Memories and Change

Found here

I love this picture. It reminds me of my older brother and I because I used to dress up in a white tablecloth and play bride and groom with him. We have a very cute picture of he and I dressed up pushing our daschound, Schultz, in a baby carriage. Schultz was wearing a little white doll's dress that he begrudgingly allowed us to put on him. Apparently I had not yet learned sequence of life as found in the playground rhyme: "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage."

I drove down to Irvine last night to have dinner with my brother, who came out on a whirlwind, overnight trip. It was good to be able to see him--nothing about him has changed and he is the same big brother, issuing advice and feeling grave concern for me that he always has. We had a wonderful meal at the ClaimJumper at South Coast Plaza (the Tilapia Veracruz was perfect!) and then walked through the mall just to get some exercise. It is a good sized mall but the stores are so upscale that I could probably not afford to buy even a keychain in many of them: Gucci, Hugo Boss, Vendi, Yves Delorme, Porsche Design, John Varvados--not the kind of stores to go into if you are trying to stick to a reasonable budget.

I decided to look for comfortable shoes and was telling Brother that ugly shoes are an occupational hazard for professors. He stared blankly at me. Since we're on our feet so much, we wear "sensible shoes." It seems that the more education a woman has, the uglier her shoes. Most of my professors at the University of Minnesota wore beautiful suits. Then when they walk away you notice that they are wearing hideous leather loafer type shoes that one would never wear with a suit in any other venue. In fact, we had some internationally known researchers give a presentation at our university and both of these women wore wretchedly ugly shoes with beautiful suits, scarves, and blouses. I warn my female students about this and they laugh, looking down at my shoes--which for the most part, are dressy and pretty. But my feet have been hurting me and ugly shoes have become more appealing somehow.

So Brother and I were looking for shoes for me that were reasonable in cost and somewhat appropriate in design. I found two pair of low heels that are basic colors and will go with anything. He found a very cute pair of red shoes and decided that I needed them.

"These are snappy shoes, Barb. They will really make your wardrobe pop, especially if you wear them with a navy suit."

He's right. They would. His wife, who is a hair stylist and quite aware of design and style, has taught him well. I agreed with him and told him that I needed some basic comfortable heels first and then I'd consider the red shoes.

"Wouldn't you rather be memorable because of how snappy you look with these shoes? I think they'd be comfortable, and you probably would wear and wear them."

I doubt it. Especially at their astronomical price.

"I'm not a red shoe kind of woman, but I will promise you that I will buy a pair of red shoes in the next year because this is a good idea. How's that?"

He looked forlorn as if I had rejected his sense of style entirely.

We walked on through the mall, me wearing a new pair of black heels, and him in his size 12 WWWWWW cowboy boots.

It was nice to be with him again. Even if I dare not tell my mother that he was here because he didn't want to see her. (and those of you who know her, please do not mention that I saw him. She would wonder why I didn't tell her and it would be too painful for her to know that he didn't want to be around her).

What was interesting to me, and probably to many adults with siblings, is how we can so easily hark back to times when we had a corporate identity and shared the same memories, beliefs, and attitudes. But we grew apart as he moved to the Southeast and I moved to the Southwest. He is accustomed to southern belles and has always wished I was more like that. I, on the other hand, got into conflict with my father because he wanted to send me to college in the South so I would be a "refined southern woman." I would have rather taken up skydiving. It was a conflict of legendary proportions because I wanted to go to New England and pursue things that really interested me.

So pur political views, sense of style, beliefs about people--so many things--have been influenced by our lives after childhood in these diverse geographical areas. We are influenced by the fact that his wife is a combination of Lebanese and Southern belle, and my husband is a Puerto Rican, Angelino (L.A.), father of three. Brother is extremely conservative politically, and I am quite liberal. He hates leaving home and I've traveled abroad numerous times. Religiously, he is quite liberal and I am more conservative.

As I bumped into reminders of our difference, I was struck by how our relationship exists in the tension of what used to be and what is, now. I will always love my brother, and he will love me--regardless of what kind of shoes I wear or what I espouse politically. Probably all siblings experience the growing awareness that what was--our childhood mutuality--becomes more of a memory than an ongoing dynamic, but that the love that began there continues on through life.

Freedom

Found here

One of the greatest gifts that God gave humanity was the freedom of choice. He could have created us so that it was imperative that we performed only certain acts and experienced a proscribed range of feelings. We could have been forced into only one way of being. Everyone has the freedom to choose how they will live and what they want to do with their life. Even though it hurts oneself or those whom they claim to love.

It is the ethical obligation of all mental health workers to encourage self determination of those who have the mental competency to make their own decisions. A common question that arises is how one knows whether or not the mental health consumer is of sound mind and capable of making such decisions that affect their future. For example, take a young man with schizophrenia. While he is taking his medication he can make fairly decent decisions and he may choose to go off his meds. But say that once he does, he becomes completely confused, hearing voices and becoming antagonistic to others. At that point, do you force him to take his meds again, since he went off them knowing what would happen to him? (This is possible particularly for those people with severe mental illness who have had a prolonged course and who realize what happens by experience). Or do you allow them to live on the streets and become a menace?
Many mental health practitioners make the decision to allow mental health consumers to make their own future. Problem is, they often aren't accountable for their subsequent actions and everyone else has to pay for their actions, emotionally and financially. So where is the line between accountability and freedom? This was the question that the existentialists asked: how does one balance freedom and responsibility?

I ask this question of myself these days because Mother informed me today that she went off her antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication and has no intention of going back on it for any reason. Even though I've shared with her how pleased I've been that she went on it and that she was more fun and enjoyable while she was on it than any other time I've ever known her. Now she has become antagonistic, irritable, and roiling in her grief and sense of geographic dislocation. I realized today for perhaps the first time, that no matter what I do for her, it cannot make up for the other three children who choose not to be in contact with her. And even if I give up my job and my relationships and decide to stay with her 24/7, she would continue to be unhappy because she has depression. It is not because I'm not good enough as a daughter, not because I've done something wrong, or because I don't spend enough time with her or do enough things in the community for her to feel proud about.

Her mood is not about me.

And yet I will have to pay for her decision in the long run. It is not appropriate for me as a daughter to neglect her and avoid her. It is very hard to be in her company though as she is because it is very sad to see her in such pain, and it is painful for me to be the recipient of her irritability. She has made the decision herself and I am struggling with the balance of responsibility and freedom. I keep telling myself that I also have freedom and responsibility. My responsibility is to be a good daughter. I only wish I knew how to do that in this situation. She may have also gone off some of her anti-hypertensives, too. She acts as if she has. Mother claims that her medications have given her some sort of rash and she becomes hostile and beligerant if I ask her about which medications she is taking. "I'm not taking any more of those %@#$ medications. They only have given me problems." No they haven't. And if they have given her a rash, she hasn't used the medicated cream that I took her to the doctor to get. Why? I'm not sure except that she feels that she has a better way to treat it (I don't know what that is).

So my mother may have a stroke or be so overcome by depression that she opts to die of her own accord. What a horrible prospect. But I have almost expected that she would take her own life for years now. It has been especially likely in the aftermath of my father's death. I can't stop her. I can't make her pain better. I can't give her what she needs to undo her awful childhood that left her looking for love and approval from everyone--even her children. This is one situation that I cannot control. She does not listen to my reasoning and I'm not willing to have her go on another rant when I try to explain the need for her meds. I wonder why I ever came here (to California) in the first place. I really don't care about anything. I'm sick unto death with... and it goes on and on. Then after awhile she brightens, but I'm left with all the negativity, despair, and anger that doesn't belong to me.

It is impossible to be a therapist to myself or my mother. Any therapist I know would encourage me to set limits with her regarding objectionable behaviors of which I am the target, and to create conditions for spending any length of time with her. This is quite difficult. Even though while she has been on her meds, she had wonderful things to say about me, without them I am either not sensitive enough to her pain or she seems to grovel because I am a busy person and must not have time for her, etc. In any event, I have to pay for her behavior.

My siblings do not know. Two do not care and one would not do anything to help although he does profess to care about her. I'm trying to do what is right for my mother in spite of having no support from my siblings. It is an extremely lonely circumstance and I do the best I can to be connected to everyone in this situation: parent and siblings. Because in a few years I may only have my siblings. But then, after the way I have had to shoulder these responsibilities alone, their disinterest and silence on the issues surrounding Mother's life and care, creates a rift that I'm not sure can be fully bridged. I will try, but this situation is taking a toll on more than just my mother.

I've said before that God wants us to be holy in a very deep place. I still believe this. And that my job is to honor and respect my parents in every way I can. But jeopardizing my own mental health and the happiness of my marriage, is not part of that. It is a time to pray, to be thoughtful, and to balance kindness with firmness. Determination with tenderness. There are not a lot of clear examples of this for me, so I'm making it up as I go along, grateful for the knowledge that I'm doing the best I can and that God will somehow sustain me. My concern is that this will get very bad before it's over. And if it is, I pray that I will remain a loving, hopeful, faithful, warm-hearted and giving person who can set limits and not allow the poor choices of others to limit my usefulness or determining my own emotional wellbeing. That is my freedom to own it, and my responsibility to make it happen.

First Snow

Photo by Jay Calderone of The Desert Sun

This morning, as I rolled over in bed and noticed that it was getting light outside, I noticed with surprise how cold it was in our bedroom. We like sleeping with the windows open and since we have an elderly parent staying with us and he is usually cold, we had closed our bedroom door to keep in the cold and keep out the heat. Sam mumbled something about how cold it was and we rearranged ourselves for maximum warmth under the down comforter. A bit later, I was awakened by Otis who was yowling out in the hall. He was thirsty and very cold. How snuggly he gets when he is cold...

In fact, we had our first snow in the mountains. It was 29 degrees Farenheit this morning. It is a gorgeous day in Southern California: bracing crisp air, clear views (which in itself is a minor miracle), and just enough sun to keep us from freezing during daylight.

It makes me realize that I have tons of work to do out in the yard and that I'd better get to it. There is a rosebush to plant out front by the sidewalk, the vegetable garden to mulch and rake, the golden honeysuckle shrub to put in the ground and calla lillies and tulip bulbs to put in the ground before it is frozen. It's a beautiful, beautiful day.

I'm grateful that we are not living in New England this morning. My cousin's phone service is out so I can't check in on her, but she lives very close to Worcester, Massachusetts and I'm certain that she is without electricity and is very cold. The whole Northeast is in trouble from ice storms. I'm looking out my bedroom up into rolling green hills in one direction, and snow covered mountains (about 30 miles away) in the other direction. Lovely, just lovely.

The laundry is almost done, the banana bread is baked and given to Sam's brothers, and fresh chocolate chip cookies are waiting for Stepdaughter #1 (who is now living with us). Sam has had the car serviced this morning and is now busy with the family bookkeeping.

Time to go outside and get busy.

Memory Quilt

When I was 10 years old, I learned how to embroider outlines that were ironed on to plain white fabric. I had a real fascination with some little Dutch figures that my mother found and transferred onto the cloth for me. I stayed busy working on these squares for hours. We seldom watched television and in fact, for many years we didn't own a television. Therefore, we occupied ourselves with handiwork, talking to one another, or in the games and mischief we could manufacture. After I finished quite a number of embroidered squares, I put them aside and forgot about them.

It was after I moved out to California that Mother surprised me by sending me a completed baby quilt that she put together with this bright pink patterned flannel. It is very soft and bright and is pouffy from the polyfil that she sewed into it. Any small child would like it because it's so cheerful and cuddly. I think that Mother despaired that I would ever have children. After all, I was at the ripe age of 24 and was barely dating anyone. Maybe this baby quilt would make me think about motherhood.

In fact, I thought about it all the time. A brood of sons would have suited me quite well, since I didn't think my sensibilities were delicate enough to raise daughters. But a broken engagement and the family response to my near marriage deterred me from moving toward any kind of permanent relationship for many years. Even though I longed for a family of my own, it was just not to be.

So my quilt stayed rolled up and carefully wrapped, stored in the antique travel trunk of my great grandfather Bettinger. I also had a little yellow dress with smocking and flowers embroidered across the top that Mother made after I challenged her attitude about my prospects. If your comments about wanting me to marry and have children are substantial it seems that you will make something--anything at all--to go in my hope chest. So she made me a darling little yellow and white dress for a tiny little girl.

When Sam and I were packing to move to our new home this summer, I opened up Grampa Bettinger's trunk and pulled out the baby quilt. One side of it had my embroidered squares. The other was a butterfly pattern superimposed on squares of material that Mother had saved from all the clothing she sewed for us. There's a leftover piece of material from my 8th grade graduation dress; something from the (hideous) bridesmaid dress I wore for my sister's wedding; a couple blouses I had made for myself; and a shirt of Mother's. The black and white gingham was the little scrap left over from the matching dresses Mother had made for herself, my sister and I. As if we didn't stand out enough in matching dresses, she then made my father and two brothers shirts out of it. We all laughed at how we looked: "It looks like we got a run on a bolt!" (of cloth). We made it a point not to wear them all at the same time after that first time because we all looked and felt ridiculous. The quilt was fun to look at because my mind went back to the sewing room at the back of our country house, and I remembered sewing back there for hours, looking out across corn fields, past the freshly laundered clothes hanging outside to dry.

I looked at this quilt for a long time, feeling very sad that it had never been used. Given that I have no children to pass it along to, and my neice and nephew would not appreciate it, I didn't know what to do with it. It is such a sweet quilt that it seemed a waste to merely keep it hidden away in a dusty old trunk.

Then I thought of Nancy. She and I grew up together--the rotten egg thrower, the girl who taught me about country life, and with whom I played for hours as a child. She also married late. She and her husband have adopted three children from Kazakhstan, the youngest one within the last year. I still had not sent her a baby gift.

Nancy sews, crochets, and does a lot of things I grew up doing, so she would appreciate the work that went into this. And no one I know would be a better recipient of this quilt than she because she shared so much of my young life with me. So it was a bittersweet experience to say goodbye to my dreams of motherhood and send it off to her. I cried for a long time, looking at it, turning it over in my hands, and remembering--remembering years of disappointed hope and so many dreams. As it went out in the mail, a chapter of my life ended and another began.

Nancy was moved and delighted to receive my package. I have not missed it and her little girl is delighted with it. Nancy wraps up her children in it and tells them stories from our young lives--all the things we did together, and many little vignettes about my family. It fills me with joy to know that this quilt is giving these beautiful children a sense of belonging and warmth.

The Sacred Harp

Shape note singing has been around in this country since its colonization. It was a way of teaching young children how to read music and to sing. Each note corresponded with a note on the sol-fegge scale (fa-so-la, etc.) and had a different shape: rectangular, triangular, circular, square. So any child, if she could see the shape, could sing the corresponding tone. It is a very clever method of singing. It was particularly suited to congregational or group singing. Everyone is invited to sing in these groups, not just those with voices that are considered particularly worth listening to. Shape note singing groups usually have bases that bellow and altos whose voices are so strident that they can strip wallpaper. People wail away at a great volume, tremendous enthusiasm, and sing with their whole souls. In another post I said that there needs to be more singing by people in this country--not the polished, perfect music, but the singing that arises from a soul on fire. Shape note singing is such a practice. Old and young sing side by side without distinction. (go here and here to see an example).


Typically, the seats are arranged in a square and the leader--who can be anyone: man, woman, or child, with or without any kind of singing voice--stands in the center. They make an up and down motion with their hand to keep time. The tenor gives the starting note and off they go. The first time, the song is sung through on the fa-so-la syllables. Then the fun begins with the words. Some of the songs are dirge-like and others sound surprisingly similar to Scottish bagpipe tunes. The level of community engagement is unlike almost anything else I've ever seen.


Singings, as they are called, are usually an all day event, with dinner on the ground (a potluck lunch) in the middle of the day. The best singing occurs right before and right after lunch. The singing begins with a heartfelt prayer for God to be present, and ends with an equally fervent prayer of thanks at the end. It is a time of fellowship and anyone of any age, faith, or ability is welcome.

There are a few hymnals that are written in shape note, but the most famous by far is called "The Sacred Harp," the harp being the human voice. Most of the songs were composed around the time of the Civil War and the Great Awakening period in U.S. History. Thus, many songs are about Christ's return, the Christian life, and an earnest desire to live apart from a sinful world. Songs in this book are indexed by their tune name, not the first line of the song: Warrenton, Hyferdol, Alabama, etc. Here are the lyrics of one of my favorite hymns in the book:

When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies,

I bid farewell to every fear,

And wipe my weeping eyes.

And wipe my weeping eyes,

And wipe my weeping eyes

I bid farewell to every fear,

And wipe my weeping eyes.

Should earth against my soul engage,

And hellish darts be hurled,

Then I can smile at Satan’s rage,

And face a frowning world.

And face a frowning world,

And face a frowning world,

Then I can smile at Satan’s rage,

And face a frowning world.

Let cares, like a wild deluge come,

And storms of sorrow fall!

May I but safely reach my home,

My God, my heav’n, my All.

My God, my heav’n, my All,

My God, my heav’n, my All,

May I but safely reach my home,

My God, my heav’n, my All.

There shall I bathe my weary soul

In seas of heav’nly rest,

And not a wave of trouble roll

Across my peaceful breast.

Across my peaceful breast,

Across my peaceful breast,

And not a wave of trouble roll

Across my peaceful breast.

The trailer for a very interesting movie documentary on shape note singing is found here. You will hear very strident, open chords, wierd harmonies. But for some of us, it is a tie back to the early days of this country, and an opportunity to keep this form of community music alive. I think that if more communities came together and sang like this, the country would be very different and so would the health of people and society in general.

Found here


BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.

I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due,
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:

Divorce mee, 'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

John Donne

Say it ain't so!

I was very pleased once, to be invited to sing with two friends on Pier 39 in San Francisco. It is in one of my favorite cities and I'd never sung in Elizabethan costume before. The music was interesting, too. Three-part madrigals about sad sack lovers and the pain of love, all written in renaissance style. When the day came, our male friend, Chris, was suited up in brown tights, a little tunic type piece of clothing with a tight belt, and an Elizabethan collar. If I remember correctly, he was quite a spectacle next to Shelly and I, wearing our nondescript flowing, brownish outfits. He looked like a noble and I looked like a scullery maid. But in any event, we found a nice little spot on the pier, put down a hat to collect money in, and began singing for all we were worth.


To our credit, we were young, had good strong voices, and sounded great together. A number of men looked appreciatively at Chris' long shapely legs in tights. We found that quite funny. At one point, Shelly and I switched from three-part motets over to a little song for two voices. It was a little renaissance ditty, and we loved the harmony of it, our voices meandering over and under one another in intricate counter melodies. I guess I'd never paid attention to the lyrics, for suddenly we found ourselves singing,

There we meet together and we kiss each other;
And like two wantons dilly dally...

Followed by a number of dilly dallies, over and under. The meaning of this was unclear, but we were having such a great time singing loudly over the sound of the waves and the people in and around the shops that we really didn't pay attention to the words. It was one of very few period songs that we had found which was written for two a capella women's voices. As we dropped our jaws and opened our mouths wider in order to project our voices, we suddenly heard ourselves singing,

There we meet together And we kiss each other

And like two wontons dilly dally...

It was too much and we erupted into gales of laughter. The little knot of listeners dispersed in disgust. We couldn't collect ourselves. It took quite awhile to pull ourselves together and shed our wonton personas. To this day, we laughingly sing out the offending line and have a good chuckle.

Shelly was present another time once when another lyric caught us off guard. We were singing in the Bullfinch church in Lancaster, Massachusetts.

Found here

We were singing in a group called Jubilate, a small choral group at our college. We were singing the beautiful Drop, Drop Slow Tears by Phineas Fletcher. The words are beautiful, moving, simple:

Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet,
which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace.
Cease not, wet eyes, his mercies to entreat;
to cry for vengeance sin doth never cease.
In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears;
nor let his eye see sin, but through my tears.

Few songs I know are more lofty and moving that this. But as we held forth in the wooden pews in that acoustically wonderful balcony, we heard ourselves singing,

See snot wet eyes, his mercies to entreat...

Oh, this will never do. We worked it out so that careful enunciation allowed us to side step this verbal disaster. But not a time do I hear it but that I smile.

You've heard things like this before--the words that run amok when sung carelessly or too quickly, such as "Gladly the cross I'd bear" (Gladly the cross-eyed bear). It sounds pretty funny to me, and I'm sure, to listeners all over. Perhaps it accounts for the distinct "smiling" vocal quality of the King's Singers on their album when they sing,

Weep o mine eyes and cease not

Keep your ears open. You too, will hear all sorts of things like this when you least expect it!

Fatal Flaws vs. Confounding Conundrums

Recently I've been thinking a lot about how God's beloved ones can be spiritually sound but socially or emotionally unsound. By this I mean, how people who are awkward, offensive, outspoken, rough around the edges, and who can still be so attuned to God that they cannot be faulted, spiritually. Some folks are so off-putting, but you can see that their faith is unwavering, their spiritual discernment clear, and their desire to please God is foremost in their minds.
And yet they may make for the worst companions you can imagine.

I suppose this has been figural for me since my path has taken a turn toward a few people who are difficult to be around. Pious people who are dear to the heart of God. One person in particular is someone I would describe as emotionally rabid, unstable, vitriolic, and socially inept. Yet he has a strong daily prayer life, going over a detailed prayer list every morning with God. He stands for high standards of moral behavior and academic competence. Yet he seems to try to cut me off at the knees whenever I appear to excel in anything that is different than his interests. It is always puzzling to me to be the recipient of his emotionally charged hit-and-run attacks. Especially when they occur in front of others who are shocked by his remarks (not to mention how blindsided I feel). But he would give the shirt off his back for another person in need. A person whom he believes is in need, I should clarify.

Then there is a woman who very humbly and with great feeling discusses her sense of awe about God who has lead her through very trying times. I am inspired and uplifted by her story. Yet her behavior is so offensive to me and others who comment about her. I simply don't like her, even though I know she is secure in God.

How is this possible?

I think about this sometimes when I'm standing in front of the mirror in the mornings, getting ready to go to work. How can I be so intent on following God through a life of service but still be so insecure about students not liking me? How can I lie awake in bed at 5:00 a.m. and plead with God to help me see and be more aware of how much He loves me, but be so vindictive and angry with my own family members? How is it possible for me to gather my feelings of generosity closer to me and refuse to extend grace to people who have deeply wounded me? Even though so many of these things have been taken to God in prayer and I resolve to be more open and accepting of others whom I adjudge to be undeserving. At the same time I am confident of God's grace being extended to me while I continually share my concerns with Him and ask for my heart to be changed.

Perhaps this is just the human condition showing through. Paul described this conundrum beautifully in Romans 7:21 - 25

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Indeed. As I struggle along the road to heaven I will not be perfect in all things. Probably, almost nothing. But God working in my life allows me to serve Him in my mind, to yearn after Him and His righteousness. Even though my behaviors are off-putting and I am not fully developed or refined emotionally, socially, physically or spiritually. The goal I have for myself is to extend this same degree and kind of grace to those around me who are not perfect outwardly, yet who love God from the inside out.

God help us all.

Consolation Prize

Today I finished up work very early--at 10:00. So it befell me to bring Dad home from his cancer treatment and get him settled into the house. We were leaving town and I casually remarked that I was hungry. "Well, lez go it" he remarked. "Where you wan to go?"
We thought about it for a few minutes before I drove us over to a Peruvian restaurant that opened just a couple months ago. Dad was enthusiastic.
Here are pictures of the things we had: Papa Relenna (above). It is a shell of fresh mashed potatoes and is filled with shredded beef, raisins, onions and olives. I picked out the raisins and there wasn't much in the way of beef inside, but what I ate was excellent. It was amazingly good, as was the shredded onion salad. I don't know what the seasoning was on the onions, but it was sweet and very fragrant.


This is called Arroz chaufa con pollo. It is a Chinese inspired dish of fried rice with various and sundry things in it. Chaufa is the way the chicken is prepared: in little chunks. Dad kept laughing and saying, "I dun't know this chaufa thing." But I noticed that it disappeared from his plate rather quickly.

Found at 222.Tiwy.com

We were given this little basket with little wizzened somethings in it. I first thought it was fried beetles. Then as I looked at it, I told dad, "It should be called Diente la vecchia (old lady's teeth)." He winced as he laughed at my linguistic efforts.

The drink is a fruit drink laced with cinnamon. It was absolutely fantastic, whatever it was. The waitress told Dad (in Spanish) that it is made in a pressure cooker and that was about all that I could pick up. It was wonderful.

Dad and I were regretful that Gil couldn't join us, but we have an entire entre to share with him when he gets home today. "He not gonna like you bringing me home early any more becau he dun't get what we do." I agreed.

"Oh, but that wah goood!" Dad effervesced.

I couldn'g agree more.

Half Brain

Numbers have always given me fits. I don't know if it is because there was always a lot of anxiety in our family around math or if it is just that the left half of my brain doesn't work well. Mother used to drill my brother for hours on his multiplication tables. I can still see her sitting on the floor opposite Ray, flipping the 4 x 6 cards over to reveal the answers on the back of them. Ray would be sweating bullets, worried that he would get scolded for not knowing the answer to one of them. And he usually couldn't be quite fast enough for Mother.

Funny, he later was a 4.0 student in his college math classes. He could have actually been a math teacher or scientist. He's really smart. But he has trouble with the right side of his brain: reading, writing, spelling, emotions--all the things I do well at. If you could take the two of us, put us in a bag and shake us up, the end product would be someone who was quite good in most everything. But apart, we struggle in our own ways.

Some years ago when I was working as a nurse, I had to chart everything that my patients did, including their vital signs every few minutes. Every missed heartbeat, every retch (this was in the recovery room!) As the patients wheeled into my work area, I would snap up a chart and write the date and their first set of vital signs before anything else. Imagine my surprise when reviewing the chart I would see dates such as 1947, 1829, 1988. This was in 2000. I tearfully reported this to my therapist with my concern that due to our family history, I probably have early onset Alzheimers. Why else would I struggle remembering the date?

Actually, I never did have trouble with the hour or minutes. Just the year. I began to wonder if it was because I can look at my watch and see the time, look at a calendar to see what day it is, but the year is just plain recall.

Fast forward a few years. My church in St. Paul decided to have a huge potluck for me for my birthday. Being someone who always wanted to chip in, I asked if I could bring deviled eggs. Everyone loves deviled eggs and there typically are never enough on any potluck table. Sure. There were to be about 40 people there.

Great, I thought, before I slowed myself down to start calculating on paper how many eggs I'd need. There are 40 people, and since everyone loves my deviled eggs and will probably want two, I'll boil 80 eggs. Perfect. Eggs were only about $ .79 so I could pull this off, even as a graduate student.

I boiled and boiled eggs. At one point the nagging voice in the back of my head wondered why there were so many jillion eggs--somehow they seemed to be a bit many for only 40 people. Every flat surface in my kitchen was covered with hard boiled eggs. When I popped out the yolks to add mustard and other things (the deviled part), they filled up my big Pyrex bowl. Now I didn't have space to put all those 160 egg halves. This was definitely too many. But I dutifully took them by the bucketfull to my party. It was amazing--everyone loved them. They ate and ate them before it dawned on me that each egg is halved and that I really anticipated that everyone would eat two entire eggs, not two halves. Good grief.

The party planners had a good laugh about this, asking me again what my PhD was in (not math!) They took home oodles of eggs. We were just about giving them out to strangers on the street. I think I took a dozen or so (whole) eggs home.

It is humbling when part of your brain doesn't work. My students often give me these looks like they consider me to the The Great Oracle. But they don't realize yet that I'm teaching them the things that I'm good at, not the things that I can't comprehend--like number type things. It's just that it's easier to hide a left brain deficit than a right brain deficit. People are penalized for not being able to write, read, or spell, but it's not so dire if you can't add or count. So I limp on with the mass of humanity who struggle with numbers, reading, spatial skills, etc. It is hard to feel like a half wit, but in actuality, many people are. We just have nicer names for it.