The Crab Chronicles

An Eventful Week

I've had a fairly exciting week ever since the great adventure known as Taking Mother to the Optometrist In A Hail Storm. You may read this entire post and snicker uncontrollably at what qualifies as "exciting" in my world, but that's okay. Glad to entertain you. Of course, my life as a stay-at-home-caretaker and part-time work-from-home writer is very very quiet by most folks' standards and I'm fine with that.

Here are a few other news items for your amusement and/or gratification:

I had to buy a new printer because my old one wasn't printing properly. So my friend Paul told me to buy the Brother brand of printers, since he thinks they are a good brand. So I ordered a Brother printer. Paul has to come fix Mother's computer and he takes the time to set up my new printer. I thought it would take 10 minutes. It took 2 hours, plus I had to endure a lecture from Paul about how I should have bought a laser printer instead of an ink jet.

My kitchen sink was leaking horribly from the faucet area on Tuesday and I called a new plumber that was recommended on Tucker Town Talk [a Facebook site for folks living in or around Tucker]. He came out the next morning and replaced the faucet and replaced the house water pressure regulator, and fixed a leak around the hot water heater. No more leaky faucet. No more issues with the water heater. Super nice guy. The prior plumber, confronted with the same issue, just replaced the faucet without looking for the root cause of the issue - cheap fix, yes, but it didn't last.

There's a new book coming out called Showdown at Rickwood. Here's an article that explains more about it. The book is about the Birmingham Barons, a minor league baseball team my grandfather played on for three years. As soon as the website is working well and it's easy to purchase a book I will post more about this. I was excited to hear from the book's author, who has been an emailing "pen pal" of mine for several years now.

My mother gave me an Alison Krauss CD called Windy City for Easter and I finally got around to listening to it the other day. I had not received a music CD in a long time - years. I love this CD! Lots of great songs.

I have a cousin who lives out in Washington State and unfortunately I rarely got to visit with him or his lovely wife, but I was thrilled on Friday to hear their first grandchild had finally been born. Mother has some psychic powers sometimes that are quite remarkable, and she felt strongly on Thursday night that Bill's daughter was laboring to deliver that baby, so Mother started praying. She is up and down a lot at night anyway, but she felt called to pray for Bill's daughter. Turns out she was right. At the same time she was praying, the midwife was struggling to get the baby born, and it ended up with an ambulance trip to the hospital and a C-section birth. Thankfully, mama and baby are fine and we are delighted by the photos of that big (9 lbs. 8 oz.) guy. Mom's older brother Don is now a great-grandaddy! Very relieved and blessed, and happy for the new parents/grandparents/great-grandparents.

We've had a lot of rain this week, and I noticed a volunteer tomato plant coming up in my garden, which thrills me. It's like a little gift from Mother Nature, a reward for composting.

My son is working in a restaurant and one big bonus is he gets a meal every time he works. Mother and I get a kick out of all the foods he eats -- we make him recite what he eats when he comes to visit. It's a cafeteria but the menu is huge and so Michael has enjoyed trying lots of different things I don't cook. Here is a list: broccoli salad, cucumber salad, sweet potato souffle, fried chicken livers, liver and onions, blackened trout, chess pie, coconut pie. There are more dishes but those are the ones I can remember offhand.

Finally, I scanned in an old photo of me from when I was a senior in high school. I hated anyone taking my photo when I was in high school but this one wasn't too bad.

 

Granny Gets Glasses

Well, when Mom started telling me recently that she could not see the computer very well I started to get concerned. Mom has been wearing drugstore reading glasses for years, but they really haven't been working well for her for a while now.

Below, you can see she has the bluest eyes in the world, probably far more blue than Liz Taylor's eyes ever were. Not that I'm biased.

Pretty remarkable that someone 83 years old never needed a prescription until now.

She went to an ophthalmologist about 20 years ago but her eyes were fine and he said she could keep using the little reading glasses if they worked for her.

So I made her an appointment with an optometrist very near the house, after first calling to explain about her mobility issues. The nice thing about this office is that it's 5 minutes from the house AND the distance from the parking space to the door is about 8 feet.

So we set off about 2:30 and we are there by 2:37. It's thundering and scary, but we get her inside and all is well.

By 2:42 I was inside filling out paperwork and the skies opened up. Thunder. Lightning. Hail. HAIL, y'all. Marble sized, as best I could tell.

Now Mom hates doctors. I had talked her through everything that would happen but she was still nervous. The biblical storm outside the huge plate glass windows did not help her anxiety. Nor mine, truth be told. I just kept praying the car could withstand the hail, and Lola wasn't freaking out here at home alone. She is rarely left alone. (Aside from eating some garbage she did fine.)

Mom got through the eye tests fine. No cataracts. No glaucoma. "I don't even eat carrots!" she crowed triumphantly.

The eye exam was a bit tricky because she had a hard time seeing through the huge machine, so the optometrist just pulled out the lenses and held them in front of her eyes, which I'd never seen before, but it was the perfect solution. Mom did fine reading the letters and choosing the lens that worked better. (You know the drill, if you've ever been to get glasses.)

Mom needs bifocals, which I told her would change her world for the better. She's on the computer a lot, and has a big monitor and the print is big, so we've done our part to help.

She chose a pair of blue frames, and we ordered the glasses. They said they should be here in about 10 days. I hope they are here sooner.

As soon as we paid for the glasses, I looked at my watch and realized it was 3:30 and Michael had to be at work at 4, on his moped. It was still raining hard. He had the good sense to put his good clothes in a bag and stash the bag under his seat in a little compartment, and he safely navigated through the storm. I was praying the whole time.

The man who fitted Mom's glasses helped me get her and the wheelchair in the car and was very kind.

When I got home I texted Michael and then he called me from work to reassure me he was fine, and in dry clothes. He has to get there 30 minutes before they open for dinner at 4:30 so he had time to change.

We came home to a mini flood in the front and in the back. All my plantings were ok except one of the hydrangeas by the mailbox.

This was the backyard from my window at 4:05:

Everywhere you see brown, it's my yard. [Sorry about the crappy photo quality but it was taken through a window screen.]

Now the sun is shining and the waters are receding.

This is why we get to pay flood insurance every year.

And soon, Mother will be able to see again. And she still doesn't need to eat carrots!

Also important: I do not have to freak out, worrying about Michael on the moped in the rain. If he could drive safely in the biblical storm this afternoon, he is the Mario Andretti of the moped world. He had the brakes modified so all the brakes are controlled by his left hand, thank goodness.

Aside from replanting my hydrangea and cleaning up a little garbage, we escaped harm or even inconvenience. Praise God! Y'all stay dry out there.

Easters Yesterday and Today

Easter for me as a small child was all about the basket and the goodies, particularly candy. The bunny reigned supreme at our house. (I'm keeping it real, here.) I loved getting a new dress -- and usually a new purse and/or hat -- and going to church to show off.

Of course, as an Episcopalian in the 1960's, women had to wear head coverings to church, and I had to cover my head too. (See shot below with the bow: by the late 1960's I could get away with a big bow.)

Only after I grew old enough to really understand about Jesus did I realize the bittersweet nature of Easter, a time of new life and new growth and yet tinged with sadness because our Lord had been crucified. Did he really rise from the dead? I believe so. Let scholars debate. Faith understands things that defy science. When we teach the resurrection, I think we are teaching children about what it means to be misjudged and persecuted, if we do it right. Also, it's about feeling upset and alone, maybe even betrayed, and yet surrendering to God, who can take even murder and tragedy and make a miracle.

Above, me at age 7, I think. Above right, Mom and Dad and Bruce, Easter 1962 - I know because Mother is pregnant with me. I think she still has that hat, actually. (That may have been the hat she used a week's grocery money on; not sure..) Above left, me about 5 years old, with the basket; we still have the painting and the piano I'm standing in front of, fyi..

My father was miserly with the camera, so the shots from my childhood tend to be either Christmas, Easter, birthdays, or vacations. There are very few "day in the life" type photos. Kids today will never know the patience one had to have with pictures - buying film, inserting it in the camera, rewinding, taking it out and getting it to a shop for development, waiting a week or so -- nowadays everyone has a camera on their phone. Instant memories made -- and I'm glad of that, but the waiting taught us something today's kids don't understand, I fear..

Anyway, we basically had our family Easter yesterday. Bruce wasn't able to come for the weekend, unfortunately. However, Michael came for the afternoon and stayed for dinner (he's living in his own place now) and he gave me my Easter "present" - going with me to buy flowers and planting them in the ground for me. I forgot about mulch but he can do that next time he's home. Michael has to work today, so we celebrated yesterday. Even though he is 20, I got him a chocolate bunny. My mom continued buying chocolate bunnies for me for years after I was grown.

I rarely ever go to church on Easter because of the crowds. I much prefer to sit out Easter Sunday and just have a relaxing "day off," as much as possible.

Below are some shots of the flowers. I went with an all-pink theme this year.

 

 

An Idea About Genius

The older I get, the more fascinated I am by genius. The word itself brings to mind all kinds of images and ideas and likely preconceived prejudices. Is it simply a number? Does that number change?

More importantly, how hard is it to conduct your life if you are a genius?

What started me thinking about this is that there is a new series on the National Geographic Channel about Albert Einstein, called Genius. Einstein undoubtedly deserved to be called a genius and yet his private life was really chaotic. He was a lowly patent clerk and he changed the world. This is the blurb from IMDB:

"A series which explores how patent clerk Einstein could not get a teaching job or doctorate in his early life, yet managed to go on to develop the theory of relativity."

This book explores his letters, which illustrate his personal life struggles. "Albert Einstein's genius did not extend to his own love life, which was full of messy affairs, bumpy marriages and bitter endings, as judged by his letters to the women in his life."

This is a "making of" about the National Geo show:

 

 

I also recently watched a movie called Genius, about the author Thomas Wolfe, who was undoubtedly a genius and who also had a very messy private life. After he died, the New York Times wrote: "His was one of the most confident young voices in contemporary American literature, a vibrant, full-toned voice which it is hard to believe could be so suddenly stilled. The stamp of genius was upon him, though it was an undisciplined and unpredictable genius.... There was within him an unspent energy, an untiring force, an unappeasable hunger for life and for expression which might have carried him to the heights and might equally have torn him down."

 

 

I don't have any profound statements to make about being a genius but I do want to offer an observation.

When I was about 15 years old, I had been studying voice for a while with a retired music teacher and vocal coach in Knoxville, Pop Hamilton. I loved Pop. He was a huge man and he had a huge basso voice, which I heard many times when he would sing something for me. What he said to me has stayed with me now for more than thirty years and it's worth pondering. When I went in to warm up, and the accompanist was playing vocal exercises for me, we always started out low and went higher. It took a while because I had a huge voice, about 3-4 octaves. Pop would listen carefully while I ran through the gamut of vocal exercises, and finally he would say "You an Alto or a Soprano?" (I could sing tenor, too, but it's not a part most women sing.)

What he said to me was this: Dee, you have a huge voice. It's hard to control, your voice. Someone who can only sing one octave has a much easier time. You have to work much harder because you have a much bigger instrument.

Genius has to be the same way. If your IQ is very high, your mind can go in many different directions and you have to control it. My mother, who is a genius, told me the other day that her mind always has at least two things going on and sometimes three or four. When she was in high school she was sitting in class one day reading a book and the teacher noticed it and said "Miss Hasty since you are reading, why don't you tell me what I just told the class?" (or words to that effect). Mother repeated verbatim what the woman had just been saying in the lecture.

Einstein and Wolfe had huge intellects, huge gifts. How much harder is it to control your thoughts and ideas when they are so vast? How much harder is it to modulate yourself down to the level of the ordinary, and keep step with people whose intellects are tiny, compared to yours?

Handling being a genius is hard enough for men, who generally are much more able to control their lives, less at the mercy of biology and societal expectations. Imagine how much harder it is for women.

There's a new movie called Gifted, which explores that.

 

I've been thinking a good bit about this lately because my son is a genius. He doesn't believe it but it's true. I offer a couple of reasons why I think this. He came to America ten years ago knowing maybe 10 words of English, in May 2007. By Fall 2008 he was able to skip a grade in school. He was always bored in school, so it didn't appeal to him. After his sophomore year in high school I got him into a program called Gateway to College, which allowed him to take college classes and get high school AND college credit. Unfortunately, the program was shut down. Michael was very upset. He didn't want to return to high school and I didn't blame him, but there wasn't another choice, we thought. One of his Gateway professors suggested he just take the GED and see if he could pass. Without any preparation at all and after only 2 full years of high school, he took it and passed it on the first try.

Michael has an amazing intellect. He's never taken a formal IQ test but he did a little online test and tested at 150. I suspect it's probably a bit off, but I know he's smarter than I am and mine is 134.

It's much harder to control a huge brain. I know. My mother knows. My brother knows. That's why we all read, a lot. It's why I write.

I've never done well on standardized tests, though. I don't have a standardized brain.

Faith helps. I have a strong faith that God is beside me every step of my life, and it comforts and strengthens me.

Maybe as a society we need to spend some resources helping people who are geniuses fulfill their true potential, instead of trying to keep them on short leashes, in lockstep with the ordinary. Maybe then their private lives would be happy, instead of tortured. Maybe then geniuses could really fulfill their true potential, and change the world for the better.

It's an idea worth considering, right?

 

Cooking Steaks

We don't eat steak much around here because we're on a budget, but the other day I found steak on sale and decided to splurge a little bit. I got two large strip steaks for under $8. Score!

Last summer I had a guy out here repairing the dryer and he smelled gas outside and cut off some doohickey and months later I found my gas grill wouldn't work. I called him up and asked him politely to come back out and hook up the gas grill, and he said he couldn't do it. The dryer fix was fast and cheap but I hate not being able to use my very nice grill.

So I had to cook the steaks in the oven. I took great care to try and get them as soft as possible because 1) Mother's remaining teeth are not great so she cannot chew tough meat and 2) I don't like tough meat. I can chew it but I don't want to. Years of cooking soft foods for Mom have left me very intolerant of chewy anything. On the plus side, I am perfectly prepared for cooking in old age right now, at 54.

I thought this Aldi meme was very funny.

It reminded me of a story my dad told me years ago.

Above, my father's oldest brother, Lewis, who served in the Pacific in World War II.

Lewis came home after the war and had some extra cash money and told Dad, then about 15 years old, they were going to eat steaks for dinner. Lewis went to a grocery store and bought steaks for the family.

Now, steaks were rarely eaten at Dad's house in the 1930's or early 1940's because money was tight.

Also, nobody grilled anything back then.

Lewis went out in the yard and dug a hole and built a fire in it. They found a grate somewhere, possibly a shelf from an old fridge, and placed it over the fire and grilled the steaks. Dad said he had never eaten anything so good. He raved about that steak decades later.

Of course, the novelty of eating a grilled steak with his older brother who had been gone a long time might have colored his opinion. Or not - I remember visiting Lewis and his family and he was excellent at grilling steaks.

Dad was not a great griller of steaks. They were often tough and sometimes tasted like gas because Dad often didn't have lighter fluid but he always had a can of gas for the lawn mower.

Dad liked to cook, but his efforts were... well let's just say he was enthusiastic but not skilled. On weekend mornings he liked to cook breakfast and his omelets that were tough as leather are legendary..

Dad was a banker and sometime when I was a kid the bank got a new customer, a company in Knoxville that supplied steaks to restaurants. They were very high quality, filet mignon deals. The owner let Dad buy steaks at wholesale prices, so we often had a box of those steaks in the fridge. We started eating steak once or twice a week. Dad got really upset one night when I complained about eating steaks. A child of the Depression, he thought I was awful to say I was tired of steaks.

My brother, who is more like Mom's side of the family, is a terrific steak cooker. He can make steaks in the oven or cooked on the grill that are perfect. Unfortunately, I take after Dad when it comes to cooking steaks.

I make excellent lasagna, pork roast, country fried steak, etc.

I told Mom that next time I will just put her steak in the blender.

me and Dad, abt 1991, in front of his grill that was made from industrial pipe

Watch How I Handle This

The hardest thing for me about being a parent is accepting the truth that a good parent models the behavior they want to see in their children. I remember when a close friend of mine said that, years ago, and I sensed that I was going to struggle with that idea, because our story is so much more complex than most.

I believe she was right, though. If you want your children to be sober, responsible, caring people, then show them what that looks like.  It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.

However, modeling is a lot harder when you adopt older children whose lives were very chaotic before you met them.

I have a network of friends and those of us who have adopted older children see, over and over, our modeling efforts fail. Some of our kids easily transition to adulthood and do well. Not all.

All of us have watched some of our kids succumb to the lure of drugs and drinking and "partying" particularly when they hit the magic age of 18 where we no longer control them. The transition to adulthood is often fraught with temptation for our kids. We can be sober, responsible, kind, frugal, etc. and model that for YEARS, and still watch our children make huge mistakes as teens and/or young adults.

It's not their fault.

When a child's earliest exposure is to folks whose main way of coping is through substance abuse then that's what they learn. That's how they learn to cope -- feeling bad? Take a drink. Take a drug. Want to celebrate? Take a bunch of drinks/drugs. Bored? Drink. Do drugs. Life seem depressing? PARTY!

Many of our kids will struggle for the rest of their lives to turn away from their earliest life experiences and forge meaningful lives without copying the behavior of their addicted birthmoms.

I have done one thing, to stand in solidarity with them. Like another adoptive mom I greatly admire, I've given up sugar. No desserts, no candy, no ice cream, no processed sugar. No sugary fruit juice. I eat fruit instead, when I crave sugar. It may seem trivial but addiction to sweets is something I've struggled with for my entire life, and it's not easy. I know a little something about addiction, though, and how hard it is to cope without one's preferred crutch. I want to be healthy. I want to be available to those I love. I want to show my kids how to lead a life free from addiction, a life that's never simple but is ultimately meaningful.

(Years ago I had to quit smoking and it wasn't easy, but I was able to do it. Just knowing that makes this struggle a tiny bit easier.)

I read a quote years ago that resonated for me then, and even more now. I can't remember who said it or the exact words, but in essence it said It's not important that you fail. It's important that when life knocks you down you don't stay down. You get back up and keep fighting.

Modelling that fighting spirit is so important.

 

What prompted this was a friend of mine on Facebook who went through a horrific divorce a few years ago when she found out her husband was an alcoholic and he was cheating on her. She had been a stay at home mom for years, living in a big beautiful house. The house was sold and she moved with her girls to a small apartment and went back to work, full time - and fought her husband in a long and terrible divorce, physically scared for her life. She had to shut down her blog. (I loved reading her blog. She is a good writer and very funny.)

This mom is not an adoptive mom, but bear with me as I explain why I admire her.

She posted on Facebook today about taking her daughters to see her ex at the hospital where he is dying from alcoholism. He had put his wife and daughters through hell, and dragged his wife through a divorce and custody battle that was so awful she never spoke of it publicly, for fear of his retaliation. She knew her daughters needed closure, though, needed to say goodbye, even though they hadn't seen him in four years. They went in, one by one, and spoke to him, expressing what needed to be said. He was hooked up to machines, unconscious, but it didn't matter. It was an emotionally draining but ultimately healing experience for them all. How brave of her to go there, I thought when I read her account of it. Not physical bravery so much as emotional bravery -- just watching her kids confront a person who had hurt them had to have been terrible.

It was part of their healing, though.

What she modeled for her daughters was that even when life knocks you down, even when it's horribly unfair, you don't give up. You keep fighting. She modeled how to cope and more - how to triumph. She is my hero. 

me and my brother, ages 8 and 11, headed to church