Different Drummer

The Lost Season

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:18:45 GMT

I'm astonished my hit counter shows me with any readers at all after I didn't post for four months!

It has been a physically and emotionally exhausting four months. Much of it was spent in Massachusetts, where I continued helping my parents prepare to move out of their house, took my 17-year-old son on college tours and to classes and volunteer work, helped support my mother-in-law during and after two stays in the hospital, and navigated a series of household disasters -- all of which, naturally, cost a lot of money we weren't expecting to spend.

And in the middle of all this, a longtime friend committed suicide.

Somehow, blogging retreated to the back burner of my life. But I am feeling a reawakening flicker of interest in it, since recent months have given me so much to post. I'm also catching up on the latest from my blogroll.

I am grateful (and still surprised) at the people who have kept an eye out for me all these months! I'm back and look forward to hearing from you.

Field Trip: Longfellow's Wayside Inn

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:18:36 GMT

Your intrepid reporter has been quiet the last two weeks -- but has been gathering blog fodder all the while! I've been visiting my parents in Massachusetts and, along with helping them out with some projects, have taken some great side trips. One was to the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA, a beautiful building on equally beautiful land, which provided inspiration to author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The inn's menu tells the story: "Suffering writer's block after the loss of his wife, Henry Longfellow made a special visit to the old tavern in 1862 hoping it might ease the pain. Indeed, the quaint charm of this ancient place so pleased and inspired Longfellow that he took up writing again and created his beloved 'Tales of a Wayside Inn.' After the publication of the book, the tavern became known as the Wayside Inn."

The inn, according to the website, has "served the public for 290 years" and "is the oldest operating Inn" on "one of the oldest commissioned roads in the United States."

I dropped in for lunch in their cozy dining room.

Here was the peaceful view I had from the window next to my table.

The light lunch I ordered was wonderfully tasty: creamy New England clam chowder, a "Jerusha Peach Mold (with pineapple and whipped cream dressing)" -- something I have never seen elsewhere but now wish every restaurant served! -- and a bottle of the inn's own root beer.

I did not drink of anything in the tavern below but its Colonial charm. Longfellow's Wayside Inn really is a don't-miss stop if you are in the Boston area!

[My next post will be about some fascinating little-known stops you can make, within minutes of the Wayside Inn! Don't miss it.]

"The Risk It Took to Blossom"

Tue, 19 May 2009 05:25:01 GMT

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
-- Anais Nin.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sun, 10 May 2009 18:18:55 GMT

My Mother's Day gift to you is a repeat from last year, but it's too good not to share again. It's Dar Williams' "The One Who Knows."

There's no better tribute to moms.

Happy Mother's Day.

Bird Photography Made Easy

Sun, 03 May 2009 05:13:07 GMT

Armed now with a camera with a decent zoom, I have started taking bird pictures. The experiment has had only spotty success -- for every fair bird I've snapped, I've had nine other shots involving half-birds, blurry birds and birds that flew away as I squeezed the shutter.

So the other day at Mill Grove, I was strolling on the grounds when I was pleased to look up and see an occupied birdhouse! Out came my Canon.

I stopped as I neared the house's base, and I pointed the camera upward, zooming until my nearsighted eyes could (as closely as possible in the sun) determine that there were two birds outside the house and they hadn't moved yet. Exciting! I snapped off a quick photo and was quite proud of myself.

Then I noticed that the birds STILL hadn't moved. These were either very cooperative birds, or...

Uh-oh.

That night, my 17-year-old son, being of better vision and brighter mind than his mother, took one look at the photo and said, "Mom. They have no eyeballs."

Sigh... Just call me a birdbrain!

And I'll Bet He Was (Hic) Damn Grateful!

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:54:43 GMT

A Pleasure Garden

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:15:05 GMT

It was a sunny, sultry Sunday, but the many joys I discovered at Chanticleer made the trip worthwhile. Chanticleer, the former Main Line estate of Christine and Adolph Rosengarten Sr. in Wayne, PA, calls itself "a pleasure garden," and it is. There are charms here for all ages. Join me for a stroll...

Nuclear Sunset

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:59:47 GMT

Flourishing

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:40:07 GMT

Afternoon at the Arboretum

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:57:07 GMT

Jenkins Arboretum in Devon, PA, has just reopened, so I went for a pre-supper saunter. Many buds have not yet opened, but even the hints of the spring glories to come are dazzling!

Soldiers and Joggers and Kids, Oh My!

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:10:04 GMT

When it's a 70-degree spring day that looks like this, how can you say no? Housework took an immediate back seat to a walk in the park -- in this case, Valley Forge, which fortunately is just 20 minutes from my house.

Being Valley Forge, one is never sure what ghosts from our Revolutionary past will appear...

One thing's for sure: General Washington never rode to inspect his troops on this!

A new recruit is hard at work...

Whether they were walking, jogging, biking or flying kites, folks of all ages were savoring a day off!

"A Bright Morning"

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:17:15 GMT

“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.”
-- Erich Fromm (1900-1980).

"To Sing Like the Birds Sing"

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:07:46 GMT

"I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think."
-- attributed to Rumi.

Spring Fever

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:23:55 GMT

“It's spring fever.... You don't quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”
-- Mark Twain.

Waiting For a Bite

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:56:07 GMT

Holy Week

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:05:25 GMT

Thought of the Day (With Apologies to Robert Frost)

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:50:56 GMT

Sunday Drivers: Family History and a Cautionary Tale

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:25:12 GMT

Once upon a time, there was a college student who was fascinated by family history. On weekends, she would leave her campus in Boston and take the streetcar to visit her grandmother at her nearby apartment. Along with enjoying plenty of chatting and snacking, this student would ask her grandmother to pull out the old family photo albums and then would write down all the names, places and events her grandmother told her about those pictures.

It was a great idea -- except the student didn't know until about fifteen years later that there was another album her grandmother had never told her about. An album with pictures going back to around 1910 or earlier.

Pictures like the one above. Photos glued tightly in a construction-paper album. Photos not labeled at all.

It's moments like this that make family historians tear their hair out.

By the time I happened upon this gem, my grandmother was deep in her 90s, in a retirement home and nearly blind. Her sister was dead.

Who were these people in the photos? By comparing them to family portraits that were labeled, I can hazard a couple of fair guesses -- for instance, I believe the man at the wheel was my great-grandfather Burnett Lewis (1865-1917) and the woman with the white head covering (without the big bow) was my great-grandmother Ellyn (Cranitch) Lewis (1867-1949). I could also see tantalizing family resemblances that make me suspect that others in the pictures are siblings and other relatives of my great-grandfather, but oh, how wonderful it would be to KNOW.

Perhaps my great-grandfather thought he would get around to labeling the pictures in his old age, but then he died the day after he turned 52.

I look at the photo below, which I believe shows Ellyn and Burnett with their children, Edith (my great-aunt, 1903-1995) and her older sister -- my grandmother, Marion (1899-1999). Then I look at the two pictures below that, and while I can make a possible case for my grandmother being in the back seat of both of them, I am not at all sure the girl in the front is Aunt Edith.

The lesson here is clear and doesn't need to be spelled out, but I'll do it anyway in the interest of posterity:

* If you have older relatives, connect with them TODAY and make sure all their pictures get labeled (full names, dates, places, events), even if you have to sit with them and do the writing yourself!

* Label your own pictures!

Let's not let our family history die with us.

April 3, 1992

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:31:52 GMT

Seventeen years ago today, I had a baby.

For several years, my husband and I had wanted to have a child, but month after month that hope had been coming up empty. I'd see moms holding babies or pushing them in strollers, and I'd feel the pang: Will we ever have that?

Finally, it was the summer of 1991, I was 'late' enough to hope, and -- at last -- I had a positive pregnancy test. I jumped into my car and drove over to hubby's office to give him the good news in person. We were going to have a baby!

We were also a day away from leaving for a two-week trip to Maine. I tossed my copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" into my suitcase and we set off for a journey up the coast for a few nights each at bed and breakfasts in Kennebunkport, Camden, Georgetown and Bar Harbor, with a friend's wedding on our return trip.

I think it was the first day in Camden when I woke up and discovered the joys of morning sickness. "Honey," I mumbled in a queasy haze, "could you go see if our hostess has any Saltines?"

Then came the moment that made me spend the rest of the trip -- and, frankly, the pregnancy -- on pins and needles. One morning, rolling out of bed and heading to the bathroom, I discovered some bleeding. It wasn't a lot, but it terrified me. Was I losing my baby?

In these early-morning hours before the days of cell phones, I grabbed my copy of "What to Expect" and did what I've since learned you absolutely should not do: I read every word of every thing that could go wrong.

And scared myself even further to death.

While we had a wonderful trip, I began making that shift that new moms make when they become fierce mama tigers, ready to defend their cubs against the world. I evaluated all potential risks to my baby -- rowing in the Maine waters, dancing at the wedding reception -- and tried to make sensible choices for the tiny one entrusted to my care.

And when we got home, I got an immediate ultrasound to make sure our baby was all right. Thankfully, the answer was yes. As for the morning sickness, it continued at least into the second trimester, but I never actually lost my breakfast (or lunch or dinner).

That Christmas, in Massachusetts with my family, was special; all the carols about Mary and her baby spoke to me as never before, and with me in full bulge mode (six months along!) and getting baby gifts, it all began to seem real and possible and fun!

I remember singing songs to my baby as I drove places.

As spring grew nearer, some friends threw me a fantastic baby shower, and they only grumbled a little about our decision to not find out the baby's sex in advance, since they knew it from a later ultrasound. I decided I would breastfeed my baby and connected with local nursing mothers' groups (this is invaluable so you will know in advance who to call with new-baby nursing questions at 2 a.m.!). And of course, hubby and I also took the requisite labor classes with the "hee-hee" breathing; however, if you want to know how it works in practice, you'll have to ask someone else because I never needed any of it, as you'll see below.

My due date was in mid-March, and I was about two weeks overdue so they decided to induce me. They suggested a birth date of April 1st, and I said, "Given the choice, I'm not having my child born on April Fool's Day!" I suggested April 2nd, which had been my grandfather's birthday, and I liked that connection.

So on April 2nd, we jumped into the car (okay, hubby jumped -- I lumbered!), and we headed off to Bryn Mawr Hospital, where they pumped me full of Pitocin for an entire day to induce labor.

Nothing happened.

Hubby said it was because the baby was cozy and didn't want to leave -- he had free food, drink, shelter, and cable! :-)

After a whole day of this, they gave up and sent us home. We went to Friendly's and had hot-fudge sundaes.

The next morning, Friday, April 3rd, we went back to the hospital and started it all again. As before, I was ready with my labor "focal point" (a stuffed kitten), and some reading material for those long hours with Pitocin. As it happened, I had been reading a book that I think was called "Maternity Ward," which included, among other things, a detailed description of a C-section.

Meanwhile, the Pitocin was pumping. On the paper the machine was spitting out, I was having great contractions. But there I was, sitting up with my earphones on, be-bopping to music, clearly without a care (or a pain) in the world.

The doctors began giving me weird looks.

This went on all day.

Evening came. At about 5:25, I was watching the news when the medical staffed swooped into my room and informed me I was going to have a Caesarean. They wheeled me off to the operating room, rolled me onto a table, gave me an epidural (and probably a few other things I thankfully forget), and set to work doing things I couldn't see because they set up a little curtain between my top and the Baby Area. Meanwhile, hubby was installed in a chair in the corner where he could provide moral support.

The anesthesiologist asked me what we were going to name the baby, so I gave him the boy's and girl's name options.

I could hear the doctors asking for instruments, and I was snickering because I remembered them all from the maternity-ward book! I remember at one point saying excitedly to hubby, "Oooh, the belly blade! They're getting close!"

The doctors, at this point, thought I was REALLY weird.

And at 6:21 p.m., a miraculously healthy and beautiful 8 lb., 3 ounce, 21-inch baby boy emerged from my body. The anesthesiologist announced, "It's a [the boy's name I'd told him]!"

Seventeen years ago today, I had a baby.

Today, the 'baby' is a junior in high school -- caring, honest, hardworking, brilliant, fiercely individual, and taller than me -- and tonight my hubby and I gave him a big hug and took him out to dinner.

Happy 17th Birthday, Fudgeteen!

Celebrate!

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:36:13 GMT

As part of my errand-running this drippy afternoon, I went to the post office to buy stamps. They turned out to be jazzy patchwork-quilt designs spelling "Celebrate!"

My mind raced through the possible reasons for the stamp: A holiday? A famous birthday?

"Celebrate what?" I asked the man behind the counter.

"Life. Your next breath."

Good point.

Celebrate!

Credit Craziness

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:36:14 GMT

I never thought I'd say this, but sometimes it's very hard to spend money!

The other day I put in a call to pay hubby's work credit card, which had racked up quite a hefty balance with an unusual three business trips in a month. Hotels, restaurants, cash, airport shuttle and parking -- the works.

I got an automated payment system and got busy punching in the account number and other information they needed.

But when I entered the payment amount on the telephone keypad, the automated message told me the following:

"I'm sorry, you cannot enter a payment amount larger than two dollars."

Say what?!

Thinking I must have hit something wrong, I entered the amount again.

"I'm sorry, you cannot enter a payment amount larger than two dollars."

Right about then, I began fantasizing about slamming the phone down and taking my money somewhere with sand, surf and drinks with little umbrellas in them. Hey, if they don't want it...!

Finally, though, I called customer service and talked to that obsolete relic known as a "real person." I said:

1. I was told I could only pay $2. Somehow, I think you'd like more.

2. I thought you'd like to know there's a glitch in your system that may be telling everyone you only want $2 from them, too.

For anyone wondering when the economy will recover, my answer is: Not this week!

That's my two dollars' worth.

"I Know It Could All Go Away"

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:37:42 GMT

"I wake up every morning feeling lucky — which is driven by fear, no doubt, since I know it could all go away."
-- Natasha Richardson, actress, 1963-2009.

It was a fluke accident. In that 2003 interview, Natasha Richardson was recalling husband Liam Neeson's serious injury three years earlier in a motorcycle crash, when he crushed his pelvis after colliding with a deer in upstate New York.

A fluke. Who among us thinks we'll die in our 40s? Aren't most of us sure we'll have more time?

We hop on our motorcycle. We jump on the bunny slope. We get in the car. We go about our business casually and fritter away our leisure hours, as if we've got all the time in the world. Sure, we have some "one of these days..." goals tucked away, but odds are that we're not going to take them seriously.

Unless something brings us up short.

Like a 45-year old woman -- a mom like me, but three years younger -- who takes a day off to do something fun, learn something new.

And two days later she's dead.

Readers

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:41:49 GMT

Flowering

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:55:46 GMT

Late one night, I breathed deep the fragrance of a single yellow rose. And as I held it close and twirled it in my fingers, I found myself fascinated by the play of lamplight and shadow on its folds. The images were strangely sensuous, reminding me of Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings.

The saying, "Take time to smell the roses," has become a cliche, which is a shame -- because the scent, and sight, are wondrous.

Treat yourself today, and think about what you can encourage to be flowering in you.

Kindling My Enthusiasm

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:18:31 GMT

For those of you who love gadgets and reading, I have something great to share.

It's compact, slim and intuitive, fits right in my purse, and powers up immediately. I can use it to read anywhere -- the beach, the couch, the park. I absolutely love it.

It's called a book.