Family
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Grieving with Flowers
Today is my Mom’s birthday. She would have been 76 years old. I was thinking about her, and remembering how much she loved fuchsias. So I bought one, hoping that I can keep it alive. They do not do well in our micro-climate. It’s too hot in summer, too cold in winter. They do well on the other side of the Oakland hills, in Berkeley, Oakland, and especially San Francisco, where there are lovely fuchsias in Golden Gate Park. My mom would buy them and hang them indoors, but I’m going to try, and am putting mine outside. It’s in the shadiest part of our yard, where they will not…
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Catching Up
Sorry for the long silence. My stupid keyboard broke, the little Bluetooth one that I use with my iPad Mini. A few keys still worked properly, but some did not work at all, and some would spit out completely different characters. I went onto some user forums to see if there was a way to fix it, and there was, but it did not work. Rats. Sure, I could have borrowed Ted’s laptop, or written on our regular computer, but somehow it just never happened. I like writing on my iPad, but I can’t stand the stupid touchpad. When Christmas came around, I thought maybe I would get a new…
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Wordless Wednesday – Happy Birthday to my Lovely Sisters
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Friday Recap
Thanksgiving is over, and it was a lovely day. Mulder and I went for a very long walk in the morning, much longer than usual, and we were tired when we got home. Too bad, because I still had some cooking to do. Thankfully I had started the day before, or I wouldn’t have gotten it done in time. We had all of the family favorites, which means there was way too much food and not everyone ate everything, but we all ate what we wanted. Some ate turkey, some didn’t. Some ate potatoes, some didn’t. Some ate cranberry sauce, some didn’t. The salad I made with Brussels sprouts, pomegranates,…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Throwback Thursday
When my Dad died, we divided up the list of people to notify, and one of the people on my list was my Dad’s ex girlfriend, Kit. Dad and Kit dated for awhile in the early 60s, when he dropped out of college, and they moved to New York together. As Kit tells it, they moved to New York because someone had posted an ad in the paper that they needed someone to drive their car to New York from Oakland, and it seemed like a good idea. The picture above, which Ted likes to call my Dad’s album cover, is of my Dad (on the left) and Kit’s friend…
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Dia de Difuntos
Dia de Muertos is a time to pray for and remember friends and family who have died. It is traditionally a Mexican holiday, and a Catholic one. I’ve never really paid any attention to it before, but the bright orange flowers reminded me of my Dad, and my Grandma died last year in November, so it made sense to me to buy some flowers and make a small alter with some pictures of Dad, Mom, and Grandma. There are too many others that I could easily include…my Uncle Forrest, my Grandma Wells, my Grandpa Ward, etc. For today, I’m keeping it to these three, the most difficult losses I have…
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Dad’s Memorial
My Dad’s memorial was last weekend. It was difficult. But it was very nice as well. It was a lovely service and very well attended. I think there were maybe 300 people there, which showed how many people’s lives he touched. There were people there from the alternative newspapers that he started way back when, from his time managing (and more recently as a board member) an alternative, non profit radio station, from his many years working in grant writing, from mentoring others to writing books, to teaching classes. People from Meals on Wheels, where he volunteered as a delivery person for over 20 years. People from my step-mom’s life…
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Dad’s Obituary
Michael Wells passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday July 5, 2017 while hiking in the Dolomites in Italy on a long anticipated trip with his wife, Julie Lawrence, who was the love of his life. He lived his life true to his moral compass, leading with compassion and by example. In addition to being a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, he was a grant writer, social activist, consultant, journalist, professor, and business owner. He was a thoughtful, quiet man motivated by his strong beliefs to do the right thing, not seeking public recognition for his actions. Yet, because of his dedication to and deep involvement with many organizations and causes, he…
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Heartbroken
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,- They are gone. They are gone to feed…
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Cooking for One
Later this month, Ted and Maya will be in the UK, with a brief trip to Paris, visiting Ted’s extended family. His mom and brother are going as well, and aside from the time in Paris, they will be staying with family. I elected to stay home and hold down the fort, take care of the dog, etc. I would like to go to Europe sometime in the not-too-distant future, but I think I’d prefer it to be just the three of us, though I do adore my MIL and BIL. I hope they have a fabulous time. I was thinking about it, and I realized that I don’t think…
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Birthday Cake
Maya requested carrot cake for her birthday party. She loves carrot cake and chocolate cake about equally. Last month was her Uncle Steve’s birthday, and as Steve had chocolate cake, she wanted carrot. I thought about buying one at the bakery, but decided the best way to go was going to be homemade, because there is THE family carrot cake recipe. This is what we call “Mother Thomas’s Carrot Cake”, because it is the carrot cake made by Ted’s Grandmother Thomas. It’s from a cookbook, which I believe was part of a woman’s auxiliary, and that’s all I know. My ‘chili relleno’ recipe is from the same cookbook. I was…
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Birthday Wine
Back in December of 1997, I worked at a company that had our department holiday party on the Napa Valley Wine Train. I was in HR at the time, and there were 4 or 5 of us, I think, not a big crowd. The Napa Valley Wine Train is a passenger train that goes up Napa Valley for maybe an hour, and then comes back. It stops at one winery on the route, and serves pretty nice food and wine along the way. The train cars are decorated in an old fashioned way, like I imagine they might have been in the old west. You depart from a train depot…
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Catching Up
It’s been a busy time, since last I stopped by here. The entire month of December is gone, and we’re a week into a New Year. So what’s going on? I went to Portland for a long weekend in early December. It was my step-mom’s 70th birthday, and I went up to help her celebrate. Ted didn’t come with me, mostly because of his cat allergies, which means he can’t come inside (or at least not for long) most of the houses for our family. That can work fine in summer, we sleep at a hotel or house sit for neighbors, and we eat dinner in my parents’ back yard.…
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Grandma Ward
This is my much loved Grandma Ward, with her first husband, Roland, back in 1941. Grandma was born in Southern California but moved to the Central Valley near Modesto when she was a young girl. She remembered riding the bus with the high school kids when she was in Kindergarten, because her parents didn’t want her taking the bus the other Kindergarteners took, as it was on the Highway and they didn’t think that was safe. So she rode with the big kids. The step to get on the bus was too high for her to reach, so a high schooler would lift her up. Kindergarten was 1/2 day, and…