Little bundles of miracles. We were with Josh and Cathy the next day in the hospital room and got to hold the little beings. Since both our children were born roughly twice as big and Morgan and Emma, it was like holding a fragile porcelain figurine of a baby when we held them.

But they went home 'on time' and today they turned 6.

Emma is several inches taller than Morgan. Both are skinny and lithe. Emma has her mom's black hair and Morgan has Bradley brown hair. Emma has Caucasian features and Morgan looks a slight more Asian. They are both brilliant and wondrous and beyond amazing.

We love them so.

I hope and pray I'll see them graduate from High School. That would mean a great deal to me.

I love them so. Flesh of my Flesh, once removed.

Happy, Happy birthday Morgan and Emma. Be well and stay well.

I adore you....

cat food thief

OK, for several months I have often found the little plate we give Luke, our cat, his wet food on, on the floor of the kitchen. I just assumed he knocked it off. But then I started finding it in the living room and on the rug beside the fireplace in our kitchen--much to far to 'knock' it.

Then on Monday, I came downstairs to see Bela, our dog, carrying the little plate in his teeth.

I was so stunned I just watched as he dropped it on the floor and licked it.

Since then he's been carrying the plate further and further from the little table where Lukie eats.

Seems he likes to clean up what Luke leaves on his plate.

I should be severe with him, but it was so cute to see him carrying the little square plate in his teeth I haven't yet disciplined him...

home again, home again....

We're back from vacation on Oak Island, North Carolina.

Seems we missed the humidity in New England. Every day on the beach was 85 with a 20-25 mile an hour breeze off the ocean and no clouds in sight. The wind keeps it cool and keeps the bugs inland. Truly great weather as it always seems to be on Oak Island in September--except when a hurricane comes....

THE FLAG
Since four of the six people who go each year to Oak Island were born in West Virginia (Bern, daughter Mimi, friend John and me) we fly the West Virginia state flag from the deck of the house. To further explain the wind, the flag is flat out blowing the whole time we're there. WV was born on June 20, 1863, which means next June 20 will be the 150th birthday of my home state. I'm planning either a big party or a bus trip to Charleston (anyone interested in 3 days and 2 nights in the state capitol for the festivities?

The Latin motto of the state is on a ribbon on the flag: Montani semper Liberi--"Mountaineers are always free". There's a woodcutter in buckskin holding an ax and a coal miner with a helmet that looks like a WWI doughboy helmet, holding a pick ax. Really a nice flag. the whole thing is circled with rhododendron--the state flower.

THE HOUSE
We stay in Frank's Folly. It is a great house. There are 6 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths, two flat screen TVs and the best equipped beach house kitchen I've ever stayed in. And remember, We've gone to Oak Island for 33 of the last 39 years--so I know something about the quality of the stuff in a kitchen...There is everything you'd have in your kitchen and of very high quality. Since one of the things we do at the beach is cook a lot, that's a big plus. This year we had grouper, shrimp, crab, red snapper and several other things from the local sea. Tim and Mimi bought a grill, which we left and did remarkable things on it two different nights. Food is a big part of our Oak Island life.

THE PEOPLE
Well, there's Bern and me. And Mimi and Tim (loves of our hearts) and two great friends, John and Sherry. Sherry's husband Jack would make it complete but he is the head of a child care center and can't leave New Haven in September, when we always go. I've known John since the late 60's and have spent as much time with him as with any other friend. (I never realized that until this moment!) We met Sherry in 1980 when we moved to New Haven and Bern has been in 'Group'--a woman's group with no particular agenda and never more than six members--for at least 30 years. Tim and Mimi went to Bennington College at the same time and were friends, but it was only when they both were in NYC a few years later that they became a couple. And have been for, I don't know 7-10 years. I asked Tim this trip if I could refer to him as my "son-in-law" when I talk about him to other people. He said that was fine since he called Bern and me 'the in-laws' already. We love him like a rock. The thing that makes this all work is that the six of us could probably live together all the time (with Jack who would make it even better). We just 'get along' in lots of unspoken ways. We're all left-wing politically, which helps. We all read a great deal and like to talk about what we read. We all love to cook and eat (except for John, he just loves to eat enough to make up for not cooking!). And, all of us, in our own way, are really funny. (I don't mean 'odd', though that applies as well, but 'humorous' and ironic and droll. We laugh more than we eat or read or sleep when we're on Oak Island--which, I submit, makes life worth living in a remarkable way. People who laugh a lot live together in peace....

More later about the trip....

fly grass

I've written about Bern's back yard magic--how she has encouraged a small patch of bluets to spread and now almost covers all the yard. Bluets are a ground cover that is so soft it makes you take off your shoes to walk on it....heaven!

I noticed the other day that she's been transplanting bluets to the front yard as well, though they haven't near began to take over. Mostly in the front yard are a broom tree, various irises, trumpet plants, jonquils and tulips in season and about 6 different kinds of grasses. They grow to be 4 or 5 feet tall and are really wonderful swaying in the breezes. She cuts them down in the fall and the next spring they come back. Sort of like standing on the prairie.

But the other day, I noticed one particular strain of grass, that is chest high and the color of ripe wheat, was nearly covered on every stalk with dead flies. It was a bit eerie seeing the mass termination of flies. But they were dead, apparently stuck to the grass. I'm talking about dozens of dead flies on each stalk. Creepy.

Bern had, of course noticed it weeks ago--I tend to walk through the world in a state of disconnection bordering on a kind of semi-conscious fugue. For example, Bern is always moving furniture around. I'll notice and tell her I kinda like it or something and she'll shake her head and say something like, "I did that a month ago, I'm thinking of moving it somewhere else!"

She didn't remember the name of this fly eating grass (I pondered whether the little buggers got stuck and starved to death or whether the plant poisoned them) and thinks it might be something called citronella grass--which would make sense since you burn citronella candles to keep insects away. But she's not sure.

Today, frantically doing yard work because we'll be in North Carolina for 10 days, she cut down the stalks that were completely covered--fly mausoleums you might say because they were odd to the point of being disturbing.

We are leaving in the morning. My daughter and her boyfriend and my friend, John, will have laptops at the beach so I'll try to write some blogs about the wonders of Oak Island (the biggest one being that since it's a 'family beach', it is mostly deserted in September--thank God for the start of school!) if I can figure out how to get to this page through the front door. I have an icon to click on my computer that lets me in the back door. If I can't figure it out, you know why Under the Castor Oil Tree has gone dark for a while.

Be well and stay well.

What I do

Having proved myself inept by Bern's standards of most any duty in the house or yard (I can't vacuum well, dusting--forget it, making beds--zero, mowing lawn--no way: all I do is cook (I can cook and we share it, wash my own clothes, take out the garbage and recycle stuff and clean the litter box.

Seems little enough, right? But I do the dirty work...garbage and kitty litter, that takes a real man!

Someone who worked with me years ago told me, "You do 'nothing' better than anyone I've ever known." I don't think she meant it as a compliment, but I took it that way. I am rather accomplished at 'doing nothing'. I have, perhaps, brought inactivity to the level of an art form. I am remarkably good at sitting and thinking...or, just sitting....

Bern may someday wonder if I am inept because I'm inept or if there is a bit of clever misdirection in it all. But, until then, I'm delighted to do almost nothing and sit and think...or just sit....