Wednesday night there was a delightful Nature program on PBS, called My Life as a Turkey. I tried to stay awake but kept nodding off. The story is of Joe Hutto’s amazing journey of self-discovery while raising sixteen wild turkey poults to adult turkey-hood. We frequently see wild turkeys in these parts and it was fun learning more about them. Fortunately I can see the parts of the program I missed at this link. Should you decide to watch it, I promise, it will melt your heart!
Thursday morning Larisa called from New York. “Mom! I occupied Wall Street!” You go, girl! (Corporate greed is one of my pet peeves.)
My hand is without bandage now, still red and tender but the surrounding skin was developing a rash from the bandage adhesive which kind of forced the issue.
Tried some recipes in a slow cooker vegan cookbook with mixed results. Tim is happier going back to the Carol Gelles cookbook. He loved the Broccoli Florets & Red Bell Peppers with Black Beans & Garlic! We had it with brown rice. And it was fun cooking it!
Another birdhouse group at the Florence Griswold Museum: #14. “Back Through the Wardrobe” by Erik Block Design-Build, based on The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe.
10.26.11 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut
10.26.11 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut
10.26.11 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut
10.26.11 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut
Dr. Mel Goldstein
Thursday evening Dr. Mel gave his special farewell forecast on WTNH8 TV. He’s been our favorite weather man for well over two decades. We will miss him very much, as he seems like a dear friend, who has advised us wisely through many a storm. He was a meteorology professor before becoming a television weatherman, and taught us many things while reporting the weather. He has battled with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow, for many years, far outliving the doctors’ dire predictions that he only had a three-year life expectancy. But lately the cancer has flared up again, forcing him to retire. More about this wonderful man here: Dr. Mel Goldstein
UPDATE: Sadly, Dr. Mel died on January 18, 2012. Rest in peace, our friend.
lower branches of Dad’s chestnut tree in his garden ~ 6.21.09 ~ Storrs, Connecticut
“We lost the chestnut tree.”
My sister delivered the most important news first. On Sunday we had last talked on our cell phones, and she let me know then that they had lost power at our father’s house, courtesy of the freak Halloween Nor’easter that caught Connecticut by surprise this past weekend, dumping over a foot of heavy wet snow on most of the state. Dad had a cold, and they had the wood stove going trying to keep him warm. Then her cell phone went dead and I heard nothing further.
This afternoon, two days later, she finally was able to make it down to her office and call me from work. They have their power back now, but still no land line or cell phone service. Beverly says I won’t believe the damage up there, although I am seeing many news reports on TV. Apparently the state lost more trees in this storm than we did during Hurricane Irene. With the wood stove they were able to keep Dad’s room at 70°F (21°C), although like many elderly ones, he doesn’t feel comfortable until the temperature is about 80°F (27°C).
When my father was a young man – he is now 89 years old – he found the chestnut sapling in Pennsylvania and brought it home with him, transplanted it in Connecticut soil, and nurtured it to a full-grown, gorgeous tree. When his short-term memory started disappearing several years ago, he would tell me the story over and over, every time I went up for a visit, which used to be several times a week. He looked forward to seeing it outside his window every morning, and was very attached to it, his special tree.
In June of 2010 it bloomed! A lovely scent filled the air. I’ll never forget it.
We used to decorate it with flower garlands for Midsummer.
And now the Halloween Nor’easter of 2011 has uprooted it. Beverly reports that when Dad discovered what had happened he simply said, “This is demoralizing.” I cried when she told me. The storm also took the tops off several oak trees and the yard and the roads are a mess. Poor trees. They’ve taken such a beating this year…
Each that we lose takes a part of us; A crescent still abides, Which like the moon, some turbid night, Is summoned by the tides. ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1634)
My next post was supposed to be about furniture arrangements and home decorating, but I’ve stalled big time. I’m hoping this week will be more productive as many things are sliding here on the home-front. Had a very annoyingly busy week and then when the time finally came to get back to finish moving the furniture I became glued to the TV, trying to comprehend all that was and still is happening in Japan. Sometimes the mundane things in life start to feel pointless. But then I guess that’s the horror of it, so many people with their lives interrupted or cut short – it’s overwhelming to try to take in… I don’t know anyone there, but I know that each life lost was the most important person in the world to somebody, and for them my heart breaks.
“Japan’s recent massive earthquake, one of the largest ever recorded, appears to have moved the island by about eight feet (2.4 meters), the US Geological Survey said.”
“The quake probably shifted the position of Earth’s axis about 6.5 inches, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge.”
These numbers boggle my mind. In one sense we’re safely spinning through space on our relatively little blue spaceship, but when the planet starts readjusting itself it abruptly reminds us of how precious this life is, and how precarious in the grand scheme of things, whatever that scheme ultimately proves to be.
I feel something like a Who on the speck of dust in Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” We feel so very small in the face of this. Such a pale little blue dot, our earth. But such a cataclysmic upheaval of our big beautiful and often frightening planet.
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. ~ Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot)
As I’m writing this some of the lyrics of Pig, one of Dave Matthews’ older songs, one of my favorites, come back to me with added poignancy:
Isn’t it strange How we move our lives for another day Like skipping a beat What if a great wave should Wash us all away Just thinking out loud Don’t mean to dwell on this dying thing But looking at blood It’s alive right now Deep and sweet within Pouring through our veins Intoxicate moving wine to tears Drinking it deep Then an evening spent dancing It’s you and me This love will open our world From the dark side we can see a glow of something bright There’s much more than we see here Don’t burn the day away ~ Dave Matthews ♫ (Pig) ♫
All we have is this moment. Let us not burn our days away…
Sometimes you get there in spite of the route Losing track of your life and what it’s about The road seems to know when to straighten right out… I could wonder if all of it led me to you I could show you the arrows and circles I drew I didn’t have a map, it’s the best I could do On the fly and on the run ~ Mary Chapin Carpenter ♫ (Elysium) ♫
Yesterday I was thinking about posting a few recent pictures taken on another walk with Bernie when a morning thunderstorm came through, kind of unusual for these parts. Off went the computer and off I went to enjoy the storm while paying bills – ugh – and finishing reading The Maytrees by Annie Dillard. The book was set in Provincetown, and although the story took place in a time period previous to our days there, it was enjoyable reading a book and being able to picture so clearly the streets and the dunes and the fishermen…
7.15.10 ~ Storrs, Connecticut
A few years ago while researching my ancestors, I came across a story about the sudden death of one of my 8th-great-grandfathers, William Shurtleff, who was born in 1624 in England, and died on 23 June 1666 at Marshfield, New Plymouth Colony, now Massachusetts, age 42. Whenever there is a thunderstorm I think of him, and his wife Elizabeth, who lived on to marry two more husbands. To me, the story illustrates how precarious life is, and that people in other generations have also had strings of incredibly bad luck. Helps to keep life’s annoying chores in perspective…
When William came to America he was apprenticed as a carpenter, and later became a surveyor. Early in the year 1666, William & Elizabeth’s house was destroyed by fire. Their neighbor, John Phillips, gave the couple and their two sons, William and Thomas, shelter in his home. Elizabeth was pregnant with their third son. According to Benjamin Shurtleff, in his book, Descendants of William Shurtleff of Plymouth and Marshfield, Massachusetts, Vol I:
While [William Shurtleff] was partaking of the hospitality of Mr. Phillips, it appears that one of those dreadful droughts occurred which were so very distressing to our early planters and which threatened to destroy all the the fruits of their spring labor. On this account the good people of several neighboring congregations observed a day of fasting and prayer as they were wont to do in those days when suffering afflictive dispensations. Soon after this, on June 23, 1666, happened the terrific thunderstorm which is so graphically described in a letter of Rev. Mr. Arnold. At the time of this storm there were fourteen people in the common sitting-room of the house of Mr. Phillips. … They were mostly seated around the room. Mr. Shurtleff was sitting beside his wife, holding her hand in his and having one of their children in his arms, the other being between him and a table, under which was a dog. The storm of rain came on with great violence and Mrs. Phillips requested to have the door closed. Whereupon a stroke of lightning passed down the chimney, which it rent to pieces, smote down most of the people if not all, instantly killing Mr. Shurtleff, Mrs. Phillips and Jeremiah Phillips, and then passed out through the door, splitting it into fragments. This occurred on Saturday and they were buried on the following day, being the twenty-fourth, according to an entry made in the Marshfield town records.
The third son, Abiel, was born soon after this tragedy.
Abiel Shurtleff was born soon after the untimely death of his father and there was a considerable debate as to what his name should be. By some it was thought that he should be called after Boanerges (Children of Thunder), as mentioned in the New Testament; but the difficulty of converting the plural name into the singular number fortunately prevailed against the infliction of an appellation which was far from being euphonious. The scriptural name Abiel, which interpreted into English from the Hebrew, signifies ‘God, my father,’ was adopted as the most satisfactory, since it was sufficiently indicative of his posthumous birth.
William lies buried in the Old Winslow Burying Ground in Marshfield, Massachusetts.
So the bills got paid and the ancestors were remembered by this descendant… Thank you, Mother Earth, for your electrifying reminders.
