Inanimate Companions

Every family has them. Items that are seemingly insignifigant, that could be replaced, but because of everyday use over time become our friends. An example: I started using a clear plastic measuring cup to rinse my contact lenses. I was 16. It went to college with me, and along on any trip I ever took for lots of years. I don't wear the lenses anymore, and the cup has a crack so it can't hold liquids. It still sits on the shelf with the dishes. I can't throw it away.

Another: There's one fork that I like to eat with that makes everything just taste better. It's history began before my wedding. These were the days you could do your weekly grocery shopping and pick a reward according to how much you spent - like a dish or a piece of silverware. When I got married my Dad gave me a full set of silverware that he had been saving for me. Over the years, bit by bit, pieces got lost. Several disappeared after a Drop Inn Center Pot Luck. One got lost under a bed for a long time. A spoon got run over and flattened by my car. (That happened the afternoon I let SIE eat a bowl of Cheerios while sitting on the hood of the jeep. Later that day as I drove down the road I saw the bowl riding on the hood and wondered how far I could get with it remaining on the hood. My fault! I forgot about the spoon! It fell out at the first stop sign and was as flat as the gravel of the road when I found it) One lonely fork remains. My favorite.

Another companion is "The French Glass". This is a glass our family found under the cushion of our new used car one summer day between 1977 and 1984. You know how most glasses have a life expectancy and break after a couple years? This one has never broken. It is the best glass for Coke or vanilla milkshakes or ice water. When this glass finally breaks it will be a significant omen.

My last example is the reason I'm writing this blog entry. One day long ago, I was walking with a baby in a stroller. I think it was kaliedoscope girl. We used to do a lot of strolling and "window shopping" when she was little in OTR. On this day I saw a tiny sterling silver rosary in a pawn shop window. The next day we went in and asked how much it cost. Ten dollars, a lot for me to spend. A couple days later we went back and bought it and everyday since then I've kept it in my pocket. At night I usually pop it on my next day clothes or on the sink. It's gone through the washer and lost beads. I've repaired the links many times. This week the rosary slipped as I was putting it on the sink and it went down the drain. I was torn - too tired to fish it out of the drain, but fearing this would be the demise of a dear companion.time. I couldn't deal with it. I rattled the drain plug to see if it had gotten hooked. Then thinking it might stay in the drain loop under the sink if I didn't run the water, I went to bed hoping I wouldn't forget. Such drama. The next day the plumbing operation was successful. The rosary has returned to my pocket. Phew!

I want to know - what objects are companions for you?

Of Many Things

Birds
This past two weeks I had several new visitors to the bird feeder. One was a yellow rumped warbler. I don't know how they name these birds. This one has yellow on it's chin and sides, not on it's rump. Same with the red bellied sap sucker - it's head is red, not its bellie. One morning I woke up to find a huge flock of Bushtits ravenously eating everything in sight. I love bushtits. Never saw one until moving to the North West. They are teeny, chirpy, little gray birds. They're about 3 1/2 inches which is just a bit smaller than a chickadee. And they travel in packs. I can just imagine them snuggling together to keep warm during the snow. The Anna's hummingbirds stopped coming by the feeder after the last big ice storm. I'm afraid they all perished.

Pets
Death also came to the menagerie. One day I realized our large, white, mystery snail hadn't moved in a couple days. When I removed it from the tank.....ooo did he ever stink. A couple days later there was a great sea monkey massacre. The latest crop of sea monkeys was unbelievable. So many. One morning I looked at their jar and they were all gone. Except one. One little one. That little one is still swimming around. Very mysterious.

Puzzles
I usually don't buy puzzles from Goodwill because who knows if all the pieces are there. But a few weeks ago I felt compelled to get one. This small puzzle box had openned and sstarted spilling on the shelf. First I started trying to pick up the couple loose pieces to put back in the box. Then I fumbled and had to pick up some that spilled. Then I realized some of the pieces had fallen down to the next shelf and some had gotten stuck in the shelf connectors. Now I had to get them all. After all that I figured I would buy the puzzle to see how many pieces were lost.

This puzzle happened to be a personalized puzzle - someone had ordered a map puzzle with their house at the center of the puzzle. The map extended two miles north and south, and four miles east and west. It ended up being a map of Coos Bay which is over on the Coast. It took a while, but putting it together was fun, as in, mindless activity to do when you're feeling too sick to do anything else, even sleep. There were about 12 pieces missing out of 500. Now I want to order puzzles for all kind of places, like this new house, and the farm, and OTR. Too expensive to order more than one. Where would you want to be the center of your map?

Christmas Week

Started with the great unwrapping where everyone is four years old again and believes all these gifts were left by Santa. It was really fun. Then a great Christmas breakfast and off to see friends and family. (Back home and to bed for sick me - but getting better everyday) The temperature started to rise. 45 degrees on Saturday. Woke up Sunday morning with everything green and wet, just like Portland should be! A new year's coming.

'Tis the Night before Christmas

It's still snowing here and I'm tired from a cold. Might be the bah-humbug-blues. Trying to decide if I should make another pot of coffee or just go curl up in bed. I dug my car out of the snow this afternoon. The ice packed on the cloth roof was hard to sweep off. I drove around the block hoping the last bits would blow off, but they're still there.

The plan is to attend the children's Christmas Mass at 5:30 then to pack up any gifts Santa may have left here and take them over to SIE's tree. Spend the night there. Wake up when SIE does!....but right now I'm so tired I think Santa should wait a week or two before arriving.
But be of good cheer...Here's one of my favorite poems:

On How To Be a Manger

Be empty
Be sturdy
Be soft inside
Be still
Be ready

poem by Barbara Steffanus Germiat
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all from the Beachys and me!

Hamster Dreams

This winter has been rough on Hammy. She's done a lot of sleeping and a couple times I've thought she might have died. If I clean her cage she is as grumpy as Mr. Beachy is on days his arthritis kicks in. A clean cage means she has to scrounge around for material and remake her bed. She also keeps a stash of nuts and seeds in one corner hidden under wood shavings. I can see it would be upsetting to dig all over looking for her stash and then find out I've dumped it. On those days I give her an apple slice and it makes up for her inconvenience.

Have you ever seen a dog sleeping and then start kicking or growling in his sleep? Hamsters do that too. I wonder what she dreams about. Her "growls" are just little chirps. Pretty cute.

This week I was sitting near her cage when all of a sudden there was a thump as she fell out of her nest and crashed on the cage floor. I got up to check and she was on her back with every limb flailing about. I thought she was having a seizure and surely it was the end of poor Hammy. I reached into the cage and grabbed her up and held her close. She was chirping, then gradually calmed down and opened her eyes really wide. We cuddled a while and she loved being held close and caressed. Last night she ran on her wheel for hours. Back to her old self after weeks of semi-hibernation.

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down

Woke up today to a bunch of new snow. It's the kind of snow that Blue and I would have reveled in if we were out on the farm. There is an ice crust on it that is 1 to 2 inches thick. I found out because I went out to change the hummingbird water and sweep off an area to spread bird seed. A line of juncos was waiting for me and I couldn't figure out why they weren't digging in the snow for food. Then I realized the ice crust was so thick there's no way they were heavy enough to dig through it.

If we were on the farm, Blue and I would bundle up and go off hiking in the woods. This snow is the best for walking with sure footing, even if it does crunch as you walk. We would be able to see every movement in the woods and track animals that are heavy enough to make prints. Even little animals would be making swish marks on top of the ice.

As nice as that would be, the reality is that we would have been "snowed in" for a week now and probably out of food and clean laundry and human contact. In other words, by now we'd be a little crazier than usual! Yes! God is good. My cozy little house is the best place for us right now!

I was able to get out for a bit on Friday. Drove over to Goodwill for a little shopping therapy. I love that Goodwill. It's a big one and always pretty clean and bright. I think this is where they send all the estates, because you can find priceless collections there. The kind someone saves their whole life, then whoever is settling their estate just takes them all to Goodwill. You'll go one day and there will be 100 glass swans, or a zillion salt and pepper shakers. Sometimes it will be sad because some one's hand carved boats or boats will be there. They're never all together. Somehow they get spread all over the store on different shelves. Maybe that's my excuse for having to go up and down every aisle when I go over there.

Anyway, I found a great fake tree there. It was in a box that looked like it had never been opened. (Sometimes Target sends boxes of big things that haven't sold - I thought it might be one of those.) I wasn't able to see what the tree looked like so I just crossed my fingers and hoped it would do. As it turned out, it was a used tree that someone had very tidily packed away in the box. SIE spent the night Friday so we put it together and decorated it on Saturday morning. SIE also shared his cold with me, so today my throat is sore and my nose runny. I still need lights, but we found a pack of gold tinsel in my wrapping paper stash and covered the tree with gold. So far I've only had to clean up one cat throw up containing tinsel and hope Waylon learned his lesson. Waylon is disturbed that I'm not watering the tree. I guess Christmas tree water is a Seasonal delicacy for animals!

The Jesse tree will have to wait for another year. I tried to google "Jesse Tree Ornaments" and got a porno site. Yuck!

For those who have asked, I think the Jesse Tree ornaments are flexible. They are symbols and you can use the traditional symbols or create your own. Some people put up a symbol on each day of Advent and use a sampling of bible stories to make up the ornament. Some just do it the last week of Advent and use the O Antiphons - these are short songs from the bible which give names to the Lord. The "O Come, O Come, Emanuel" song is based on those O Antiphons. There's the easy ones like "Star of David" - the six pointed star, and the "Root of Jesse" - which is usually a tree stump with a new branch growing out of it, or "Lion of Judah" - guess what - a lion. I'll slow down one day and make a list and then make the ones I like. STraditionally, some people replace the Jesse Tree with an evergreen tree on Christmas Eve. That's because the Christmas Tree is a symbol of Christ - being ever green, ever alive, ever present. There's lots of interpretations for all this, so it's fine to be flexible.

I think today is the Winter Solstice. I know there wasn't much daylight yesterday. It was dark until 8 AM, then dark again by 4:15 PM. Today seems brighter. One problem with being snowed in is that the only thing on TV is continual weather reports on every channel. So we don't know what's happening outside of the Portland area highway loop. Global warming or the shift of poles might have occured and we wouldn't know it. It may be they cancelled the Winter Solstice this year!

O Antiphons Start Today

Still snowed in. But I think I'll try to venture out today. What's the use of having four-wheel drive and super tires if I don't at least try. Blue and I walked around the block this AM checking on a neighbor. Blue was off leash slip sliding along. No one else was out. She LOVED it - run, run, then slide. I walked gingerly in my new hiking boots, which are way cool but feel too tight! I hope they aren't really tight - they didn't feel this way when I bought them. And I had heavier socks on when I bought them, too.

The little Anna's Humingbirds have been at the feeder constantly. I love it! Yesterday when I woke up the feeder had frozen. When I pulled back the kitchen curtains this little hummer zoomed up to the window at me as if he had been knocking on it and clammoring, "More! We want more!" Now I have a routine down so that one feeder thaws inside while the other freezes outside. Soesn't it seem like someone would have invented a hummingbirdfeeder warmer? Like, you know the hand warmers that you can crack and put in your gloves - seems like that would work.

One reason I want to go out today is to find a Jesse Tree. I was planning on getting a fake Xmas tree, but haven't found one I like....then I thought about a live tree. This morning, when I realized the O Antiphon prayers start today, I got excited about making a Jesse tree. If I can find a branch I can start it today and have each ornament hung on it's proper day. I'll have to make them, but I have often thought about making a set of them that would be more permanent. I've made a lot of quicky paper ones. This will be fun.

Christmas Craft

I don't think I'm going to be able to finish this gift, but thought I'd pass along the idea so anyone who wants can try it out. It's not my own idea, but I think it's great. I saw it some time ago on Martha Stewart and had fun walking around looking for letters and taking pictures.

The idea is to find the alphabet in nature, or in architecture, or anywhere (found art) and use the photos to spell out someone's name. Once you start looking for letters you'll see them everywhere. The plan is to use a long frame and frame a name, matting each letter seperately. The letters can be in color or black and white. I still have a few letters to find. Can you see the ABCs in these photos?

Feathers in the Snow

We are having a cold, cold, cold front passing through Portland. There's snow and wind and, today, lots of sunshine. I've only ventured out once since Saturday night and it was to go over to Mass this morning. There were only three of us counting the priest - four counting God. The other woman who was there told me she had to hurry home because her hummingbird feeders were freezing and the little hummers were upset. I had planned to fill my feeders this AM, too, but I'd taken down the hummingbird feeders ages ago. So I cooked up some yummy sugar water and within the hour there was a fat little hummer sipping l-o-n-g sips of water. I just assumed they would have frozen to their perches by now. Awesome!

Bits

This week went by really fast, so just a few bits to keep up to date:

The retreat was mellow and probably as good as it gets. I guess I was hoping for a setting that had grounds and trails like on the farm. I did get to lean up against a huge sequoia tree that one of the sisters had planted in 1895. And I walked through the orchards and cemetery. The setting was OK and the lack of woods and wildlife the only glitch. So now my new idea is to buy a piece of wooded property and build a retreat center that will provide the aesthetics of my ideal retreat setting. I think you should see deer when your on a retreat.

SIE had his last gymnastics class for the year and first official performance. It was wonderful. If I can figure out how, I'll post some photos from this. But even the best photos wouldn't do it justice - there was background music and the whole atmosphere was like a mini Cirque de Soleil and SIE was fantastic!

This week I got a new washer and dryer. The ones that came with the house weren't working very well to begin with. The washer wouldn't spin dry well. That meant I had to wring out everything before putting it in the dryer. Then it would take a minimum of 70 minutes in the dryer no matter what or how much I put in. This summer I put up a really nifty clothes line in the back yard. But as winter has crept in, it's gotten harder to do the laundry. I accidentally stumbled on a W/D sale while buying trellis wood at Home Depot. This week I did my entire laundry in washed and dried in less than an hour! Yay!

Slug update: Contrary to popular opinion, I've become quite fond of him. I still haven't figured out exactly where he lives. I was worried about him when the old washer/dryer got moved out, afraid he might be inside one of them or squished on the way out. But I saw him again one night and this time I got to watch him make his journey from the basement door to the cat food. It took two hours one way. I am presuming he takes the same route there and back each time. He crawls 21 and 1/2 ft one way! How far he travels before he gets to this side of the basement door, I'm not sure. And now that the weather has gotten so cold, I hope he has more sense than to venture out. Even Waylon is preferring to eat in the kitchen instead of the mud room.

St. Nicholas Day

I'm writing this blog a day early because I'm headed out of town on retreat at the Peace and Shalom Center of Mt. Angel, OR. Mt. Angel is the most German town I've been in, even topping Cincinnati during Octoberfest. It is a tiny town in the Wilamette Valley, about an hour south of here, that circles around an old German Benedictine Monastery. They have an Octoberfest, also. The monastery is ontop of a winding hill. My retreat will be near the convent property which is down in the town.

It's been ages since I went on retreat, unless I count the farm as one. I've felt so busy and have such a long to-do list, that there's a big part of me that's regretting signing up. That's insane! My plan is to leave everything behind, my books, the computer, even crossword puzzles and Blue. I'm hoping it will be an undevided attention time with the Lord. A rendevous of sorts.

So I'm wondering if St. Nick will find my shoes? I hope so....and hope he finds yours, everyone.

Commentary on Clowns

I woke up this morning, like I often do, with a bed-head that looks like clown hair. It's pretty funny. Reflecting on that fact lead me to realize that this is another gap in the generations. I grew up thinking clowns were kind and funny. My childhood experience of clowns is from watching Clarabelle on The Howdy Doody Show. She couldn't talk, only honked her horn, and she was nice. There was "Bozo the Clown" - I had his picture on my bedroom wall and "BOZO" is actually the first word I ever learned to read because his name was on the picture. I loved watching Red Skelton on TV. He was a very funny clown in some of his skits. I loved Emmett Kelley for his sad, sad face. He had a five o'clock shadow just like my dad.

My kids grew up thinking clowns are scary maniac killers. It seems there have been enough horror movies featuring clowns to have made a bad impression. When they were little I found a stuffed clown doll that I thought they would love. Instead we had to keep it hidden out of sight. "Not in the closet! What are you thinking!" I finally caught on and gave the clown away.

The only "contemporary clown" that is sweet that I can think of is the one in Tomi de Paulo's The Clown of God. I love the way he illustrates that folk tale. There's also the clowns in Cirque de Soliel's Corteo, which I've mentioned before. This leads me to believe those Steven King etal. stories/movies are a clear case of media distortion breeding prejudice.

So here's to bed-head mornings and big lipstick! Here's to innocent joy and clumsy tumbles! Here's to laughing at silliness and imperfections! And here's to kind acceptance of all our differences and the challenge to work for change!

Slug Slime

When I lived on the farm there would occasionally be a shiny trail on the bathroom rug in the morning. I would pretend the fairies had come to visit. Of course I knew it was a trail of slug slime. It usually faded in an hour or two and I never saw the slug so it never annoyed me.

Now, for you who have known slugs from the midwest, you probably think of them as those little shell-less snail things that are garden pests. We have those here, too. But, as many other things West of the Rocky Mountains, we have slugs as big as Paul Bunyan's Babe. I first heard of big slugs from kaliedoscope girl who attended the University of California at Santa Cruz. Their school mascot is a smiling banana slug. Since living out here I have seen some biggish slugs although I've never actually seen a bright yellow smiling banana slug. The ones I've seen have been light brown and I only know they are banana slugs because they have a hole for a nose on the side of their heads. The first enormous slug I ever saw was one day walking in the woods near the farm. I came upon a Rufous Garden Slug. I can't describe my horror. It was on a clump of autumn leaves and the contrast between the yellow-orange of the leaves and the big, black, slimy creature made me think for a second of lynchings and castration. It sent the scariest shiver up my back. My nature book says they are 2 inches long, but this guy was at least 2 inches wide and maybe 6 long.

This all brings me round to the "Fairy Trail" I've noticed near Waylon's bowl since we've been here. I put Waylon's food up on a ledge in the mud room. It's a great ledge that is next to the kitchen door and you have to pass it to get to the basement stairs. It's perfect for resting the laundry basket on as you get ready to go downstairs to do the wash. Perfect also for keeping cat food out of the dogs' reach. Waylon likes to spread his food around so I have an old terry cloth towel that I put under the bowls. Shortly after Waylon arrived, I noticed a fairy trail on the towel one morning. It isn't there every morning, but often enough that I decided to investigate and see if I could find those fairies. This proved to be quite a mystery. The trail only glistens on the terry cloth. I could find a few shiny sprinkles on the basement steps and on the rug near the washing machine, but no trail. The cat bowl ledge is in location that I can't imagine a slug being able to reach. But, you know, fairies can be unpredictable and seriously secretive beings.

WELL......one night I was letting Blue out to pee and usually I don't turn on the light, but for some reason I did. The trail maker was there! Right up there nibbling on cat food crumbs. He is a Leopard Slug. Here's how the Nature book describes him:

LEOPARD SLUG Limax maximus Gastropod Class Body cylindrical, leathery, pale gray or brownish; above spotted and striped. Eyes on long stalks. A garden pest imported from Europe. Length: 4 inches Habitat: Gardens and moist woodlands. Range: Chiefly west of the Cascades.

I think he's longer than 4 inches. My first impulse is to squish all slugs. But one this big I cannot squish. My next thought is to scoop him up and take him across the street. But I figure any little critter who can slither up onto this ledge and survive on cat food crumbs (instead of my garden) has earned the right to join the family. I still can't figure out where he lives. There are lots of tiny holes and I've looked up and down the stairs to the basement, but this remains a mystery for now. Stay tuned....his photo is coming.

Our New Bud

Here's a look of our new bud.