Wrapping Up January: Storm, Birthday and Thaw

This has been a really cold month--our $315 natural gas heating bill that came the other day can attest to that! On Thursday, Jan.20, the heaviest snow we have had in years began to fall. Late at night it was still coming down furiously, and I took this photo out of the study windows for a view of the back yard.

The effects of the January 20-21 storm were still visible a week later, on Jan. 28, when I took a photo of the icicles that were still clinging to the awnings outside the upstairs bedroom windows, although the depth in the yard had receded, and all the snow was off the trees. The light coming through them made them sparkle and glow from within. Later that day we heard a lot of loud crashes as icicles let go from the upper roof, hit the awnings, knocked these loose and slid on down. It felt like the January thaw had begun.

But I get ahead of myself. On Friday morning the 21st, the snow had subsided to flurries, but the result was dramatic. Our heated birdbath wore a 9-inch deep bonnet of new snow--but when Norm checked, there was an air hole on the side not visible from the house--and there was still water underneath all of that. The birds, of course, were ecstatic.

The effect of the accumulating snow and sculpting wind was really evident on our next door neighbor's back steps. Later in the day our friend Raymond and another man arrived to shovel all of this away, but until noon on Friday, we were pretty much house-bound, and had been for almost two days.


Early in the morning on the 21st, the snow still clung to the neighborhood evergreens, making a pretty winter scene. This snow was fluffy, not wet, and as soon as a light wind came up, it started to blow off of all the trees.





This particular snowy Friday was also my 68th birthday. In order to avoid a fire, Norm put one candle on the short stack of pancakes he made from scratch for our breakfast that morning! I had a wonderful birthday... after we could get out, we went to our Qigong exercise group at noon, and later went to Hill Brewing Co. in Ferguson for a tasty birthday dinner. It was pretty cold, though, and windy. The best part was getting scores of Birthday wishes via Facebook and e-mail. One of the blessings of our electronic age!

A tour of the premises on Saturday the 22nd again showed the depth of our snowfall. Safe under all that snow insulation are our spring bulbs, chrysanthemums and hostas. As well as a whole colony of moles that have been active in the front yard despite the best efforts of one of St. Louis's top pest control companies!

The house wore its mantle of snow on the roof for several days, and the afore- mentioned icicles hung on until the very end, when the temperature finally climbed above freezing on the 28th. We were able to get to church on the 23rd for services and a soup dinner after church. We also made it to two more night meetings this last week, and two more Qigong sessions. By Friday when I went to the grocery store, the temperature readout in the car said 46 degrees. It was almost shorts weather...

Birds have been busy at both feeders as well as their heated bird bath. In fact, Norm had to make a run to Wild Birds today to get them some more food. Good thing he did...the forecast for the coming week doesn't look good. This is one of several dozen juncos that call our yard the dinner table. We also have cardinals, doves, sparrows, chickadees, and the occasional woodpecker or blue jay. On Friday in the warmth I heard a robin clucking, even.

On Friday, the snow is still visible out the front bedroom windows, but the icicles are gone. And look who is thinking about blooming... the amaryllis is slower to bloom this year than usual. Maybe it knows that spring is going to be late?






In the sunny sewing room window, the geraniums have stopped blooming, but they greenly wait for spring, while the Euphorbia grows taller and sends out white blossoms. Unfortunately, earlier this evening the Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Watch for us for next week, Monday through Wednesday. Freezing drizzle, freezing rain, sleet, freezing rain, sleet, and then heavy snow. I really hope that 1/2 inch of ice they predict doesn't materialize. We had such drastic power outages in the ice storm of December 2006 that I don't want to go through anything like that again, especially with only a 25-pound goldendoodle to keep both of us warm! Thus our January winds to a close. We are still working on the 500-piece puzzle. Quilt blocks were made, but the guild meeting was canceled the night of the big snow. Genealogy research continues. Water exercise has resumed. Meetings have been attended. Plans are being made. Soup recipes have been tried. We still need to put away the Christmas decorations. I've lapsed from my two-post-a-week resolution. Weight has been gained. Muscle tone has been lost. Oh for the days when we can take long walks outside again! I am ready for Spring but Winter is still very much with us.

Remembering Haiti

Just below I have posted a link to Tara Livesay's blog about how her family experienced the earthquake a year ago. The Livesays returned to Haiti on New Year's Day after 8 months in the US.

Livesay [Haiti] Weblog: Remembering

Livesay [Haiti] Weblog: Remembering: "On 1/12/2010 at 4:53pm the landscape of Haiti was irrevocably changed. Despite great tribulation and loss the heart and spirit of ..."

What We Say, Play, Hear, Do and Think Does Matter

One of the few photos that show my playmates from childhood is this one, taken about when I was in second grade. I'm the one kneeling on the left. Gail is the other girl, on the right. She lived next door and was 2 or three years older than me. Danny (standing) lived on the other side and was about two years younger. Danny died of Hodgkin's lymphoma the fall when he was in the second grade, and I was in the fourth, so I know this was taken a year or two earlier. We had been playing cowboys and Indians, and either Gail's mom or another neighbor took our picture. We were some tough hombres in those days with our cap pistols locked, loaded, and raised for action.

I started thinking about this picture this evening, after watching NBC Dateline's hour-long coverage of the tragic shootings in Arizona, so I found it in an old album and scanned it. Right now one of the big debates is about how much influence the sometimes violent rhetoric of politics might have had on the shooter. A lot of people, some of my family and friends included, discount the effect of violence in song lyrics, movies, video games, and television shows on how unbalanced people decide to act out. So it's not surprising that already the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and Congresswoman Giffords' opponent in the 2010 election who campaigned by inviting his supporters to fire an automatic weapon with him have all said that nothing they have said or done could possibly be responsible for the actions of the young man alleged to have committed this crime. After all, he appears to have a history of mental instability, so that's it.

I respectfully disagree. The three of us, me, Gail and Danny, were by all outward signs quite normal kids. We played with our cap guns and water pistols, and in my household at least, my father had a .38 revolver hidden in the top drawer of the dresser in the bedroom (I wasn't supposed to know it was there) as well as, later in life, my grandfather's .22 squirrel rifle and a couple of other long guns. So I am not one of those people who was never around guns but is now leery of them. When I was a teenager I shot a .22 at a Boy Scout/Girl scout skeet shoot and I scored better than all but one of the guys . (I was a good shot at archery, too!) But I think things are different today. For one thing, kids aren't outside on a December day playing any kind of game; they are inside watching television, surfing the Internet or playing a video game--or possibly doing all three at once.

When we three Tulsa kids were playing cowboy, all we had as imagery were a few movies like the Westerns my grandmother like to take me to, and some radio shows like The Lone Ranger or Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers as role models. Our home didn't get TV until I was 13. We didn't actually see any blood, and we could get up after we "died" and play another day, just as the actors in the movies seemed to survive and show up in more movies, so they (and we) were immortal. We also had other things to do...like home chores and school work (yes, I had subtraction homework in the second grade!) and music lessons and Brownie Scouts. Yet, we were very capable of fantasizing ourselves into the roles we were playing. I don't have a stack of studies right here at hand to point to, just my own experience. Remember the girls who wanted to look like Barbie when they grew up, and how a few of them were willing to starve or binge and purge in order to get that figure? Remember watching Flashdance and dancing in your living room? Remember watching Esther Williams and imagining yourself a synchronized swimmer? Media of all kinds have always had an effect on the dreams and fantasies of those who watch and listen. Why then do we think that the roles our kids and young people watch today--many of them soaked and saturated with sex and violence--are not going to have any effect at all on their behavior, if only for a while?

When angry constituents took over Congressional town hall meetings in 2009, something began to snap in public life. Candidates received death threats in 2010, and so did sitting members of Congress after they voted on legislation that some people didn't like. Outbursts in classrooms are common now, sometimes from people who are disturbed and sometimes just onery. If a member of Congress can yell "liar" at the President, then why not them?

Yes, we have had violence before--I was a junior in college when JFK was assassinated, and it remains one of the defining moments of my life. I was teaching at a college in Kansas when MLK was assassinated, and remember walking arm and arm down the town's main street with other grieving people of all races, singing "we shall overcome" for two miles while men with rifles stood on rooftops ready to shoot any of us who got "out of line." So this is just the latest chapter, not the beginning, of a sad drama in American life. Like many others, I wonder how the story will end.

I am reminded that one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution was Patrick Henry's "give me liberty, or give me death." Today we hear folks saying in effect, "give me what I want, or it will be your death." And we see people claiming to be a church getting free air time holding up signs rejoicing in the deaths of not only our brave soldiers, but now, the victims this weekend in Arizona.

This is sick. We have gone from using guns for legitimate self defense, Congressionally sanctioned war (as in WW II, in which my father and two of my uncles served), or providing the famiy with food--as my grandfather did when he was between jobs and as my father did as a 12-year-old hunting rabbits for his mother to cook during a time when his father was stranded in town by a blizzard and the rest of the family was out there on the farm--we have gone from these uses to guns and explosives as entertainment. Today I saw at least 3 trailers for upcoming TV series or movies that were full of bullets, blasts, boobs, butts and blood. How can we say that any emotionally or mentally unstable person is going to watch this stuff and not be influenced in some way? Or watch the internet video that made the rounds in early 2010, that showed the Democratic leaders of Congress (Reid, Pelosi, et al) as well as a generic "Liberals" in the crosshairs of a gunsight, and not get the fact that this was meant to be a symbolic target, not a real one? If only one in a million people acts on impulse after watching, listening to, and reading such stuff, is that not one in a million too many?

Anytime there is a tragedy like this, most of us are moved, but don't feel much of a connection with those affected. Sometimes the 6 degrees of separation is much less. My husband learned tonight that the mother of Congresswoman Giffords is one of his high school classmates. We are connected, whether we know it, or not.

Eventually our little Tulsa gang broke up. Gail moved away, Danny died, and I spent more time on roller skates. Then I got interested in astronomy and bird watching, grew up and went to high school and college. But long before we stopped playing, I had put away my cap pistol. I preferred to be the Indian, and I spent many afternoons tied to the clothesline post after being captured. But secretly, I dreamed of reversing the plot of all those old technicolor movies, of being a wise Indian chief and leading my people far away from the conflict, to greener pastures, away from the men with the guns. Of saving my people. I guess I am still dreaming of that role...what can I say, what can I do, to help save my people from this madness of disrespect, frustration, mayhem and self destruction?

For 2011: Let Us Resolve

Heaven knows I have an ambiguous relationship with New Year's resolutions. In recent years I have not made any, because all of those plans to lose 25 pounds, exercise more, write on the blog every day, start garden seeds in March, have all the Christmas presents bought or made by October 30--you know the kind--never come to fruition. Earlier today I posted what I thought were some modest, achievable resolutions on FB but got what amounted to rebukes from a couple of dearest family and friends. They never make resolutions, they said. The compliant me wants to take that as some kind of suggestion that I shouldn't either. But I'm taking a cue from the geraniums that are blooming in the south windows despite the conventional wisdom that they should be hibernating, or even dead. I'm going to make and publish some resolutions anyway. It's one way to try to hold myself accountable.

Last year I made two resolutions: to spend about 1/2 day two days a week working on my family history/memoir project and to spend about 1/2 a day two days a week on quilting projects. I'm the first to note that I didn't make these quotas at least half of the time. However, I did make progress that I had only dreamed about before. The writing project is still gathering steam, but over the year I visited the Special Collections room at the County Library several times in addition to taking genealogy classes there. On our summer vacation I was able to put some of that research to work and I now have field notes and photos from North Carolina. I also have a lot more questions to be chased down in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama, as well as western Oklahoma and west Texas, not to mention southwest Missouri. The quilting projects fared much better if completion was the goal. First, I finished piecing the Linville Family reunion quilt, got it to the Spanish Lake quilters and logged some 75-80 hours working with them between July and December, when it was finished. I still need to add three names to the border and bind it, but it will be ready for the guild quilt show in September 2011. I also joined the scrap quilt club and although the goal was a project a month, I concentrated on finishing two tops and making substantial progress on two more. That is a huge percentage increase in number of projects finished for me! In addition, I completed all 12 of the optional blocks of the month for the guild, something I have never done before in my 20 or so years as a member. So overall, I think having the resolutions kept me going when I was perhaps distracted by other things such as joining Facebook, church volunteering, etc.

So--what's up for 2011?

• Quilting: finish the binding on the reunion quilt. Send the two completed tops from last year to long arm quilters so they will be done! Finish the two tops I have started. Start a brand new project, a baby quilt that I have pattern and fabric for, and work on it at the guild retreat in February. Learn better technique for machine quilting and do a small project of mine.
• Writing: continue research but write a first draft of Emma and Jesse's story to take it out of my head and into a form others can critique for me. Move the stories of Belle, Sarah and Martha into more details from research I have already done. Outline the story of my grandparents and parents and do a better job of preserving original documents.
• Blogging: Do at least one post a month on Compton Rising and on Thursday's Child, instead of letting them lie fallow like I did in 2010. That, or take them down. Blog a minimum of twice a week on Home Stories, and take more photos for the blog as well.
• Technology: stop procrastinating and update my Apple OS so I can use some of the newer versions of Word, Quicken, and Family Tree Maker (it's finally out for Macs...but not those running 10.4) And then gather up the 4 or 5 dead Macs in this house and either donate them if they can be used by anyone or else take them to WITS for recycling.
  
• DeCluttering: last, but not least--more likely foremost. We will have lived in this house 10 years come July, and the amount of stuff in it has almost doubled. My goal is to do at least 10 minutes a day on this. It's insurmountable otherwise. Today I decluttered my Yahoo inbox by unsubscribing from some 7 causes and political sites that I had acquired but am no longer interested in. Then I cleaned out the bathroom medicine cabinet and threw away outdated cosmetics and other mystery substances. I may post every time I toss or recycle some 7 items on my FB page, again, to keep me accountable.

Ultimately, it is all about accountability. In the days before blogs and social media, people like me kept diaries. I have them from age 9 on up through college and early married life, but then I stopped keeping them. For years, on January 1, I would try to start a new chapter in a diary but it would last only a few days. I think that's because a diary has an audience of one. After I became a journalist, and learned about writing for someone else than myself, diaries seemed too self-absorbed. I was also teaching and writing and didn't have time. But every time I log in to FB and see whether anyone has commented on a picture or a status, or sent me a message, or every time I check my SiteMeter stats on my blogs, I know whether or not someone is paying attention to what I say. Often these readers do serve to hold me accountable, just as the FBers today who have no use for resolutions. They forced me to think about why I do still have resolutions, and why I want someone else to know, so I can report my progress (or lack thereof) to someone else besides myself. Because an audience of one is no audience at all.