THE DEBATE

Today my 4 week old granddaughter got her flu shot. Throughout the country there is a debate as to the value or wisdom in giving children shots. There are also stories of children dying from preventable illnesses. My sister didn’t get her children some inoculations because she felt they were harming her children. She could have been right. I had my children suffer through the terror of someone shoving a foreign object into their flesh with a liquid that would change how they reacted to illnesses. So many questions and no real answers just lots of opinions. All I know is life is fragile and needs to be cared for

THE BEST OF TIMES

Disney Princess, cowboys, artists, train conductors, mommies, and the lists go on and on. I have my home full of characters of the best kind. It is always so exciting to watch the imagination of children. They are fun and naturally kind. They laugh with a pure laugh. Tears are when they are hurt, hungry or tired. They say things that make you chuckle and want to remember. There are times when there aren’t enough grandmas and grandpas to go around. There are other times when only a mom or dad will do. Yes, these are the best of times.

FAMILY

My mother had a great

deal of trouble with me,

but I think she enjoyed it!

- Mark Twain

I think this could have been written by one of my children. How I love those 3 children who are now all grown up. And I love that they have wonderful spouses and one puppy and 4 of the cutest, smartest, best behaved children in the world. Best of all soon, very soon, all these people will be in my house at once.

THE WEEPING CHERRY TREE

I love weeping Cherry Trees. The trees have delicate branches that hang almost to the ground with beautiful green leaves. Every spring the woody vines are filled with beautiful pink cherry blossoms and the fragrance stops you in your tracks. Although these grafted hybrid trees that would never grow randomly along a roadside or in a forest glade I still wanted one in my yard.

A couple of years ago we purchased one of these man made trees. This year we noticed that the delicate vines have taken on the properties of the tree it was grafted onto. The branches have become thick and are trying to grow upward. They never quite make it so they grow up and then down and then up, resembling a road winding up a mountainside. A branch from the original tree has broken free of the graft and threatens to overtake the delicate tree. In an effort to save the tree we have taken ropes and tied the branches down so they will stop their sporadic upward growth pattern. Next we cut out the branch from the original tree. This was all in vain. The branches will not be tamed and are becoming very thick. There are now 3 branches from the original tree that have broken free. There are cherry leaves on some branches and larger leaves from the grafted tree on the other branches. Now we have a very funny looking tree.

I guess there are some lessons to be learned here. Maybe forcing a tree to be what it isn’t doesn’t work. What about people? Can we change them by sheer will? I know it doesn’t work with teenagers and I hate when someone wants to tell me how to change. No matter, I have given up on my tree and as I see it have two options. The first is to let it be what ever it wants and the other is to turn it into something useful – firewood. Then I will be free to find a tree that wants to be what I want it to be.

1948

Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia

State of Israel created; admits over 200,000 European war refugees

Soviet Union seals off land routes to Berlin

President Harry S Truman re-elected in upset over Thomas E. Dewey

"Big bang" theory of the universe’s origin postulated

"Citation" wins Preakness, Belmont and Kentucky Derby

Long-playing (33-1/3 RPM) record invented

Swiss outdoorsman George de Mestral invents Velcro

Noted food critic Duncan Hines founds a company to make prepackaged cake mixes

"Scrabble" introduced

Mahatma Gandhi assassinated in India

NASCAR is incorporated

Popcorn sold on a mass scale for the first time

Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel

And I was born!

AN ARTIST TODAY

I need to be an artist today. I went to Michael’s for inspiration. That place sells projects not inspiration. They were having a sale on their colored pencils and pastels. At 40% off that was good but I like the ones at my favorite art store in the village. So I came home empty handed and decided to look for inspiration around me. Glancing around I see a box of photographs on the floor, family pictures, computer, printers, the usual things surrounding me. Then I looked down at my mostly clean desk. A crumpled paper torn from a catalogue had been hidden for quite a long time. I didn’t intend on buying the snail with a pixie on its back but I love how it looked so I saved it. This has me thinking about a woodland scene. Now I’m inspired. Out comes my sketching book and …

A VERY GOOD DAY

What can I say! This is an exciting day.

First my husbands lost luggage was found. And second his lost pictures were found.

About the luggage, it started with my husband picking up the wrong luggage and bringing it home. 

Where were the colorful luggage handles I have? 

Once inside the house he realized the black roller bag wasn’t his. The well traveled owner had a name and phone number on the outside of his luggage so my husband called to let him know his suit case was safe and on the way back to the airport. Then came the trip back to the airport. Since I had gone 3 days without a meaningful conservation with Kent I decided to ride shotgun. We came home empty handed with my bff wondering how he would ever replace some cherished items.

I had confidence that those items would be recovered even if we had to resort to searching Craig’s list and eBay.

Today the lost luggage was located and will be in my husbands hands my noon.

The pictures are another story. As an avid photographer my husband saves every picture he took. We have shelves holding boxes of duplicate prints and negatives from the old days of film photography.

That makes us sound so old.

We also have stored safely on our computer and the internet volumes of pictures.

But there are about 3 years of pictures we haven’t been able to locate until now. As I cleaned yet another shelf of my now former office I located some disks that had been stored there. These were the pictures from a former working Dell that our computer savvy children saved.

The pictures are now safely loaded into the internet safe forever where wind, floods, fire and deceased computers can’t destroy.

Yes, what can I say! This is a good day.

SUNDAY DINNER

As I sit contemplating how I will fix dinner tonight the whole idea of fixing chicken seems ironic. We fix chicken in so many ways that in the end, it just doesn’t taste like chicken anymore. We sauté, fry, season, stew, and in short, do everything we can to change the taste. When my children were teenagers they complained incessantly about the amount of chicken placed before them. A chicken dinner is so easy to fix and very hard to destroy.

People must prefer chicken over other meats. If not, why would they say “it tastes just like chicken” when tasting new white meat such snake or frog legs. I even heard a chef say that a type of fish can be prepared just like a chicken because it has the texture and taste of chicken.

Chicken is also considered a poor man’s food. If you go to Tonys you’re not going to order roasted chicken. They don’t even have it on the menu. When we cruised we didn’t see chicken on the menu unless it had a name that hid its true meaning such as Coq au vin or was under the “comfort food” section. There are many restaurants whose specialty is steak or seafood. I don’t know of any who have a specialty of chicken with steak or burgers for those who don't like chicken. Somehow saying “I’m going to a chicken house” just doesn’t seem right.

So how do I fix my chicken? Do I put it in a sauce, fry, bake, broil or barbeque my chicken? Do I first marinate or put a spice rub on? Do I want to do an ethnic dish or do I leave it plain? Should I put a sauce or gravy on the table to accompany the chicken? Ah, yes, a simple Sunday dinner with the family. At least I know I can’t destroy dinner.

REFLECTING

Change will happen

Change isn’t necessarily bad

You might be wrong at times

Anger shortens your life

Love is important but trust is more important

Everyone doesn’t have the same amount of time each day

Winning the lottery will make you miserable

The best thing to do with money is pay off all your bills

The second best thing to do with money is help your fellow man

If you are busy it won’t go away

Learning new things keeps you interesting to yourself

You can lean a lot from young people

“To Do” lists can make you crazy

People like to be around nice people

Weird people make our memories more fun

The future doesn't have to be scary

Handling problems cheerfully gets the best results

Jimmy Carter has the right idea about grown older

Grandchildren's love has to be earned

God is real and he loves everyone

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I have always wondered why people ask “where are you from?” If you live in the same town they want to know where you grew up or were born. If you are traveling they want to know where you live now. I find it interesting once people learn where you are from they immediately ask if you know “Pete, he lives on the east side.” It’s amazing to me that there actually have been times when I did know “Pete.”

So why this Henry Higgins fascination with knowing where we’re from? Maybe it’s our way of connecting to strangers. Most of us aren’t comfortable with idle chat so this connection is important. Then again it could be a real love of geography and peoples. You love hearing about people and places.

Well, for the record, I’m from Dragerton, Carbon County Utah. I spent most of my growing up years in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah (various locations). At 17 I moved to St. Louis, Missouri. That has been my home for most of my adult life. And the answer is yes to your next question. I do know H. Kent Munson.

MAZLOW

Maslow was a psychologist who talked about how we gain happiness. He had what he called a hierarchy of needs beginning with basic life needs such as air, food, water, shelter, warmth, sleep, etc. The second basic need was our safety need. When I first studied Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs my professor talked about needing to be safe from drive by shootings, war, and violence. Maslow never imagined that a safety need would include protecting our identity from cyber space villains.

Today I needed to buy something and pay a couple of bills online. First there was the bank. What was my user name and password? The online store wanted the same information as did the utilities we do business with. In order to protect my identity every place has a different user name and password. I got out my book of passwords. This very valuable book list hundreds of names and passwords all unique to me and my husband. In there are also the answers to security questions that a bank or other business might ask in the unlikely event I forget my password.

We hear of wars in far off countries but the war on our computers can be just as frightening because we are the ones fighting this daily battle. So my children laugh at my need to have a book of user names and passwords. Laugh they may, but I am one step closer to true happiness.

THE WORLD

Some days when I’m sitting in my office the world seems so far away. I can completely separate myself from all that is unpleasant or traumatic. In my world life is good and people are kind. Venturing out of my house I see real people and that opens up the possibility of seeing pain. On a recent trip to the grocery store a woman had passed out and needed an emt. As I glanced at the massive fire truck and ambulance my heart hurt for her. Her trip to the store was now ending very different than she had planned. For the past week I have thought about her and wondered how she was doing.

I have come to realize that hearing events on the news or even watching them on the television is not the same as seeing them in real life. Maybe it’s because we see so many actors portraying rolls where people are in pain as we causally eat popcorn or answer a ringing cell phone. We are totally immune to the human suffering because it isn’t real. The further we venture from our bubbles of security the greater the likelihood we will begin to feel and recognize the pain that is in the world.

Leaving the security of my home does pose risks but it also makes me more human for without the ability to connect with other humans I am nothing.

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the

bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.

- Anais Nin

WHAT ABOUT THE BOY

I have 4 grandchildren, three girls and one boy. The girls have their toys that they need such as a doll house with all the furniture and people. They have a beautiful pink chest full of dress up clothes. I have watched many a princess dance in her tutu, crown, slippers and magic wand. We also have lots of toys that would delight any child, but there aren’t any “just for boy” toys. Now before you accuse me of being out of touch with current trends and psychological findings I want you to know that I have given my granddaughters cars and trucks(see car below if you doubt me). I know they love them . What I wonder is “are there things that a boy needs?” I discussed this with family members. It was Wesley’s uncle that said yes. Wes needed something unique to him. But what? Ben said he needed cowboy boots. Now I have never purchased cowboy boots. Not for me or my children. That has changed. When Wes comes to visit grandpa and grandma in 3 weeks there will be the granddaughters dress up clothes and Wesley's cowboy boots.