Beautiful October

As far back as I can remember, October has always been my favorite month.  The air has a special quality to it.  The days are comfortably warm, the nights cool.  There are days when the azure shade of the sky is so vivid, it takes my breath away with its beauty.

I love the colors of autumn.  The sight of leaves turning to shades of red, yellow and orange is one of which I never tire.  When I lived in New Jersey there were plenty of maple trees that erupted into beautiful colors before they lost their leaves.  I feared I would never see such beautiful trees such as these again when I moved to California.  Happily, I discovered that liquidambars, of which there are plenty around here, more than held their own as a most satisfactory substitute.

The light in October is different from any other time of year.  It is softer and when it suffuses the vineyards, also full of fall color, and the surrounding hillsides, the visual effect is almost surreal.  Sometimes the rows of grapevines in their autumnal glory seem to glow when the late afternoon sun hits them just right. 

There is a crispness in the air that brings with it anticipatory thoughts of a crackling fire by which to sit and swirl a snifter of brandy, flannel sheets, cozy slippers and a soft blanket to nestle under while reading a good book.  October also brings back to me that hour I've been missing since we turned our clocks ahead in spring.  The older I get, the more I seem to miss that little hour.  Oh happy night when I snuggle into bed with my beloved at 9pm or so and as if by magic, suddenly it's only 8pm.  This is pure bliss.

My second favorite month is December.  I love Christmas in all its glory.  I will most definitely expand on this subject closer to the actual month.  I'm in no rush!

 

 

What Am I Doing Wrong???

Okay!  I just now posted my little comment and (I thought) link to Patrick's Place to participate in the very enjoyable Saturday Six.  My http:, etc. "address" did NOT come out as a link.  What am I doing wrong?  Would one of you very nice people out there care to educate me?  Any help would be most appreciated by this poor, bewildered woman who actually thought she was beginning to get the upper hand on her PC.  Apparently not!

The Saturday Six

1. Which of the following do you trust more:  a politician, a televangelist, a lawyer, a reporter, or a doctor?

A doctor but they're only human and can make mistakes just like everybody else

2. What's the last song you liked enough thatyou actually took the time to look up the lyrics?

"In These Shoes?" by Kirsty MacColl

3. Which deceased relative would you most like to spend one more afternoon with?

My mother

4. What is your preferred brand for:  a) toothpaste, b) soap, c) shampoo, d) laundry detergent

a) Colgate, b)Yardley's English Lavender, c) Pantene, d) PAR, cheap but effective

5. What is your favorite poem?

I'm not big on poetry but my favorite poem is "The Tale of Custard the Dragon" by Ogden Nash.  He wrote many gems.  I can't resist adding my favorite of his shorter works as well:

"The Fly"         God in his wisdom made the fly and then forgot to tell us why

                                               

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #25 from Tara:  How did your parents select your first name? Were you named after a particular friend/relative/fictional character or did they just like the name?

I believe my parents just liked the name they gave me and I've been forever grateful to them because I love my name.  It's Meredith.

 

 

Stories Retold

In this rush about, ever changing world, it's reassuring to experience occasional moments that give us a sense of continuity.  Change is a constant and remains one of the few things on which we can rely.

The arrival of grandchildren brings a nice touch of continuity to one's life.  My granddaughter is almost four and a half years old and lately I've been reading bedtime stories to her from one of the same books I read to my daughter.  This book has been around a very long time.  It was given to me by my Godmother when I was three; obviously, my mother read the stories to me.  Now this collection of little bedtime stories has found a new audience in a third generation listener.  I find this comforting and pleasantly familiar.

I enjoy reading out loud to a receptive audience.  Like everyone else, I've discovered many stories that appeal both to me and small children.  When my son was very young, a close friend of mine gave him a book I'd never heard of before.  The title alone was a kick:  "A Capital Ship" or " The Walloping Window-blind".  This is a poem written by Charles Edward Carryl.  http://theworld.com/~dduncan/poetry/capitalship.html  My son asked me to read this book to him constantly and got to the point where he could recite it in its entirety.  One day, I discovered that the phrasing of the words fit perfectly to the tune of the theme song from "Gilligan's Island".  This put a whole new spin on the book and made it even more entertaining.  My son is now a big, burly 16-year old but he still stops long enough sometimes to listen when I sing it to his little niece.

It's very gratifying to read the same stories you enjoyed as a child to a child or grandchild of your own.  It's been my experience that I still love the books and stories I read or had read to me when I was a little girl.  It's a simple, readily available, inexpensive way to carry on a fond memory and, hopefully, help instill the beginning glimmer of the concept of the joy of reading at an early age.

What are you reading?

Are You Ready for Football?

Football season is upon us once more.  It brings with it fun food, camaraderie and a party atmosphere.  We watch football at our house but it is with a laissez-faire attitude more often than not.  It hardly takes precedence over everything else going on at the time.  Sometimes it serves merely as a background to whatever else is happening.  There have been times when a game is on, the sound is muted and music is playing.  I enjoyed many blissful years of existence with a man whose one and only sport was--me!  Eventually, the day came when he, too, was bitten by the football bug and became interested in actually watching the game.  This has always been perfectly okay with me.

I grew up in a household where sports where not in the picture.  This must sound unbelievable to the multitude of rah-rah sports fans in America, I'm sure.  Not one of us played any sport during our school years nor did we ever have the desire to do so.  We had our friendly games of softball and badminton but for fun only, not with the must-win mentality that dominates the American psyche.  Somewhere along the line, probably in college, my brother started watching football and that was the spark which ignited the flame of interest in our home.

My dad began to check out a game here and there and very shortly, my scholarly father developed a passion for football!  He watched the games in his own particularly dear fashion.  My dad was a gentle man, a man not prone to yelling or screaming.  When he saw an excellent play executed on the field, he would clap his hands and say things like, "good play".  It was the funniest thing but so very like him to show his appreciation in this way.

For about two seasons I really tried to watch and make some kind of sense of the game.  Every game looked the same to me and I found the constant halting of them every few minutes extremely annoying.  I had always wondered for the longest time how on earth a one-hour game could go on for three hours!  Now I knew.  I learned names of many of the quarterbacks and could match them to the right team.  I began to recognize coaches.  I could never understand why the coach whose team was winning always looked as grim as the coach whose team wasn't.  I suppose their mindset is stuck in "it ain't over 'til it's over!"

I got pretty good at matching teams with the correct city.  I came to develop a small appreciation of helmet design and would, in fact, use this criteria to select my favorite team (totally non-interested-in-sports-female that I am).  For the record, my favorite helmets (and teams) have always been the Seattle Seahawks and the Cincinnati Bengals.  Awesome helmets; wouldn't you know the same person designed both teams' helmets?

I've long since given up trying to figure out the plays and positions of football.  Who cares?  I surely don't.  However, a comment from John Madden uttered several years ago gave me one of my best laughs.  The Dallas Cowboys were playing against whomever and John Madden said, in all seriousness, something to the effect of "if Dallas is going to come up from behind, they've got to start getting some penetration".  This struck me at the time as being very funny and I came to appreciate football commentary as a great source of amusement. 

 

 

Patrick's Saturday Six (Already?!)

1. Who is the last person you took a photograph of?

My granddaughter, playing in the sprinkler this summer ~ unlike about 98% of the people in Journal Land, I'm not big on taking pictures.

2. What decade do you hold the most dear and why?

The seventies, hands down!  This decade witnessed my courtship, marriage, move to California and birth of my first child.  It took me from the age of 17 to 26 and a lot happened.  Frequently, I will say 1970 (insert 1 to 9) when I mean to say 1980 or 1990 something.  I think this is more than a Freudian slip.

3. Take the quiz:  What mystical creature are you?

You're like an angel. As everyone knows, angels dwell in heaven. They were desribed as shining ones wearing white and the idea that they have wings is believed as well. Guardian angels are the ones that many people think are dead loved ones who try to protect the living friends or family they have on Earth. They usually had blonde hair and maybe brown with flawless appearance and sweet dispositions. They were cheerful, hopefull, selfless, loving, and kind. Angels are the one mystical creature that a majority of people truly believe in. Encounters with angels are poping up all over the world and reassuring people's beliefs in angels.

(I am truly surprised; this is Not the answer I was anticipating!)

4. What is your favorite alcoholic beverage?

Wine.  A good Zinfandel or Cabernet in the cool weather; a chilled white such as Johannesburg Reisling or Pinot Grisio when it's warm.  I'm not a stickler for matching the "proper" wine with the dish!

5. What do you normally wear to bed?

A smile; that's all.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #24 from Cherie:  What movie character do you most identify with?

It's a toss-up between Nora Charles (Myrna Loy) in any of the "Thin Man" movies and Jessica Rabbit (pen and ink) from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

 

A Remembrance

This is a sad day for me.  I lost whom I consider to be the most influential person in my life on this day nine years ago.  Can it truly be nine years already?  My soul finds this difficult to believe.

My mother died September 21, 1995.  This was the day I came to dread as I got older yet knew the inevitable would occur.  When it happened I was certainly not prepared.  Are any of us ever prepared?  Is this possible?  There's no good, convenient time to die for anyone.  The passing years have softened the blow and eased the pain which is how things should be but those feelings are still there and shall be until the end of my life.  I felt so lost without her--the mere knowledge of her presence--for such a long time.

It was my mother's death that taught me that we do not weep and grieve for those who die; it is for ourselves that we feel such despair and misery.  I don't think I ever realized that before.  Nothing matters any longer to those who have passed on to the next phase of existence, whatever that may be.  It is those who are left behind, deprived of the company, joy, delight and wisdom of he or she who has died.  For the longest time, I sincerely believed that I couldn't or wouldn't want to continue to exist in this world without my beloved parent.  Thankfully, the passage of time works as a gentle healer and life does continue its normal progression.

Life continues because it must.  I wasn't a little child when my mother died, after all.  I was a grown, married woman of 42 with a husband and two children and a home of my own to tend.  I felt as if I'd been cut adrift and had lost the wisest counsel and comfortable mantle of unconditional love I'd ever known.  When my father died five months later, I often wondered if a person my age would be considered an orphan.  At times, I felt like one.  With the loss of one's parents, there is no longer a continually flowing fountain of wisdom to seek and derive solace from when life gets tough and the little dinghy in which you were cast adrift into the real world gets tossed about in a rough tempest. 

We had a private outdoor service with family and friends for my mother five days following her death.  Her obituary notice represented her very well:

...an R.N. from Montreal General Hospital and homemaker for over 56 years and a resident of __________ for over 19 years.  A lover of music and literature and was also a life-long avid gardener who enjoyed great success with hybrid bearded iris.  A woman of magnetic personality, independent spirit and great personal charm, wisdom, humor, strength and optimism and was a source of admiration and inspiration to all who were privileged to know her.  She is deeply mourned and sorely missed by her many loved ones.

It is said that as long as we retain the memory of someone who has died, they are still very much with us.  I suppose this small comfort is true.  My mother is very much alive within me.  I talk to her sometimes and while I don't expect an answer back, of course, it helps anyway.

My mother was a unique, great lady.  I wanted to let the world know how very much I miss her.