Creepy Crawly Meets Rickety

It will be hard to say who will be more confused this halloween, the trick or treaters (by the snappy quips issued by the grampa who talks to them at the door)

"What trick are you going to do?" "Huh? Trick?"

"Hey there tiger." "I'm not a tiger, I'm a dalmation!"

...or the grampa by the strange array of kids who will show up.

"What is he suppose to be?" "Why is the dog barking?" "Are any more kids coming tonight?"

I have one question: are we having fun yet?

Going With Amal to See the Kings

Just when you think nothing fun and interesting is going to happen, someone comes along and asks you to be in an opera. At least that's what just happened to me. A group of musicians are staging Amal and the Night Visitors at one of the small theaters at The Bushnell. The orchestra conductor, and Amal's father, asked me and my friend Beth to be the soprano section of the shepherds. Yay! We're both a couple of hams so we said sure. It will be staged the Sunday after Thanksgiving, costumes and all.

The music I'm familiar with, but memorizing lyrics? I haven't had to do that since I can't remember when. THAT will be a challenge, especially with those long lists of names "Emily, Emily, Michael Bartholemew, how are your children and how are your sheep? Dorothy, Dorothy, Matthew, Evangeline..." Then the long list of provisions: "Olives and quinces, apples and raisins, nutmeg and myrtle, medlars and chestnuts..." What the heck is a medlar anyway? Clearly some googling will be required.

n.
1. A deciduous European tree (Mespilus germanica) having white flowers and edible apple-shaped fruit.
2. The fruit of this plant, eaten fresh or made into preserves.

Good Thing We Stayed Home

I don't much believe in coincidence. I sit squarely in the camp of most things happen for a reason.

Take last night for example. Two of the five of us were not home for dinner. So at 6:00 p.m. the other three of us debated whether to eat out or eat leftovers. Content with either option, we decided that leftovers were the course of least resistance. We stayed home.

Twenty minutes later – the phone rang. I picked up and heard the familiar voice of my sister-in-law, Marie. Knowing she, my brother and 2 of their kids had spent a bustling week running up and down the east coast for a conference, sight-seeing and visiting their daughter at West Point, I figured she was just checking in before heading home to Hawaii.

"Hey, how was your trip?" I asked.

"Oh it was good," she said, "until we just missed our flight out of Newburgh, NY."

Oops. Luckily, they were able to reschedule without a surcharge. Except the new flight wasn’t out of Newburgh. It was out of Hartford. At 6:30 the next morning! Genius that I am, I put 2 and 2 together.

"Great – Come on over!" So around 9:00 last night four road-weary travelers rolled in, visited for a couple hours, went to bed and then rolled out again at 5:30 a.m. I got up in the morning and they were gone. Almost as if they were never there.

But what if we’d decided to go out for dinner? We wouldn’t have seen them at all. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

It's in the Blood

I am no sports fan. I'm even kind of noted for not being interested in sports. So it's a bit of an anomaly that I care what happens to the Red Sox. I think it's an inherited condition.

My mother is no sports fan either, except when it comes to the boys from Fenway.

Late in the summer, when it becomes evident that the Sox are headed for another pennant race, Mom starts to rearrange her TV viewing to make sure she can follow the action. This year, I think she was secretly pleased that the Red Sox dropped three games behind Tampa Bay because it gave her the satisfaction of watching them roar back to tie the series.

So it was kind of sad to see her scuffle into the kitchen this morning to announce, "The Red Sox lost." But beneath her disappointment, I could see a hint of the indomitable spirit of a true Sox fan, that there is always next year.

I know how she feels. You see, I stayed up way too late too to see how our boys fared. I was sorry to see them lose, but it was a good game. And like a true fan, I believe there is always next year. I can't help it -- it's in my blood.


P.S. I shoul note that there is one other baseball enterprise Mom has a soft spot for -- the champion little league teams from Toms River, NJ. When those little guys are in the little league world series, Mom is at the top of her game.

We're Never Prepared for What We Expect

Many years ago, I was listening to James Michener's Afghanistan epic, Caravans. Yes, listening -- I'm a fierce fan of recorded books. Anyway, during one of Big Jim's countless descriptions, a phrase he used jumped out and smacked me in the head. He was describing the Hindu Kush mountains when he said, "We are never prepared for what we expect."

Holy Cow! How insightful is that? "We are never prepared for what we expect."

The phrase stayed with me and has helped me in so many situations. That includes the key new event in my family's life -- my elderly parents moving in with us in the spring of 2008.

Of course I expected them to change how we live. I expected them to have to change how they live. I expected we'd all have to make adjustments. I just wasn't prepared for what I expected.

Is it difficult? Yup -- we're talking about 4-5 adult personalities complete with individual views and opinions all trying to share close quarters, respect each others’ space and keep our sanity.

Is it stressful? See above.

Is it sometimes sad? Try watching the World War II flying Ace spend more then 10 minutes trying to walk from the family room to the bathroom. Hearing him ask "what is this?" in reference to the tossed salad on his plate or tell you there are people in the room he doesn't know when there's no one there at all. Or when his bride of 56 years needs you to replace the pump hand soap with a bar soap because she's too weak to push down the plunger on the bottle.

Is it sometimes funny? Picture said mobility-challenged ace using the treadmill when he can't even get his feet to move. (relax, he hasn't used it, but he sure wants to!) He'd look like something from a Benny Hill Sketch. Or when the Ace and Mrs. Ace get the giggles as the little bird that she is tries to pull him up out of a chair. And chatting with him is often like playing the telephone game. You say something and he hears something entirely else and responds to what he thinks he heard. Sure makes for lively conversation.

Do we wish they'd never moved in? No way. Seeing how things are now, we are grateful we were able to make it happen. The notion of their being in this kind of shape, but still 200 miles away, driving [we shudder to think], eating only what they can put in a microwave, or, in his case, wandering outside alone on a winter night looking for a hose to rinse the grape jelly off an imaginary 4-year-old son is not what any of us would want.

Happy, sad, stressful and all, having them here assures us that they are being cared for, fed and protected just as they have always done for us. It affords much peace of mind, even if we weren't prepared for what we expected.

Back in the Saddle

It's been a long time since I've blogged, but people I care about have been wading into blogging from all quarters, so I've decided to revive this site.

Originally I was blogging for grad school, but that sheepskin has been on the wall for over a year, so it's time for a new focus. What that will be remains to be seen, but since all of it will fall in my "baileywyck" it works.

Come along for the ride if you choose cuz (everybody sing!) "We're back in the saddle ag'in..."