Today would have been my parents’ 69th wedding anniversary.
This (bonus) One-Liner Wednesday comes to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/04/19/one-liner-wednesday-a-battle-to-the-finish/
This month, my county (Broome in New York) has finally made it into the low community risk level for COVID-19, using the current US Center for Disease Control tracking method. Our community transmission rate is still in the medium category, the second lowest of four categories. Both of these are the lowest levels that I recall seeing since this tracking model went into effect.
In recognition of this, I’ve begun to back off from masking in indoor public spaces. For example, I went to church on Easter and this weekend unmasked. On Friday night, I ate and sang unmasked with Madrigal Choir at a retirement dinner in honor of a Binghamton University professor who is a long-time choir member.
It feels a bit strange after masking for so many months.
I know there is still risk. A friend came down with COVID a few days ago. I had not seen her recently, so I wasn’t exposed, but it’s definitely a reminder that I may not be able to stay COVID-free forever. The number of people I know in the never-been-infected category is tiny at this point.
I don’t want to get sick and I especially don’t want to transmit COVID to someone else but I’m feeling that, with the community risk level at low and major personal events like my two cataract surgeries and visit from our UK branch of the family completed, I can let down my guard a bit. I’ll still be tracking our local statistics so I can put more precautions back in place as warranted.
Madrigal Choir is going into a busy week, getting ready for our final concert of the season next Sunday, so fingers crossed…
A quick update while JG is napping and ABC is enjoying her first ever trip to the cinema with her parents. Also, while I can almost see mid-range things like computer screens before my second cataract surgery tomorrow.
Things have been very busy here. Daughter E, son-in-law L, and grandchildren five-year-old ABC and two-year-old JG have been visiting from London since April 2. It’s great to have them here, enjoying typical things like playing outdoors in the yard or at the park or indoors at home. We went to Easter morning mass together and had an indoor egg hunt afterward, with leg of lamb for Easter dinner. Uncle C from West Virginia was able to make the trip up for E’s birthday last week.
Our biggest family event was Friday into Saturday when my younger sister came up along with her family. We got to meet the significant others of our niece and nephew, as well as their dogs, which led to lots of cuddles, laughter, frolicking, and shrieks from ABC and JG.
When we knew that our London contingent was going to visit, my sister had organized a memorial for our parents, known here as Nana and Paco. The last time E and her family had been here was shortly before Paco passed away. Distance and the pandemic made it impossible to gather again until now. We started our observance outside the building where Nana and Paco’s cremains are inurned. My sister had arranged for military honors for Paco, who served as a US Navy SeaBee during World War II and the Korean Conflict. There was an honor guard and a 21-gun salute using WWII era rifles, prayers, the playing of taps on a trumpet, and the folding and presentation of a large United States flag. We were grateful to all the veterans who came out to honor Paco’s service so long ago.
We went inside to visit the niche and see the memorials that we have placed there. Then, we went to the room that was reserved for us at the hotel where my sister’s family was staying. In the photo, you can see the folded flag in its special case.
My sister had organized our remembrance, which included music, pieces that our niece and nephew had written as children, poems from me and daughter T, a photo book that my sister had assembled, and lots of personal stories from everyone who knew Nana and Paco. It was wonderful to be able to share all of this with the more recent additions to the family. We were sad that our other sister wasn’t able to make the trip to join us. but we thought of her often over the course of the day. After our sharing time, we had lunch together, including one of Paco’s all-time favorites, lasagna. We also enjoyed one of Nana’s favorite desserts, tiramisu.
So, things have been very busy here, but they were complicated by the fact that I had cataract surgery on my left eye last Tuesday. Everything went well. My far vision was clear by the next day but my mid- and close-range, as expected, are taking longer to develop. My newly implanted lens is an advanced design that addresses vision at all distances plus astigmatism. There are healing issues to consider plus the visual part of my brain needs to adjust to the new conditions.
The other complicating factor is that my right eye has been functioning without glasses. It can really only see clearly at very close range, so things like reading and using a computer have been very difficult. I’m managing this post because my mid-range in my left eye has improved enough that I can see my laptop screen with an enlarged font.
Tomorrow morning, I will have the cataract surgery on my right eye. I anticipate that my far vision will be really good by Wednesday. I’m hoping that my mid-range will continue to improve with my left eye so that I can easily see my score to sing a gig with Madrigal Choir on Friday night. I think it will help to not have the distraction of a totally blurry right eye, as I have now. Fingers crossed.
I must say that my ophthalmologist, Dr. Daniel Sambursky, is amazing. He has developed advanced techniques using lasers that give superb results. Spouse B had cataract surgery with him five years ago and has enjoyed his new vision, only needing glasses for very fine print or low light conditions. I’m looking forward to that, too. I’ve worn glasses since I was six. I admit it is a bit strange to see myself in the mirror without them and it will take time for friends and family to get used to seeing me without them.
Eventually, I’ll get around to changing my headshot…
The US tends to have a lot of whimsical “holidays” in honor of just about any food, activity, relationship, etc. imaginable. March 14 is celebrated as “Pi Day” because Pi is 3.14…
The celebration entails eating pie. While Brent often bakes for Pi Day, this year I bought a suitably dedicated cherry pie from Wegmans.
Wishing an equally delicious pie to all those celebrating!
Given that we live in the US and our granddaughters live in the UK, we prize any time that we have together.
Our five-year-old granddaughter ABC lived with us and her mom until she was a bit over two years old. Then, E’s spousal visa came through and they joined their spouse-and-dad in London. We made our first trip “across the pond” a couple of months later, hoping to return again in the spring, but that was 2020 and the pandemic struck, so, no.
We missed the birth and whole first year of granddaughter JG’s life. We met her first on a bittersweet trip here so that E could have a last visit with her grandfather Paco. We will always be grateful that Paco was able to meet JG and that ABC, who remembered him from living here when she was a baby/toddler, was able to see him and dance and sing for him. E was Paco’s first grandchild and it was so important that she got to see him one last time. I’m crying now just thinking about it. It was just after that visit that Paco began his last, steep decline and he died a few weeks later.
That visit had been very confusing for JG. As a pandemic baby, she hadn’t been out of her house very much, much less flown across an ocean and plunked down in a new country with new people. She was also at a developmental time of stranger anxiety, so we had to be careful not to intrude on her comfort zone.
Without having to care for Paco, we were able to make a couple of trips to the UK (although they happened to be during omicron surges); still, JG was not too sure about these people who occasionally appeared on her mom’s computer screen suddenly showing up.
Enter 2023. JG is now almost 2 and a half and having a surge in language development and is able to make connections that she had been too young to make previously. She starts calling us by name when we video chat and wanting to say hi and showing us things. When we went to visit earlier this month, she gave us hugs and played with us and let us pick her up and called us by name and stayed with us at our Airbnb while her mom and dad did errands and snuggled and fell asleep cuddled on the couch.
For the first time, she knew we were her grandparents, her mom’s mom and dad. Correction: her mum‘s parents, as mom is the more common American expression and she is, of course, adopting the more British mum.
What a prize! I had been afraid that JG wouldn’t really remember us because we are so far away and that occasional visits wouldn’t be enough to establish a real relationship with her as we have enjoyed with her sister ABC.
Transatlantic grandparenting will still be challenging. I don’t have personal experience with such a long distance between grandparents and grandchild, but I think we’ll figure it out.
We are hopeful that E and her family will be here in April for Easter, JG’s first trip back since she came to meet Paco just after she turned one. I don’t think she will remember having been here, although ABC will probably still remember every nook and cranny of our house and yard, as she did when they came back to see Paco a year and a half ago.
It was a week ago that we said our good-byes to fly back to the States. Anticipating a visit from them in just a few weeks made it easier to leave them. Although JG won’t remember the house, she will remember us.
What a comfort!
What a prize!
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “prize,” which I sneakily used to write the post I needed to write this weekend. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/02/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-25-2023/.
I’m pleased to share that my poem Kaʻūpūlehu has been included as part of the ONE GOOD MEMORY series from Silver Birch Press. Many thanks to Melanie and the team at Silver Birch Press for including my poem in this series.
I especially appreciate that Silver Birch Press includes an author’s note with each piece. It gave me the opportunity to spread the word about the Kaʻūpūlehu dryland forest of Hawai’i.
This poem began as a response to a Binghamton Poetry Project prompt in spring of this year. You can read a bit about the writing of this poem in my blog post here.
As Silver Birch’s call for submissions states, “The past few years have been the most difficult that most of us have lived through. It’s a challenge on many days to stay positive. At times like this, it’s heartening to remember good experiences. Sharing each other’s good memories can help us remain hopeful during these challenging times.”
I’m honored to have this poem featured among dozens upon dozens of other good memories as part of this series. I invite you to explore these uplifting poems and to reflect on your own good memories. We can all use an extra measure of hope in our day.
As always, comments are welcome – here on Top of JC’s Mind, at Silver Birch Press, on Facebook, twitter, ello, and Post. Your choice!
We went on a classic week-off-from-school outing with our granddaughters as part of our visit to their home in London. We navigated a series of bus and Tube routes to tour the Cutty Sark, a clipper ship built in 1869 to carry tea from China to London as quickly as possible.
While it was built to carry tea, it also carried lots of other cargo, exports from Britain and imports, including wool from Australia. (A reminder that jumpers are called sweaters in the US.)
The Cutty Sark is not afloat these days, but still takes lots of maintenance. It’s hard to see, but there is a person near the top of this mast.
This lifeboat was getting a fresh coat of paint.
February is LGBT+ History Month in the UK and the Cutty Sark was participating by flying the Pride flag.
After lunch in a nearby pub, we went to the National Maritime Museum. I was interested to see how some of the exhibits were bringing in indigenous perspectives, such as this map showing language groups from the colonial period in the current US and Canada.
We finished our Greenwich tour by walking up to the Royal Observatory, through which the Prime Meridian runs. It’s the reason we have Greenwich Mean Time.
Before we started our trek back downhill and onto the bus, we enjoyed the view of London from the heights!
Spouse B, Daughter T, and I are in London, UK, visiting Daughter E, Son-in-law L, and Granddaughters ABC and JG. Yesterday, we made a trip to the Battersea Power Station.
Having grown up around power stations, I am geeky about them and would like to tour them, but the Battersea Power Station after decades of use as a coal-fired power station, designation as a historic landmark, and decades of disuse and deterioration, has been transformed into a shopping mall, apartments, offices, restaurant, and entertainment complex. The mall only opened a few months ago and more shops will be opening later this year.
On our way to the main entrance, we passed this sign. Of course, I had to take a photo of it as a shoutout to my friends of the Boiler House Poets Collective!
The main part of the old Art Deco-style power station that has been transformed into shops and restaurants is massive. Here is a view as you look down one of the main galleries that once housed multiple turbines:
The amount of detail that went into the restoration is staggering. Here you can see some of the Art Deco elements and part of one of the old control room through the windows.
There are lots of fun elements that play off the power station theme, such as the Control Room B cocktail bar, which features lots of dials and gauges as part of the decor.
I loved seeing the remnant of this safety helmet sign. When we used to go to the hydro stations with Paco, this would have been termed a “hard hat area.” (Yes, I am just that geeky about these things, as anyone who has heard me going on about the industrial roots of the MASS MoCA complex will know.)
There are, of course, many distinctly modern features. For example, one of the old smokestacks now houses an elevator to take people up to the top to look out over London and the Thames. Not being particular fans of heights, although it is glass encased at the top, we did not go up in Lift 109, so called because the top of the stack is 109 meters from the ground, but it’s there for those with the inclination and pounds to do so.
At the moment, there are a number of light installations scattered around the complex. JG was especially taken with these hearts and kept hopping from one to another, while saying “another heart” over and over in an enthusiastic, two-year-old voice. I suppose it’s possible that this was more of a valentine feature than part of the light installations, but it was fun, none the less.
So, Happy Valentine’s Day from London for those celebrating!
Ugh.
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “perfection.”
Not my favorite concept.
When I was young, I was taught to do the best I could…
Which is a lovely thought and a worthy goal but it made it easy to think that the best I could do should be perfect, so I became a bit of a perfectionist.
It’s exhausting.
And futile.
As I matured, I began to expect that perfection was a chimera, that there was really no such thing.
When my first child was born, I was convinced of that.
Well, not immediately.
I had dutifully followed all the advice from my medical team and from What to Expect When You Are Expecting, which was a hot title at the time. Still, somehow, my membranes ruptured at 36 weeks, so my precious daughter arrived early, officially classified as premature, although only by a few days, and, after being home for a couple of days had to be re-admitted to the hospital for light therapy for jaundice.
It was not perfect and I was scared and blamed myself, figuring that I must have done something wrong.
It took a while – well, maybe even a long while – to realize that, sometimes, things just happen without a discernible cause.
I then realized that there was not ever going to be a perfect way to do something as complex as raising a child – and then realized that there wasn’t really a perfect way to do much of anything.
I did still try to do the best I could, though, which often means things turn out pretty well.
Except when they don’t.
But, hey, nobody’s perfect.
*****
This Stream of Consciousness Saturday post is part of Linda’s long-running series at her blog Life In Progress. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/02/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-4-2023/
So, it’s late afternoon on January 31st and I’m just getting the chance to write my final post for Linda’s Just Jot It January.
Linda’s prompt for today is “write” and my original intent had been to write about the end of Just Jot It January, so two birds with one stone.
I had been trying for the month to prepare my posts a day ahead in order to get them out in the morning, but I didn’t manage it today. I didn’t even check my blog this morning, as I had decided to do some more work on the final layout for my chapbook manuscript, Hearts, to send to Kelsay Books, my publisher.
Of course, I got distracted and wound up sending out a submission of three ekphrastic poems for a contest, which meant writing a more-involved-than-usual cover letter. (I did get some manuscript work done, too.)
I also wound up contributing to a couple of “poetry business” email threads, one for the Grapevine Poets and one for the Boiler House Poets Collective.
I wrote a birthday card and note to a friend – longhand and everything!
And now, finally, this post.
I am happy and relieved to have managed to post every day this month for #JusJoJan. I wrote more “heavy” posts than I intended, but it’s been that kind of month.
I’m not planning to post every day in February, though.
I need to spend some time on other projects and to get ready for a trip to the UK to visit our family there.
That should generate a few posts…
*****
I hope you’ve enjoyed Linda’s Just Jot It January. Thanks so much, Linda, for making it possible! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/31/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-31st-2023/
Joanne Corey 