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Category Archives: Reflection

The somewhat friendly skies

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection, travelogue

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The only place in the world where you sit 4 inches from people and never acknowledge their presence is on an airplane. I am in the middle seat because I often travel with my husband (must have window) or son (needs aisle for long legs). When I fly alone (bliss) and have an assigned seat, I check my bag through and stroll onto the plane, carrying only my purse with iPad tucked inside, after everyone else is seated. I’m in no hurry to sit for 5-7 hours as I’m usually flying across country. Of course this method inevitably inspires the disappointed grimaces of the people who thought there was going to be an empty seat in their aisle. Uh huh. When was the last time that happened to you?

“Ladies and gentlemen, this will be a full flight today.” Everyday as far as I can tell.

When I travel alone, I immediately assess the social preferences of my aisle mates. The long forward stare is a good indication that this person and I will be invisible to each other. As is the slouched, earplugs in, device on, posture of the 15-40 year old. For me–person with a novel to read or listen to–these are ideal companions. Not ideal are the bright-eyed women or avuncular men who brought nothing to do.

“Where are you headed, little lady?” Uh oh.

I have two problems with chatty seat mates. For one thing I really want to read the new Elizabeth George or listen to “Girl on the Train.” I’ve been saving it specifically to engage me during a flight. Also–and I mean this sincerely–I cannot keep turning my head to politely converse without getting motion sick. My son, also a victim of heredity, understands this and we conduct terse, face forward conversations when we fly together. The face forward thing became a grisly reality when I puked noisily into the air sickness bag after a lively conversation with the young pilot sitting next to me. He flew for another airline and looked all of 17.

Remember my husband: must have window? He likes to engage the aisle person in conversation across my uninterested lap. Luckily he also likes to look out the window and/or nap so these conversations, once destination, occupation, and education have been established, are blessedly brief. Right now he is sleeping during our Sacramento-L.A. flight. I have nothing but admiration for this talent. It hasn’t been a quiet flight but he has snoozed through multiple announcements (weather in L.A., cruising altitude, cruising speed, distance to L.A., benefits of the tailwind, injunctions to keep seat belts on and not stand in line for the bathroom, and loud offers of beverages). I, on the other hand, have been recording this adventure while simultaneously remembering many previous flights.

People such as myself, who dislike air travel, have different reasons for their phobia. In my family motion sickness has been passed down through the ages. My mother famously lost 15 lbs sailing across the Atlantic to Britain and earned the sobriquet “Bones” from my Dad. My son actually vomited under water while snorkeling near the Chanel Islands. None of us can handle waves; in fact my sister can get queasy from jumping in the waves. Barring turbulence, Dramamine is effective but puts me in a 24 hour trance.

Beyond motion illness lie the other unpleasant aspects of air travel. Claustrophobia rears its ugly head when you’re hurtling through space in a narrow, confining, flimsy, metal tube. An air-van of a sort. And then there’s basic fear of flying. Man or woman wasn’t meant to fly; we don’t have wings, etc. All of that sounds ridiculous unless you’re the one with the tight, dry throat clutching the armrests and ignoring the idiot next to you who keeps pointing out landmarks.
“Oh look, there’s the Grand Canyon, Lake Michigan, Atlantic Ocean….” Shut up.

My friend Mary Jane likes to confide her fears to her seat mate prior to lift off. She once told a man that she’s always afraid she’s on the plane “that they forgot to put the oil in.” He was pretty shook up by that idea and later declined to hold Mary Jane’s hand during landing. I have to stop now because we’re encountering turbulence (I know this because the pilot announced it) on our descent into L.A.. Descent is an ugly word.

Here’s a new thing: our plane, engines off, is being pulled into the gate. Not sure what that’s about but I’m thrilled to be out of the turbulence and on terra firma. Also the landing itself was a resounding thump but the pilot, after apparently slamming on the brakes, coasted for awhile which tells me we’re not going to crash into the gate, hit another plane, or spontaneously combust.

I would like to mention here that people who have no fear of flying are amazingly unsympathetic to the rest of us poor sufferers who board every plane reluctantly. My husband enjoys flying and I can tell this because he likes to get to the airport early and then stand in the line of people waiting to hear the announcement to form a line. In others words stand in the line for the line. Incomprehensible. However this doesn’t make him immune to the irritations that have increased over the years. It’s only in first class that you’re not subjected to people reclining a seat back into your lap so that you can’t even lower your tray. My brother recommends faking a sneeze or cough while simultaneously spraying a mister over the head of the inconsiderate person in front if you. I don’t know if he’s ever actually done this. I once kept my knees against the back of the seat in front of me (not difficult with 6 inches of so-called leg room) for most of an entire flight to prevent the inevitable recline. The second I dropped my knees the seat back came down. I would have used the spray technique then had I been appropriately equipped.

The notion that flying with a crying baby is a nightmare is overblown in my opinion. Rarely have I had to listen to a baby cry and when I have heard the brief sobs I’ve felt nothing but sympathy for the child’s ear pressure pain and the parents’ discomfiture. There are plenty of other, adult, behaviors I have no patience for. The person who blocks the aisle, oblivious of the line of people behind her or him, adjusting a carry on, casually removing a jacket, pulling out the carry on again for a computer, putting a small bag into the upper bin….this person drives me crazy. And there are no mitigating circumstances: extreme age, physical disability, or traveling with multiple children under the age of 5. These people are really in their own little world, aren’t they? Either spaced out or incredibly self-centered. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s give the guy with the ear plugs who keeps asking me to repeat the announcements a pass as well. But let’s hold accountable the folks who give the flight attendants a hard time. After all, they are basically servers who don’t get tipped, trapped on this plane with the rude, the fearful and the clueless.

So now I’m seated on the second flight, going into Houston and it looks to be a pretty good ride. The pilot has some gray in his hair and he made only one announcement. Mike is on the aisle and the kid at the window, after a semi-surly phone call with his mother, put on aggressively huge earphones and is wearing out his thumbs playing a game. Also he has left the armrest for me. Yeah! It’s 2 1/2 hours in the air, hopefully outrunning a storm, and… I have the new Elizabeth George to read.

Evidence we may not be campers

19 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by ehaneystuart in Photography, Reflection, travelogue

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Fiona and St. Francis

Fiona and St. Francis

Typical mess

Typical mess

Fancy coffee maker we love (not appropriate for camping

Fancy coffee maker we love (not appropriate for camping)

6 months of jam, note Red Vines in background

6 months of jam, note Red Vines in background

No poisoned apples

Not poisoned apples

P1012627

Lunch at the Wet Dog

Beautiful Columbia River

Beautiful Columbia River

Picture of Fiona not barking

Picture of Fiona not barking

She Who Must Be Obeyd

She Who Must Be Obeyed

My family never camped. Family vacations involved long car rides to see other family. There was an element of camping because we slept on the floors of our cousins’ rooms sometimes. At my Aunt Alma’s farm we didn’t camp but my sister and I slept with one or another girl cousin upstairs in the dormitory style room at the farmhouse. It was sort of like camping. Aunt Alma and Uncle Larry had 11 children—7 girls and 4 boys; the house had 2 bedrooms as well as the long dorm room and one bathroom. My brothers remember when there was an outhouse instead of a bathroom and I have vague memories of using that outhouse when the bathroom was occupado. We loved the farm—because of the cousins, the freedom…and the vehicles. There was always something to drive—years before legal driving age arrived: my cousin Danny’s motorized go-cart, a tractor, snowmobiles, even bicycles down long country roads. Years later I realized that going to the farm gave my parents a break from us (they didn’t’ stay there) and an opportunity to see other family and friends. My parents grew up near Detroit, briefly attended the same school, went to Guardian Angel Catholic Church, and knew each other for most of their lives. Since Dad was in the air force, my family lived all over the world and I wonder if the 20 moves during the first 10 years of their marriage is why camping had little appeal.

If I don’t count an unfortunate day camping episode that involved dropping all the hot dogs in the dirt and burning my fingers on a primitive stove that involved hot wax and a can , which led to an end of my brief career as a girl scout, I never camped until I was in college. At that time a friend of a friend had access to family land on the Mason-Dixon Line so we often headed north to “Beth’s land” to camp in loose groups of fairly clueless college chums. Luckily there was usually someone along with experience to guide us and keep us alive. Mainly I remember utilitarian tents, (very) basic food prep, and inebriated fun as we hiked and waded in the stream that flowed through the property. One time I went camping with some forgotten people somewhere in Virginia and we went canoeing. That time in my life is a genuine blur. I worked selling shoes and periodically waitressing, carried a heavy load of college classes, lived in a sub-standard (scary) apartment, and plotted my escape from East to West Coast.
Flash forward to life in California: I’m in my twenties with my first teaching job (thought I was rich when my first contract for nearly $10,000 was signed). Camping was the way I vacationed then and there is plenty of beautiful camping in NorCal. We (and who “we” was changed periodically) tent camped in state and national parks mainly, occasionally forced into a commercial camping area. In those days, people mostly camped in tents; the fancy ones had those extra pop up shades to put over the park-supplied tables. The really fancy ones had Coleman stoves and lamps and didn’t have to climb into their sleeping bags at dark. Somewhere in my late twenties I started seeing more trailers at campgrounds. How I loathed getting behind someone pulling a trailer up winding mountain roads. Even more I hated the loud generators that roared all night keeping wimpy would-be campers comfortable. Why I wondered didn’t these people, who needed all these electrically driven comforts, stay home? I still wonder but now I wonder it about myself.
Camping stated losing its appeal when I had a baby. Camping (or as I called it: doing housework and childcare in the dirt) was less relaxing with a toddler to chase over uneven ground, keep from the fire, and bathe in “3 minutes for 50 cents” showers. Still I persevered for a while and hope those pictures of my son fishing, playing with friends, listening to ranger talks, and eating s’mores provide Max with nice memories. I notice he doesn’t camp and has consistently ignored my efforts to foist a sleeping bag, pad and equipment on him.
So now, retired and in possession of a fifth wheel and the time to camp, I wonder what I have gotten myself into. We’ve had our truck and trailer for almost five years and have managed to use it for about 30 days total. Initially I was working and unenthused about spending my limited free time cooking and doing housework on wheels (sound familiar?). Also, people lie to you about how effortless camping with an RV is. It’s true. They rhapsodize about the ease and mobility, post gorgeous scenes on FB, and suddenly acquire a whole new group of camping friends. A case in point is my brother Mike. I have never known him to be an excessively social person but now, a mere year and half after acquiring a fifth wheel and truck, he has embraced camping with evangelical fervor. He and Peggy, his genuinely social wife, spent 100 days in their rig last year; this year they will again achieve that goal. They travel to rallies with other RV owners they’ve befriended and apparently have the times of their lives hiking and socializing. They camped last March, in Virginia, on purpose. It’s cold then and I know my brother well enough to know that he doesn’t run the heater all night. So Mike and Peggy woke and could see their breaths when they said “good morning.” However, and I want to be clear about this, I envy them. Mike and Peggy seemed to have rolled into RV life effortlessly: staying in beautiful places, making new friends, reconnecting with old friends and, and basically doing it right. My Mike and I, on the other hand, can’t seem to get our crap together.

Currently we are camping in Oregon on the coast, which I have to characterize as our “safe place.” We’ve had fun camping in Oregon. Last summer we camped on the coast with our children and grandchildren—a different kind of fun but well worth it. We also camped on the coast and in the wine country with our good friends Randy and Sue. They are experienced campers and a lot of fun, which is great for us novice RV-ers. We were supposed to go on a month long, 7000 mile, camping trip to Canada and Alaska with Randy and Sue in July but I ended up back East instead. Mike and I were really looking forward to this trip but if our current camping experience is any indication, we weren’t ready for it. When I told people about the proposed trip to Alaska they reacted in one of two ways, both extreme. They either glowed and said it was their dream to go on a trip through western Canada and into Alaska or recoiled in horror and suggested we fly into Anchorage and rent a car. I think the second group may know us a little better.
Today is Day 10 of a two-week trip and we are in a campground/ golf course in Astoria, OR. This clean and lovely park provides golf carts, a pet area the size of a football field, water/sewer/Wi-Fi, and an activity room for us to meet with our imaginary RV friends. With an Airstream on either side of us and motor coaches dotting the sites along the golf course, we are clearly the poor relations here. It hasn’t been particularly warm (but that was the point, wasn’t it) so we haven’t fired up the grill. Perhaps that’s how campers meet each other. Our favorite camping food seems to be Red Vines. I’m not bothered by the sounds of the other campers running their heaters, watching television etc. because I can’t hear them over our own noise. Right now I’m using a laptop, the space heater is running, Mike is using hot water generated by the propane tank to shower, and the little dog is wearing a sweater and huddled in her special bed. Not exactly roughing it. The list of things we should’ve brought lengthens daily and features both the obvious (matches, playing cards) and the ridiculous (heated, therapeutic socks). The list of things we were going to do and didn’t, expands: write for 3 hours a day (me), work on genealogy (Mike), and walk at least 5 miles a day (both). So on Day 10 we are finally kicking in. Mike is walking the dog and I’m finally writing. What I have done is listen to 3 books on tape, read the new Jack Reacher novel, crocheted most of a scarf, think about writing, watch the little dog’s antics, serve several “snack” dinners, and figure out how to stream “Monarch of the Glen” through Netflix on Mike’s computer.

I’m including some pictures in this blog of our messy camper, the jams Mike buys in every town (apparently he harbors a morbid fear of a post-apocalyptic jam blight), and a few shots of the titular focus of this blog. For now this is “Travels — with Fiona.”  Traveling with Fiona is like traveling with a canine Scarlet O’Hara. She is self-centered but adorable, vociferous about getting her needs met while laying on the charm whenever necessary. We were concerned that she would bark constantly and disturb the other campers but Fiona barely barked the first 8 days of the trip. Now she apparently can’t stop barking. I don’t know if it’s the openness of these RV sites or if she is expressing her contempt. She seems to favor campgrounds with more trees and privacy and doesn’t care about amenities. In Newport she suffered to have her picture taken with a statue of St. Francis and took a nap in the car while we looked at pottery. In Astoria I’m pretty sure Fiona barked the entire time we were in the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Strolling along the River Walk she confined her remarks to a few short woofs at other dogs and sat smugly in the patio of the Wet Dog enjoying occasional bites of pretzel and cheese. After that, the party was over and it was an outraged dog who returned to the campground. Last night, for the first time, Fiona woke us with hysterical barking and a dash to the window. She did this 3 or 4 times (I lost count). Each time I stumbled after her, shushed her, and brought her back to bed where Mike told her she was a good girl. She isn’t. Today she has watched at the same window, alternately growling and whining. And I wonder what is going on over there in that Airstream. We kind of met the couple and their yellow lab Riley yesterday when we walking around the place. They weren’t particularly friendly and the woman pounded on Riley’s back when he jumped at me and called him stupid. Maybe there’s some dog torture going on over there that Fiona senses? Or maybe the dog torture is going on here and we’re the victims…. Just a few minutes ago Mike left in the truck to seek supplies. I muttered softly that it would be nice if he would take the dog and he hissed, equally quietly, that he didn’t want to. I pulled the trump card that I can’t write if I have to tend to the barking madam. He acquiesced and I know that he will return with tales of Fiona barking incessantly from behind him on the back seat. She goes there to avoid him pointing at her and telling her to stop. She hates that.

I have several hypotheses about why I’m not a natural at camping. It could be that I missed out on important formative camping skills in my youth. My Valko cousins (all 10 of them) and their parents camped all the time—in a station wagon with tents and children sitting on laps (this was pre-seat belts). I think the Krupitzer cousins must have camped too because at least 4 of them have bought some kind of camping vehicle in the last two years. My mother had an aversion to camping—probably realized it would be an opportunity to cook, clean and take care of children in the dirt—that I may have inherited. Or maybe it was the bizarre camping I did in college. I brought my cat along, which should tell you a lot about the group I camped with. Talk about an “anything goes” attitude. Sometimes we left with such short notice that people forgot sleeping bags and had to share (or maybe that was the point). One time the elegant grocery bag containing all of my clothing for a long beach weekend was left behind and I was forced to wear my bikini and borrowed t-shirts from the guys until one of the girls bought me a set of ugly sweats. Sweet. The best camping I ever did was pre-child and in places of breath-taking beauty (Big Sur, Morro Bay, the redwoods) with people who went off hiking and fishing and left me alone to “guard” the site and read away the day. When they returned I would listen to their fish tales and imply that my time had been spent bird watching or re-reading Walden. Lately, with a fifth wheel and friends along, camping has been fun. But it takes a few days to regain the rhythm as I fight the feeling that I should be doing something productive. Conversely I don’t want to be pushed into planned activities so I resist the hearty souls who want me to bike (“it’s only”) 50 miles or agree to tour the local antique firearms museum. No thanks.

Still. There are many things I like about camping especially the space that it creates for other things to happen. Lots of times the cell service is weak so no one can call me—same with emails and texts. I get to wear my favorite old, demoted clothes. These are the shirts that are worn into the comfort of a second skin and the jeans that fit perfectly (and by that I mean loosely) but have that bleached spot or rip that isn’t fashionable just grungy. Also no one cares what you look like and you can always put on your sunglasses if someone comes at you with a camera. Someone left us apples on the table at this site and I didn’t really think about poison or razor blades or asking around about the character of the people who left them (except as a possible detail in a mystery). I can produce a dinner of salmon spread on crackers with red vines for dessert without guilt or adverse response. When the temperature drops, the little dog gets cold and becomes affectionate and cuddly and sweet. Also it takes only half an hour to clean up everything and hit the road. And after a week or so I actually relax. Here’s the best part. Mike and Fiona just got back. Fiona barked incessantly as predicted but Mike found what he needed and brought back breakfast sandwiches and ice tea (my favorite). I think I’ll finish breakfast with an apple.

The Cancer Card or “Honk if You Love Houston”

27 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection

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This is a reflective piece that I’ve avoided writing. It’s hard to write about cancer—yours, your husbands, your friends—all bring a rush of pain and fear that lands in your stomach and wraps itself around your throat. Lots of things that were automatic, like sleeping, command your attention and require an effort to sustain. So I have waited nearly ten months to write about the topic (event? process?) that has overshadowed pretty much everything since my husband Mike received a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

First—the good news: Mike was able to get world class treatment for his cancer and his prognosis is excellent. And because we’re retired, both of us could go to Houston and be together while he had several sessions of proton beam therapy. The bad news—and this is just for me—is that several people in my life have had cancer including my college roommate and dear friend Janet, who had breast cancer back when it was a death sentence. Gone at 39. My previous husband died of melanoma when he was 40, after 6 months of surgeries, chemo, and radiation. It was combat and we lost. Three years ago my best friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and chose aggressive treatment—so far, so good. Cancer, the fact of it and even the word itself, is overlaid with fear and reflexive denial for me. This time, however I experienced being the partner of a cancer patient differently. For two months we lived in Houston, near the renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Houston is different. We were reminded of this by the ads on TV for the Texas primary election, all of which ended with what is clearly a dearly held axiom: “This is Texas, not California.” Occasionally the tag line would be switched up: “This ain’t California; it’s Texas” or the pithier “This ain’t California.” Okay, message received. Mike briefly forgot this fundamental truth one day when we were in a Fresh Market. I may as well admit right here that one of us has a relentless sweet tooth and the other is his partner in crime. So we were wandering through the store, and, seduced by the mouthwatering displays of pastries, cookies, and candy, we selected quite a few. On the way up to the counter, I whispered to Mike that we looked like we had the munchies. That’s all I said. When it was our turn to check out Mike said in a loud and carrying and (he thought) funny tone, “We’re not smoking marijuana.” That stopped traffic at the Fresh Market. There was a brief, appalled, collective silence and then the people behind us moved to another line. The beauty queen smile of the checker faltered but then she pasted on another one and started ringing us up. She kept her eyes on us and processed our order at lightning speed. On the way out I told Mike, “This ain’t California, Honey.”

Yes, in so many ways, Houston is not like Northern California. Houston’s weather is so changeable that a 90 degree day can be followed by a 45 degree day. The humidity is so much a part of the city (even in February and March when we were there) that the weather report includes a visual of a woman’s head and rates the level of “hair day” one can expect. If my hair was any indication, one of the humidity predictions should’ve been limp and frizzy with a chance of unattractive curl. I think the weatherman confined himself to good, bad and iffy hair days. Some days we could sit by the pool at our complex and other days we braved strong winds with or without rain to get out of our 630 square foot apartment. Wherever we went, we drove into potholes and got clear on why there are so many four wheel drive trucks in the city. Houston is a city of potholes. Apparently the disastrous combination of a drought followed by a season of torrential rains coupled with clay like soil-made large parts of Houston sink into the earth and turned the roads into obstacle courses. Often there was no way around the holes and you just had to grit your teeth and hope you came out on the other side. People who complain about their local roads need to drive around Houston, which we did for seven weeks.

Speaking of Houston and vehicles…this is a town that does not tolerate lollygagging. The instant the stoplight changes to green, you are expected to move. The slightest hesitation is greeted with a cacophony of blaring horns. Even after we had shed our laid back, California ways and stepped on it, we continued to get the honk treatment. Observation taught us that merely moving was not enough. No, the driver had to tear away from the light, accelerating as fast as the car could handle. And this is the driving style in Houston—drive as fast as you can everywhere, slamming on the brakes when necessary. This makes for exciting freeway travel. In a California city–say San Francisco—brake lights ahead signal a slow down or even stop for all cars. And it is the unwary driver who ignores those red lights because they mean that everyone needs to slow down. On the Houston freeways, brake lights just mean that one driver has ridden up on the butt of another car and has been forced to slam on the brakes. It took us a few rides before we learned to ignore those lights.

Houston is also a city of kind, friendly and genuine people. The day we arrived, we went to a nearby Randall’s market (just like Safeway) to stock up on bread, eggs, cheese, condiments, milk, cereal, etc.—the basic things you need to set up a kitchen. I was paying and Mike was behind me chatting up a young woman whose husband was a doctor at MD Anderson. (With 76,000 Houstonians employed by MDA, this would become a theme. Everywhere we went, we encountered folks with an MDA connection). Mike, who doesn’t know a stranger, inevitably ends up in a conversation. I tend to be more reserved, but this time the checker started talking to me. She asked if we were moving into a new place and I told her we were just going to be in Houston for two months. Then she nodded toward Mike and asked which one of us was getting treatment. Stunned, I told her that Mike had prostate cancer but that “he’s going to be all right,” my mantra. After she finished our transaction she came around the corner and took a rather surprised Mike’s hands, looked him in the eye, told him she would pray for him and she knew he was going to be fine. I didn’t doubt her for one second. This happened several times, and each time it was comforting.

This generous spirit characterized all of the people we met at the Proton Beam Center and throughout the MD Anderson complex. Everything is designed to make it easy for the patient. The underground garage has pathways to the elevators and reminders about what floor and section you are in. These signs continue when you exit the elevator and head to the rotunda that has several elevators leading to different areas, like, for instance, the Genitourinary Clinic, where a lot of men of varying ages, usually accompanied by women with strained eyes, wait for consultations. Or the Radiation Oncology Clinic, where test results are explained and a treatment plan developed. Each clinic we visited had art and inspirational stories on the walls, a large tropical fish aquarium (very soothing), snack and drink machines, comfortable furniture, and tables with in-progress jigsaw puzzles. Every employee was friendly and pleasant and (most important) patient. The thing is, when you receive a cancer diagnosis, it’s hard to take in all of the information at first. I listened to Mike’s doctor explain the results of the MRI and I could see on Mike’s face that he was getting none of it. I learned to ask questions that would cause the doctor to repeat information. He was on to me pretty fast, and after a while he made sure I understood everything, knowing that I would relay it to Mike later.

Once Mike began treatment we spent three afternoons a week at the Proton Beam Center. I have to explain the way patients were prepped to receive radiation. First of all the bladder needs to be full to protect it. An ultrasound machine determines if the patient needs to “release” some of the fluid before treatment. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does the patient is given a measuring cup and told exactly how much he can pee. This doesn’t sound easy or pleasant or (to me) even possible. More often the patient has to drink more water; when this happens he is sent to the back of the radiation queue, the proverbial “walk of shame.” The rectum also needs to be protected. And a balloon is involved. Each time a stint is inserted and air is pumped into the stint to inflate the balloon that will protect the patient. The “Balloon Boys” is the moniker at MD Anderson; at another treatment center they are called the “Brotherhood of the Balloon.” The men all wait together in a room and I think the atmosphere could be described as Eau de Locker Room. The men relax in their hospital gowns and talk, sports, family, and cancer. I think this is an inspired way to make these men as comfortable as anyone who is about to have a stick and a balloon shoved up his butt can feel.

Meanwhile, in the light-filled outer waiting room there was a beautiful fountain, coffee and mints, comfy furniture, and sick children. You see, proton beam therapy was originally developed for pediatric brain tumors. The specificity of the beam makes it a viable treatment. Since pediatric brain tumors are blessedly rare and the proton beam machines incredibly expensive there are only 13 in this country right now. So these parents and kids were lucky—a word I can hardly bear to ascribe to these families—to be able to receive this treatment. If doctors hadn’t figured out that this therapy works on prostate cancer, there would be even fewer of these machines. So, in the light-filled waiting room, parents with babies and toddlers talked about sedation because the children are too young to hold still for delivery of beam therapy. Older children did homework and a teenage boy played games on his phone. There was no playing of the “cancer card” here; I could see that the parents were committed to keeping life as normal as possible. Every now and then a gurney bearing a tiny patient would be wheeled into the room and a parent would rush to join the parade of people taking care of this little person. They all got on an elevator and disappeared. All of the children had lost their hair; all had the round faces that come with taking steroids. Some of their parents looked shell shocked behind their smiles and murmured, prosaic reminders. “Don’t forget to put sunscreen on your head before you go back to school.” “You need to get those math problems done before treatment; you’ll be too tired afterwards.” Their bravery and resilience was humbling and inspirational and, ultimately, too painful to witness.

After the first day, I sat in the outer waiting room, armed with headphones and a crochet project. I sat alone in a chair near the fountain and I was soon joined by a little girl, maybe 8, who was writing in a work book. I hope the woman with her wasn’t her mother because she was mean. The girl would frequently look up and smile and wave at other patients; this exasperated her companion who adjured her to “get busy and quit fooling around.” The fact that she had a German accent may have made this sound harsher than she intended. The little girl was unperturbed and went on working problems. The next day I sat on a couch behind the family groups that knew each other, probably because their children’s appointment schedule coincided. This gave me a view of many families and a teenager who looked somewhat like my son, if he had had cancer and lost all his hair. After two weeks I asked Mike if he cared if I came with him on treatment days, which he didn’t. After all, the Proton Beam Center was only a mile from our apartment and Mike always drove there and back, so it wasn’t like I had a function. And Mike spent his time with the Balloon Boys in the locker/waiting room. So it wasn’t like I was keeping him company. But still I felt like a coward for not going so I went for another week.

I never interacted with the parents although I did engage with some of the kids. I helped the little worker girl with a vocabulary assignment and she told me her goal was to be caught up with her class when her treatment was over and she was all better. She had to miss school because she couldn’t risk an infection. Her name was Annika and I never mustered the courage (or insensitivity) to ask her if that was her mother who brought her. I asked the teenager (Josh) what game he was playing; we chatted I and ended up showing him a picture of my son Max. Josh seemed flattered that I thought he looked like Max. I listened to a heartbreaking conversation between parents of toddlers—one of the children was starting chemotherapy when they went back home. He had already been treated for a tumor—this was a recurrence. The mother said it was a good thing her son could get more proton beam radiation. A good thing? Lucky? I understood the need for hope that drove these parents. Being here propelled me back 21 years in time to the futile 6 months of Bruce’s treatment and the little victories that gave me hope. After three weeks I couldn’t go back to that light-filled room and stayed in the apartment painting pictures of pears until Mike’s last appointment.

While I painted I thought about how none of the patients or families were self-pitying, about the frequent laughter I heard in the waiting room. I thought about Mike and the grace with which he approached his cancer and the optimism he brought to his recovery. He never played the cancer card. Not once. He never asked for or expected special treatment from me or anyone else. I thought about my Aunt Aggie, a strong and funny lady. She has had cancer more than once and she made a joke of the cancer card. “Can you get me a coke? I have cancer.” Her family laughed and told her to get herself.

The odd thing is that I was the one who played the cancer card.

In January, I had started a new life insurance policy with the same company I had previously been insured by. I specifically asked the agent if the new policy would automatically cancel my old one because the premiums were going to go up from $40 to $400 dollars a month. He said yes and that he was also canceling my husband’s previous policy which would jump to $1400 monthly. In March I was checking my credit card statements online and I noticed that we had been charged the new inflated rates on the old policies–$1800. I called the agent who assured me that he never told me the old policies would be cancelled and gave me a number to call, telling me that the money would “probably be refunded.” When I called, a woman told me that the policies had to be cancelled in writing whereupon I promptly burst into tears. I told her we were in Houston and why; I kept apologizing for crying and said it was just a lot of money to lose. She was on my side in a flash. She gave me her email address and had me fax letters cancelling the policy and explaining what happened, not to the big company fax but to her personal fax machine. She told me she would be in early the next day (a Saturday) and would get the faxes and process them right away. I asked if she would email or call and let me know she had received them and that they were what she needed. The next day Mike and I went to Galveston so I could put my feet in the Gulf of Mexico. About 9:00 I received an email that all of the documents were there and would work. The email mentioned that she didn’t call because she didn’t want to wake us up but that everything was taken care of and that she knew Mike would get well. Also she was praying for us.

My playing the cancer card happened again when I was trying to convince Sirius XM that I shouldn’t be charged fees on a truck we hadn’t owned since 2010. It’s not that I intended to bring up Mike’s prostate cancer; it was more that I was uncharacteristically overwhelmed when I had to deal with these problems over the phone and while away from home and all the paperwork that would prove my case. The gentleman was very nice, refunded the fees and told me he had a “feeling that [my] husband would be well.” Meanwhile, in emails to family and friends I dwelled on the funny things like how Mike, after hormone injections to suppress testosterone, bought 4 pairs of shoes at the outlet mall. With people I knew I held it together; with strangers I broke down. At the Blake Shelton concert I offered to email the pictures I was taking to the girl sitting next to me. Her iPhone couldn’t zoom as well as my camera. She asked me if I was enjoying the show and I said yes and that we were in Houston because my husband had cancer. Then she put her arm around me and I cried.

I have to wonder what it is about me that makes me impenetrable to those who know me (“Mike’s fine; we had a great time in Houston. Everything’s fine.”) and open with those who will never see or talk to me again. Part of it is that I know our family and friends are dealing with their own fears about Mike’s health and maybe their own fears about cancer. I don’t believe that bursting into tears and saying that I’m terrified about losing the love of my life is something anyone who knows us wants to hear. But it’s not even a possibility; it’s not on the table. Among friends and family I must be the person who believes all will be well, and I am that person most of the time. I think about the parents in the light-filled waiting room. Maybe among people they would never see again they could tell truths too hard for their families to hear. And in that company of beloved, desperately ill children, they could also muster fragile hope for a better future. Because, here’s the thing: I have no right to their kind of pain. It is not my child with cancer that is likely incurable; it is my husband and he’s going to be all right. That’s my mantra and I believe it.

Kind of a cop out

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection

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Does anybody use that term (copout) anymore? And is it one or two words? Regardless, the next several posts are from a trip Mike and I took to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco in September 2010. I am working on some current pieces, but I wanted to post this travelogue to buy myself some time and to create a record of my travelogues so they are all together in one place. If you have your writing scattered around in documents, handwritten journals, emails, and sticky notes, you’ll appreciate my desire to at least have the travelogues in one place.
Because Mike planned the trip, we visited 5 cities in 3 countries in 16 days. Although this is not my preferred method for travel (it’s not relaxing), I do love the excitement of minimal planning and zero research. If nothing else, it encourages spontaneity, and by encourages I mean requires. Mike is the consummate “let’s see what happens” kind of traveler. If I ever unearth my handwritten journal of our 1995 trip to Ireland, I’m sure the first entry will detail how Mike wanted to switch our tickets when he found out our plane was delayed two hours. I had already consented to have nothing planned except reservations for our first night, but when Mike went to look at the list of international flights leaving before ours, I nearly panicked. Instead of flatly refusing to change our tickets (this was early in our relationship), I subtly poured cold water on Mike’s suggestions. Germany? That’s fine with me but then you won’t get to do any genealogy. Istanbul? Sounds good but…probably not a lot of pubs there. You get the idea. So we went to Ireland; I kept a journal of our activities (including getting lost by car, bus, bike, and on foot in Dublin) and thus began the travelogues. The one that follows is from 2010. Somewhere there exists the first Spain travelogue from 2008; hopefully it will turn up someday. I can’t even remember how I wrote it. These travelogues were emails to friends, which is an interesting method as I tend to be a little freer when writing friends. There’s no evidence that hoards of strangers are reading my current work, but one can hope.

The Rock(y) Road to Country Music

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection

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Some of us were lucky enough to come of age in an era of rich and varied music. My older siblings played Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and (later) Peter, Paul, and Mary; my parents played Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and musical scores. Against this backdrop of pop, folk and early rock, my generation listened to pop and soul before, after, and during the British Invasion. To say that the Beatles defined my musical taste is a given. The early Beatles, with songs like “PS, I Love You” and “Roll Over, Beethoven” owed a lot of their style to the Everley Brothers and Elvis. They even gave a nod toward American musical theater (“Till There Was You” from Carousel) which probably reflected their parents taste in music. Other groups, like the Mamas and the Papas had complex and gorgeous harmonies, Simon and Garfunkel had lyrics that epitomized the American experience, and Dylan challenged all of us with obscure, vaguely upsetting songs that mirrored disillusionment. But the Beatles had something for everyone.

There was a time that choosing one Beatle as your favorite said more about your personality than all (or most) of the faddish Facebook quizzes (Which state are you? Which character from Downton Abbey are you? Which rock star are you? Which color are you? Which car are you? Which killer from “Game of Thrones” are you?) If you haven’t been bombarded with these from friends sharing on FB, you must have busier friends than I do. In brief here is what preferring one Beatle meant about you or more accurately about the boys you liked. If you chose George (and most of my friends did), you were drawn to the deep, soulful type of boy who would write you poetry and break your heart lyrically. If you chose Paul, you were a superficial girl going for flashy good looks and obvious charm. If you chose John, you were attracted to the intellectual, moody, self-destructive types. And if you chose Ringo, you had low self esteem. Or you figured you had a better chance with him. I chose John, but that was just to make Paul jealous (Hey, I was eleven).

My Beatles era never really ended because those were the songs I sang when alone in a car and the music I incorporated into various theatrical productions when I was teaching drama (I’m sure there would’ve been copyright infringement if anyone cared). And I know what I loved about their music–it was melodic and I could decipher the lyrics correctly–most of the time. Let’s just say that Eleanor Rigby did not pick up her eyes in the church where her wedding had been. Of course the deceptively clean cut Beatles led on to the excitingly nasty Rolling Stones, the Moody Blues, the Zombies, and more. I segued reluctantly into the so-called hard rock era of endless guitar solos and tediously repetitive lyrics. Because I was fortunate to grow up in the Washington Metropolitan area, I saw many groups: the Jackson Five, the Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Jethro Tull (at the opening of a bowling alley in VA), Bread, Tina Turner, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. I list these particular groups, among the many others I saw, to prove my musical experience was wide and varied. I even liked the classical pieces everyone likes (Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the Nutcracker Suite, Beethoven’s Fifth, etc.) However, nowhere on this list or in my musical meanderings was country music represented.

When I was a kid and my family made an annual summer trip from Maryland to Michigan (10 hours, no air conditioning, few pit stops) to see my parents’ families, my father would play country music on AM radio as we drove through PA. We kids would groan in protest after being subjected to such classics as “Who Took the Knob off the School Door.” I kid you not. I think these twangy, whiney “tunes” preceded the lonesome – woman left me- took the truck and the dog blues. Regardless, it was torturous listening and inspired in me decades of contempt for country music.

And then a couple of things happened.

I would like to say that the fact my husband had always liked country music and often listened to it when I wasn’t around was a factor but it really wasn’t. The first crack in the embargo came when my sister asked me if I liked the Eagles (of course I did) and then mentioned in the condescending way only a younger sister can muster that what did I think the Eagles were playing if not Rock/Country? Okay, I would have to consider that, especially since I had recently seen the Eagles reunion tour concert. The second thing that happened is that I deliberately listened to a country music channel on FM during a long ride up I-5. I did this because my school had purchased air time on the station and I wanted to see how our commercial sounded. Well, I never heard the commercial, but I kind of liked Rascal Flatts by the end of that ride. Add to that you would have to live on another planet not to be aware of the surge in country music popularity in the last several years. Shows like “American Idol,” which I no longer watch, and “The Voice,” which I never miss, have helped to popularize not only cross-over country but country classics. All of these factors came together just in time for a cross-country road trip that included a visit to Nashville. From CA to TN I listened to country music on Sirius Radio and was ready to embrace my new found love. More recently I spent a couple of months in Houston, and heard both local country musicians and a few of the big names at the famous Houston Rodeo. I bought cowboy boots in Nashville and a cowboy hat in Houston so I’m good to go.

Now, how does all this relate to a past characterized by an exclusive relationship with rock music? First, there’s the fact that all those great concerts impaired my hearing so I can’t understand lyrics unless they are really clear and straightforward (like country music). Then there’s the fact that my favorite music (Beatles and their contemporaries) was very melodic (like country music). Finally, there’s the cute factor: Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, and Keith Urban (Hey, I’m old, not dead). Yes, I really like Maroon Five, Alicia Keys, and Adele. And I listen to the classics (you can call them oldies) including Fleetwood Mac, Bonnie Raitt, and James Taylor. I’m not a fan of rap and hip hop although I’ve always liked Eminem. All of this is to present my credentials as one who has always had eclectic taste in music. And yet, it’s country music that plays in my head every morning.

Every morning I wake up and then tune into the song playing in my head. I have no control over the selection but for the last several months my head has been exclusively playing country music. It doesn’t matter if I’ve listened to music or not the night before. And my head is not necessarily playing my favorite songs or even replaying songs. Every morning it’s a new song that I gradually become aware of, kind of like background music. And then the tune comes to the forefront and I add the lyrics (someone has to) usually under my breath. And then the day goes on and the music fades until the next morning. Through this process I’ve gained an appreciation for the rightness of country music lyrics–the no bullshit take on life in songs like “My Mama’s Broken Heart,” which lays the out the pain of a breakup and the pressure to “hide your crazy.” I love the unapologetic sentimentality of songs like “I Drive Your Truck” and implied sexiness of “Cruise” and “Drunk on You.” Simple expressions of love (“Crazy Girl”) and heartbreaking endings (“I Wake Up Loving You” and “Why Ya Wanna”) are country music themes with a rock twist. Confusing and complicated relationships show up in songs like “Come Over” and “Kiss Tomorrow Good-bye.” Lines like “take off your leavin’ dress” are pure country poetry. And lately irony and social commentary have found their way into songs like “Merry Go-Round” and “Automatic,” and these songs, like most country music songs, are written by the artists who record them. My current favorite lyrics are from David Nail’s “Whatever She’s Got.” “She got the blue jeans painted on tight/That everybody wants on a Saturday night/She got the mood ring, she’s never the same/She’s sun one minute, then she’s pouring down rain.” These words sung over a sexy melody with a bluesy beat could have been written and performed in the 70’s–I see Mick doing nice job or maybe Rod Stewart.

All of these reflections take me back to the Beatles and my contention that what I call the Mid-Baby Boomers (b. 1951-1956-57-ish) are naturally going to like current country music. It’s melodic, catchy, easy to sing along with, heartfelt, and clever–like the Beatles. And to prove my point…I took a break from writing this and went into a small grocery store in Canyonville, OR. While I was there, two songs were played: “Hey, Jude” and “Honeybee.” Thank you, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Blake Shelton.

The “I learned a lot” Afghan

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by ehaneystuart in Photography, Reflection

≈ 3 Comments

No one could ever accuse me of being mechanical or having a good sense of direction or of being able to sew.  My mother was a great seamstress and her mother could have been a professional tailor (she could sew men’s suits), so Mom had some expectations with regard to my sewing ability. Since my mother never seemed to actually enjoy sewing as I understand some people do, I never had the desire to learn.  To say I was unmotivated is an understatement. I also had no ability.

I first became aware of my mother’s plans for me in 9th grade when she made me take Home Economics instead of Art.  Since I already knew how to cook (thanks, Mom), learning how to cook bacon and make orange juice from (gasp) concentrate was a big yawn.  I cruised through the class until we got to sewing.  Our first project was an apron that consisted of a seam at the top for a plastic hoop that would go through it and a hem at the bottom.  Basically we had to sew two straight lines with a sewing machine.  I got a “C.”  The next project was a flip skirt made with a stretchy knit and consisting of 5 identical flared panels sewed together.  They were supposed to be sewed on the wrong side and then turned right side out and “voila”–a skirt!  Since I can’t even explain it now, you won’t be surprised to know that it didn’t work.  But Mom wasn’t done with me yet.

The following summer I was involuntarily enrolled in a Singer Sewing class and I made a (hideous) gold and navy checked dress with an empire waist.  My mother ended up making it after several aborted attempts and some hysterical crying on my part.  At the end of the classes there was a “fashion show” and we modeled our creations.  There were only 3 people in my age group category and 4 awards for each group.  One girl received first and second and the other girl received third and an Honorable Mention.  Given that they only had one item each, that was an interesting distribution.  My guess is that the judges (our hapless teachers) were so appalled with my dress that they wanted to send a clear message to me: “Step away from the sewing machine.”  After that Mom gave up and gave in and no one asked me to sew anything ever again.

My inability to read and understand a pattern should’ve also indicated that knitting and crocheting were out of my reach but I have tried both.  In college I knitted a gray scarf for my boyfriend.  It was approximately 7 feet long and in varying widths.  I was done with knitting after that.

Before I retired I was a little worried about keeping busy and so I asked my friend Laura, who sews and crochets and decorates, to teach me how to crochet.  Laura brought me a huge hook and some yellow yarn and taught me a basic stitch–a single crochet, I think.  That went pretty well so after a few inches I went out and spent $70 on yarn for an afghan for my husband Mike. (It is not my style to start with something small, like a potholder.)  I didn’t get a pattern or figure out in any scientific way how much yarn I would need.  I just threw several skeins of yarn in my basket working on the “that looks like enough” principal.  Then I crocheted a 70 inch row and began.  After I’d completed a couple of inches I could tell that none of the rows were the same length so I ripped it out and started over.  I did this several times and since I was working with two skeins at the same time, ripping out stitches was a challenge and sometimes I had 4 balls of yarn becoming tangled.  The worst time, Mike had to cut me out of the mess.  He found it all very funny.  I found it reminiscent of the time he tried to put up those Christmas lights that hang down in 3 foot lengths and I later found a ball of lights in the trash.

So I put the yarn away and didn’t take it out until February when we drove to Texas.  I knew the terrain in west Texas was not pretty so I decided this would be a good time to try crocheting again.  I approached the project with slightly more intelligence than previously, “slightly” being the significant descriptor here.  If you’ve read my Walmart rant (“All roads lead to Walmart”) you know I bought a smaller needle and actually worked from a pattern.  I also watched video demonstrations of stitches and I found this very helpful.  Then I proceeded to make every possible mistake:

  •  I used 4 different colors, 3 solid and one variegated.  The variegated skeins were not the same weight as the solid colors.
  • I paid no attention to the gage, just crocheted 16 rows in each color and figured each block would be the same size.  Uh, no.
  • I didn’t label the 5 strips that would be put together to form the afghan and so I put them together wrong.  Twice.  The second time I refused to rip out the strips so there is no discernible pattern as you will see below.
  • None of the color blocks matched up.  None of the strips were the same length. The afghan is more trapezoid than rectangle.
  • I forced the strips to begin and end together by “bunching” as I slip stitched them together.  I know “bunching” is neither a crochet term nor an approved technique.
  • I added a border which let me see up close how inconsistent my stitches were.

But!  I learned a lot and Mike loves it.  And I’m making another one with a different design and yarn that is the same weight.  In fact it’s a lot of the same yarn because it turns out I bought enough for several afghans….

the ugly truth

the ugly truth

Happy Mike

Happy Mike

Trying to look like a real afghan with judicious folding.

Trying to look like a real afghan with judicious folding.

All Roads Lead to Walmart

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection, travelogue

≈ 7 Comments

Every time I am forced, through life’s exigencies, to enter a Walmart, I relive the many reasons why I hate Walmart.  I object to the store and to the corporation on every level: physical, emotional, political, and cultural.  Which begs the question: why am I heading once again into a Walmart when no one is apparently holding a gun to my head?  The short answer is that I am a spoiled, impatient American.  The long answer involves excuses and rationalizations, which I’m happy to offer here.

First of all I only go to Walmart under duress.  I’ve been in the Walmart in my hometown less than 5 times in my life and all of them were traumatic.  Even before I knew about Walmart’s off shore activities, poor treatment of employees, and imperialistic business plan, I hated the store.  I hated the aisles that aren’t quite wide enough, the shelves that look like they’ve been through a minor earthquake, and the way you can only get to some departments by going through several others, creating a “forced march” feeling.  An uncommunicative pre-teen and desperation led me to Walmart the first time.  My son told me the day of the evening choir concert that he needed a white shirt.  After scouring Penney’s, Sears, Target, and K-Mart, I called a friend in desperation and she said, “Go to Walmart-duh.”

There it was—a wall of white button down shirts for the young, the slim, and the under-dressed.  As I roared by the women’s clothing I spotted a red zip-up sweater with a black, fake fur collar for $12.99.  Yes, Reader, I bought it.  And I still have it 12 years later hanging guiltily in my closet, ready to wear every Christmas season, looking as good as the day I bought it—and why not, there isn’t an ounce of anything that occurs in nature in that sweater.  I have been to my local Walmart two additional times: once to purchase school supplies for students who cannot afford to buy their own and once to buy a going away present of cute office supplies for an employee who abruptly quit working in my office to take a similar job in her hometown.  I don’t regret the school supplies, but when I decided that I really didn’t want to give a present to someone who had left our office in the lurch, I gave the items to a friend to return and keep the money herself because as I told her, “I will never go into that store again.” And I haven’t.

Fast forward to retirement and cross country travel where sometimes Walmart is the only option.   Just before leaving my sister’s home in Maryland, I mentioned how uncomfortable certain undergarments (okay, my bra) become after several hours in a car.  She let me try on a comfort bra of hers (I can’t remember the name, but it didn’t push up or enhance anything) and I wanted a couple of my own.  What was the source of this comfortable
alternative? Ordering it during one of those “As seen on TV” ads or going to Walmart.  So I went.

On the same trip, my husband suddenly realized he had left the white short-sleeved shirt he wears under sweaters somewhere in Tennessee, so we needed to buy a new one.  No big deal.  Except in Santa Fe, the only choices are boutiques (white shirt $400) or Walmart.  I am not kidding.  The nearest Macys or Target is 80 miles away.  I don’t know if it’s because the stars have homes there (Julia Roberts to name one), but there is really no shopping that isn’t outrageously expensive.  I don’t doubt that the white shirt in the men’s boutique would have been the white shirt of Mike’s life, but come on.  So off we went to Walmart where we actually did not find a short-sleeved, white shirt, this being November and even Walmart observes the seasons.

I hadn’t had to face a Walmart in more than 15 months, but all that changed recently as Mike and I traveled across Texas on our way to Houston. Western Texas may well be the spiritual center of all that is Walmart.  It is ugly, dry, desolate, unwelcoming country.  No one seems happy to be there.  Sound familiar? Somewhere between Van Horn, TX, where we actually had bad Tex-Mex food and an Egg McMuffin that will put me off eggs for another 30 years, and San Antonio, where everything changes and the terrain starts looking like people live there, I voluntarily went into a Walmart.  The proof is in the pictures below taken by my talented husband, otherwise known as the thumb.  For a couple of years I have been trying to learn how to crochet with limited success, my main problem being that I can’t keep the yarn tension consistent so there’s a waviness to my rows that isn’t lovely.  Somewhere in Texas I found on my iPad an online source for easy patterns that included demonstration video.  Armed with new skills and a whole bunch of yarn that I optimistically brought from home, I wanted to buy a new crochet hook.  That meant Walmart as there is no other place on Route 10 until El Paso.

It was a typical Walmart experience.  The crochet supplies were hidden in an obscure row next to the automotive section.  I asked three people (all of whom wore red tops and some kind of name tag) for help: they claimed not to work for Walmart.  Okay…  The crochet supplies themselves were unlabeled and old.  When is the last time you saw something priced in cents?  I did find a hook that was labeled “I.”   It might have been an “i” or an “L,” which is what I needed. I went with it.  There were 9 checkout stands; 2 had checkers.  On my way to the one at the end for 10 items or less (shouldn’t it be “fewer”?), I crossed in front of a man who didn’t seem to be in line but apparently was if his enraged gasp was any indication.  I stood in line for a while and then a new checker announced that she was opening another line.  She looked at me as she said this but I didn’t grasp her message quickly enough and 4 other customers, ones that were behind me moved into the new line.  I was able to be philosophical as opposed to homicidal because by this time there was only one person in front me.  One person, that I now noted, had way more than 10 items.  Not to worry, though, she was doing 3 transactions of 10 items each.

All of this brings me to my observation about what Walmart apparently does to its employees and its customers.  I think many perfectly nice people enter the store, but after the trauma of fighting through the aisles, trying to decipher what the signs really mean, seeing products that they paid a lot more for in other stores and feeling the rage/chagrin that comes with paying too much plus listening to the worst music ever played (the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s farm team singing “Satisfaction”), the average person goes to the dark side.  This includes behaviors like snarling at perfectly nice women who pass in front of you saying “excuse me” while you wait in line.  Just saying.

What Walmart does to its underpaid employees must be worse.  Each cashier has clearly just lost a beloved pet a half hour before having to punch in at work.  This manifests itself in mournful sighs, slow motion ringing up, occasional lifeless inquiries (“Did you find everything you wanted?” “No! I’m in Walmart for God’s sake.”), and a genetic inability to open the paper thin plastic bags supplied by corporate.   Before you have picked up your items the cashier has already turned her deadened gaze onto the next hapless customer.  I know my Walmart experience hasn’t been extensive (Thank God) but there is a quality of Hotel California hopelessness that emanates from the store.  By the way, I have never experienced a greeter and I think I’m happy about that.  From what I understand this is a manic and friendly person who is apparently on a lot better drugs than the cashiers.

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Maryland and California

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection, travelogue

≈ 1 Comment

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Road Trip Revisited

October 13, 2013

My dad is 91 years old today and celebrating with most of the family in Maryland as I write this in California.  He was supposed to be here visiting but a bout of vertigo made flying unappealing, to say the least.  (My brother Mike and sister-in-law Peggy did make the trip and we had a wonderful three days exploring the region around Redding: Mt. Shasta, New Clairveaux Vineyard and Winery, the Sundial Bridge and River Trail.) I was looking forward to my dad’s visit as it’s been more than 10 years since we saw each other on this coast.  Last year on this date I was with almost all of the family in Maryland, including my son who flew in for the occasion of Dad’s 90th. It was a great party sponsored by the children (food) and grandchildren (drinks). Entertainment was provided by the 6 great-grandchildren, ages 2 months to 5 years.  They just ran or crawled around a lot, but they were cute. This year’s party is missing my mother who passed away last December and I know Dad is missing his wife of 69 years. I miss her, too.

Below are the travelogues from October 8 and 9,2012. I took a break from writing while I was with my family so these are the last two until October 22nd.

Oct 8, 2012: Elyria, Ohio

This morning we drove to Lemont, IL—not far from Chicago and visited the cemetery at St. James’s church.  This is where several McCulloughs (Mike’s paternal grandfather’s line) are buried in a family site down the hill from the church.  This was wonderful for Mike, kind of a peak experience for a historian and amateur genealogist. I enjoyed the beauty of the place and took several photos trying to capture the autumn light on the trees.  Fall is flamboyant in Chicago; brilliant colors, crisp and cold air and light that makes the leaves glow.  Growing up on the East Coast, I dismissed Redding’s more subtle season.  Later I realized that autumn is the shift in the intensity and direction of sunlight.

We stopped in Elyria, Ohio (home of author Sherwood Anderson) for the night and I finally threw away the cheese.  It could have been a sentimental moment; after all this block of cheddar had traveled from Redding to Ohio without us ever snacking on it. Still, keeping it cold had lost its charm … and for some reason we didn’t feel like eating cheese and crackers (I still have the crackers). While Ohio no longer has the Howard Johnsons of my youth, the buildings remain and are reminders of the past glory of fast food in the 1960s.  Today the long structures with the “rotunda” at the front have been converted into food courts—Starbucks, Sbarros, Burger Kings, etc.  The cool vending machines and white chocolate lollipops with a milk chocolate puppy or kitten in the center are gone forever.  Which brings me to a brief rant about the many “outlet” malls and freeway stop areas in our country.  You literally cannot tell where you are when you turn off the freeway into one of the tan stucco Starbucks, Chipotle, Applebee’s, Chevron, Subway, etc. strip malls.  As for the so-called outlet stores, how can there be so many Gap/Old Navy, Edie Bauer, and Dress Barn outlets?  They clearly outnumber the parent stores, and I’ve never seen a Dress Barn that wasn’t an outlet store.  Explain that!

Still among all the homogenization of the American landscape are the unique eating establishments of our country.  Tonight we ate at Reuben’s, which the 20 year old hotel clerk at the Elyria Best Western assured us served “awesome food.”  I don’t know about you, but when I’m confronted with a huge menu that serves everything from omelets and falafel to Amish style pulled turkey and fried sauerkraut balls, I get a little nervous.  Some of that tension diminished when the waitress brought me an 8 ounce glass of wine… okay, it was Sutter Home, but we’re a long way from California.  We passed on the sauerkraut balls; my parmesan chicken was edible and Mike thoroughly enjoyed the hot turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes.  Why is the gravy yellow?  Just asking.

Full Disclosure: part of the reason the cheese didn’t get eaten in the Midwest is that Mike and I bought a couple of bags of chocolate caramel corn in Iowa…  Tomorrow we drive through Pennsylvania (Cracker Barrel Country) and into Maryland to my sister’s in Mt. Airy.

St. James, Lemont, Il.

St. James, Lemont, Il.

Cemetery at St. James in  Lemont, Il.

Cemetery at St. James in Lemont, Il.

McCullough Family Tombstone

McCullough Family Tombstone

Oct 9, 2012: Mt. Airy and Silver Spring, Md.

We arrived at Noni and Dale’s about 5:00 before either was home from work.  Dale had left us a key and we had time to drag all of our stuff into the house before Mike took off to wash the car.  I suppose this is as good a place as any to talk about Mike’s obsession with the car.

Whenever we get a new car, there’s a breaking-in period.  By this I mean, breaking in Mike. Since I know how this process works, I successfully got a few concessions from Mike before taking off on the trip with the Santa Fe Sport.  Yes, we would be able to have drinks in the car and Mike would not freak out whenever I was driving. Except for the exaggerated pantomime of fear when I have to brake quickly (see “Road Rage Fridays”) Mike has limited his mania to cleaning the windows—twice—every time we stop for gas or get ready to leave in the morning (or if I leave the car unattended for too long).  He has a process.  First he sprays the windshield with Stoner’s Invisible Glass and cleans off the bugs (and worse) with a paper towel.  Then he sprays the windshield with Stoner’s Invisible Glass and polishes it with a micro-fiber cloth.  Then he looks through the windshield from inside the car and asks me if it’s “better,” which I concede.  That’s our routine…

Anyway, shortly after we arrived, my sister came home from work.  I just love my sister; we are so close and so similar.  Our lives have not been the same—she married and had children young; I married and had child late.  Put it this way, when I was 36 I had an infant; when Noni was 36 she had a 17 year old.  But we share a sense of humor and a practical, get-the-job-done way of looking at life that is the legacy of our parents.  I always say that Noni, who is 6 years younger than I am and the youngest in the family, is the guardian of my youth.  She has the memories that come with the vantage point of watching older siblings tangle (I mean interact) with parents and she had what my brothers and I consider the great advantage of being raised by parents who were more relaxed about rules.  And by more relaxed I mean she got to spend the night at her friend’s house on school nights.   Really.

Noni is one of my top three favorite people on earth.  My son Max thinks his aunt (and godmother) is hysterical and that he gets his sense of humor from her (thanks, Max).  She is the person who always got along with everyone even through the years when I defected to the West Coast and my brothers lived in Europe.  She has always taken great care of my parents, and now, even though my brothers live near, she is the one who worries most about them.

PA Turnpike

PA Turnpike

Autumn in Maryland

Autumn in Maryland

Of Reunions and Remembering

10 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection

≈ 1 Comment

I have a certain resistance to reunions, most of them anyway.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m pretty sure no one will remember me or I don’t  want anyone to remember the person I think I was.  Which is pretty funny because I did go to my 40th high school reunion awhile back and I had good time.  People seemed to remember me and no one ran screaming from the room so I guess I was nicer than I thought.  I was reminded of this notion of who we think we were recently when I attended a casual reunion of actors I had worked with several years ago in community theater.  At first the reunion was going to be 3 people but social media and the gregariousness of others intervened and pretty soon it was big enough that I didn’t want to attend.  Still I went to the play that a former student and fellow actor was in and enjoyed seeing almost everyone in the audience who was part of the reunion group.

The next morning several of us met for breakfast and Pam, who had been fantastic in the play, mentioned that she was happy to see all of us and said that she had been making a conscious effort to reconnect with her past, that she tended to lose memories along the way.  At least that’s what I think she said, and it started me thinking about the things I’ve forgotten. For example, one old friend said she had never forgotten a comment I made about a scene she was in where she basically begged a man she had dated for years to marry her (the play was Picnic).  Apparently I told her that the scene was so painful I wanted to throw up.   Of course I don’t remember saying this although I do remember her powerful performance.  There were several instances of my not remembering what others recalled so vividly.  Ultimately I told the group that there isn’t enough room in my brain and that I’d had to erase a lot of information to make room for the steep learning curve of the last 8 years in my professional career.  But, it worries me that I can’t remember.

At my high school reunion there was a woman who was delighted to see me and apparently we had been friends, had classes, and went to games together.  I thought she looked familiar.  There was a man I danced with and he said it was just like the time we were in the senior play and supposed to be exhausted 1920’s dancers trying to win a marathon.  No memory of him at all.  The people I knew best were from my neighborhood and we connected through reminiscences of sled and bike riding and finally getting old enough to know what the words our basketball coach called us meant.  (He was an FBI agent pressed into coaching 6th grade girls and he was not happy with our skills. Let’s put it this way: he wasn’t calling us “twits.”) Over the years many of the women had altered their names in some way.  Sue became Susan; Cathy is Cate, Patty is Pat.  On the other hand, Billy is still Billy; Jimmy is still Jimmy, and Eddie is still Eddie although I believe he may have dropped “ie” in favor of “y.”  Our class had nearly 600 students and about 200 alumni came to the reunion.  About a third of the men lined up to tell Sue-now-Susan that they had been in love with her in high school but too shy to ask her out.  Susan, still drop dead gorgeous and a fellow member of the 6th grade basketball team, was not amused.  First of all she wanted to know “what happened to all the cute boys.”  (Well, Susan, they are 58 years old now).  And secondly and quite accurately, she pointed out that it would’ve been nice to have had this attention in high school.  I believe the “I was in love with you in high school” line is endemic at many reunions.   “I’ve been in love with you since 5th grade” is unique, and I witnessed its staying power firsthand at my husband’s 50th reunion.

A little background: my husband and his jock friends were a big deal in high school.  They were cute, friendly, athletic, and (wait for it) the popular kids.  Even though I wasn’t there, it can’t have been much different from any high school and I can imagine these golden young men striding through the halls as if they owned the school, but in a nice way.  Because in 1963 being a jerk wasn’t cool and the dark, moody guys would have to wait for the 1970s (my era) to make girls miserable.  Suffice it to say that these guys had an uncomplicated high school experience.  Of course there were “bad boys” but they weren’t very bad; mainly they had an excess of appeal so they spread it around a little.  Flash forward 50 years and Mike and I find ourselves at his reunion in a winery in Morgan Hill.  We stayed with Mike’s old teammate Gary and his wife Dene, who also went to high school with the guys.  [Aside: Dene and Gary dated from 7th through 9th grade, reconnected on Classmates after decades apart, and have been blissfully married for 3 years.  Some people do meet their soul mates when they’re young.]  In case you’re wondering, Dene didn’t capture Gary’s heart until 7th grade; it was Mike H that she bowled over with her ponytail and 11 year old charm.  Poor Mike H was almost incoherent as he told Dene she was his first love and then turned to Mary Alice and told her she was his second love after someone told her Dene was “taken.”   Age does not make one tactful.  Anyway, Mike H’s wife finally came and got him before he melted into a puddle of “what might have been.”  Periodically Mike H would leave his wife and circle back to Dene, who handled it all with grace and humor, telling Mike H that he was getting close to stalking.

There’s a lot to be said for having a reunion at a winery.  When I got bored I took pictures of the vineyard and the surrounding hills or chatted with the servers about the wines.  The fact is that other people’s reunions are not that engaging, at least not after the first hour.  I spotted the girlfriend (and non-classmate) of another of Mike’s jock friends and sat with her.  Within two minutes she mentioned that she wouldn’t be coming to the next reunion.  In case that sounds cold, please understand that these classes from the sixties have a reunion picnic every year and that whichever class has hit a milestone invites other classes to their reunion.  The last time I went to one of Mike’s reunions was for the 40th and everyone looked a lot better than at this one.  In fact I’m already planning on not attending my 50th reunion….

So in the spirit of reunions and remembering, I’ll share that the folks at this reunion felt the social structure of their days in high school was the same.  The jock table was the center of the action with people circling the stars.  I’m not implying that Mike, Gary, etal. were anything but nice—then or now.  But the mystique lingers.  Take Susan at my reunion (and many men would): she was the class beauty in a class of lovey young women.  When she entered the country club where our stuffy, East Coast reunion was held, everyone looked, paused, and paid obeisance to her past and current radiance.  Did she look better than everyone else?  Are Mike and Gary still the most (popular, cute, sweet, appealing—choose your adjective)?  I don’t know.  But that’s really not the point.  We bought this story 10, 20, 40, or 50 years ago and we still believe it.  And there’s continuity and comfort (for some) in that.

Writing a book

16 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by ehaneystuart in Reflection

≈ 1 Comment

When I was teaching, summers seemed like a long weekend. June was Friday night because we taught for half of June. July was Saturday and time for vacations, relaxing, and thinking about writing that book. And August was Sunday afternoon with all the pressure of getting ready for school—decorating my classroom, planning lessons, and positioning desks (always looking for that serendipitous arrangement that would support high level discourse and eliminate side talk—there is no such arrangement). Things changed when I became an administrator because I worked most of the summer. Then summer became a time to bring order to the chaos in my office, update handbooks, and finally throw out the things that consistently found their way to the bottom of my “to do” pile. In July, when all of the teachers were blessedly gone and I was finally alone in my office, I would clean and organize while streaming NPR or singing along with country songs. And sometimes I would think about writing that book.

Now I’m retired (a misnomer if ever there was one) and I’ve been busy during every day of the eleven months since I left my school. I knew that leaving would be hard for me as I’ve identified myself as a teacher (and administrators are teachers) since I was twelve and had a nursery school for my sister and her friends. (I charged a dollar a week, which I spent on supplies for my “students,” thus preparing myself for the realities of public education.) I wanted to celebrate 35 years in a profession I loved so we had a couple of parties and I spent a week near Cancun with three girlfriends. Then my husband Mike and I traveled around the country for 42 days so that I wouldn’t lurk pathetically around the school. That went well until we reached the middle of the country and I was no longer distracted by driving. I cried through Nebraska.

Besides traveling I have many interests that occupy my time. But my plan was to write that book. But not right away. I figured I needed a year to get my literal and metaphorical house in order, travel a lot, take those floral design classes, learn to crochet (a hopeless cause), start making jewelry again, maybe tryout for a play, improve my garden design, train the little dog to “come” (another hopeless cause), cook and entertain more, and exercise daily. At some point I started to wonder if all these activities were ways of avoiding writing that book. And I’ve decided they are not because I am writing (this blog) and I am reading great books on writing (most recently Write Away by Elizabeth George). I’m also rereading authors whose work I admire and looking for a writing conference that will put me in touch with published writers.

So…when you read these posts, please understand that I’m warming up, playing scales in preparation for the big number.

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