9th Grade Success!

Rob has begun his successful career as a performer. In the spring musical, he is none other than........

Onlooker four!

Whoo Hoo! Go Rob!

Margaret Alfieri

I had lunch with Pam. Pam lives in the same city where my son attends school. It made me feel old because I met Pam during my first senior year in college. (It took me five years to graduate. I had a lot of parties to squeeze in.) How did I get old enough to visit my friend and tell her about my son in college and his friend who goes to our old college?

I took our picture, but it made me think of all the pictures we've taken over the years.


This picture was taken outside our dorm at a party in the spring of my graduation in 1985. Pam had to stay for one more semester and Margaret had decided not to come back. You can see the sense of impending change in the picture. No one wanted to stay forever, but there was also loss in leaving.

Here we are at my wedding in 1986.

The back of this picture said 1988 in Buffalo. I think it might have been Pam's wedding shower, but I can't remember. I suspect I was on a a whirlwind tour between moves or a summer visit. I think I lived in Maine at the time.

This picture was taken in Buffalo 1993 at Allison's baptism. Notice that Margaret is missing. She had moved, but we were all still in touch. I'd had one child, and Allison was Pam's first. Combined, we are up to five now.

In around 2003 I got the glasses I wear now, in this next picture. While there have been a few styles between the big red ones and today's, it was today's little glasses that prompted me to begin telling my children that when I'm old and they are thinking that it's time to put me in a home, please get me new glasses first. Today's glasses style are so small, I can't see as much as I could back when hideous big glasses were in style. I would tell the kids, "Before you put me in the home, get me big, luxurious glasses, like we wore in the nineties. I sure could see then. I never even had to turn my head. One glance of the eye and I could zoom right in on anything!"

It was a shocking realization of why old people wear old styles. They know something we don't know!

When my kids found this picture of me and Pam in our big red glasses a few years ago, they loved it! They thought everyone else was walking around in little square metal frames, while I wore big red plastic frames. They were shocked to see Pam in similar glasses. How could we all do that?

In our defense, we were just doing what everyone else did. I got the next picture to prove it:

Here we are in Pam's house as I insist, "We have to take it like the kids do, ourselves!" It looked so silly in the camera screen that we asked Allison, now a 10th grader, to take one of us just standing there. We looked more authentic in this one, though.

But now we don't know were Margaret is. So Margaret, someday you will google yourself and I want this to come up, so:

Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri, Margaret Alfieri

of Henrietta near Rochester, of Henrietta near Rochester, of Henrietta near Rochester, of Henrietta near Rochester, of Henrietta near Rochester, of Henrietta near Rochester

who went to Geneseo, who went to Geneseo, who went to Geneseo, who went to Geneseo, who went to Geneseo, who went to Geneseo

email me!

We need to take a picture.

Cute!

I can hear it now: "Cute? I'm not cute. This is my Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. This is serious business."

Mamaaaaaa.....Just killed a man.......

My son Rob's anxiety level has kicked up a notch. Tomorrow he faces the auditions for the school musical. As a high school freshman, he might be facing the most stressful event of his life. How did he deal with it?

By singing Queen all morning. I drank my coffee wondering, Is this my real life?

He's a pretty good singer, though, so I encouraged him to have faith that life had just begun. Don't throw it all away by not auditioning, just to avoid some stress. (He's tempted.) I guess that was the wrong thing to say. He said, "If I'm not back again this time tomorrow-Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really matters."

Then I got some pictures in my email. This is my brother with his band, Blues Mission. They live in Phoenix. I can't wait to show Rob. My brother Steve is the one in the green Hawaiian shirt.



Funny these should come today, huh? I don't see my brother much, since we've always lived so far apart. My perception of his present self is far more colored by my memories of him as an angst teenager than by any information I have of him as an adult. I am smart enough to know that the person he is today is probably a far cry from his high school self, created by his varied life experiences, challenges, and successes. I just don't know that much about those experiences.

Tonight I'll remind Rob, "You're not just a poor boy from a poor family. You come from talent!"

Rob will tell me I don't understand, that "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me-"

And tomorrow, he'll face off with him. I'm putting my money on Rob.

And if he doesn't get a part? By Monday he'll be happily singing, "Any way the wind blows...."

We'll be awhile before we know the real Rob. I'll wait for that knowledge in a joy-filled hope.

Raising the Environmental Bar

Mark installed a metal bar across our laundry room.

Now I can hang my hand laundry to dry in the laundry room, instead of on the shower rod in the spare bathroom. The bar is also large and sturdy enough to hang a load from the machine to dry. I plan to try that. I will not bother to wash the small stuff with the intention of hanging to dry. I'll sort the small stuff and wash that all in one load once a week, but wash and hang the big stuff one load per day. We'll see how it goes.

Now my spare bathroom, known as "the pink bathroom" is due for its renovation. I tore down the wall paper already, oh, maybe three years a go. I hate to rush. That bathroom leaked water into the downstairs entry, so I need to recaulk and fix the grout. I'm going to reseal it all, too. Then I'll check for leaks, sand and paint, then think about ordering some cabinets and a new mirror/light fixture. I've painted every room in the house except the bathrooms and down stairs entry. I hope to do all three bathrooms over the winter. That should keep me out of trouble. If the pink bathroom passes its leak test of sustained bathroom use, then I'll fix the downstairs entry and paint it. That will mean I've repainted the entire house. What a job!

Here's a little lake effect snow action

Notice that the northwest area and the lakes are clear, but south and east of the lakes there's ice and snow. When the loop played, the blue stuff south and west of the lakes just keeps appearing, but over the lakes stays clear. I grew up hearing about "Lake Effect Snow" but I really get it now with radar to demonstrate it. One area can get two or three feet of snow, but a few miles away gets nothing. Between now and tomorrow night, our forecast calls for 10 inches. I live right under the "O" in ROC.

If only you could see the snow.

For my Australian readers, yes, you're right. Northern Hemisphere + right now = winter. We are just really, really slow about some things.

My intention was always to put up a nice clothesline when I moved here. When Mark announced this fall that he was ready, I didn't say anything about the season; I just agreed that it was time. Today, he finished it, then it started to snow.

Ah, but the plans I have for this when spring returns! The two outer lines are on pulleys. They turned out to be expensive, so we put static lines inside. I can use the static lines for blankets and such. I have a septic system, so I can only do so much laundry at a time, which means that I had no need for a bigger clothesline. It's 25 feet long.

I feel much better now, environmentally. The contrast between my beliefs and my dryer use were starting to really, really bug me.

Do you think people in heaven can hear us?

I was wondering one day when Mark closed our pool, Can people hear us in heaven? I was upstairs and he was in the yard working on the pool. It was a quiet, breezy, cool fall day.

The mood changed when I heard, “!@$@$$%%.” Pause. “&**%&@%$” Slam. Stomp, stomp, stomp. &@**&$$

He came in the house, but I knew better than to ask what happened. At times like this, it’s best to just wait. The next thing I saw was him in the pool. I bet the pool was 60 degrees. A few hours later I asked what that was all about. He said he’d accidentally dropped a large rock that he’d placed on the rim into the pool. I said, “I bet the liner's got a hole in it.”

The next day he came in and said, “The pool’s got a hole in it.”

“How can you tell?”

“You can see the water pouring out from under the side.”

Oh.

We tried finding the hole, but could not. After I called the pool guy, I went to do some sewing and found myself talking to Uncle Bill, my dad’s brother. Uncle Bill’s been dead for quite a few years now, and it’s been even longer than that since I tossed the lawn dart in his pool and put a hole in his liner, but it was only just then that I’d really understood what he must have felt like when I did that.

“Hey, Uncle Bill? I’m sorry about the pool incident. I get it now.”

BTW (Before the War)

A few years ago, near the end of the semester in my Death and Dying class, the professor said something about how we are lucky because we haven’t lived through a war, as in having the war going on around us. I said that I felt I was still affected by a war. Having grown up with a mom who grew up during a war still affects me. My mother’s life has always been colored by “the war.” She was a child living near London during World War II. It ended when she was eight. I grew up listening to her stories, stories she had to tell, I suppose, because they were still vivid in her life.

One of my best memories of living in North Carolina, were this class was attended, was the night a bunch of friends were sitting around talking. Sophie, who is my age, grew up in England. We were talking about our parents and we started explaining how hard it is to get your parents to feel sorry for you when they grew up amid bombs and death.

“Mom, I don’t feel good. Can I stay home from school?”

“Stay home from school? You’re lucky you have a school. I used to have to get under my desk while the bombs fell, then get up, brush the plaster off the desk, and get back to work. You go to school and count your blessings.”

“Mom, I don’t like this. Is there something else I can eat?”

“You don’t like it? You’re lucky you have food. When I was your age, my mother would give me the coupons for the black market and I’d have to go haggle with old men and what ever I was able to get was what we shared for food that week. Now eat.”

It was fun having Sophie there because she understood. We laughed and laughed.

My Uncle Tom, who is my mother’s brother, sent me this picture. It’s my mother’s mother with, I assume, her four oldest kids.

I was surprised at my first reaction. I thought, “Oh, look. My grandmother, being a young mother, before the war.”

I noticed right away that the three oldest kids are looking right at the camera while my grandmother is trying to get the littlest one to look at the camera. I love the picture. You can see her not just as a mother, but doing the act of mothering.

But why did I instantly need to anchor the picture into a timeline of the war?

I always have a sense of impending doom. As a child, I just assumed that my war would come. Looking at history, few generations miss it. I figured everyone gets their war. As a child of the seventies, I always assume economic good times are just part of a cycle, only to be followed by economic bad times. I deal with that one by living under my means in good times so I’m ready for bad times. I find it surprising when people are surprised by bad economic fortune. What were they expecting? Always a boon? Hmm. Based on what?

This grandmother was the only grandparent alive when I was born. By then, she was living in Australia. I never met her before she died, but I do remember talking to her on the phone once. I was a young teenager I think. With no preparation, my parents woke me up in the middle of the night and said, “Your grandmother’s on the phone. Come talk to her.” I still remember her saying, “You sound so American.” I don’t remember much else of the conversation, but I don’t think I was old enough to figure out what to say.

When I was about 8 years old, she sent me a Koala bear and a silver cross. I loved that Koala bear. My dog chewed it up years later, and I remember sobbing. I was broken-hearted over the loss of that Koala bear. I still wear the cross every day.

I guess I think about the war because this woman was more than my grandmother. She was a person who had many elements to her, many I don’t even know. The fact that she was a women who survived a war and raised her children during a war that was raging around her strikes me as amazing. That I know of her.

Cool, huh?

This is such a cool picture of the effect the Great Lakes have on local weather. Those lakes are so warm, they are melting the snow before it hits the lake. Green is rain; blue is snow; pink is ice.

Stay tuned for radar pictures of lake effect snow. It won't be much longer now.......

Home Sweet Home

Mark works from home now. So far, it's been working out fine. A few years ago I turned a spare bedroom into an office. We needed somewhere for our books, so I lined the walls with bookshelves and put two desks in the center. It's a useful room, but we've never really gotten it organized, much like the rest of the house. You can see our messy desks. The printer in the background is sitting on a filing cabinet. We have no excuse for the messiness. There's a place for everything. There just isn't everything in its place yet.

If I was a better blogger.....

If I was a better blogger, I'd have remembered the date that I took this picture. Let's just leave it at "Fall 2008."
I love it, though. I took it the morning after our first frost, after I spun the planters around. The heat from the house was just enough to keep a blanket of warm air around the house, keeping it above freezing. The other side of the planter was not so lucky, so the cold killed the flowers on that side. I spun the planter around to put the flowers outward, and I had flowers for two or three more weeks.

I'm a slow blogger. They are dead now.