The Teapot

I can't look at a teapot without remembering the smell of firewood, hearing the crackling of a wood stove, and feeling a chill in the air.

My grandfather built a little one-room cabin in the mountains where his grandchildren could play in the summer.  Evenings were often chilly.  Mom would delegate one of us to bring in a supply of wood from the wood pile, and she would light the wood stove. The wood stove heated the water in the water tank, but it was a small tank and there were always lots of children to bathe.  So the old silver teapot sat on the back of the wood stove to heat water to put in the washtub to bathe children.

Mom was very modest, so a shower curtain was carefully hung around the washtub.  I hated that shower curtain.  There is nothing as shocking to the system as the wind whipping a cold wet piece of plastic against your backside.

Babies were bathed in the kitchen sink with nice warm water.  My father loved to watch babies get bathed.  He would turn on the cold water faucet to barely a drip and watch the babies play with that cold water drip.  He would chuckle and giggle, and the babies loved it.

I can still see the flicker of the fire on the wall of the cabin.  The walls were rough unfinished boards.  I can hear the roar of the fire in my ears.  I can hear Mom saying, "Somebody better go put the water pipe back in the water box before this water heater is a missile."  My grandfather built his own water system with a box in the creek (or "crick") that had screens filtering the water.  It was pure genius except the deer often pulled the water pipe out of the box as they crossed the "crick."  If there wasn't water flowing into the water heater, then the wood stove was making it's own bomb. Countless times I put my boots on, grabbed a flashlight, and headed for the water box to shove the pipe back in the box.

Bath time was always the prelude for our nightly game of hearts. No one plays hearts dirtier than my family!  Laughter echoed through the canyon often until way past all our bedtimes.  We taught my little sister how to play solitaire when she was about four years old so that she wouldn't be in our hair for the heart games.

All those memories--and more--flash through my head at the sight of a teapot.  Teapots are a warm reminder of a very lovely childhood.

Mystery Morning

There's something about a foggy morning.  It puts me in a different sort of mood.  I wouldn't say it's a magical mood--more like mysterious.  It's the kind of mood that makes me wonder what's around the corner waiting to jump out at me and say, "Hey, I'm here."  It's the kind of mood that makes me want to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book.  Peaceful, yet mysterious.

There's something hanging in the air.  I feel it right around the corner, yet I can't reach it.  I can't see it, but I can feel it.  It's exciting, yet joyful.  There's a curiosity or a wonder about the day ahead.  Do I walk outside and feel the mist on my face?  Do I watch from the window and enjoy the warmth of my afghan?  Fog is quiet like snow--yet different.  Fog stirs my soul.

The occasional foggy day is just wondrous!  Too many days of fog will depress me.  Apparently, my soul also needs sunshine.  How can something so glorious lead me into depression after many days?  I don't know, but I'll figure that out some other time because this is the occasional wondrous foggy day!

Tatting Isn't for the Faint of Heart

(Picture from here.)

All my life I've wanted to learn how to tat.  It is really a lost art. My grandfather tatted baby clothes for my mother when she was a baby, and it was beautiful work!  My husband has a cousin who tats, but Idaho is too far to go for her to teach me.

A couple of years ago, I found an older woman in our ward (church congregation) who tats.  Now that I'm not working, I finally have the time to learn.  I spent two hours the other day with her for my first tatting lesson.  I was thrilled that she was willing to teach me.  She is blind, which makes it even more intimidating for me -- if she can do it without sight, I should be able to do this.  Right???

This is not easy stuff!  After 1 1/2 hours working with tatting thread (which is very fine), she told me that I needed to go home and practice on bigger thread.  I pulled out some crochet thread which is much larger, and I've been practicing all week with that. Once I figured out how to do the stitches, it was a matter of perfecting  the stitches so they are even and pretty.  Tonight I went back to the tatting thread.  I'm getting it -- but this is going to be a LOT of work!

May I just say that this would have been easier had I learned how to do this before arthritis set in?  My fingers don't bend the way they used to, and they cramp up too!

I will do this!  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!  Toot! Toot!

Doomed to Be Last

When I married a man 12 years older than me, I assumed he would be passing first, and I learned to live with that.  I wasn't too surprised that most of our friends turned out to be older than me. Indeed, I was always the baby.

We moved into a neighborhood of mostly elderly people, and I became accustomed to lots of parental advice and counsel.  It was good.  I needed that counsel.  Our ward (church congregation) was made up of elderly folks too.  Again, I was the baby with lots of loving arms to pull me up when I was drowning -- and it was good.

Many years have passed, and the demographics are changing. One by one, my friends are moving on to greener pastures.

We attended the funeral this morning for the last of our "parental" neighbors.  We didn't go to the cemetery, as I told my husband I needed to go to a "happy" place.  Happy to my husband means food, so we ended up at the closest fast food restaurant.  We had only been sitting for a moment when a friend came in and stopped by our table to chat.  I told her we had just been to a funeral and needed a "happy" place.  She said she needed a "happy" place too, since she had just learned that a mutual friend was now in hospice care.  So much for happy.

While it really helps for me to know the plan of salvation, it is sometimes a little depressing to watch your friends dropping like flies.  I knew when I married Danny that there was a good chance I would outlive him, but I hadn't counted on outliving all my friends, as well.  The last couple of years, we've lost some very dear friends.  I'm either going to have to hunt for some younger friends, or I'm going to be an awfully lonely old lady.  Then again, my family line dies out pretty young.  I've already outlived a younger cousin.  This could be my excuse for eating chocolate, drinking soda, and not exercising.  Dying young may not be such a bad thing.  Enduring to the end may be fine--unless you're alone.

Moot Court Meets Mice

Back in the days when I worked part-time in law offices in the evenings to help with the family finances, I became quite creative to bring in a little extra money.  Sometimes it meant doing things that I didn't like to do.  Okay, folks, get your minds out of the gutter.  I'm talking about moot court briefs.  Once a year, McGeorge Law School held moot court for law students.  It was a great exercise in "how to be a lawyer," as opposed to "this is the law."  As much as I love the "how to be a lawyer" concept and think there should be much more of that happening, McGeorge has discontinued moot court--which is actually okay for me since I no longer get wrangled into typing moot court briefs for law students. Trust me, it wasn't worth the tiny amount of money law students could afford to pay me--but I needed the money at the time.

One particular law student, Terry, was a great guy.  He was our LDS home teacher.  His wife, Marilyn, and I were good friends and our children were good friends.  We used to exchange babysitting from time to time.  Marilyn and I were pregnant at the same time once and had our babies on the same day, in the same hospital, and had hospital rooms next door to each other.

Law students were teamed up with a partner for moot court. Terry was very organized and prepared, but his partner was as scatterbrained as they get.  He had no idea what he was doing.  I had received permission from the law office where I worked part-time to use their office one evening to type Terry's moot court brief. Terry and his partner met me at the office after the office closed, and we went to work.  Well, Terry and I went to work. Terry's partner spun his wheels--forever.

At the time, I was used to leaving the office around 9:00 p.m. Everything was always quiet when I left; no problems.  I had no idea that about 10:00 p.m. the mice came out to play.  Now, I'm not talking about a mouse.  I'm not talking about a family of mice. I'm talking about 25 or 30 mice--at least.  The mice literally played at our feet all night while we worked on the moot court brief.  It didn't bother me that much because I had grown up going to our family cabin in the mountains where mice were a constant battle. Terry, on the other hand, was quite bothered.  The more drafts his partner produced, the more angry he became at his partner. Terry kept apologizing to me, but about 2:30 a.m., he almost decked his partner.  I managed to get them both calmed down, and we finished about 3:00 a.m.  It was not the best moot court brief I ever read, but it must have been okay because Terry graduated from McGeorge and passed the bar exam on his first try.

I've often wondered how many more drafts of that moot court brief would have been produced if Terry hadn't gotten tired of mice crawling between his feet!

January in Sacramento (Wordless Wednesday)

Rose

Camelia Bush

Camelia

Rose

Ruth

Our 92-year-old neighbor, Ruth, passed away.  Just before Christmas she was taken to the hospital by the paramedics.  She didn't want to go, so she took a swing at one of them and bloodied his nose (a girl after my own heart).  She came home after a couple of days and was home for Christmas.  Shortly after Christmas she took her second trip the hospital, but after a couple of days they sent her home.  There was nothing else they could do for her.

Ruth has a large family, and the last couple of weeks they have all come to see her.  My husband went over and said his goodbyes, as well.  Goodbye is something I don't do well.  I worked up the courage twice.  The first time I looked out the window and saw a whole lot of cars, so I knew there was a lot of family over there.  I didn't go.  The second time I saw her son's bicycle on her lawn.  I knew he had not yet had a chance to say goodbye, so I didn't want to intrude.  I was never able to work up the courage again. I was afraid I would cry in front of her, and I didn't want to do that.

Ruth was a good lady.  She was a little Catholic lady who went to church every day while she was able to do so.  The other day we found out from her daughter that Ruth used to pray for us.  I was quite touched by that.  There must be a special place in heaven for people who pray for the likes of me.  I didn't deserve this sweet lady's prayers.

Ruth and Raymond (who passed a number of years ago) were good neighbors.  We've had a lot of good neighbors.  We moved into the neighborhood as youngsters, really--the neighborhood rookies, if you will.  Our neighbors took care of us.  There was endless advice given about how to take care of our home and how to repair things that broke.  There were cans of paint that suddenly appeared from garages.  Tools were loaned.  If we began a house repair job of any kind, we could be sure that Raymond, Harry, and Shorty would have their heads together in Harry's driveway deciding if there was an easier way to do it, and whether they should step in and help.  Raymond and Harry each lifted several of my children through the bathroom window on numerous occasions to unlock the bathroom door when someone accidentally locked themselves in the bathroom.  After the addition to our home was built, there was no longer a bathroom window.  The inevitable day came when our youngest locked herself in the bathroom.  The kid panicked and was hysterical.  (I never want to be in an emergency situation with this kid!)  Raymond broke down the bathroom door for me.

When my first two children were little, Ruth was providing day care for her grandson.  He was older than my kids.  My oldest, Molly, would sit on the curb with her little red wagon with her head on her knees because she didn't have anyone to play with.  Ruth's grandson would come across the street, pick Molly up and put her in the wagon, and pull her up and down the street.  I suspect that was Ruth's idea.  My kids grew to love Ruth's grandson, and they were often in Ruth's home playing.  I never had to worry about them when they were with Ruth.

It occurred to me this morning that all the old neighbors are now gone.  We are no longer the rookies.  It made me look at what kind of neighbor I am.  My husband is a good neighbor, but I guess I need to step it up a notch.