Mount Buffalo

Well, yesterday’s post about my paint-by-number stained glass must be followed up with today’s write-up of the real stained glass which now hangs in the window over the front door.

Isn’t it beautiful? A few years ago, my sister-in-law, Michelle took up stained glass for real. And now their home is filled with her lovely creations along with the years and years of needlepoint pictures she has done, and the many remodeling projects and more! Michelle has also given stained glass pieces as gifts which we call  heirlooms!

A few years ago, Mike and I were fixing up his Flowery Branch house to put on the market. In the shed in the backyard, I found some windows. Mike explained the he had removed the windows from the dining room wall so as to put in French doors out to the gorgeous deck he built. The windows were in the shed for a couple of decades! He did not know what we should do with them, but I did.

The next summer we drove to New York to spend a week with my brothers and their wives in Chautauqua. In the truck we had our luggage, kayaks, and the windows.

Michelle was excited!

The next year, when the six of us got together in the Pocanos for a few days, a bubble-wrapped window was returned to us with stained glass buffalos! We were excited!

Mike was able to suspend it in the window over our front door where it hangs as a sign of the two who reside inside!

20200331 42 Mount Buffalo

Stain by Number

       These are my birds! I’ve had them, oh maybe as far back as my apartment on Kenville in Buffalo. I love stained glass, and once a long time ago I had an urge to make my own stained glass creations. But I never got any further than these paint-by-number efforts. A picture/pattern came with tubes of a kind of liquid lead and tubes of the liquid colors. I had to buy the glass, put it over the picture and then trace the outline with the lead and fill in the spaces with the colors. Everything would solidify, and the picture was done!

  

     The birds have traveled with me to the many places I’ve lived over these many years. There was actually a third picture – I don’t remember what it looked like now – but it was the smallest one, 8x10 or so. I leaned it against my present bathroom window one day maybe 20 years ago, and within a day, Momma Cat managed to knock it off – what was I thinking? So, it has been long gone.

       The bigger of the two birds sat in the window above the front door for all the years the girls were growing up. Whenever friends were coming over and needed directions, pre-GPS days of course, Sarah and Amanda would give directions to get to our street and then say, “go down the road until you come to a house on the right with a mailbox covered in ivy and a stained glass bird in the window over the door.” A house with that description was indeed one-of-a-kind, and the girls got a kick out of that.

       The bird over the front door worried me a little bit. I had it propped up well with paperweights holding it in place on the shelf. But what if the door slammed especially hard for whatever reason, could the glass fall and hurt whoever might be below? And after many years, I moved the bird to a sun-room window.

       When my grandchildren came along, I got to putting both birds in a corner window, placing a couch or other furniture in front so the toddlers would not be able to grab them or hurt themselves. And over time, I’ve given this window little thought – the blinds are always shut to keep out the heat of the summer and the afternoon sun.

       But earlier this month, we had the siding on that side of the house replaced. There was a lot of hammering going on. And it occurred to me to move the birds just in case the hammering caused them to jump off the windowsill. And they were leaning along the dining room chairs for a week or so.

       I got to thinking about how the grandchildren and the stained glass birds are really no longer a danger to each other. Perhaps I could put the birds in a more visual spot? So, I placed them both in the dining room window. This also catches the western sun and has the blinds drawn on hot summer days. But those days are not here yet. And when I walked into the room a few minutes later, oh gosh, those birds made me smile!

2012 niece and granddaughter 

       Of course, they are not great art, but they give me a peaceful feeling. The colors have faded, and there are cracks in them from the sun’s heat. But that just gives them more character – they’ve changed along with me over the years, albeit, much more slowly – we’ve come through a good chunk of life together!

        This third picture is the only one I could find in the computer this morning of the stained glass bird in the window over the front door. When I find a pic not so washed out, I'll replace it. 

20200330 41 Stain By Number

     

Lawn and Care

      

        My lawn-mowing shoes stay in the garage so as not to track stuff into the house. Sticking my bare feet into those shoes is like putting my life into my hands. It is only every once in a while that I pick the shoes up, give them a shake and kind of feel around inside to make sure there is nothing in them before putting my feet in. Before moving South we received plenty of warnings about scorpions crawling into one’s shoes – be sure to check.

       And here in Georgia, there could be any number of creepy, crawly, biting, stinging things harboring in one’s cool dark shoes, especially shoes just sitting dormant in the garage for a week or two at a time. I’m not sure about scorpions, though.

       So, sticking my feet into my shoes without shaking them out is truly living on the edge, and every time my toes slip into the cool of the canvas, my memory takes me back to the summer of ’95.

       In the spring of 1995, my first husband and I split up. He moved out, and the girls and I were taking care of the house all by ourselves. It was for sure he would not be coming back, but I continued to wear my wedding and engagement rings because, frankly, I could not get them off. I was in the process of losing weight and hopeful that in a few months I could slip the rings off without the dire soapy tightly-wound-thread-around-the-finger measures.

       That summer my daughters flew to New York to spend a month with their paternal grandparents on Long Island – something that had been planned before our split. For four weeks I was all alone, missing the girls but accepting that I would have to share.

       And one early evening while they were away, I came home from work and decided to mow the lawn. The lawn mowing was one of the tasks I had usually done anyway. I enjoyed it, and the yard is so small, I’m usually finished in about 20 minutes. The only problems were when I could not get the mower started – someone from church told me once there are three parts involved with starting a lawn mower: gas, air filter, spark plugs. Believe me, I got so good at checking gas, cleaning the air filter and measuring the spark plug gap with a caliper over the years – and I’m not proud to admit I also got good at lawn mower language.

 But I digress, and starting the mower was not the problem on this particular night in the summer of ’95.

I put my bare feet into the lawn mowing shoes of that summer. And I pulled the mower out of the garage and onto the driveway.

Then I slipped my hands into some yard gloves - without shaking them out first.

Something stung me on the ring finger of my left hand, and a sensation ran up my arm, and for just a moment my head went dizzy and eyesight went black! Then, I could see again, the dizziness was gone, but the tingle was still in my arm, and the finger was smarting. Out of ten fingers, it had to be the one with the rings on it?

I whipped off the glove and the action must have dislodged whatever had stung me as there was nothing left in the glove. Oh dear, I thought, what if I have another reaction and can’t tell anyone exactly what it was that stung me? What if I pass out here on the lawn, will any of the neighbors notice and get help? What if my finger swells up and I have to get the rings off and can’t? And while I was asking all these questions of myself, I bent over, started the lawn mower, and mowed. What if I’m in the back yard and I pass out, will anyone come looking for me?

But there were no more physical reactions to the sting that night. Later that summer I was able to slip off my rings.

Several years, a few lawn mowers and another husband later, I still live in the same house and still mow the same lawn – the mower starts every time on the first, well maybe second, third pull. I’ve had different lawn mowing shoes throughout the years, but I still get the same sensation every time I put them on. My toes slip in, and I’m transported back to the summer of ’95 and the sting I got on my ring finger from whatever it was. Then I give the gloves a real good shake.

20200327 40 Lawn and Care

Norby

       There is a section of the backyard that is mostly trees, no grass, and the only time I take the lawnmower there is for the purpose of mulching the leaves. So, the rock is not in the way at all. But even if the rock were in the way, it would not get moved.

Here lie the remains of Norby

       Under the rock lie the remains of Norby.

       Norby was a newt. Sarah’s third grade class had been taking care of the newt for a while, and one day the teacher asked who would like to take him home for keeps, and Sarah raised her hand.

       She named him after the character, Norby, the mixed up robot, from the Norby Chronicles by Janet Asimov. They were Sarah’s favorite books at the time, and she is having a blast sharing the stories with her own children these days.

       Norby the newt came home to stay with us.

       Now at this same time, Sarah’s Dad was out of work – between labs you might say, for just a few months. If Norby had arrived at any time other than these months, there might have been a different ending to this story. Sarah’s Dad was not only fond of Norby but he gave him tons of attention on those days when they were the only ones home. Dad would move Norby’s tank to different rooms of the house every hour or so depending on where the sun was shining. Amphibians are cold-blooded, you know, don’t want them to get too cold!

       If any of us were home when he was carting the tank with that serious look on his face, well, we did tease him a bit.

       I guess you can figure where all of this is going.

       One day Sarah got home from school and immediately asked. “Where’s Norby?”

       Dad was out in the yard and had been doing outside chores for a while.

       Norby was on the deck where Dad had put him and forgot about him several hours earlier!

       Yeah. Norby out in the sun like that for so long was not only deceased, he was well cooked. A black ash in the shape of a newt was all that was left of him.

       Sarah buried Norby in the backyard. It’s hard red Georgia clay back there, but the hole did not have to be very big. Then she found a rock and etched “Norby” into it and placed the rock atop the burial spot.

       Over the years, the “Norby” wore away. But we never tired of teasing her Dad!

20200326 39 Norby

Think Like Louis Carroll

    In spite of the quarantine, Mike and I did venture out last Sunday. We went to Stone Mountain to do our five-mile walk around the base – thinking there would not be many people about and we could keep our distance from the folks who might show up. But the walkers, joggers, bikers were there in only a slightly less abundance than are usually there on a Sunday morning.

 Mike was worried because we were walking clockwise around the mountain and we kept greeting people passing us going counterclockwise. He said there must have been a notice for everyone to go in the same direction so as to keep a social distance, and we were going the wrong way! I tried to assure him we were fine, but Mike continued to be a bit uncomfortable.

 After a while, a man walking much faster than we were and going in our clockwise direction passed us. “Oh thank goodness!” I told the man, “my husband thought we were the only people going in this direction, and thus it must be the wrong way!” The man said, “No! there is no wrong way. Think like Lewis Carroll!” Mike said, “Well in that case, I guess we need to be on the watch for the White Rabbit and keep a social distance!” And I said, “Or the Red Queen and keep our heads.” The passing stranger replied, “I don’t know, I’m the Cheshire cat myself.” Mike then said, “Well, thank you for your smile!” Because he did have a great big smile.

And then, the Cheshire cat disappeared!

       A Lewis Carroll reference while walking around Stone Mountain on a quarantined Sunday morning! We can never be bored!

       I’ve been a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass ever since my senior year of college. On a quick scan, it does not appear that I’ve mentioned this here before, so I hope to not be repeating.

       My college microbiology teacher was Dr. Treanor. On some of the handouts she gave during class, there would be a quote from Lewis Carroll at the top. Now, I had read Alice in Wonderland as a kid and did not like it.  I had not appreciated the twisted logic at the time. But seeing the quotes in a microbiology class as a senior in college tickled me no end! I only remember two of them now. One was:       

 

“I can’t believe THAT!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” said the Queen in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes.”

And the other was:

              “I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.

“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”

        These were so spot on for a class about things that can only be seen with a microscope! And the quotes led me to revisit the Alice books, and I talked about them and talked about them to such an extent that my best friend at college, Laura, gave me the Annotated Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass as a graduation gift!

       What a treasure! The notes, the illustrations, the having the stories right there at my fingertips! Over the years, I read the annotated books with my daughters – Sarah and Amanda appreciated the humor and the illogic at much younger ages than I did!

I am not a personal fan of many Disney movies, but the girls and I watched the Disney Alice in Wonderland repeatedly when they were very young, and I loved every moment of it every time.

       The movie was VHS so it and our tape player are now long gone. When Sarah left home, she picked up my Annotated Alice/gift-from-my-best-friend book and said, “I’ll be taking good care of this for you, Mom.” Before I could stop her, my heart told me that Sarah would indeed be taking very good care of the book. She gets to share it nowadays with her daughter and son and husband.

       And now, with the writing of this blurb, I have the brainstorm of the next gift I should give to Amanda’s family!

       The Cheshire cat left more than a smile this morning – memories for the Sharper Stick in the Eye!

20200324 38 Think Like Lewis Carroll

Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat!

    

Magic Hat Bunnies

  We are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and I seem to be very good at avoiding the housecleaning projects with many other indoor distractions. (It is raining outside, or I would be looking for the chalk to make sidewalk doodles rather than, you know, yardwork!)

       So, something I have managed to accomplish is the setting out of our Easter decorations. And as you might guess, there is a story connected with most of them.

       When we moved to Dewey, Oklahoma in 1986, Sarah was 2 years old, and Amanda was fixin' to get born. Before using the fireplace in our new place, we decided to call a chimney sweep to clean the flue. I picked the Magic Hat Chimney Sweeps out of the phone book based solely on its name – gotta love the whimsy! A young man arrived with all the chimney sweep gear and a top hat.

       Sarah was entranced, and the sweep was quick to engage her. He did a magic trick wherein he pulled one of the bunnies you see here out of his hat! Sarah smiled and gave an “oooh” which prompted the chimney sweep to then perform a second magic trick wherein he pulled the second bunny from his hat! He told Sarah the bunnies were hers to keep. Then the man from the Magic Hat Chimney Sweep company cleaned our chimney while Sarah kept a close watch on him.

       These bunnies come out now at Easter time. They make me smile and always take me back to our house in Dewey and the young man with the top hat – I wonder what he is doing these days?

Easter 2019 Bunnies play Fight!

       Sarah’s son, Horatio, was seven years old last Easter. He has a game he calls “Fight” – it usually involves two of his toys fighting each other with very loud noises. Last year, for Easter, Mike and I made a video of the two Magic Hat bunnies fighting each other while making wild Horatio noises. And we sent the video to Horatio.

       Sarah and Horatio can have the bunnies if they would like them. But I’m hoping they will not ask for at least a few more Easters.

20200324 37 Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!   

Mom's Lullaby

   

       At one of the storytelling gatherings earlier this month, before everything in the present and foreseeable future was cancelled, one of the women told a story about her summers as a child and how her aunt would read fairy tales to her and sing lullabies. Then she sang a few lines from one of the bedtime songs! And as she sang, my mind went back, back in time. And I had to smile.

       I do not recall my mother ever reading fairy tales to my brothers or me, or singing lullabies! We did have a book of fairy tales which was in the house as far back as I can remember, and I remember I was familiar with the stories in the book and read them myself once I learned, but I do not have any memories of Mom ever reading any of them to us – although she might have.

        But Mom was the kind of person who would blurt something out spontaneously every once in a while. Sometimes what she came out with would be totally uncharacteristic of her, which is what made these moments so memorable. 
        There was this one time Mom did her imitation of a camel! She moved her head, made a goofy face and did a funny wobbly strut with her knees going every which way - it would have won her a special spot in Monty Python’s Ministry for Silly Walks! And I laughed! Oh gosh! I only saw her do it that once – and believe me, I could neither describe it in words nor physically duplicate it myself –a singular moment – Mom’s imitation of a camel.

       Then there was the lone nursery rhyme I ever remember Mom recite:

Oh my dolly is sick sick sick

Call for the doctor quick quick quick

You must keep her very warm

You must keep her very still

And when I come tomorrow

You must please pay my bill

       Googling these words today, I find an old nursery rhyme called Miss Polly’s Dolly. Miss Polly’s version has a few more lines before getting to the paying the bill part. The fact that Mom skipped right to the doctor asking to be paid tells you a whole lot about who Mom was! 

       And then there were the moments when she would burst into song. There was one day, Mom just started singing:

Managua, Nicaragua it’s a beautiful town

You can buy a hacienda for a few pesos down!

       I think it was just one time Mom did this. My brother recalls it was when a big earthquake had hit Managua and the news was on TV. But you know, every time I have heard the words Managua, Nicaragua since then, and we are talking a heck of a lot of years here, I hear the words and then my brain goes right to singing those lines. Every single time. Sometimes out loud.

       Googling this morning, the song is called Managua, Nicaragua – the words were written by Albert Gamse likely sometime in the 1940’s. One of the recordings of the song was made by Guy Lombardo – and I’m thinking this is the version Mom would have been familiar with.

       Yeah, my mom did not read fairy tales or sing us lullabies. But she was there. And she is still right here!

20200318 36 Mom’s Lullaby

Doorknobs and Shopping Carts

sweater on door knob

Presently we are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Being over 60, Mike and I are considered at risk, and Mike with his heart condition is a high risk. Just about everything on our calendar has been cancelled, including a wedding which is being postponed until next year!

At first, people’s reactions to the warnings of the epidemic seemed like overkill – at both extremes. Either there were precautions like cancelling events into late summer and folks hoarding at the supermarkets, or people were going about life (life is a cabaret!) as if nothing terrible was approaching at all. Mike and I were more like the latter group, still going out to eat, Mike working, my regular storytelling stints. Over the course of the last two weeks, however, our social life slowed, and by Sunday, it had evaporated. Mike still goes to and from work, stopping at the QT for coffee and gas, the bagel shop for better coffee and breakfast, but the rest of his life is strictly housebound. All of my events are gone. We’ve been eating at home and contemplating all the chores we could get done for the duration.

There was one appointment I was able to keep on Monday morning, though – my scheduled annual mammogram! Yep, that is how exciting life has gotten. And after that I snuck in a trip to the Kroger supermarket. I was hoping to get turkey and trimmings, pot roast fixings, and eggs. There were the empty shelves typical everywhere as have been in the news. This morning the meat selection was low, including the packaged lunch-meats! I could have gotten an 18-pound frozen turkey and I gave it a lot of thought but decided no. There were plenty of eggs, and if I’m not mistaken, they were on sale at a good price! No crazy people, no hoarding that I could see. So, it was a calm stroll through Kroger, filling my cart slowly but surely.

blazer on doorknob

Then I noticed something that took brought back a memory from long ago. I was pushing my cart with my right hand only – which I have done ever since I realized my fitbit was not counting my steps if my left hand was on the shopping cart (the fitbit, and now my Apple watch, being on my left arm) – on this morning, however, my sweater sleeve was covering my hand on the cart! Usually I wipe the cart handle with the wipes the stores have been providing for a while now, but since corona has descended, the wipes are gone – all gone. So instinctively, I pulled my sweater sleeve over my hand, wiping the cart handle while holding on and pushing and essentially keeping my skin away from a surface that many other people have touched.

And this reminded me of one of my former bosses from back in the ‘70’s. Back then, when approaching a closed door, he would put his hand in his coat pocket – sports coat, blazer, jacket, suit coat, whatever – and with hand in pocket, he’d reach for the door and turn the knob to open! If anyone asked, he would say he was avoiding the bad stuff – germs, antigens, carcinogens, poisons, on the doorknobs!

We thought it was kind of silly, and yet, four decades later, more and more of us are approaching doors, and shopping carts, and more, the same way that he once did! He likely still does too. Come to think of it, my old boss will be turning 80 this year, and as far as I know, he’s in good health, and none of those doorknob bad things ever took him down!

20200318 35 Doorknobs and Shopping Carts

HandyMan Paul

Paul first appeared at the lab, I think it was ’95 or so – we were still at the old building. He was helping with a project in the back – so for a while, Paul was just this guy in the back room –  
working part-time. Some days he was there, some days not. And then after a while, Paul was there all the time.

in the lab 2014

Even though Paul mostly hung out in the warehouse, he soon knew everyone at the lab, and everyone was buddies with Paul, and everyone was keen to the fact Paul was a fix-it guy. Soon we were all asking for personal favors – replacing a light bulb here, fixing an electrical short there. And very soon these favors went beyond the lab all the way to our homes!

       The first time Paul was at my house, my hot water tank had rusted through, and I asked Paul if he could hook up the new tank. When Paul arrived that afternoon, he and his dog, Buckwheat, got out of the pick-up truck. (I think Buckwheat was standing in the light Paul saw his last moments on earth, and that’s why Paul walked to the light instead of coming back to us.) Well, my daughter, Amanda, who was nine years old at the time, was home from school. I introduced her to Paul and Buckwheat, and then she and I went into the house leaving Paul and his trusty servant to hook up the hot water tank in the garage.

       As soon as we were in the house with the door closed, Amanda turned to me and exclaimed, “Those two look like movie stars!”

       Paul’s good looks were what everyone noticed first about him. But the second impression left all surface stuff far behind. Once you got to know Paul, all you saw was what was inside. He was always ready with a smile and had a genuine love for the people he knew. Paul was generous with all that he had – his expertise, his money, his time.

       Another notable day when Paul came to my house was in the summer of 2000. My dining room lamp which hangs from the ceiling decided on its own one night to just lower itself a few feet! I asked Paul if he could take a look at it and see if he could lift the lamp back up to where it was supposed to be. When he arrived that afternoon, I was still at work and Amanda let him in. Paul fixed the lamp and left. When I got home, Amanda told me Paul talked and talked the whole time he was there – mostly about me and how wonderful I was. But, Amanda added, Paul said that he was very worried about the mistake I was making in my choice for President in the upcoming election!

       Oh dear, the rabbit hole just opened. Politics! Paul loved talking politics and about being a libertarian and mostly he relished his tirades against Democrats. In the past few years this rabbit hole got deeper and darker as Paul devoured conspiracy theories, and his dislike spread to Republicans also. And dislike is a nice word for the way he really felt!

       When we were at the hospital and Paul was on life support, the nurse and Paul’s mom were asking Paul to wake up, he had visitors! Wake up and say hello! Mike and I leaned in and told him, “Paul, you have to wake up – Hillary was just sworn in as President!” His mom realized what we were doing and joined in, “Paul you need to tell Mike and Denise how much you hate the Bushes.” Statements like these any other time would have set Paul off on such a rant – but on that day, those words did not stir him, and that’s when we had to accept that Paul had gone off with Buckwheat somewhere.

       One time in the early 2000s, I told Paul that when it rains, water streamed down one of the walls in my sunroom. Could he possibly stop by and check my roof? Paul arrived that day with a bucket of tar. He climbed to the roof and poured the entire bucket on it. Then he came down from the roof, gave me a nod and said that would do it. A week or so later, I went to Paul and told him it rained the day before, and water streamed down the wall in my sunroom. “Dang!” Paul exclaimed, and he arrived at the house that afternoon with a bucket of tar, and he poured the entire bucket on the roof. He gave me a nod and said that would do it.

       I lost count of how many buckets of tar Paul put on the roof to plug up whatever was causing the leak. While each failure confounded him, each new bucket of tar he was sure was going to take care of the problem.

spice birthday caske

       Not everything Paul did worked. But because of the leak in my roof, I now have the image imprinted on my mind of Paul tipping the bucket and pouring everything he had out of it onto whatever needed its contents!

       That was Paul.
     In the early 2000s, there was a new employee at the lab working on the electron microscope. It took him no time at all to realize Paul was a fix-it man for all of us, one who made house calls. And one Friday afternoon I heard the new employee in the hall talking to Paul, “You will be at my house at 7:30 tomorrow morning and you will look at the crack in my driveway!” I thought to myself, “What a boor this new guy is!” And then like a mirror my comment reflected back on me – was this what Paul heard whenever any of us were talking to him/asking anything of him? Were we all boors taking advantage of Paul every time he turned around? Had we ever told him enough how grateful and thankful we were? Likely not.

      

Paul, and yeah, Mike

One day Paul told me about his favorite children’s book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Mike and his steam shovel did everything together. But over time, steam shovels became obsolete as bigger and better diggers came along and there was less and less work for Mike and his faithful companion. In the end, Mike and the steam shovel dug a basement for the new town hall and then the steam shovel remained in the basement working as a furnace for the new building. Paul got a tear in his eye as he told me the story. I couldn’t help but superimpose Mike’s steam shovel on Paul – both dwelt in the background – the steam shovel in the basement, Paul mostly in the warehouse – and yet both pumped life into their respective buildings.

       That was Paul. 

20200311 34 Handyman Paul

Guernsey Connection

       

4 Generations - Sarah, Mom, Virginia, me

One day while scanning the piles of as yet unread books in our house, I came upon one called – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I picked it up and opened the cover. A typed piece of paper flitted out.

        Mom had read the book and passed it on to me. The typed note was hers. The book had affected Mom so much that she jotted down a couple of comments. She wrote that the book is about Guernsey, an island in the English Channel, and during World War II, the children in Guernsey were evacuated to England for safekeeping. Then Mom's note continued:

        Apparently, England also evacuated some children. I was reminded of a conversation my Aunt Isabel in Canada had with my parents while in my presence. It seems friends of my Aunt and Uncle had taken into their home 2 sisters from England for the duration. The friends mentioned how hurt they were that the girls never sent letters, notes of appreciation or correspondence of any sort after they returned home.

        Isabel was my Mom's father's sister. She and my grandfather grew up in Canada with another sister, Doris, and another brother, Alex. Isabel married a dentist, and they raised their children in St. Catherines, Ontario, often spending summers at a second home in Bobcaygeon, Ontario. Mom's note illustrates a personal connection to the events in the book! How strange it must have been for the two English sisters to be so far from home. The beauty of St. Catherines or Bobcaygeon and the generosity of complete strangers, must have been so hard to grasp mixed with the girls’ missing their parents and home. It is sad that the sisters did not keep in touch afterward – yet, it is easy to see why they might not have wanted to.

        Sometimes the present is all we can have.

        And thanks, Mom, for the note!

20200309 33 Guernsey Connection

Mannequin Hands

Mannequin Hands and mine 2016

One day when I was about five- or six-years old, I was shopping with my family at the Sears & Roebuck department store at the old Southgate Plaza in West Seneca. Passing through the woman's clothing department, we walked right by a mannequin dressed in a woman's outfit. Back then, all mannequins intrigued me, but this one especially did because it was standing right there at the end of an aisle, so close, and, at my eye level, the mannequin’s hands looked so real! Instead of plain, funny flesh colored hands, the mannequin hands had wrinkles and a few spots – they looked just like the hands of an older woman! The rest of the mannequin was made to look like an old woman too – dress, face, hair, makeup, hat – wasn’t it neat that the details of an old woman’s hands were also attended to?

This was all so fascinating, that I stopped, and then I did something I swear I had never done before – I walked over to the mannequin and stroked its hands. And that’s when I found out it was not a mannequin! The old woman smiled, indulging me in my childish mistake. She seemed tickled by the incident, and I guess that’s why my parents did not get upset with me.

mannequin heads today!

Now it is several decades later, and mannequins today do not have faces, or genders, and sometimes, they do not even have heads! They are no longer funny flesh colored, but rather they are inhuman colors like lime green, snowy white, steely silver and more. One day when I told Mike I was writing up this story, he and I went to a department store to check out the mannequins and take some pictures. The mannequins are still so very intriguing, but a child today is not likely to mistake an old lady for one.

no money spent, good times had!

Now I am several decades older, and when I look at my hands, they seem familiar to me – where have I seen these hands before? Sometimes they remind me of my Mom's hands. Sometimes they remind me of my Dad's hands. And sometimes my mind goes all the way back to Sears, and I realize that my hands today are the hands of the old lady mannequin from ‘way back then who was not a mannequin at all but rather an actual old woman whose day was made when a strange child walked up to her in Sears and touched her!

Looking at my hands today is kind of like being in a time machine – and I am the little girl stroking my own old lady hands!

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The Higher the Buzz

And this was our first whole day in Las Vegas, heading to the Stratosphere and back, four years ago, March 6, 2016:

So today, Mike did not think he was up for a trip to the Hoover Dam and all the walking we might have to do – so we went to the concierge of the Tropicana and asked for some ideas. Of the suggestions he gave, we opted for a day pass on the monorail which we picked up at the hotel across Tropicana Avenue – the MGM – which has a huge picture of David Copperfield on the side of the building along with other advertisements. We walked through the MGM lobby which is very similar to the Tropicana lobby both of which remind me of the Dave and Busters bars back home – only smokier because I guess cigarettes are allowed.

          We kept walking, walking, walking, looking for the signs for the monorail. Down escalators, through more lobbies, past shops selling everything from diamonds to home grown bananas – the signs said to go past the Brad Garrett Comedy Club – down more escalators. Finally, we got to the monorail station and hopped aboard.

          By this time, we must have gone on a few up escalators, because we were up high, and the wind was whipping away – outside, we were cold. On the train, however, we were comfortable and warm enough. I took pictures with the phone because the camera and my postcard stamps were the things I managed to forget to pack for the trip. Las Vegas itself is very flat, and so there are mountains that can be seen far in the distance in every direction. Beautiful yet a bit hazy. I took pictures of the different hotels we passed and the Trump Tower. The monorail boasted that the end of the line was the Stratosphere, Las Vegas' needle-like projection into the sky that you take an elevator 100 stories up to eat and drink and take in the view from the top.

          The monorail ends within sight of the Stratosphere, but not exactly on its doorstep. We started walking. The wind was so cold. Rain was spritzing and making us even colder. We crossed Paradise, and the Stratosphere seemed to be one block over on our left – but there were seedy looking buildings and fences between us and it – I was, to quote Mike, “beginning to freak out” - I was cold and frustrated. We turned around and walked back to Paradise. On the corner was a McDonalds – we had no desire to buy anything to eat or drink since we had had a humongous breakfast at the hotel – but we shamelessly went into McDonalds anyway and sat down until we had warmed up a bit and I could think rationally again.

          We walked in the other direction to get to the Stratosphere – kind of like taking the hypotenuse from the monorail instead of taking the side roads which had earlier seemed like the more sensible route. And before we knew it, we were standing in a lobby similar to the Tropicana and MGM hotels. The Stratosphere is a hotel. As we were crossing the street to get there, Mike struck up a conversation with the woman who was waiting for the light with us.

          Her name is Tina. She was getting off work early that day because of the bad weather. She said she works in front of Paris at the Eiffel Tower – apparently one of the biggest attractions in Vegas. Tina told us we should not have gotten day passes for the monorail – there is a double decker bus which is much cheaper, the fare is good for the whole day, you can get on and off, on and off, and, best of all, it stops right in front of the Stratosphere – she had just gotten off the bus when we met her. The job she has is to talk folks into hearing a 30-minute time-share spiel. Apparently, Tina stands outside like a circus barker to draw people in. She was in full salesperson mode while chatting with us. “Do you want to go to a show? Cirque du Soleil? The Love Beatles Cirque du Soleil? Did you check for tickets online? Are they around $100?  Then they add tax and fee on top of that? Yeah, you come around and see me – I'll get you in and out of the time-share talk real fast, and I can get you good tickets to the Love Cirque du Soleil - $30 each! Just come and see me tomorrow or whenever it fits your schedule. And don't be talking to anyone else!!!”

          We walked through another Dave and Busters’ type lobby, up and down escalators, and finally arrived at the Stratosphere tower. Did we also want to go on the rides? What rides? Well, at the top of this 100-story needle, there is a drop – the highest sky jump in North America. Then there is a ride called Insanity.  And then there's.....Mike said we just want the ticket that takes us to the top in an elevator and delivers us to the bar that is there.

        After the obligatory pose for pictures in front of the green screen (pictures which we subsequently did not purchase), and the long wait for the elevator, we did rise toward the top of the Stratosphere. We were deposited not quite at the top – but rather at the level with the glass and the signs pointing to places of interest. It was all very beautiful until a man pointed to a projection hanging off the tower just in front of us. Then the projection was retracted back out of our sight. Then it returned again amid screams – it was the roller coaster ride at the top of the Stratosphere! It apparently goes off the tower, stops, and retracts. Oh my gosh! Totally not my kind of roller coaster ride! After we made one loop around, Mike was heading to the bar which had a poster that said, “The higher the bar, the better the buzz!” I saw a gift shop, so I told Mike I'd meet him after checking out the postcards.

          And what a disappointment the postcards were – none were of the Stratosphere, but rather, they were all glitzy, with real glitter, and showing off all that is cheesy about Las Vegas – what else was I really expecting? I did not buy any.

          There was a bloody Mary waiting for me at the bar where Mike was drinking a Bud and chatting up the bartender who was originally from Flushing, New York. They were both chatting with a woman from Montauk, which is the extreme end of the South Fork of Long Island. She was staying at the Stratosphere hotel and was in town for a photography convention. She is a fashion photographer! But she said she was probably only going to the convention on Tuesday – Monday she was booked for a tour of the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam, and part of that included a helicopter ride. $250! But, like she said, “Ya gotta live!” She and Mike and the Flushing bartender all talked cameras for a little bit – I don't know the specifics of the Canon, but Canons are what the fashion photographer has always had.

          When the Montauk lady left, Mike asked me if I would know a prostitute just from first appearances? (He had been approached by two in our hotel when he went looking for coffee at around 4 in the morning Vegas time, which was 7 AM Atlanta time!) I said I didn't really think so. So, Mike gave me the quick course. “Tall, thin, almost anorexic, high heels, and a short usually sparkly dress.”

          As if on cue, around the corner and into the bar near the top of the Stratosphere came a man who looked to be in his thirties, neither pompous/haughty looking nor mousey/shy, with a woman on his arm who was very thin, wearing spiked yellow heels, a short tight black dress that had almost no-back – the dress made a vee shape on her back with the pointy part dipping to just about the crack in her butt. The woman had bleached blonde hair and bright red lipstick. Except for the lipstick, her face looked very young – I don't think the bartender would have served her if he thought she was under 21, but I would not have been surprised if she was that age or younger. The man ordered drinks. Neither of them were being flashy or seemed aware of what we thought was obvious about them. I don't think either of them had ever been there before. The woman asked where the stairs led to, and that's when we found out we could go even higher in the Stratosphere – to the outdoor area where you can get on the rides!

          After our drinks, we took the stairs – we knew it would be windy out there, but oh my gosh! Super windy! And the rides! There was a ride where you are strapped into a bucket-like suspended seat, similar to what you see at an amusement park – there are maybe six bucket seats in a circular array. One boy was strapped in to one seat – he was going on the ride all by himself. We were talking to his Mom who was taking a video. He smiled and looked down. “No fear!” his Mom told us. I couldn't watch. The ride began – the six seats were suspended out beyond the edge of the tower – and it spun gingerly while the young man looked down gingerly. No fear.

          The only ride Mike and I were interested in after that, of course, was the ride down in the elevator. Soon we were meandering around the lobby once again of the Stratosphere hotel, and out into the street. The sun was shining, and the wind was not so bad down there. It was almost pleasant walking down the street to the monorail. We stopped in the giant Walgreens along the way – I checked for postcards. Walgreens had the same glitzy Vegas cards as the Stratosphere had, except they were only 50 cents each instead of 75 cents – and I bought a couple of them.

       Riding the other side of the monorail back down the strip did not yield that many more photo ops – but it was still enjoyable. Even better was to get back to our room where we were finally able to get warm do the bone once more.

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Smith and Myth

So this highlight from our trip to Vegas in 2016, March 5th,  actually happened before the taxi ride to the Tropicana:

          We walked through the Las Vegas airport and I happened to notice a skinny guy with long hair and thought he looked familiar. Then Mike said, “I wonder if we will see anyone famous when we are in town? That guy back there looked like someone famous.”

          “Yeah,......looked kind of like Steven Tyler.” I replied.

          “Yes! Him!” Mike said.

         At baggage claim I told Mike I was going to use the ladies’ room. When I walked across the lobby, the guy who looked like Steven Tyler walked past me (and no, he was not going to the ladies’ room). I looked at one of the cases he was carrying, and a sticker on it said Chris Van Dahl. I made several mental notes at once: this guy was not Steven Tyler; he was much younger than Steven Tyler; google Chris Van Dahl, and tell Mike that Mr. Dahl is the famous person we saw.

          Googling revealed that Chris Van Dahl impersonates Steven Tyler in a band called Aeromyth! How about that! So, Mike and I weren't too crazy!

          He may be the only famous person we cross paths with during our whole visit here in Las Vegas, since I don’t think that all those building-sized posters we keep seeing count as actual famous person sightings.

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Las Vegas Taxi

     It was four years ago today, March 5, 2016, Mike and I began our trip to Las Vegas. He was going for a conference, and I was tagging along. A few of our highlights were typed up at the time, and here is the first of them:

We touched down at McCarran Airport and after baggage claim, we got into the long line for a taxi. The line moved quickly. and soon we were on our way to the Tropicana Hotel. With just a couple of questions, Mike and I heard most of our taxi driver’s life story.

I did not place his accent very well – my first guess was Russian, and my second guess was Greek. Both were incorrect. The driver offered a hint:

          “Did you see Godfather III?” he asked.

          “Sicily?”

          “Yes, Sicily. Palermo.”

          He came to the United States 34 years ago, living in New York City for the first 17 of those years.

          “Did you move to Vegas when the people in the Godfather started building the hotels?”

          He laughed and said no. But he moved from NYC to get away from the cold, the rude people, the smell from the sewers on the few days that the city was hot, and the two bedroom $1500 a month apartment where neighbors pound on the walls and tell you to turn down the music when you have friends over on the weekend. In Las Vegas, the weather is beautiful all year around. For $1800 a month, he has a house, and he can entertain without fear of making too much noise. Less rudeness.

          I asked if he has become a US citizen, and when he said yes, I then asked who he liked for president this year? The cabby said a few things regarding the buffoonery of Donald Trump and then revealed he is leaning toward the guy from Texas. “Cruz?!” Yes, he likes Ted Cruz.

He did not mention any of the Democratic candidates.

          “Do you go back to Palermo often?”

          That question got me a look in the rear-view mirror – when we made eye contact, he replied, “No, never. Too many bad memories. Bad stuff went on there.”

          We pulled into the taxi drop-off lane of the Tropicana. The driver blew his horn at a man walking in front of us, and then he yelled an ethnic slur at him! The man who was being honked at and yelled at walked over and leaned into the cab through the open front passenger window. He and the cabby laughed, shook hands, exchanged brief greetings, and then he continued on his way.

          Who says America is not great? Our taxi ride and the story were both so pleasant that Mike tipped generously. What more awaited us in Vegas?

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