Category: family

2022

We are celebrating New Year’s with the UK branch of the family. For New Year’s Eve dinner, daughter E and spouse L prepared Korean food. I admit that I didn’t stay up for the midnight festivities which follow the Filipino tradition of L’s parents, with whom E and L and their daughters ABC and JG live.

At midnight, they bang on pots and pans to make noise to drive away evil spirits. There were not organized fireworks due to COVID, but there were lots of fireworks in the streets – all evening and until about 3 this morning. Actually, there have been fireworks in the neighborhood for the past several nights, as though people needed to practice for the big event.

E and L went shopping for fruits as they prepared bowls with 12 different round fruits, which symbolizes prosperity for the household for each month of the year. They even prepared a bowl for us to have in our Airbnb. It’s important not to eat any of the fruits until the new year has begun. L’s family will also hang grapes above the front door, where they remain for the year. First they will have to take down the 2021 grapes which are now a bunch of raisins!


For New Year’s dinner, E is planning to make lasagna and homemade bread. This is our family’s traditional Christmas dinner which got transferred to New Year’s Day this year. It will be a nice way to remember my parents as we move into our first year with them both gone.

Wishing all of us peace, contentment, and good health in 2022!
*****
Linda is once again hosting Just Jot It January to encourage daily posting to get the new year off to a good start! Prompts are provided, but not required. Learn more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/12/31/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2022-daily-prompt-jan-1/

making up for lost time

As I wrote about here, we are visiting the London branch of our family for the holidays.

The last time we were here was a bit over two years ago, shortly after E’s spousal visa came through and she and then-two-year-old ABC were able to locate from our home in the US to rejoin spouse L in London. During that visit, we were happy to learn that E was newly pregnant and started planning for spring and summer visits.

Then, the pandemic arrived.

We couldn’t travel to the UK for spring birthdays or the arrival of granddaughter JG in August. Our plan to come for the month of November 2020 was cancelled at the last minute when the UK went into full lockdown. Quarantine and travel restrictions made it impossible for us to go to the UK, but E, L, ABC, and JG were able to visit us in the US in August. We were all thrilled to meet JG in person and blessed that they were able to visit Paco just before the last, steep period of illness before his death.

I titled this post “making up for lost time” which is an impossibility, but I do feel as though a few things that I had missed with our granddaughters are being re-captured. JG was an early walker, so I hadn’t really had babe-in-arms cuddle time with her. When they visited us in the States, she was too much on the move and too unsettled by the new surroundings to want to cuddle with the grandparents she had just met. Here, in her familiar home, she has become comfortable enough to sleep nestled in my arms – at least when her mother is unavailable.

We’ve played games with ABC. It’s been endearing watching her play hide-and-seek with Auntie T with requisite giggling and improvised singing, a skill that both ABC and T share. We’ve also been able to read to ABC with the added pleasure of having her read to us. She is learning a lot of phonics in Reception this year (for US folks, think the UK equivalent of kindergarten but with predominantly four- instead of five-year-olds) and is already able to read primer books.

Last night, ABC slept over at our Airbnb. This morning, B made us all pancakes, one of ABC’s favorite foods. She also helped her grandpa bake some gingerbread cookies.

2021 has certainly been a challenging year, but I’m grateful that it is ending on a high note.

travel in Omicron time

In October, we made plans to visit daughter E, son-in-law L, granddaughters ABC and JG, and L’s parents with whom they live in London, UK for the holidays. I hadn’t shared much about our plans here for fear that we would have to cancel, as we did with a planned visit in November 2020. At the time we made our plans, vaccination rates and COVID rates looked amenable for travel for three people who had had three doses of Pfizer vaccine, due to our participation in the clinical trials.

And then, in November, the Omicron variant appeared.

Travel and testing policies changed. Everyone wanted to know how virulent it is, if vaccines are protective, how severe it is, where it is spreading – and they wanted to know right away. Unfortunately, science doesn’t work that way. It takes time to gather and analyze data.

It actually was to our advantage that there were several weeks before our trip for some preliminary conclusions to be discerned. Yes, Omicron is more transmissible than the very contagious Delta but tends to cause less severe disease and to run a shorter course. Vaccines were less effective than against other variants but having a booster greatly increased protection.

And Omicron was rapidly spreading almost everywhere.

My home state of New York in the US was experiencing a spike in Omicron on top of a spike in Delta. In London, Omicron was taking over with over 90% of new COVID cases caused by it.

Still, travel was open for vaccinated people to enter the UK, we had our required testing scheduled both in the US and the UK, and the UK had not imposed restrictions on gatherings in private homes, so we were good to go, scheduled to fly out of Newark on Monday night, Dec. 20.

On Thursday, Dec. 16, L tested positive for COVID. He had been testing at home every day before going to work in the schools and didn’t have symptoms. He immediately had a follow-up test with a medical facility to confirm, then went into isolation in a bedroom. He developed symptoms which were like having a bad cold, which seems more typical with Omicron. In accord with UK protocol, the adults in the house tested themselves every morning. If they were negative, they could go out for the day. The children would only need to be tested if they had symptoms.

Obviously, this was scary news a few days before our trip, but, being used to uncertainty by now, we decided to go ahead with our plans.

On Saturday morning, we did COVID tests at the local pharmacy. The results were supposed to be available by noon on Monday and our flights wasn’t until 10 PM, so no problem, right?

Except that they didn’t come. We headed to Newark airport, which is about three hours away, hoping to get a rapid test there, but the testing center closed early, so we waited for our results to come in. As it turned out, only mine came through in time, so I flew to Heathrow by myself. This was the first time I had ever flown internationally without being part of a group, but I managed, admittedly with a lot of helpful staff and fellow travellers who could probably tell that this silver-haired woman wasn’t quite up to snuff, especially after a sleepless night on a plane. E met me at the train station and helped me get settled – and do my COVID test that the UK required. I needed to stay in isolation until I got a negative result.

Meanwhile, B and T re-booked their flight for the next evening, stayed at a hotel overnight, and went to the airport bright and early to go to the rapid test center. They had finally gotten their negative results from the Saturday tests but, because they were now flying on Tuesday, that test was too old to meet the requirements. Fortunately, I was already checked in to the hotel so they could start their UK isolation/testing bit, too. I’m happy to say that the UK results came much more quickly, so we were out of isolation by the time we moved to our Airbnb in E’s neighborhood on Thursday.

When you are browsing through Airbnb’s site, you can’t see the exact address. We knew we were in the neighborhood, but were pleased to find out we are only about three blocks from their house. Given that we are trying to limit our exposure to crowds, it’s nice to just have a short walk between the two places. It’s also nice to have our own kitchen. We even have an enclosed back garden, although it’s been too rainy to use it.

We benefited from a change in UK policy. Instead of having to isolate for ten days, people are allowed to leave isolation sooner if they have two negative test 24 hours apart. This meant that L was able to get out of isolation in time to have Christmas Day together. (You can read about the menu here.)

In deference to the wild spread of Omicron, we are not going to church or other kinds of crowded venues, like museums, during this visit. We are pretty much going back and forth between the two houses. While B, T, and I and L’s parents were all boosted, E and L were scheduled to get their boosters on Sunday, three days after Larry tested positive. E’s COVID exposure delayed her getting a booster until Dec. 24; L can get his in several weeks. For the record, E and L were not negligent in scheduling their boosters. Rather, they were following the UK protocols, which are different than the US ones.

All of us are trying to be protective of ABC and JG, who are too young to be vaccinated. Realistically, B, T, and I also need to stay COVID-free to be able to travel back to the US in January. Fingers crossed that the travel and visiting policies stay stable so that there are no more glitches, delays, or restrictions.

But, hey, we’ve already shown we are flexible, if need be.

SoCS: Christmas food

Linda extended Stream of Consciousness Saturday into Sunday this week, giving those of us celebrating Christmas a bit more time to post. She also gave us an easy prompt – yum – so, of course, I am going to write about all the yummy food we had yesterday.

I am in London UK to celebrate the holidays with daughter E and her family, so we ate differently than most Christmases. When E and T were growing up, they usually sang at our church Christmas morning, so we developed the tradition of having lasagna on Christmas Day because it was easy to prepare ahead and then bake after church. It was also a nod to my mother’s Italian heritage.

This year, we did have a bit of Italian heritage by having panettone for breakfast, but our main meal was an amalgam of British and Filipino dishes, as E’s parents-in-law are immigrants to the U.K. from the Philippines. We had pancit, mushroom stuffed puff pastry cups, bacon wrapped sausages over stuffing, a clove-studded baked ham, glazed carrots, and shaved Brussels sprout salad. Everything was yummy!

We had great desserts, too! December 25th is also E’s father-in-law’s birthday so there was a decorated applesauce cake with appropriate singing, of course, and two pies that we had made in our rental flat, one pumpkin and one apple. All of them were yummy. Of course, I had to sample all three!

I did have a very traditional evening snack. Spouse B had made shortbreads from his family’s recipe and gingerbreads from a recipe he made every year with E and T as they were growing up. It was a bit of a challenge adapting the recipes from US to U.K. ingredients and measurements but they are still familiar and yummy!

I hope that everyone, wherever you are and whether you are celebrating a holiday or not, is blessed with some yummy food in your life this weekend!

(Now comes the part of the post where I try to do a pingback to Linda’s blog. I’m uncharacteristically writing this from an app so we’ll see if I can manage it. I’m definitely not trying to copy in the SoCS logo this time around! /https://lindaghill.com/2021/12/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socss-dec-25-26-2021/ )

40+ years of “A Christmas Carol”

On Sunday, T and I went to see a production of A Christmas Carol at Cider Mill Stage. This particular staging of the Charles Dickens classic was first conceived and produced in 1979 by Binghamton University professor John Bielenberg and the original cast as a play within a play, with the actors performing the story in the bedroom of a child who is recovering from an illness and must avoid crowds, something that seems even more ominous in our current pandemic days. Fortunately for the actors, there is an adjacent (and oddly well-stocked) attic that affords costumes and props for the impromptu performance, although one of the charms of the show has always been seeing a few caps and scarves and capes re-purposed to accommodate a range of characters and uses. A scarf is not just a piece of clothing but can also be a leash for a dog or the reins for a shaggy pony.

When T and I arrived, we were surprised and pleased to find a poster listing all the known cast and crew members of A Christmas Carol over the decades. This included T and her sister E who played the sick child, which also involves portraying Tiny Tim, for nineteen performances each in the late 1990s-early 2000s. E was in the cast the last year that John Bielenberg played Scrooge before his retirement. T’s Scrooge was Bill Gorman, who was also a member of the original 1979 cast. Their productions were directed by Tom Kremer and Carol Hanscom, also original cast members.

Because of our familiarity and past experience, the Cider Mill production of A Christmas Carol has continued to be close to our hearts but the performance Sunday was even more emotional. Tom Kremer, who is now portraying Scrooge, came out before the play began to dedicate the performance to Claus Evans, original and long-time cast member who had recently passed away. Claus had played the Ghost of Christmas Present, Mr. Fezziwig, and other ensemble characters for most of the first forty years. He had a commanding stage presence and a powerful voice, especially when singing. This version of A Christmas Carol, while not a musical in the traditional sense, does involve a fair amount of incidental music, both traditional pieces and new music composed by original cast member Susan J. Peters and current cast member Ken Martinak. I admit that I teared up during the Fezziwig party scene, remembering the brio with which Claus sang “Wassail! Wassail! All Over the Town”.

While not able to match Claus’s singing prowess, Brad Morgan did a fine job with Fezziwig and Ghost of Christmas Present. His first year in the cast was the year that E was in the production when he was quite a young man. I remember him struggling in rehearsal to accurately deliver the Dickensian language of the ghost of Jacob Marley. I was particularly impressed with his portrayal now, which has a chilling depth and pathos. Brad also deserves a lot of credit for keeping the production alive during some years of upheaval at the Cider Mill after the original Cider Mill Playhouse closed. Thankfully, the play is now back in the space for which it was designed under the name Cider Mill Stage. And yes, there is a cider mill in the front of the building, active in the late summer through early fall. The theater area was originally a storage space for apples.

I hope that A Christmas Carol will continue to grace the Cider Mill and the Binghamton area for decades to come, spreading its message of the importance for caring for one another, regardless of the season of the year.

“And, as Tiny Tim observed, ‘God bless us, every one!'”

what I’ve been writing

Although you can’t tell from the count of my recent blog posts, I have been carving out some writing time.

Unfortunately, you can’t tell that from my poetry output either, although I do have one recently written and accepted piece that I will share when it is published. I have had to compose a fair number of cover letters as I have done quite a few chapbook and full-length submissions, as well as some individual poems. I’ve gotten a number of rejections, but currently have the chapbook manuscript under consideration in four places and the collection in nine. I can hear my fellow poets saying that’s not enough, but I’m hoping to get a few more in later this week.

I spent a major amount of time thinking about, writing, and editing comments for a listening session with our bishop in preparation for a diocesan synod and the World Synod of Bishops called by Pope Francis to discern the future path of the church. The official title in English is “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission”. In keeping with this, individuals were asked to share our hopes, dreams, and experiences with the church and our visions for the future. I chose to focus on the voices that have been marginalized in the church, concentrating on the voices of women. I prepared written remarks and then a shorter version that I could read aloud at the session within our three minute time limit. I do not like speaking in public but, inspired by others, especially some teens and young adults, I managed to do it. There was a lot of “speaking truth to power” at our session, one of at least twenty planned for our diocese, which is doing a credible job in reaching out to the people. Some diocese around the world are not doing much outreach, which could limit the effectiveness of the process when the bishops convene in 2023.

I have also been doing some holiday-related writing. My first priority was to write a letter to people on my parents’ Christmas card list who may not have heard about Paco’s death in September or even Nana’s in May 2019. It was difficult to write but I’m glad that I made myself do it because I heard back from several people who expressed their sympathies and shared memories with me. I also had the opportunity to do some reflective writing about this in conjunction with a support group I have been attending on preparing for the holidays after the loss of loved ones.

After sending out the letter to my parents’ friends, I tackled my own list, which was a bit more complicated. I did a family newsletter, still a difficult thing when having to report a death, that went in some cards, while others got a handwritten note or just a signed brief greeting, depending on how regularly I have been in contact with the recipient. All the addressing, stuffing, and stamping of envelopes adds to the time involved but most of them are in the mail now. A few are set aside for other members of the family to complete.

Now, there is, finally, this blog post. I’d like to say that I will post regularly from now on but I know that would be more wishful thinking than promise. B, T, and I are preparing for an extended holiday trip, which could create more leisure time for writing or be a total whirlwind with too little sleep to be cogent.

Which will it be? Stay tuned…

SoCS: trees

From the time I was very young, I have loved trees. When I was growing up, our house was in the woods, so I spent a lot of time playing and daydreaming among the trees – white and yellow birches, sugar and striped maples, hemlocks and spruce. Our grammar school had a naturalist who visited every week and I remember compiling a book of different trees with pressings of their leaves.

Today, I enjoy the trees in our yard. We have two maples, two cherries, and an oak. We used to have an ash tree but it was killed by the emerald ash borer and had to be cut down. I’m pleased to say that we did add a new tree last year, a dogwood which we chose because it is the flower for the birth month of our daughter E. (We already have an heirloom rose which is the birth flower of daughter T.)

T also loves trees and all plants so much that she has a master’s degree in conservation biology of plants. I don’t think that love of trees is genetic, but I’m very proud of her advocacy and caretaking for our environment here in the Northeast US.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “tree.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/12/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-11-2021/

holiday mail – part one

One of my most important priorities for the year-end holiday season has been sending greetings to a wide range of people from all the different eras of my life. For some of the people on my list, it was the only time of year we would be in touch. The task of preparing the cards was quite elaborate, choosing the right card for the each recipient, deciding on a brief handwritten note or a longer printed letter, even matching the postage stamp and Christmas seal to align with the religious beliefs of the person.

My accustomed process has been abandoned over these last few stressful years, with other family members helping and sometimes with me abandoning cards altogether and just sending letters, no longer personalized as I had been wont to do back in the day.

This year is one of the difficult ones.

It’s hard for me to send cards with a note telling about a death, which I need to do again this year because of Paco. We are being advised to mail extra early this year because the US mail is slower than it used to be. Also, we hope to travel over the holidays and I need to get everything done before we leave.

Despite all that, I haven’t started on my list yet.

Part of it is that it is difficult to muster energy to do things, especially emotional things like writing. It’s a common aspect with grief but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.

The other block I was having was knowing that I needed to write to some of the people on my parents’ Christmas card list to let them know what has happened. I knew there were some people who probably didn’t even know about Nana’s death, let alone Paco’s, as the last time some on the list would have heard from them was four years ago when I helped put together a letter to send out.

I had promised myself not to start on my own cards until I had taken care of Nana and Paco’s friends but it was difficult to get going on that. I wound up drafting the letter in the middle of the night-before-last when I couldn’t sleep. Today, I printed and addressed envelopes and brought them to the mailbox. I’m hoping that all of them will get delivered, as I don’t know if any of the recipients may have moved.

Theoretically, I could be working on my own cards and letters right now, but, instead, I’m writing this post. I’m not sure if it is procrastination or if I have used up my energy for the day.

We’ll see.

If not later today, maybe tomorrow?

SoCS: holy mackerel!

Growing up in rural New England in the ’60s, I often heard people use old-timey phrases for surprise or delight, so when Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was “golly gee” or a similar expression, my mind immediately went to “holy mackerel” which I grew up hearing and which my parents continued to use throughout their blessedly long lives.

Part of the reason that “holy mackerel” was the first place my mind went was because my niece and nephew from NYC latched onto the phrase that their grandparents used and took it as a theme for gifts and general good times. Yes, you can find or have made a mug or T-shirt that says just about anything, including “holy mackerel!”

I’ve been thinking about Nana and Paco a lot this week. Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the US and it was our first major holiday without Paco – and without any family member in that generation. It’s nice to reflect on the good times and laughter and things that would make one or the other of them say “Holy mackerel!” with a little glint of the eye.

It lets a bit of light into the sadness.
*****
Join us! To find out more about Stream of Consciousness Saturdays, visit Linda’s blog here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/11/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-27-2021/

SoCS: if only…

If only I could organize my days…

or life…

is something I have been saying to myself off and on for years.

The truth is that most of my adult life has been spent as a caregiver, some of it in very challenging situations dealing with long-term illnesses.

Not the kind of life that lends itself to following a daily schedule. If you ever think you know what is happening on a given day, chances are the phone will ring in the morning and you will be off dealing with some need that has arisen.

Let me be clear that none of this is a complaint. Rather it’s just a statement of fact – and evidence that I was privileged enough to be able to choose a life of unpaid caregiving instead of needing to take paid work and cramming in the caregiving around my employer’s schedule.

The day after Paco’s death, the hospice social worker said to me that now I could figure out what I wanted to do. We had first met during my mother’s illness, so she had some idea of what my life has been like over at least the last few years, if not decades.

While it’s true that I have spouse B and daughter T at home, we are able to collaborate on taking care of the house and each other, so the years of intensive caregiving are probably over for a while, as long as we all remain reasonably healthy.

So, I’m starting to piece together how I want to spend my time in the coming months. Admittedly, right now I am necessarily busy with settling Paco’s estate and final bills and insurance claims and such, which takes a lot more time and energy than you might think if you have never had to do this for a loved one.

I’m trying to keep from jumping back into everything I have put on hold in the past because I think there is a danger of over-committing and exhaustion. I do know that I want to spend more time with writing, so, perhaps, finally regularly posting here again.

I also need to return to spending serious amounts of time with my poetry. During the recent Boiler House Poets Collective residency, I was able to re-connect with my full-length manuscript that revolves around that area and my family’s connections with it. I am going to do a review of it with the Grapevine Group, my local poetry circle, later this month and then do revisions and look for submissions opportunities. I also need to look for more opportunities for my chapbook, as the rejections have been rolling in over these last months so it is only out at a few places at the moment.

I am considering auditioning for a local chorus, although that might not be until after the holidays. I expect that, for the first time in many years, we may travel for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I am staying in the loop but not spending a ton of time on environmental and political issues. I still send letters and do public comment on social justice and environmental causes and send emails to my elected representatives but I am trying not to spend hours every day on it, as I did for years during the height of the anti-fracking fight in New York. I admire the energy and commitment of today’s younger activists and support their efforts as best I can.

Church volunteering is still on hold. Eventually, the book study I facilitate may return but only if we can meet safely indoors unmasked. We aren’t there yet.

So, can I do this? Can I re-organize my life and have it stick?

Maybe.

If nothing dire happens…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was to being the post with the word if. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/10/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-october-16-2021/