The New Year

As we start 2010, waiting for the days to grow gradually longer and the temperatures to steadily rise, I am convinced that things will definitely be better this year. My grandmother turned 99 to kick the year off and I was able to be there for the celebration, spending New Year’s Eve at the American Legion Post in Scottsdale Arizona. I was actually the youngest person there including the waitstaff and that’s truly not saying much.

My grandmother amazes me and inspires me, proving that Arizona heat, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and wine by the gallon really can keep you alive. Her family, including me, are also a great part of what keeps her going by providing her emails, phone calls, and visits.

She still lives in her own apartment, moving to a first-level unit only three or four years ago. About the same time as she moved downstairs, she quit driving (after coaxing from medical professionals and her children). The year she was caught speeding, I joked that the photo-radar ticket she got should have been converted into a Christmas card.

As her eyesight starts failing her she resorts to bright flashlights and an oral recounting of her surroundings by the closest family member. She still reads emails and still forwards the funny ones. She plays Scrabble three times a week and to keep her mind active when she’s alone she runs through the alphabet – first thinking of girls names beginning with each letter of the alphabet and then again with boys names. She spends her time worrying about and thinking about what each of her grandchildren are doing, asking each of us our daily routine so she can go through it in her mind.

She asks, “what’s this, on my plate?” frequently, pointing with her arthritic index finger and bakes her famous chocolate chip cookies for special occasions. She wants to be, and usually is, included in every conversation. It was great spending New Year’s Eve with my grandma. What a way to start 2010.

Tinsel Tree Tribute

We have pulled a tattered cardboard box, held together by yellowed cellophane tape, out of the basement for four years in a row. The box, surviving sixty seasons, contains the necessary pieces of an aluminum Christmas tree: a wooden pole in two pieces, an expandable metal tree stand, and 200 individually wrapped silver branches. A separate, less significantly sized box, contains the color-wheel spotlight and the colored bulbs and antique ornaments collected over years.

My partner assembles the pole, the stand, and then inserts each branch into holes drilled into the silver painted wooden pole. Each branch is capable of holding more than one ornament, allowing the tree to hold years of our memories as a couple and as individuals.

This year in particular, as I hang a kiln-fired plastic santa made for me in 1979, I think of all the other memories that have hung from this trees’ branches before it came into our lives – what shapes, sizes, and colors represented those memories.

I think about the first Christmas. The first time each branch was unpacked from the pressed brown sleeves and pristine condition of the silver pole and the crisp, un-aged, cardboard box. Who was present for that inaugural set up? Did the tree sit in front of a picture window in a house on a cul-de-sac? Did they have kids or did they expect them?

Then the first transition of ownership comes to mind. Who inherited the tree? Did it go away to college? Did it stay lost in crawl-space or sit through several summers of garage sales, a flea market, or an auction? How did this tree find its way to my living room. How did this tree become our tradition?

I try not to base my thoughts about how long this tree spent in any one home on my own experience with artificial trees – my parents have had the same tree since before bringing me home in a laundry basket. Their tree, with individual plastic pine needle clusters, is stabilized by twine bows around two wooden sticks running along the trunk painted nearly the same color as the tree’s trunk as if the tree were in traction. It still leans awkwardly. My parents tree is sparse, both in the number of branches and ornaments. They have slowly started letting my sister and I hold onto ornaments distinctly ours.

Is this what happened to that silver tree? Did the importance slowly shift from the sparkling silver tree to the ornaments hanging from each branch? What once made the tree radiant – the spinning color-changing spotlight and the aluminum foil pom-pom burst at the end of each branch, simply faded, allowing the tree to transition to another home to collect and gather family and feelings, absorbing memories.

Bjork’s T.V. – The most amazing home videos are here

Autumnal Snowfall

Image by peasap via Flickr

The snow, falling
like loose cotton
shaken from springtime trees,
sticks to branches and blades of grass,
wetting the black of asphalt.
Flakes land on metal fences
warm from yesterday’s afternoon sun,
holding form long enough to be photographed.
Attempts made at covering
oak leaves fallen first,
a competition
between the fallen and the falling.
Heavy wet flakes
stick to the back of my light jacket
as I dash into shops in an outdoor mall
searching for mittens and wool
in last minute effort at preparation
for the unpredictability of autumn.
No sooner have I woolen mittens
than the sun starts splitting clouds
making gray less
and amber brighter.

Copyright Patrick M Hurley @ GoHumble’s Blog © 2009. All rights reserved.

Hard to Hear

Image via Wikipedia

My friends say I listen to (and like) Björk’s music because I can’t actually hear it. Thanks to the conductive hearing loss in my left ear, which I admit makes hearing difficult at times but I’m also quick to remind my friends that, in fact, I liked Björk before the hearing loss began. The doctor diagnosed it as “Conductive Hearing Loss of Unknown Origin”, settling, of course. At 35 I shouldn’t be experiencing hearing loss – at lest not without some cause.

It might be hereditary, at least that’s what they can say. What I can say is I may never know if that’s the kind I’m blessed with – given the whole adopted fact. While I love my adoptive parents, I must admit that knowing more about my family would be beneficial, especially where my health is concerned.

I can also admit that knowing my DNA or medical history may or may not have any effective influence on my health or decisions I make about my health (i.e. I smoked for far too many years) and not the only reason I’d be interested in knowing my birth mother. A little mystery is good for the soul.

My hearing loss could also be caused by tumors (special) or degenerative bone disease (extra special). The scope shoved down my nose didn’t reveal either of these fortunately… Although there is the whole “what’s causing it” question that I still would like to have answered. Like GI Joe says, knowing is half the battle – I guess that my battle is that I’m losing the hearing in my left ear. That’s a neat battle.

What’s worse is that there is some hearing there, which I am refusing to let go of and although sometimes I think I sleep better at night unable to hear the whir of the ceiling fan if I lay on my right side, I’d like to not have to crank up the volume on the TV or continuously say “what?” to my friends.

I have often asked myself if I had to lose one sense what would it be… I have to honestly say, that as I start unwillingly losing my hearing, the answer would not be “my hearing”. I rely heavily on hearing. I enjoy words, and songs, and movies with both and on Facebook I have even gone so far as to become a fan of hearing, recognizing my dependency on it and my desperation as I try to hang onto something obviously slipping from my control.

So, when I’m feeling extra needy about my hearing, I grab my headphones, my iPod and click my way to Björk finding it genius falling asleep to her tapes…

Seasons Change

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr

A few days into the month of October and snow is already menacing. The sky darkens before (or at least shortly after) I get home from work. The dogs are lazing about when not rushing outside, getting to business and quickly requesting I let them back in. Gone are the days of letting them loose on the dust bowl of the back yard for several hours. Such spoiled pups we’ve raised.

Five thirty looks the same regardless of the side of clock I look at – dark. By the time I finish my daily workout I’m very nearly sliding into pajamas instead of a pair of shorts, nesting on the couch for the evening of television instead of outdoor activity.

Fall, October more specifically, is time for reminiscing about accomplishments of the past five months: washing the car, walking the dog, snapping photos, planting flowers, watching my weight and visiting family and friends. It is also the time I think about a Crock-Pot full of vegetables and beef or cookie sheets full of sweets and all the ways I plan to avoid getting fat.

Fumbling leaves, fallen from branches, will soon dry and crackle under foot, changing the way everything looks. There’s less to draw my attention upward – just bending, unattractive branches; crooked and naked, scratching the sky. A distinctive stink replaces the fragrance flowers once left lingering in the air and people start burning wood and consuming gourds.

Forgetting the glory of spring and summer, I spend too many fall evenings thinking of the many ways to keep warm and how much earlier I’ll have to get up on days when ice finds its way to my windshield or snow falls. Despite constant access to a calendar I am never prepared for the changing of the guard and somehow take for granted that, in fact, seasons do change.

Railing 1

Railing 1

Originally uploaded by gohumble

Spiked Railing

If only….

My Wii Fit age… won’t share my Wii Fit pounds!!!

These two are working towards sharing the same space.

Two cats