Category: family

beverage of choice

I have been (perhaps inordinately) happy with my choice of milk lately.

Because the other adults in the house are all lactose intolerant, they drink Fairlife ultrafiltered milk, which has a good taste, unlike milks with lactase added, which I find too sweet.

However, when my doctor recommended that I increase my calcium intake, I decided that I would save the Fairlife for others in the house and choose a less expensive option for me. The problem is, though, that I don’t like to drink milk from the standard plastic jugs that are most common here in the US. It tends to taste a bit plastic-y to me, so I thought I could buy milk in cartons.

This was easier said than done.

It turns out that few milk producers use cartons anymore, but, at our local Wegman’s, I found another solution.
milk bottle

It is so much fun to have milk in a glass bottle, as it was usually distributed before they went to paper cartons. This dairy also vat pasteurizes their milk and even offers non-homogenized milk so that a layer of cream rises to the top of the bottle.

I have chosen to drink 2% milk, as a compromise between those who think one shouldn’t have dairy fat and those who think dairy fat is helpful to your diet.

A bonus is that the dairy is relatively closeby, about 120 miles from where I live, which is close enough to qualify as local in locavore terms.

Another bonus is that the bottles are returned and reused, cutting down on the waste stream or the processing needed to recycle.

The milk is delicious! It somehow seems colder when it is poured fresh from the fridge. Research shows that that is all in my head – or perhaps in my fingers as the difference in conductivity of a thick glass bottle versus a paper or plastic container is going to make the glass bottle feel colder. Glass is also good because it doesn’t transfer flavors into the milk as some plastics can.

I am drinking more milk than I was, which is helping my calcium intake go up. I am also taking supplemental vitamin D, knowing that light can degrade it, although, once I get the milk home, it is in the dark most of the time.

Unless that little light is not going off when the refrigerator door closes…

hospice again

After posting every day in January, I haven’t been posting very much since. Unfortunately, my mom, known here as Nana, over the last few weeks has had increasing symptoms from her congestive heart failure. We have been able to ameliorate some of them, but she is sleeping more and eating less, having more trouble walking and getting short of breath more frequently.

Last week, Nana was approved to go back into hospice care. They will become part of her care team at the skilled nursing unit, so she won’t need to move again and so my dad can hop on his scooter and visit her whenever he likes. [Backstory is that Nana was under hospice care for fifteen months and then de-certified in October. She moved into skilled nursing at their continuing care community, as she could not stay at Mercy House, which is only for those in hospice care.]

We are hoping for as much pain-free and alert time as we can get in these coming weeks. Thank you for all the positive thoughts and prayers you have sent. They help us to stay grounded in this difficult time.

Reading Michelle Obama’s memoir

Since she became a public figure during the first presidential campaign of her husband, I have felt an affinity with Michelle Robinson Obama. While on the surface it would seem that an African-American woman from the South Side of Chicago couldn’t have much in common with a European-American from a tiny New England town, there are a number of similarities. We are close in age, having been born in the last few years of the Baby Boom. I have long felt that we youngest of the Boomers, who were young adults during the Reagan recession when unemployment was high and mortgage rates even higher, are fundamentally different from the elder members of our cohort. Michelle and I are both mothers of two daughters and women who have been blessed with a close and long relationship with our own mothers. We have close women friends and mentors. We are both community-minded, and also recognize the importance of educational opportunity for ourselves and others. We each have a long, loving, and intact marriage. And we are both women of our time, which means we have experienced sexism and the challenge of tending to both our private and public lives.

Becoming, Michelle Obama’s memoir published late last year, reinforces my sense of her on all these points. She writes honestly and beautifully; I was especially impressed with the way she wrote about her feelings about what was happening and not just the events themselves. She also frequently gives context of what happens either before or later with a particular place or event, such as the changes over time in her South Side neighborhood.

I particularly enjoyed reading about Michelle’s childhood, teen, and college years, as the stories from that time before she was a public figure were mostly new to me. I also appreciated knowing how she felt about many events and causes during the campaigns and her eight years in the White House, as well as her take on the current president.

What was most enlightening to me was hearing how being a black female impacted her life at every stage and added to the pressure to excel and to be an exemplary person at all times. As the first African-American first family, it seemed that every move the Obamas made was scrutinized. I admire that Michelle and her mom, who was also in residence at the White House, were able to protect First Daughters Malia and Sasha from most of the intrusiveness of the press corps so that they could grow up (mostly) out of the public eye.

Many people share my admiration for Michelle Obama and her accomplishments. Her book tour includes venues that seat thousands of people and her book has sold over three million copies, making it the bestseller of 2018.

She can definitely add best-selling author to her already impressive resume.

SoCS: the reason for yawns this week

I have been yawning more than usual this past week.

Last Saturday night, daughter E was lying beside granddaughter ABC, reading her a bedtime story. ABC was having a drink of water from her covered tumbler and, in her excitement, hit her mom in the eye with the bottom of the tumbler.

E called for me and I rang into the room. Her eye was already swelling, so I got her an ice pack and calmed ABC down and got her to sleep.

E had been hit hard enough to see stars and lose her vision in that eye for a moment, so we weren’t surprised when she had a headache the next day. And the next. But then, she started to feel dizzy a lot and get nauseous. I was afraid she had a concussion, so we went into the doctors’ office. It turns out that the symptoms of concussion are very similar to the symptoms of bleeding in the orbital socket, which has a lot of nerves that are very sensitive.

The treatment is also similar to concussion: rest, quiet, avoiding activity and eye strain and loud noises, taking pain relievers, not lifting heavy things.

None of which is inherently easy with a toddler in the house.

It turned into everyone else in the house taking over as much of ABC’s care as possible.

Which brings us to yawning. I have been taking over the nighttime care, sleeping on the couch on the first floor rather than in my room on the second floor. ABC is a pretty restless sleeper, so I would go into her several times a night to cover her or sing her a song or read her a book to get her back to sleep. When my husband B would come down between 5:00 and 6:00, I would sneak back upstairs for another couple hours of sleep, but I admit that I have been tired and, thus, yawning a fair amount during the day.

Last night, ABC didn’t wake up at all, so I got to sleep for a long stretch myself, which was nice and resulted in much less yawning today.

Let’s hope it is the beginning of a trend.

(By the way, E is improving, so there is some hope that she will be able to be more active soon.)
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was to write about the first thing we thought of after reading the word “yawn.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/02/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-16-19/

the end of Just Jot It January 2019

Linda gave the final prompt for this last day of Just Jot It January: “your favorite thing/part/blog post of last year or last month.” I thought I would write two brief responses.

My favorite blog thing for the last month is that I actually managed to post every day this month. Given that my posting has been so sporadic for so long, this feels like an accomplishment. Bonus: It means that I am writing again, which had definitely fallen by the wayside over the last couple of years. I even have managed to write a few poems recently. Can I keep it up? Probably not the posting every day part, but I’m hoping to carve out some writing/revising time on a regular basis.

My favorite in-person thing of the last month was the return of daughter E and granddaughter ABC from their four week visit with our son-in-law L in London UK . Sometimes in the past when ABC travelled, she would not immediately want to come to us, but this time she broke into a big smile, called out to us, and wanted hugs and kisses. This gives me hope that, when she and E re-locate permanently to the UK later this year, we will be able to keep our relationship alive via videochat. I knew this was possible if chats happened on a daily basis; ABC definitely knows that L is her daddy when they videochat. I doubt we will be able to orchestrate daily calls once they are all together in London, but it seems that weekly ones may be enough to keep us in ABC’s memory bank.

Thanks to Linda for Just Jot It January and thanks to all the other participants! Write on!
*****
Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/31/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-31st/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/

singing again

Last night, for the first time in over a year, I went to a (Binghamton) University Chorus rehearsal.

I have written posts before on the changes in the choral program* and the University which necessitated the transformation of what had for decades been a large chorus of community members, students, and staff which sang a major concert every semester into a much smaller ensemble that sings when needed to help the student groups perform larger works.

This semester, we are preparing to sing Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, which I performed once before with University Chorus in 2003. This piece is being programmed a lot this year because of the bicentennial of the birth of Walt Whitman, whose poems comprise most of the text of the work. As luck would have it, the Smith College Alumnae Chorus is also singing the work this year; I will be joining our July tour to Slovenia, where we will sing two performances.

Most of my singing for the past year has been either in church services or with ABC, whom I can sometimes sing to sleep. Not exactly the caliber of singing required for Vaughn Williams. Fortunately, our director, Bill Culverhouse, is very good at getting our bodies and brains engaged, so I actually managed to acquit myself quite well, helped by the fact that we worked on the third movement, “Reconciliation”, in which we second sopranos get to sing a lovely, lyrical passage twice. It’s also one of the movements that stayed with me over the last decade and a half since I learned it. Some of the other sections are going to be a bit harder to get back in my head.

It is also hard to get used to rehearsing with a much smaller group. I was used to University Chorus being 80-100 voices and being one of about fifteen second sopranos. It’s somewhat more daunting to be one of five seconds in a group of about thirty. I anticipate doing a significant amount of preparation at home, as I did when we sang music related to St. Mark’s in Venice in December 2017.

I was very happy to see some of my singing friends again. And even happier to be singing together again.

* In looking back at this post, which explains a lot of my experience with the transition itself, there are several things that didn’t happen in the way I had anticipated. My mom, who had then been in hospice care, was decertified in October of 2018, and, while continuing to suffer from congestive heart failure, is happily still with us. The visa process for daughter E has been a much longer slog than we had thought. She and ABC are still living with us, probably until August of 2019. Lastly, the University Chorus hiatus was longer, as this academic year we are singing in the second semester rather than the first.
*****
Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/29/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-29th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/

balance

I’m opting to use the Just Jot It January prompt today, which is “balance.”

A large company in our area used to promote the concept of work/life balance.

They don’t anymore.

Now it is work/life “integration.”

This seems to mean that the employee is supposed to squeeze the rest of their non-work life and responsibilities into gaps in their work life. It also means that work can lay claim to what used to be personal/family time, such as evenings, weekends, and vacation, expecting monitoring of work email and helping to address problems over the phone.

I don’t think this is good for the employees, their families, or the business. It’s easy for workers to burn out and that is not good for anybody.

Let’s try to get back in balance.
*****
Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/25/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-25th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/

lunar eclipse

ABC didn’t sleep very well last night and I was helping out.

We looked together at the moonlight casting shadows on the snow in the backyard. We are experiencing a super moon, meaning that the moon is at its closest to the earth in its orbit, so the moon appears a bit larger.

By the time ABC went to sleep, the lunar eclipse was about halfway to totality. It was too cold for B and me to go out in the yard to observe it, but we could see it from our large, south-facing kitchen windows.

Even though it was called the “super blood wolf moon eclipse”, in our area the eclipsed moon seemed more greenish-white than red, probably due to our atmospheric conditions.

During totality, ABC woke up, so I was in her room for quite a while. By the time I could look out the kitchen windows again, the bright light of the moon was back, casting moonshadows from our trees on the snow.

For the record, I did eventually get some sleep myself…
*****
Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/21/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-21st/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/

digging out

This morning we are digging out from a major snowstorm. We got about a foot (350 cm) of snow with a layer of ice buried in it from a period of freezing rain in the wee hours of the morning.

B and I went to work after a sustaining breakfast of steel-cut oats. He wrangled our big orange Ariens snowblower. It’s old, having belonged to my dad for many years; we inherited it when they finally hired someone to clear snow a few years before they moved into an apartment. Despite its age, it is still very powerful, so B set to work clearing the driveway and walk, as I tackled finding the buried Bolt.

B pulled out a large pushbroom for me from the garage; no little snowbrush was going to do. I brushed snow down onto the driveway that B had cleared and then used a shovel to get it onto the snowbanks.

The snow and ice combo was so heavy that I cracked a plastic shovel and had to move on to a metal one.

The freezing rain had coated the car doors, but I eventually was able to get into the Bolt and start it up so I could blast both the front and rear defrosters. Later in the day, we plan to move the Pacifica out to the driveway and put the Bolt inside so we can plug it into its charger to keep the battery conditioned, as we are expecting temperatures below zero Fahrenheit (-18 C) tonight and only single digits (-15 C) tomorrow.

By the time I had gotten the Bolt free, I couldn’t feel my toes, despite my heavy socks and boots. B wasn’t done, though. He raked the snow off the metal garage roof, used the snowblower to clear that away, and then took the snowblower across the street to help a neighbor who was attempting to clear his driveway, including the area that had been plowed in from the street, with a shovel.

We are both back inside for the rest of the day. The roads are still snowy and there is a state of emergency in effect, which means that there should be no unnecessary travel.

Maybe it is time for some hot coffee for B and white hot chocolate for me…
*****
Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/20/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-20th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/

SoCS: Sesame Street

Thirty years ago, our television was often tuned to Sesame Street on our local public broadcasting channel. It was an hour long and we followed the story lines of the human and Muppet characters. We had Sesame Street songs on cassette and some Sesame Street toys. We even had a Sesame Street songbook that served us well for many years and often sat on the music rack of our piano.

Now, our television is sometimes tuned to Sesame Street on our television, which is much thinner but with a bigger screen than it was thirty years ago. We still have it on our local public broadcasting station, but the episodes, which are only a half hour, are delayed by months, as the series is now on HBO. I admit that it bothers me, although I know that they needed to make the change to keep the series going.

Our granddaughter ABC, like many other young children, is more likely to watch Sesame Street segments on a tablet or smartphone. And, unlike our old cassettes, there are no tangles of tape as they got used often.

I hope that Sesame Street will continue to be produced around the world for many more years to come. I want it to be there for ABC’s children, too.
*****
Join us for Just Jot It January and/or Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Today’s prompt was “television.” Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/18/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-19th/ 
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/