Good Lord Panning for Gold In them thar hills...

Well the folks made it home safely. Of course, they are tired but it is a good exhaustion. One that you feel after running a good race, or climbing a high mountain..accomplishing something.

My sister Charlene and her husband Bob did a marvelous thing by taking them on this terrific trip. I doubt they would of gone themselves at the ages they are..yes, years ago..they would of hopped on a plane, ship or whatever and took off. However when you are approaching your 90's running swiftly into the unknown is never really a good thing.

My folks had me on the phone for over an hour as they regaled me with all the tales of the frozen north. It was a remarkable adventure for them and they loved every minute of it. The raved about the accomodations on the cruise ship, they felt that they were treated like royalty.  My father told me that Alaska is one of the most beautiful places on earth and he has seen quite a bit in his lifetime. My Mom raved about the plantlife hills abundant with heavy greenery, wild flowers everywhere.  She even brought back seeds. Alaskan flowers adapting to Florida? If anyone can do it..she will.

Hopefully, I will get to see them this week and I know they took a lot of pictures.  I believe Pat, who they were visiting also took digitial pictures so I'm hoping I can get some down loaded and I'll show them at a later date.

Oh, and guess what? They went panning for gold! They had a lot of fun with that...of course, they came home with a little bit of glitter in a vial...but it is gold.

Oh, did I mention that today is my Dad's birthday? He was born on August 29th, 1915 right about the start of World War I....Happy Birthday Daddy!

Who Would You Be?

The Paladin
You scored 42% Cardinal, 25% Monk, 52% Lady, and 56% Knight! You are highly moral but also don't shy away from using force if your lord commands it. You are honourable to the point that you would readily sacrifice yourself for a noble cause. Your name will be the subject of tales and song for generations, however their concentration will be less on your deeds in life as on your martyrdom.

You scored high as both the Knight and the Lady. You can try again to get a more precise description of the Knight or the Lady, or you can be happy that you're an individual.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 50% on Cardinal You scored higher than 50% on Monk You scored higher than 99% on Lady You scored higher than 50% on Knight

This was fun....I "borrowed" this from Patrick's....have fun playing....I'd rather be an individual anyway....

The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test

Patrick's Saturday Six

1. Besides your parents or siblings, what family member do you most resemble?    

I believe I look alot like my southern grandma Lee, she was very blonde, turning platinum as she aged.  She had beautiful legs that stayed beautiful throughout her life...hardly any broken veins. She had a well rounded body that was wonderful to snuggle up to for comfort.  Her facial skin remained soft with very few wrinkles, as mine has.  Happy to have her genes.

 

 

2. Check out this interesting website:  Is your hometown newspaper featured?  What is the top headline of that paper or the one closest to you?

Yes, The Saint Petersburg Times...although I miss "The Daily News" from New York.....the News's headline is about a former policeman turned soldier who died in Iraq.....it is becoming too frequent a headline....death of a young person filled with so much promise, lost to us.

 

3. If you knew it was completely tame and there was no danger, what zoo animal would you most like to pet or come into physical contact with?       You are talking to the wrong one here.  I've held and handled Alligators (mouth taped of course), huge turtles, all sorts of large birds....petted a Panther....but it would have to be a monkey...I love monkies...so cute.  Actually, I love all animals....

 

 

4. Take this quiz:  How weird are you?

The test said I was 40% weird...just enough to know that I'm weird but not enough to know how not to be.  Doesn't everybody sleep naked? Ben Franklin believed in it for health reasons...LOL

 

5. Which of the following causes more stress in your life:  your spouse, your kids, your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your parents or other relatives?
Well, my last boss was a complete piece of work.  She could aggrevate the dickens out of a saint.  You know the type, one that "wants" you to take on a project, call it your own..but rides  rough shod over you so that you can't take a step or a breath without her right there!   Once I left that job...my stress level has gone down significantly.   Recently, my youngest son crashing his car...that put me into stress mode big time.  But, on the whole I try for sanity sake to limit over reacting to situations....I figure I'll live longer that way.
6. You find an old lamp containing a genie:  the genie decides to give you a single improvement for yourself, mind or body.  It must be something to improve within you and no one else.  What would you ask the genie to fix   Oh my! This one is easy....I would ask to be 17 again and know what I know now.   It is often said that youth is wasted on the young......I just know that I would have so much fun, I would take more chances, run farther and love longer....oh imagine....

Traveling

Hey, guess what~my folks are on the road again...this time traveling from Tampa to Washington State to visit my sister & her hubby. Then they are all to go on a flight to Alaska, going on an Alaskan cruise....winding up staying with friends in Alaska for about a week....then flying home again.  I think their trip is taking about 20 days.

  I think it's marvelous that at their age Dad is 89 turning ninety five days after they return, Mom is 86....of course they have their aches and pains as people their age will...but it has not stopped them from enjoying life to the fullest.    I do believe this "the greatest" generation has an indomitable will, a tremendous yearning to succeed...failure was never an option.  The younger generations could do well to follow in their footsteps....for they cut a path so wide through human history as to change our destiny forever.   Enjoy your trip, thrill to the mountains, wave at the Glaciers, take huge amounts of pictures...just don't pet any seemingly friendly Moose or odd walking penguin!  Come home safely with many stories.....

Love Continuation

I've written about my Southern Grandmom as much as she was a character in her own right, my Greek Grandfather (Papoo) took center stage within his own domain.  He, too, never learned to drive but that did not deter him from doing marvelous excursions with his children and subsequently his grandchildren. We would go on picnics, to the zoo, to the beach, to the pier to fish or catch huge crabs that abounded in Chesapeake Bay.

 Somedays, he would just simply say "Let's take a walk" and around the neighborhood we would go. Sometimes down to the little inlet with it's high stone retaining wall and all the fancy houses facing the waterfront...we would  on the cold stone benches, under old olive trees that they had planted long ago.  In the old days you were allowed to fish there too...nowadays, they do not allow it.  Papoo had given me a fishing rod, I must of been about nine or so, we sat on the edge of the wall casting out our lines and somehow my hand slipped and the rod flew into the water. I didn't know what to do...Papoo told me not to get upset that he would try to hook it with his to bring it to the surface if he could.  I felt really bad, it was a favorite rod & reel of his and he had trusted me to take care of it!  Grandpa had such patience, it was remarkable....it took him about forty minutes but I'll be damned if he didn't manage to do it!  I was so happy...then I got another lesson on how to strip it, clean it and put it back together again! That was fine with me...it just meant that I got to spend more time with this remarkable, gentle man...he is missed. I learned love & patience from him.

   All of my summers were spent mostly in Virginia where my Grandparents lived.  Sometimes, if we were lucky we also would visit in February when my Dad had off from horseracing.  My Mom's cousin Arthur who would of been my second cousin always planned special wonderful moments for our visits. We, the kids, called him Uncle Arthur and he was a very funny man...he loved to tell jokes, he was always on the go. Because my Grandparents didn't drive Uncle Arthur & his step-mom Pauline would come and take them shopping. Grandma's sister Carrie had died a year before I was born...but she had Arthur& John who were in their teen years when I was born.  Arthur made you feel like you were special and he had waited with baited breath just for you to return for a visit.  He never stopped doing, or giving..in fact when my own children visited with me year after year Arthur would be there making them smile at something he did, just like I used to. I learned a quick sense of humor from him.

  Madeline...oh, what can I say about Madeline...she was my Mom's best friend for so many years.  Almost a second Mom to me and my sisters. She was a little spitfire of a woman, standing maybe 5'1", picture Lucille Ball with thick dark hair and huge boobs, I mean Dolly Parton had nothing on Madeline! She had four boys, the youngest one had a bad case of autism. I was her favorite babysitter when the kids were little, as they got older she rarely would leave the youngest with anyone because he was so difficult.  Madeline had the soul of a saint, so much patience and oh, so much humor...I can remember the laughter to this day, sort of laughing through the tears.  Much to our dismay, Maddie was taken much too early, I often think that God must of needed more laughter in heaven.  I learned strength of spirit from her.

   Uncle Billy and Uncle George...oh so many memories. Uncle George visiting me in New York..fell in love with my odd shaped hanging lamp...got up one morning to find he had dismantled the whole thing to make a template so he could re-create it when he went home to Maryland. He looked like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar! He did put it all back together again. Uncle George had worked for the government his whole life..as a map maker as he was very artistically gifted. Uncle Billy was a very jovial man, he was the one that lived near my southern grandparents and it fell to him to overlook their needs, so he was a very responsible person...always someone to be counted on day in day out.  Both boys, much to the joy of Papoo, married Greek girls from the old country. Their marriages were strong and everlasting until their deaths...I learned responsibility and commitment from them.

  I sometimes feel that writing about loved ones who have passed brings them closer to you in the here and now.  My Aunt Carrie, who I never met, had these words placed on her tombstone.... "Till We Meet Again".... and I do believe we shall. Oh, my what a reunion that would be!  

Love Of Art

Every so often my mind wanders back to a simple time in my life and I find myself surrounded by the shadows of people who have gone on, hopefully to a better existance.

There have been so many people who have touched my life, even in simple ways.  Just knowing them, even briefly, has made me a better person I hope.

When you are little you just take it for granted that everyone around you will be there forever....death has no concept, no reality for a child, it's beyond comprehension.  I was luckier than most...an uncle & an aunt died before I was born, everyone else basically stayed pretty much in good health until I was 17.

My Dad's Father was walking back home from work, crossing a busy street and a car came careening madly past the stop sign and slammed into him, tossing him across the busy boulevard.  Believe it or not it was a doctor who hit him, he was rushing home from the hospital higher up on the hill...speed does kill.  Grandpa didn't die that day, but he received injuries so bad that his mind never recovered, so we did lose him that day I think.  I hate hospitals but I went because I had to...I sat by his bed and talked to him...he looked at me with vacant eyes and asked me "Is your name Helen?"  He thought I was his daughter....he lost all the years of my being...to him I did not exist...he had no grandchildren....sad memory.

My Grandmom on my Dad's side lived to be 102 years old and not in some nursing home....my Mom & Dad watched over her, cared for her and made sure she enjoyed her life right up to the end.  Her life was remarkable, Grandma Sophie was born in 1889 the same year that the Statue of Liberty started to go up in New York, she rode in horse drawn carriages, used a real "ice" box as a refrigerator, lived in a cold water flat and lived a life that saw all the marvelous inventions of our day come into existance almost like magic in front of her eyes.  She was of very hard stock with a very strong work ethnic, she kept going no matter what.  Sophie loved all her grandchildren..she had nine, 15 great grandchildren and seven great-great-grandkids.  I learned the magic of wishing on a star, while staring at the moon seated on bench by her side....she also passed on that the "full" moon makes "some" people nuts! Thanks Gran!

My southern grandparents taught me a lot, to be fair, to care about people and how to enjoy life.  My Grandma Lee would never, ever think of going downtown without being completely decked out to the nines.  She was in a dress, with hose, small heels, hat and gloves to match! I can remember sitting on her soft featherbed watching her as she sat at her wonderfully full dressing table...soft powder, lipstick applied...then onto opening her jewerly draw filled with special baubels that she would fleetingly caress, wondering which would be best with her outfit.  I swear I can smell the perfume she used and the Noxema lotion that she swore by.  Grandma Lee had platinum blonde hair...naturally..as she aged it stayed platinum never turned grey...it was one vanity that she allowed herself.  To go to the beauty parlor and hear the girls exclaim "Oh my! look at the color of your hair! You don't do nothing to it?" She'd laugh and tell them "I'm all natural".   

Oh, it's getting late and I will continue more on this tommorrow......