No More Phone Calls

No more phone calls.

Once I moved out of my parents’ home, I would get birthday/Christmas phone calls from all the family and family friends. Every year I looked forward to hearing those voices of loved ones and hearing their wishes and greetings. All my six siblings called; my mother called; for a while my uncle called; and my dad; just everyone!

Now they’re gone. My dad, my my mom, my three brothers, and most recently, my sister. 

My kids used to call, too, once they moved away. But now it’s a text message birthday wish. 

Don’t get me wrong. I realize that times are changing. I realize that people leave this life. I realize that the text messages mean to them what phone calls used to mean. I do appreciate it. But I also mourn the loss of that tradition sounds with the loss of my family members and the dear departed friends.

I’m still remembered. 

As I reach my 68th year, I know I have far fewer birthdays ahead of me than behind me and it means I have to think about how I’ll be remembered. If I’ll be remembered. Who will remember?

Times change. Family changes. Traditions change. I guess it’s all good. There’s just no more phone calls 

Dad Memory

This is an old post but I am thinking of my dad today and thought I’d share it again.

I’ll probably share more old posts soon, as I’m thinking about family and family that is no longer in this earth.

Indy 500

Family Memory

Family Memory. It’s a thing.

I’ve been thinking about how the history of this family is dying; it’s getting lost. My father and mother are gone. My three older brothers are gone and just a few weeks ago, my older sister left us. That leaves three of us. I’m the oldest of the three of us that are left.

While that brings a lot of thoughts, fears, and anxiety to the forefront, that’s not all I’ve been thinking about. Actually, even before my sister passed, I had been thinking that the family history is being lost. There are few people to tell the stories. Few remember. I used to be able to call my mom and ask her when I was thinking of things and needed or wanted to know something about the past and she’d tell me. In fact, the last time I saw her, we talked and talked. I asked some of those questions. At that time, I didn’t know it would be my last time seeing her. She was actually visiting me which in itself was rare. I had major surgery and she flew up here to be here for my surgery and stay to try to help me as I recovered. It was a big surgery that actually turned out much better than we anticipated so the recovery consisted of rest and just laying around watching TV and reading, and because Mom was here, we talked a lot. That was a good thing. After she died in 2020, I would sometimes call Sylvia and ask her if she remembered certain things and what she remembered because although she was only one year older than me, I figured she might either have those memories or perhaps my mom had told her over the years as Sylvia lived with my mom. Now they are both gone and there have already been times in the past three weeks when I have thought of calling Sylvia to ask her about a specific time or person until I remember that she’s gone. If I don’t remember things, no one in the family will know them. And if I don’t know them, I guess they are lost.

Surprise Or Not?

We didn’t have the technology when my kids were born but I still think that I would not have wanted to know the gender of my babies before they were born.

Doctors could sometimes tell the gender in an ultra sound but ultra sound was a fairly new technology then. I was told during my first pregnancy that the way they could tell I’m ultra sound was by the presence of absence of a uterus. Nowadays, the ultra sound is much more advanced.

My OB, at the time, had a reputation for “calling” the gender based on the baby’s heart beat during month 6 or 7. Of course, my babies heart rates were always right in the middle so no guess from my doctor.

I don’t think I would want to know, though. Nowadays, it seems everyone knows way before baby is born. I know it is economically good to know ahead of time and it helps in picking out names. But where’s the surprise?

Would you want to know? It still seems very strange to me.

Silent Sunday 8-7-22

I Smiled

Today, I was crossing the Glenn Jackson bridge from Washington to Oregon. It was a very hot day today with a clear blue sky. As I was in the bridge, I glanced to the East of the bridge and see a couple of sail boats. I had to take another look because I had never seen that before! Not from this bridge. Not on this river (Columbia).

I had to smile. It reminded me of all the times I saw Many, many sailboats all in the San Francisco Bay when I would cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Up there, sail boats crowd the bay at the first sign of spring and during the summer months. It’s a beautiful sight!

All these little memories of happier times and happier places make me smile.

Really?!

I belong to Facebook groups for a number of my favorite movies and shows. They’re sometimes fun, with postings of trivia and photos of videos. That’s what I enjoy.

But then there are posts where people express their opinion or their understanding of something in those movies/shows and I have to shake my head and say to myself “Did they watch the same thing I did?” Sometimes people totally misread a character or a scene. I go back to it over and over to see if I missed something.

One of the groups, the one in which this happens most, is about all things concerning The Godfather movie franchise. Like why didn’t they have Michael killed instead of having him kill the cop and gangster in the restaurant then Don’t would be in charge.

Or why did they kill off Apolonia? She’s the wife Michael deserved. May want a good enough wife and he didn’t love her. Really?

Have you ever wondered how someone could watch a movie and get something entirely different from what you understood?

Sometimes I go in the group and post what my understanding is or I will post what I have seen or read from watching and reading countless books, articles, and interviews since I first saw the first movie back in high school. I’ve seen the first Godfather movie at least 100 times. The second and third, almost as many. I know those movies inside and out. I’ve read and watched Puzo and Coppola interviews almost as many times. I think I get it. I think “they” don’t.

Silent Sunday 7/31/22

Do you see it? Mt. Hood as seen from OHSU, Portland, Oregon

Popsicles

The grandkids love popsicles and ice cream sandwiches. They eat several each day and right now, during this heat wave, even more. Maya keeps bringing those orange ones with the vanilla inside for me to open up. Her mom says yes, so I open them. Spencer’s favorite is ice cream sandwich. But he can open his own so I don’t have to be an accomplice.

This reminded me of when my kids were growing up. My mom and my sisters lived about 45 minutes away and in the summer we went there often. The kids and I would drive over early, spend the day, then drive back home, often not until bed time.

On the way to my mom’s house, less than 5 minutes away, there was a drive-thru dairy where we would stop to buy boxes of popsicles. It was my 3 kids and my sister’s 5. We always bought at least 2 boxes, 2 different kinds. But on really hot days, and where she lived (Pomona, CA) almost the entire summer was way hot, we’d get 3 boxes. These were not the grocery store size. Each box had at least 18 and some had 20 or more, depending on which kind it helps inside. Lots of popsicles!

The kids would play and play with their cousins. Sometimes I’d leave the kids there while I went to do our shopping. I would also take my mom to run errands and we just had a great time visiting.

We always waited for traffic to subside before heading home. If there were popsicles left at the end of the day, the cousins kept them and when we went back a few days later, we stopped for more popsicle boxes and we would do it all over again. At the end of the day, their dad would ask if the kids had a good time at their nana’s house. I would answer that they did and tell him it was a two popsicle box day or a three popsicle box day. The more boxes they went through, the more fun they had had.

I suppose Maya and Spencer come by their popsicle love honestly. Their momma loved those orange ones and the push up pops the most.

Once in a while I get a bite of a popsicle. My favorite? I think it would be a fudgsicle. I rarely have them but my true favorites are the Mexican paletas made with milk and fruit. Yum.

Photo by Popsicle Vectors by Vecteezy

Leon

There’s this little boy that lives down the street from my daughter that goes over to play with my grandsons. That’s not unusual. All the kids in the neighborhood go play there. It’s a kid’s perfect backyard. There are swings, a fort, one of those pendulum swings, a big trampoline, a swimming pool, a hot tub, and room to run around. So that’s where the neighborhood kids hand out

But Leon is a different story. He’s a little guy. I think he’s 7 but he’s smaller than my 5 year old granddaughter. He doesn’t go ring the doorbell. He doesn’t go knock on the door. He goes over and just walks in the door and wanders around the house until he finds one of the kids. He wanders into the backyard too if he doesn’t see anyone before he gets to the back door.

Imagine my almost-surprise to be sitting in the couch watching TV while house sitting and looking up to see Leon wandering inside the house!

Then there’s Leon when he gets hungry or thirsty. He doesn’t say anything. He just goes in the kitchen and opens the fridge to find what he wants. He also goes through the pantry. He doesn’t ask. He just does it.

I don’t know if his mom is aware of what a bad little guest he is. My daughter doesn’t know how to tell the mom and even though she has told Leon that he needs to knock on the door and ask for what he wants before going through the fridge and pantry, he still does it.

And I’m almost ashamed to say that I don’t like that little boy. Even before I knew he did all this I just didn’t like him. There’s something that just makes him less likable that your average kid.

I just asked him. He’s 7. Hopefully he will outgrow these un- neighborly habits before he turns 8!