Written Saturday, November 28th, 2015

Hi Mom and Nancy,

Yesterday I was pretty easy but I got some important things done. After meeting with my friend Sylvia for coffee, I went down to the Chase bank where they know me, withdrew most of that HFOG money, and divided it up among my husband, my kids, and charity. I bought tickets on-line for next weekend at John and Kathy's. During the evening Dale Sr. started the fire for the turkeys and pork roasts that he will smoke tomorrow, and I took notes on the process so that I can help more with it in the future.

I was sorry to hear from Sylvia that Saturnino, the young man whom she helped so much during his high school years, has gone back to live with his grandmother. While with Sylvia he lost weight, graduated from high school, got a job, and had to take part in household chores. She had even taken classes to become a foster parent, because she thought he might end up moving in with her (he did, for three years, with the grandmother's blessing). What's good is that Sylvia feels, as do I, that the important thing is that she helped him when he really needed it and taught him many valuable skills.

Also, while with her, he got to re-connect with his father, whom he had not seen since he was a small boy. Sylvia took Saturnino with her when she went on her summer road trip to visit her Ohio relatives, and they made a side-trip to visit Saturnino's father, who was originally from Guatemala. (The mother took the kids and left, and then left the kids with the grandmother.)

Sylvia always connects with one of whatever group of students she is working with that year. She needs a strong teenager to help with the chores at her apartment building (where she spends most of each Saturday, fixing things and doing maintenance). So it's a first job for the kid, and she often tutors them and helps them with homework as well. Win-win situation.

Sylvia is still extremely obese, it's sad to see how that condition hurts her in her life. She lost thirty pounds after the lap-band operation. She has already had two operations (pelvic band, and back) which I don't think she would have needed if she were slimmer. 

At the bank, I withdrew most of the HFOG money. My plan with this money was to divide it by five. My fifth of it would go to charity every year (the first year I chose Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam) and 4/5ths of it I'd invest in a second account with Peter Smith, with the dividends from that account divided among my husband and children.
 
But the second year we got the money, almost all of it went to taxes, as I'd forgotten to set aside an amount for the taxes due on the increase of income.

This year almost all of them have a need for extra money.  (I will save the receipts for the cashier's checks because I know there will be a gift penalty.) Dale Jr. is buying a second house with more room for the kids, and will keep the first house for a while while he does some repairs on it in order to sell it. Lyssa and Mike are planning to buy five acres of land, going in on it with his parents. And Brian and Marie have had such a year (taking care of her ill family and extra work involved in the new bakery Marie is setting up in her friends' restaurant) that he has not been able to work as much at the welding place.

I feel it's only right for me to give away my share of the HFOG money because I'm so opposed to "fracking". At first I said I would refuse it, but Nancy pointed out that that would only mean more money for our Louisiana cousins. And Brian pointed out, "it's our money, eventually, too!"

I have not given away all of my share yet because I don't have funds on hand to pay property taxes or to buy all of the airline tickets I need this month. But I've kept track of how much of the HFOG money I've spent, and I will give that much to charity from my own account before too long.

After my visit to the bank, I went to the nearest Starbucks and bought the ones for this coming weekend, on-line.

Dale was starting to get the big cement-block smoker ready. First he used a flat-bottom shovel to clean out all of the old, cold coals from the last time the big smoker was used, which was in early March for Lyssa and Mike's Arizona wedding reception.

 
I made notes and took some photos, as I would like to be able to do part of the long process as it's so tiring for him. He poured in a large bag of chunk charcoal (actual pieces of small logs, not all processed like most charcoal you see) and started it on fire by aiming a propane weed-burner at it for several minutes. All evening he would add a log to it now and then, and he also put the grate right on top of the fire to burn off all of the "gunk" on it.

I need to straighten up the house. Since neatening it up a couple of Sundays ago, I have kept it neater than I used to, but the dining room table has sewing mess and framing-picture mess still on it, and the floor needs sweeping.




Love, Lennie

Written November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, 2015

Hi Mom,

It's quite cold this morning. Dale Sr. is still sleeping. I woke early because I want to straighten up the house before going to meet my friend Sylvia for coffee and do other errands which may take up most of the morning. Even after my third cup of coffee, I still feel tired!

We had a really nice Thanksgiving, though it seemed strange not to be doing any cooking. The visit to Dale Jr. and Michelle's was around 9:AM because she wanted to get the kids down for a nap before going over to her Mom's for Thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon. Lil called to wish us Happy Thanksgiving. I went up to Starbuck's, and as I went through e-mail and Facebook, received many more Thanksgiving messages there, including yours, Nancy! In the late afternoon we drove in to Marie's parents for Thanksgiving dinner with their loud, friendly family.

The morning visit to Dale Jr. and Michelle and kids went really well. She had asked that we come early so that she could get the two little ones down for a nap before they went over to Michelle's parents. Little Shayla mostly slept and nursed, but sometimes she was awake and alert. She still looks more like a newborn than Lyssa's Waylon did when he was born!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera over there.

At the last minute, before we left, I'd got the idea of taking materials over for Shelby to make Thanksgiving cards for Michelle's sister and mom. I had colored construction paper left over from the drama club's prop-making. I took tan for the body of the card, brown for the body and head of the turkey, and about five other colors for the feathers.

At first, Shelby, who is in the blasé early teen stage,  stayed in the big chair at the other side of the room. She looked at her "tablet" and absolutely refused to take part in making the cards, in spite of her parents' urging. But when I took the brown paper with the outline of the turkey drawn on it over to her, she was eventually was willing to cut it out while sitting in her chair. I breathed a sign of relief when she finally relented, as I didn't want to be the cause of what seemed to be a common frustration on her parents' part, "that she never wants to do anything anymore".

Ethan was very interested in the scissors. We had him sit at a little chair at the coffee table and, holding the scissors in a very strange way, he continued for half an hour cutting bits of paper, some of which were shaped enough like feathers that they could be glued on the turkey. I was quite impressed that he concentrated on this new skill for so long, Dale Jr. coaxing him into making some of them longer and thinner.

After the basic turkey shapes were on the card, I gave them to Shelby to write "Happy Thanksgiving" on them with the "Sharpie" marker I'd brought. She spent quite a while on them, also writing "to my most favorite auntie" on Michelle's sister's card, and a message to her grandmother on the other, in very neat, competent printing.

So that project was a success. Having something to do, rather than just sitting around chatting, seemed to relax Michelle, I think as a shy person she felt less "on the spot". She was quite friendly. Also, the cards were a way of sending good wishes to Michelle's family.

After the cards were done, Dale Jr. put about five little dots of glue on a yellow half-sheet of construction paper, and showed Ethan how to glue one of his tiny bits of paper by pressing it on a dot. Ethan got very interested, and immediately started pressing his little bits of paper onto the dots. Dale Sr., on the other side of him, made more dots, and here's the resulting art-work:

After he was finished, little Ethan turned to his mom, who was sitting right behind him on the couch holding Shayla, and said, rather under his breath, "Can I have my tablet please" and he was back to doing games on it.

When we were saying goodby, Ethan jumped up and down, his arms going up and down, saying, "Good bye, Good bye, goodbye!" a jump for each "Good bye".

I did the same, which cracked him up. He repeated his jumping and goodbyes, which made me laugh and do it again, and he did it again, laughing, and I did it again, and he did it again, and I did it again. My ankles and feet are okay this morning, but sometimes the soreness doesn't come until the second day after.

During the conversation, Michelle mentioned that Shelby had had to have her intestine operated on while a tiny baby. The end of it near her colon was "dead" and they had to pull it out, cut the dead part out, and sew it back together. Repeated hospital visits after that were required to push a rod into her anus to make sure that scar tissue did not close the intestine back up again.

At Starbucks, "Pastor Dave" one of my favorite people that I always see there, wished me Happy Thanksgiving. I shook his hand and told him that I was grateful to have him as a friend. A rare combination, a "Bible Christian" who is also liberal in his politics. We always ask each other how we are doing. If something is bothering me I summarize it for him and he always seems to have something to say which makes me feel better. Likewise, he tells me if he is struggling with a cold, etc.

He also has a little band which plays mostly Beatles and Elvis.

Lil's call was short and nice. She seemed surprised that our Thanksgiving Dinner would be in the evening. She said that they were all finished with their meal.

We drove into Marie's parents at around 5:15, just when the late afternoon sun was right in our eyes. Everyone was warm and welcoming. Diana looked well in spite of her cancer ordeal this past year, though she's put on even more weight.

Lawson and Marie did all of the cooking.

 

It's been a difficult year for Lawson and Marie, and also for Marie's dad, Sante. (In New Jersey, which is where they are all from, this Italian name is pronounced "Sant" to rhyme with "ant") Marie's dad. Lots of chauffering, not just Diana to her appointments, but also chauffering Diana's former-druggie sister Teresa to her many doctor appointments, because Diana used to do all of that for her sister.

Lawson has also spent many hours helping Marie get ready to open the bakery part of that bakery-restaurant where she now works. She is really happy to be back cooking, so far, she says, the restaurant-bakery has been a success.


Speaking of baking, this was our dessert. Part of the topping of the cupcakes is persimmon seeds.

This was the first time that we had seen Lawson in a long time. Whenever I have talked to him on the phone and ask him how he was doing and if he would like to have lunch together, he would just give say "Oahhh..." ending in a kind of shudder.

There were about five other relatives there, a loud and friendly group. Everyone was very pleasant to each other, though Marie's cousin Teresa has upset everyone this year by using drugs again, and by striking her unwell mother in anger, Lawson told me. The relatives who had come out from West Virginia were quite nice and friendly.

This is a photograph of Teresa:

So that was it for yesterday. When we got in the truck and  Dale Sr. drove the thirty minutes home, I fell sound asleep and woke up only as the car slowed to turn onto our little dirt street!

Love, Lennie

Written November 25, 2015 4:30 AM

Hi Mom,

For the past couple of days I haven't had to have my usual energy level, and everything has seemed to take twice as long as it should. First I do a couple of hours of work outside (pruning, watering, raking, etc.) and then I feel like taking a nap. That's not usually how I am, wanting to take a nap mid-morning. I'm still having quite a bit of phlegm coughed up in the morning, even a month after having that "monster cold".

Along with the low energy comes a resurgence of the unhealthy craving for a mid-morning snack as well, as if that will bring my energy level back! Largely because of that mid-morning snack and another late-evening one, my food intake both days has been at a level which won't make me gain weight, but won't make me lose either.

It's just a choice, that's all. One just has to decide what is more important in life. What continues to amaze me is how those cravings for extra food can continue to feel like such a strong need, when they are not a need.

I have accomplished some things. I have kept the front part of the house   basically neat (almost a week and a half now!) I did practice guitar and singing the night before last, and yesterday I finished Helen's letter Tuesday, and printed it out at the library between my tutoring session and stopping in at the Boys' and Girls' Club.

At my tutoring session yesterday, we started going through my travel website to make a list of what still needs to be done before I feel ready to "put the word out" about it. We checked whether links worked,  making links if they hadn't been made, and making a note of what content still needs writing. We only got a little bit of the way, but it felt like a good thing to do. (I already have over thirty pages of content on the site, but some categories still do not have enough content.)

 It was Dale Sr.'s birthday today. I said "good morning, Happy Birthday" and asked him if he'd slept well.

"Yeah, pretty much", he said. "Until he gets chasing whatever he's chasing down the street down your back." (Referring to Ziggy having a dream during the night and starting to "run" in his sleep.)

When I was transferring Helen's letter to Microsoft Word so that I could print it, a girl of about ten was trying to print out something, talking over me to her Mom on the other side of me. I realized that I recognized her from the Boys' and Girls' Club, and told her mother that that's where I'd seen her. That's one of the nice things about working with kids in a small town, you get that kind of thing happening.

(It used to happen when I worked in the schools, and I didn't realize how much I'd missed it, until I started volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club, and it started happening again.)

My "business cards" came, and I really like them!

Here is a photo of one of my business cards.

 The "personal website" mentioned does not have any content on it yet, except for the above  "mandala" style drawing on the home page. It is not a website aimed at the general public, but rather I plan to give the cards to people whom I meet in person.

It felt really great stopping by the Boys and Girls Club because they were so glad to see me! I had dreaded the errand because I felt bad about not being able to do the drama club this fall, though I knew that it was the only way to "get things going" there again. I apologized for not being there so long, and told the young women at the desk about staying in British Columbia longer than I'd planned, coming back and getting sick, and then my car being in the shop.

The young woman who is the front desk manager (while the usual one is out for the month to have her baby) said that she'd noticed my program when she started working there late in the spring, and she'd really liked what I was doing.

I ventured that even though it was too late to start drama club this fall, I'd like to basically start coming in to just help out.
 If I did that once or twice a week, I could start getting to know the kids that were there this fall. She said they didn't see why I couldn't start doing the drama club, anyway.

"Yeah, I could start preparing them for whatever I will have them perform in the spring." (That was really what I had wanted to do, but had feared that it would not make sense to them to start a program a month before the holidays.)

I went home to eat a something, but realized that I would have to go back up to Starbucks.  I'd told Dale Jr. I would look up the locations of the Chase banks in Tempe, so we could meet today to route the money for my part of the down payment on his house.
I e-mailed him the location of the most conveniently-located bank, and he called back to say that he would call me because he'd had the flu and didn't know if we'd be meeting at a bank close to here, or the one in Tempe.

While at Starbucks I noticed the full moon, and stepped outside to take a photo of it. I had to really crouch down a bit and shoot looking up, to get the strip mall buildings out of the photo! 

I was pretty pleased with it and posted it on Facebook. A friend "messaged" me right away and said it was so beautiful she'd be "sharing it" meaning she'll post it on her timeline and all of her friends will see it, in addition to all of my friends. 

I ended up spending most of the evening at Starbucks because I suddenly got motivated (I think it was the arrival of the "business cards") to schedule a gardening meetup. I'd not scheduled one ever since I scheduled one and those two unpleasant women showed up. But I have also told myself that I should still keep trying, no matter what, because I know there are some gardeners out there whom I would like to know. 

Then I went ahead and made some changes to my "healthy eating" meetup, which has had no success at all.

All this took quite a bit of time, on an evening when I should have been finishing little Shayla's second blanket.

Love, Lennie

Written November 23, 4:00 AM

Hi Mom,

Yesterday I finally went to the laundromat, for first time for quite a while, because of not having a car.

I also went to Michaels (a craft and hobby and home decor chain) to get some picture frames for the two fishing photos which Dale Sr. has been wanting to put on the wall in his garage over on 5th. Ave.

I also took three or four other photos and/or drawings with me, which I wanted to get frames for.

I got all the frames picked out, only to get up to the cash register and realize that the "wood" frames I'd picked out were actually plastic.

For some reason this infuriated me. I went back to the picture frame area, and it took quite a while to first find where I'd gotten the first frames and put them back, and then search for the  few which were actually made of wood. By the time I got back to the cash registers the lines were quite long. 

Here's one of the fishing photos, framed:

The entire huge store was so crammed with holiday decorations and ornaments that it was enough to put one off the idea of Christmas all together! (Actually, I'm as bad as anyone at getting sentimental over holiday stuff, but when it's all in your way as you're trying to get through a crowded store, it takes away some of the magic.)

A young Hispanic woman was buying a huge sheaf of golden branches and some gold ornaments, with her little daughter. I told her how pretty they were and her eyes shone.

"Yes, aren't they! Our tree has always been just red and white, but I just wanted to add a little something different this year," she said.

I barely had time to get up to Laure's house by the time she and I had arranged.

She really liked the gifts I brought her.  The tiny opal dragonfly pendant I got her for her birthday, and the Frida Kahlo card, and the art nouveau magnets I brought back from Brussels for her.

It was nice to be able to cheer her up, because is having a difficult time. She is still teaching full-time, and on top of that, each day, is also driving all the way into Phoenix to do hours of interning as a counselor, plus extra hours of internship on Saturdays. 
She said she has dozed off at work, which can get one in huge trouble of course. It worries me because her daily schedule includes an hour and a half or so of freeway driving!

She loves the counseling she does during the interning hours, and is convinced that she is making the right career change for her, in spite of all of the difficulty.

I didn't say so, but her obesity must add tremendously to how tired she gets from such a punishing schedule. And she hasn't lightened up on her social life either; she was fitting me in between finishing a long homework assignment and going to a gathering of her pagan group.

She really liked the idea of the "business cards" I had ordered, she got hers through Vistaprint also. She hadn't seen the drawing I did for the home page of my personal website, the one which is like a mandala with sketches representing all of my different interests fanning out from the center. I brought up the website and showed it to her. She got very excited about the drawing, and the whole idea of the personal non-business website, which of course made me feel good.

Here's a photo of the sunrise this morning:

Love,
Lennie

Nov 22-21-20

Hi Mom,

It's Sunday morning, the wind whipping around outside, "Sunday Morning" on the TV, (one of the few TV programs we both like) a fire in the Ben Franklin. Dale Sr. is in the kitchen making one of his famous omelets, with zucchini and aged cheddar.

The big news is that I've actually kept my front rooms free of clutter, and the bathroom clean, for almost seven straight days now. Sunday a week ago I worked really hard to clean up a very dirty, very cluttered living room, dining room, and kitchen, because I had a music jam scheduled.

Cleaning up my messy house when company is coming is something I've done so many times before, but never before have I kept those rooms straightened free of clutter for this long. This is a "first" for me!

Wow, at any time this past week, any time, someone could have come over and I wouldn't have been embarrassed! It takes a while for that fact to sink in! I could actually say to someone, "Stop by any time next week, just give me a call to make sure that I'm home." Or, "Why don't you just have dinner with us tonight?" I could actually say that!




Here's a photo of my dining room table with only one project on it!

I have found out the psychological reason why I have never kept my front rooms straightened for this long. I hate putting things away from the last activity before starting the next, I just hate it!  The clenching teeth kind of "hate it"! The pull within me to "just leave it" is as strong as the pull I sometimes get, to eat something "just a little something" more, when I've already eaten enough for me to stay the size I want to be.

What I'm hoping is that the little hated pauses I've taken many times this week, to stop and put things away (what a concept!) will become a habit. In the way, stopping eating as soon as I've eaten a healthy amount has become a habit, and not so difficult as it used to be (though whenever I'm stressed, it still is difficult).

Regarding my "back rooms": (dance room, bedroom, guest room and shop building) some serious de-cluttering, weeding out, bookshelf-building and organizing must be done before I can start doing clutter-free maintenance on them!  

I've had an annoying crick in my neck for the last few days. I couldn't figure out what caused it, and then I realized that for the entire seven miles I walked on Wednesday, every time I passed a cross street, I looked back over my left shoulder to make sure that no car was ready to turn into that street I was about to cross!

Thursday morning I finally finished going through my huge backlog of bills and paperwork. I also started writing a letter to Helen.

I had my computer tutoring session that day, in the early afternoon, and I asked my computer tutor to help me find an on-line program for some business cards. Of course they are not for a business, they are personal cards. The site he found was Vistaprint, and I since I could get 100 cards for 5.99 I went ahead and ordered 250 for twice that, five more for shipping.
My tutor was so impressed with the site that he decided to order some new business cards for himself, as well.

The purpose for the cards is to facilitate connections. Without the cards, for instance, if I meet someone who is interested in my travel meetup, I would have to write down the URL link for them, and the most efficacious version of that link has a very long string of numbers at the end of it.

With the cards, I will just have to circle one of the nine categories on the back of the card, and write a couple of short words on the line at the bottom. On the front of the card is my name, the URL of my personal website, my phone number, my e-mail address, and my post office box.

The person only has to type in the URL of the website, and make two more clicks, and in front of them will be the link to the actual meetup.com page they need to join the travel club.

The other reason for the cards is that I have also noticed that I tend to lose little pieces of paper with contact information on them which people give me, but I don't tend to lose cards.

We found a design with ivy growing up both sides of the front, which I liked.

Also, it's my hope that once they click on the home page of the website, and see my beautiful mandala drawing on the home page, they'll go "wow, what an interesting person" (ha ha) and be more likely to actually carry through on whatever we talked about.

On the website itself, I do not have my phone number, nor my e-mail address. The card gives that information, but the card would be given only people whom I actually had had "face-time" with.

Maybe now that I have ordered the cards, I'll actually finish the website!

While in Starbuck's, I saw on Facebook that Lyssa posted  that little Waylon gets more fun every day!

I got my car back Thursday, late in the afternoon! So glad to have it back. It has been so long since I've driven a car that I actually felt a little bit like I'd forgotten how to drive. Yesterday I took another short drive and it felt better.

Yesterday and the day before I have been pretty productive: some watering, yard upkeep, and re-potted a plant which had outgrown its pot, started de-cluttering the patio.

 I also finished one of the two blankets that I am making for little Shayla. 

Speaking of Shayla, I still have not seen Dale Jr.'s new daughter, because some of the phlegm from that cold I had still keeps hanging on. They are coming over on Thanksgiving for a little while, before they go to Michelle's sister's for dinner. (We have been invited to Marie's parents home for Thanksgiving dinner.)

I told Dale Jr. that I thought Thanksgiving (when they stop by) would be a good germ-free time to see the new baby because we will be hanging around outside in the back yard.

Last night I called Dale Jr., and we arranged a time to meet at a Tempe bank during his lunch hour, to do the $$ routing to his realtor for the home they are buying. Wednesday I have an Arabic lesson so I'll be in Tempe anyway, and his office is only around five miles further west, in Phoenix.

Love, Lennie

P.S. (Optional reading) For the past few days, I have been upset that my state and others have vowed not to accept any Syrian immigrants. Yesterday I went on my general Facebook page which I hadn't been on for about a week. (I try to check my group facebook pages daily, but don't always get to all the many messages on my Facebook home page.) (The groups are my on-line weight loss group, the "Hodges-Mitchell-Gray" page, Dale Sr.'s family's "Family"the travel group page, the beading group page, and the music jam group page---they are relatively quick to check because they average one or two new posts daily.)

Seeing my "home"page for the first time in a week, I was very heartened by all of the "posts" which friends had posted, all protesting that tightening borders against immigrants fleeing terror is the wrong thing to do. On many of these "posts", I left a comment: that closing our borders to people fleeing terror plays right into the hands of the so-called Isis because anything that causes anger against the US makes their recruiting easier. By the time I'd finished looking through all the posts, many little messages had come up at the bottom of the page, that people had "liked" my comment.

(I always say the "so-called Isis" because I hate for that group to have "Islam" used in its name, when the things they do are so against the message of the religion of Islam.)

Written November 19, 2015

Hi Mom,


I usually wake up, get my coffee, and get back into bed with my laptop and coffee, pillows propped up against my back just right.
 
Ziggy jumps excitedly up as soon as Dale Sr. gets up. With great enthusiasm he wolfs  his measured 2 cups of food, gets let outside for a bit, then wants back in and comes back and jumps up on the bed with me again.

Dale Sr. comes in to say goodbye to Ziggy, saying, "Keep my side of the bed warm for me."

 I told him, "Stay right there! That makes such a cute photo that I want to send it to my mom!" and ran to get the camera.
 

My legs are quite sore, because I walked around seven and a half miles yesterday. I walked west to  Power road so that I could take the bus into Tempe. I still don't get my car back until Friday, and I just really did not want to miss another Arabic lesson, nor put off depositing that HFOG check one more day.

(There is a smaller CHASE bank which is closer to me, but I never like to go in there with a gigantic deposit, because there are too many people who go there who know me, and one of their three tellers, a bossy lady who is still there, was once  loud and indiscreet, letting the entire bank know what I should do with that kind of deposit.)

Besides, I've been saying that I wanted to be able to take part in the European Peace Walk next year, which is 6-10 miles a day, so I wanted to see if I could do it. I was pretty worn out by the time I got to the nearest bus station, and my feet and legs were sore by the last couple of miles, especially one of the muscles in my left foot.  I don't think I could do seven miles for two days consecutively.

We will not be doing the European Peace Walk anyway, as the 2016 route through parts of Eastern Europe, and there are all of the refugees trying to get through there. 

My friend Ann has decided to do yet another of the Spanish pilgrimage routes, she has found those walks really satisfying.  . She had always said that she did the pilgrimages for spiritual, but not religious reasons, but that she did feel something very satisfying when she would stop in churches along the way and sit. Now she does seem to be getting somewhat more religious; she has joined some sort of renegade "non-Roman" Catholic church, a small moving congregation which meets in rooms which are attached to different Catholic churches.
 
Here is a drawing I did of Ann, on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. I found a photo in a book about that pilgrim trail, of a person who looked rather like Ann from the back, but that photo showed the person walking in front of a stone wall. I used a combination of two other photos from the book to get the look I wanted for the drawing. Ann says she thinks she remembers just where that place was!

I had the drawing framed and gave it to her.

Tuesday was quite chilly. I kept the fire going in the Ben Franklin most of the day yesterday, though I was sitting right in front of it part of that time. It was that cold, though bright and sunny. (It's supposed to be back up to around 80 by tomorrow.) 

For three days now I have kept to my new resolve to be a cleaner, leaner person, You may remember that I worked so hard Sunday morning to get the front rooms cleaned up because I had guests that afternoon. I have not let the front rooms of the house get cluttered up, nor let the dishes pile up.  I have not eaten between meals nor eat large meals. Now I just have to keep it up!

All I did Tuesday during the day was to I start going through my large backlog of mail. I brought my planner up to date, checking off the things I had got done, and transferring the others to future dates.

I read Helen's letter and enjoyed it. She seems to live a busy, active life in that place, still doing lots of writing, and going for swimming exercise twice a week. She said that most weekends, Nancy or Margaret stops by there to take her on errands, as she decided to give up driving when she was 90.

I still haven't answered her letter, but intend to do so soon.The increased correspondence between her and me, which started when I sent her a copy of my yearly Christmas letter several years ago, has been a nice addition to my life.

I called Arizona Desert Star Automotive mid-afternoon, and they said the Taurus should be ready Friday. The new (rebuilt) transmission has been installed but one of the lines leading to it needs replacing also, and the part hasn't arrived yet.

The newer car I purchased from Lyssa's long-time friend Sarah C. is actually physically parked here now. However, I still don't have the title to it. As soon as I get my old car fixed, I'm going to go up to the DMV and ask what Sarah C. and/or I have to do to get that straightened out.

In the evening I had a party to go to, a "gals' night" at our friend Marilyn's out in Gold Canyon. I added a pretty scarf and earrings to my outfit. I walked to Starbuck's, about a mile, so that I could send you the blog I wrote yesterday, check my e-mail and check in with my weight-loss group.

At Starbucks, a group of  employees was having a lesson on the qualities of a new coffee variety. One of the regular employees had gone to a class to learn how to tout the new coffee. They all seemed to be having a great deal of fun. I asked them if I could take their photo, and later the guy who gave the lesson came over and asked if I could e-mail him the photo.

Dale Sr. picked me up outside oft Starbuck's at 6:00 PM, as arranged, and took me by the post office and out to Marilyn's house.

The party was a great deal of fun, very lively, I really like her group of friends. These are the people whom we spent Halloween weekend with in Jerome. We talked a lot about how much fun that weekend had been. It's nice that my comparatively new friendship with Marilyn has led to me knowing this group.

Marilyn was quite upset that one of the ladies who was someone whom she had not invited. Apparently this person stops by her house several evenings a week, uninvited!  I told her, "Well Marilyn, there's a word which starts with this letter," and made an "N" using unused silverware on the table. The woman on the other side of Marilyn took a juice glass and set it beside the "N" to make the letter "O".  

You can see from the photo of Marilyn and me that her hair is growing back nicely after the chemotherapy.

The only thing I regretted was that one of the couples had to go out of their way to give me a ride home. But I had asked, and I'd been assured that someone would be going my way. 

Yesterday, I walked seven and a half miles to the nearest bus stop. I was surprised that I did get to my 2:00 PM lesson on time, considering that I had to take three forms of public transportation  to get there. 

Here are a few photos from my long walk: the body of water is the canal which brings water here from the Colorado river, and the building is the building which once held Lil's Ranchway Restaurant.

A bus ride only took me to Price Road. Then I had to take the new "Light Rail" train to Rural and University, and another bus south to the Tempe library.

Still very tired, I was glad that there was enough time before the lesson to have a refreshing iced latte in the Tempe Library café.

After my lesson I took the bus back out to Power Road. I got two take-out dinners at the Thai House restaurant, and Dale Sr. came to pick me up.

Love, Lennie

P.S. I've been thinking a great deal about my tutor Hakima's situation, but as it may bore you, I have put what I write about her in the  "addendum" below

My tutor Hakima may have to move back to Jordan, where she has more family members and where she owns an apartment. She has reached retirement age, but the Arabic lessons she gives do not give her enough income to buy the medical policies she needs in addition to medicare. After an attack which put her in the hospital recently, she has a huge hospital bill she cannot pay. The lessons she gives pay her rent and groceries for herself and her aged mother, but no extra.

The family owned a large home in Jerusalem, in fact her former family home is now an Israeli court of justice. (An aunt went back to visit it and that is what she found.)

They moved to Kuwait on the founding of Israel, and she had a long career as a teacher and school administrator there. Then, during the Gulf War, Kuwait made any Palestinians leave their country because Arafat did not join with Kuwait in that war. Which is why she ended up here and other family members went to Jordan.
 
 Many older sisters in educated Arab families refrain from marriage, so that all of their income can go to putting their younger brothers through college. I think that this was what Hakima did. Of course, this leaves the older sister without children to take care of her in her old age, and dependent on other family members.
 
When  Hakima came here, she was already in her 40's. She stayed in the comfort zone of the Arab immigrant community when she and her mother came here. She started giving lessons in reading and writing Arabic to their children. These immigrant parents feel that for their children to truly understand their religion, it is necessary for their children to be able to read their holy book, the Qur'an, in the language it was originally written in. Giving these lessons gave her a subsistence income and things went well for many years, until she and her mother started having health problems.

I suspect, though I do not know, that Hakima felt that she would be rewarded for enabling so many children to understand their religion, that God would take care of her.

Dr. Shbeer, my Arabic 101 professor, on the other hand, ten years younger when she arrived, straight from Gaza and already married, earned both a teaching degree and a Phd in the US. She teaches high school geometry and also night classes in Arabic at MCC, and put five kids through college and will have retirement income. (And plenty of kids to take care of her in her old age.)

Hakima's situation seems rather sad to me. I feel bad for the part that my country played in both of the situations which caused her to leave one country and move to another (Truman's role in the beginning of Israel, and the Gulf War having something to do with her having to leave Kuwait----though it's possible that Kuwait would have made the Palestinians leave whether or not the US had taken part in that war).

Written 5:00 AM Tuesday, Nov. 17th

Hi Mom,

I'm sitting in bed, quilts up to my chin, enjoying my coffee, a refreshingly cold breeze coming through the window.

I didn't seem to get much done at all yesterday, probably because I was too tired from all of the cleaning I had done on Sunday. I did do all the dishes from making the green chile stew the day before (I'd seemed to use every single pot I have!) and tidied up the front rooms. I've never kept my house tidy for any longer than a couple of days, and I'm resolved to turn over a new leaf in that department.

I also found the picture-hanging hardware kit I'd bought and hung the newly-framed pictures in the bedroom, in the corner which I went through and organized last week. It makes me feel good to look at them.

It was a lovely cold sunny-cloudy day, the air so clean from the rain the day before.

The reason that I was so tired was that I'd spent all morning and early afternoon Sunday cleaning the front rooms of my  very messy, dirty house, because I had a music jam "meetup" scheduled that afternoon.  Everything had gotten so bad that cleaning and de-cluttering each area took twice as long as I thought it would. The result was that I only got the dining room, the bathroom, and part of the kitchen done. (The music jams happen around the dining room table.)

I kept wanting to sit down and rest, an urge which I gave into periodically and then would get anxious. I still have some phlegm left over from that monster cold, and I still seem to have less than my usual energy level.

But it sure was nice to see the dining room table all cleaned off and gleaming, and the pictures on the surrounding walls dusted,  and the shelves cleaned off. There were a lot of cobwebs to deal with! And cobwebs anywhere near the kitchen turn into yucky, grimy things, if they are allowed to remain for a while, which they had been!

Also, I finally put the photo of Dale Sr. in the frame which I've been intending to put it in for five months now. It looks really nice. Dale Sr.'s sister Susie took it last summer while they were fishing, and it's the only photo of him that I've ever really liked.
 

It was a chilly, overcast day. Dale Sr. went up on the roof and sent the chimney brush up and down the chimney.

Before each music "meetup" I have to go up to Starbucks. Because I never put my address and phone number on-line, I meet any new people who rsvp to the "meetup" at Starbucks, at 4 PM, and they follow me to my house. People who are repeat attenders (I almost said "repeat offenders") meet at my house at 4:30.

I am always nervous meeting the new people, but this time I was especially nervous. My friend Laure was not able to attend this time, and  not having a car would make the logistics more difficult. I really actually hoped that no new people would have rsvp'd!

Also, I'd forgotten to bring my sign, the sign which lets the new person see that I'm the one for the music meetup. The cardboard sign is a red and black depiction of the word "Meetup" but inside an outline of a guitar. So I drew a large musical note on a page of my planner, and propped it up so it could be seen, hoping the person would get the idea.

It started to pour, the rain coming down outside in puddles.
 

Going on-line to the "meetup" site, I found out that one of the two "repeat offenders" had canceled, and one new person had rsvp'd. By 4:10 they still had not shown up, so I called Dale Sr. and asked him if he could come get me. I had to have time to get back to the house by 4:30, to let the other person in.

As I was getting my stuff together to leave, a very nervous, tall, chubby youngish man in shorts and an oversized tee-shirt came up, extended his hand, and asked if I was Grace. He was accompanied by his wife, a comfortable looking person who asked if it would be all right if she "sat in a corner and crocheted". He was Chris and she was Christina.

It turned out that Chris and his wife had actually been in the Starbucks for ten minutes or so, but he wasn't sure if I was the right person.

"I'm kind of a nervous person," he said.

"Well, it's not that easy for me either," I said. "Meeting new people, it's close to the edge of my comfort zone."

I felt a great deal of good will and enthusiasm on the part of both of them, which helped, of course. Dale Sr. was waiting outside and they followed us to our house.

It turned out to be a really nice evening. He was actually quite a skilled guitarist, but absolutely not used to playing with another person. The first song we did, his stuff didn't seem to have much to do at all with the tempo and changes of the song I was playing chords to.

I said, "Let's try it again, slower."  I played only one chord per measure, slowing the tempo just singing the melody softly without words. It went quite a bit better, he seemed to be able to do stuff which fit the chords and also to keep time. After that, I played the usual rhythm guitar accompaniment, and he got better at fitting what he was doing into the song. 

His wife kept making enthusiastic comments. She said that she'd been wanting him to play with other people for a long time. She sat at the table with us, at first chrocheting, and then petting our long haired Siamese cat. Sharlee, who is so pushy and obnoxious that we don't usually pay her much attention, was in heaven.

The stuff he was playing was quite beautiful, especially when in a minor key. I went through the book finding songs that had a lot of minor chords, and every other verse or chorus I'd say, "Your turn," and he seemed to get progressively more comfortable.

I hadn't realized how out of practice I was; my fingers hurt quite a bit. It will motivate me to start practicing regularly again.

It turned out he had made the guitar he was playing! He'd taken a 6-month intensive program to learn to be a luthier.

I'd made some green chile beef, using some of the chiles from the freezer which Dale Sr. had smoked last year, and we all had that with tortillas. Dale Sr. was affable and friendly, he seemed to take to both of them.

Definitely worth all of the effort!

Love, Lennie

Hi Mom,

I'm up early because I have people coming over this afternoon, and the house is quite a mess. I feel tired and almost wish I'd not arranged this first music "meetup" in more than six months, but I fear that if I had not gone ahead and set it up, I never would have got the group going again.

As Madelyn wrote me in a recent e-mail, "...with all the headlines of the morning paper, with the tragedy in Paris and the continuing steady flow of desperate refugees flooding into Europe, I realize how fortunate we all are, and how small our problems are."

Of course I'm sure it doesn't always look that way from your wheelchair! But you always were a person who could see the big picture.

After my handicraft "meetup" with the two ladies in the photo I sent in the last blog, I purchased a cold "Thai peanut chicken wrap" for lunch in Starbucks and spent several hours there: creating the blog that I sent yesterday, going through e-mail, Facebook, checking meetup messages, etc. It took longer than usual because I had not gone on there in several days.

Lyssa e-mailed some recent photos of Waylon, and I hope she sends them soon to your photo device. The most intense-looking eyes on a baby I have ever seen! His father has very intense eyes.

Someone called my name as I was sitting there, and it was a teacher whose classroom I'd worked in years ago. That was one of my favorite years as a school district employee, because there was an especially nice group feeling among all three of the Special Education teachers that year, the other classroom aide, and I.

This teacher once wrote me a story from his difficult childhood (he had an abusive father who would suddenly erupt in violent rages.) I had mentioned that I wanted some example of that kind of thing, so that I could write a scene about it for the drama club to perform. (The scene did not react the incident, but one of the characters describes it to another student.)

It was so good to see him looking so happy. He had a woman with him who looked like a nice, kind person.
 

Facebook had many posts about the tragedy in France, endemic were pledges of solidarity with France, many people changing their "profile photo" to show it overlaid with the a see-through version of the French flag. (Joan Gray and the Gray brothers did this, for example). But several other people I knew put posts on Facebook pointing out that as many people had been killed the day before in Beirut and no one had posted anything about having solidarity with those victims. Two friends posted messages saying how un-Islamic "Isis" is.

Love, Lennie

On my walk home, I enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

Love, Lennie

Hi Mom,

It's 3 AM, and I decided to get up as I hadn't been able to get back to sleep after waking at 2AM to go for a bathroom visit. Heavy socks, a fleece vest, and a thick furry "throw" are keeping me warm enough as I sit in Dale Sr.'s recliner chair, drinking a cup of broth.

Arriving home Monday night, I was so glad that for the first time in a month or so I would be able to be home for more than three days at a stretch! However, as it turned out, I was again only home for three days, because I had to get to my Travel Meetup in Tempe and my car still isn't fixed, and Dale Sr. was still away on his hunting trip.

I reserved a room in a Motel 6, near the restaurant where are meeting was to be held. I called Dale Jr. and asked him if he could stop by both in the evening and the following morning before he went to work, to let Ziggy out and feed him. My friend Laure gave me a ride to the Tempe motel at 4PM. I checked into the hotel and walked to the restaurant, around a mile away. One of the members gave me a ride back to the motel after the meeting.

The travel meetup went very well. There were six of us, including my three other favorite long-time members, two of whom had been gone all summer. A small enough group to fit into a booth, but large enough to have a spirited conversation. 

You may remember Sandy helping me put photos onto my computer. These photos were to use for a slide show for my presentation on Brussels. The presentation was well-received, and also served as a springboard for interesting travel stories from other members.

I had been concerned because a particular woman had rsvp'd "yes",  a woman who had not attended all summer. This woman
is a person who monopolizes the conversation yet had little interesting to say, and whenever she paused she filled her gaps with "and, uh" so it was difficult for others to jump in without actually interrupting her. 

Also, the only travel she seemed to do was go on cruises, which is not the kind of travel our group is about.

This problem had worried me pretty seriously, because this travel "meetup" has meant so much to me, but I now wondered whether I wanted to keep it going. I'd not enjoyed the two or three meetings when this woman had been there. 

At the same time, I knew that the issue was not a trivial one, as I knew of two other meetups which had actually disbanded because an obnoxious person had started attending.


During the summer, I'd consulted with Nancy about techniques I might use to solve the problem. I'd also talked with others about the subject. Learning techniques for managing a group discussion is a new subject for me and an interesting one. It feels good to have had a problem come up and learned to do something about it. 

(The meeting did go much better than the last time "The Talker" had attended. At the bottom of this blog I discuss ideas on this subject, in case you want to read further detail.)

 The Motel 6 does not have coffee available in the morning in the motel, so I was very glad to get this cup of coffee at Denny's. (The reason my hair looks rather stringy is that Motel 6 does not furnish shampoo either....but the room was only a little over $42, with my senior discount.)

I then walked a couple of miles more to the Tempe Library for my Arabic lesson. It was good to see Hakima again. Health-wise she is not doing to well and may have to move back to Jordan where several of her family members are, and where health care is much more reasonable. She can't afford the Medicare A which pays for hospitalization, and she was recently hospitalized.

After my lesson, I was walking to the bus stop when Brian called to invite us for Thanksgiving Dinner at Marie's parents' home. I was so glad to hear that Diana is well enough now to host Thanksgiving dinner. Of course Marie does all the cooking for it.

 I took the bus back to Power Road, which was as far as it goes. By then it was around 4:00 PM, so I went over to a nearby restaurant to order two dinners-to-go and wait for Dale Sr. to pick me up. Here I am having a beer at the bar of Mi Amigo Mexican Grill (it's a chain, but it was near by) while I wait for the to-go orders. You can see on my face how glad I was to have that long day over!

 Written Saturday afternoon:

This morning I had my "beading, embroidery and handwork" meetup, and I really enjoyed meeting these two ladies:

I started making this necklace:

Have received a letter from Helen but haven't read it yet.

Love, Lennie

P.S. Below, I have some paragraphs about the topic how to handle a person who monopolizes a group discussion, which you may or may not want to read:

A couple of years ago the same problem (someone who talked too much) happened at one of our meetings, but the guy never came back. But I remember what another friend told me after that meeting, a friend who has a lot of experience on committee discussions (she is a member of the Phoenix Council of Foreign Relations) who had come on that particular night to our meeting.

Later, she told me on the phone, "You're the organizer, you need to moderate the discussion so that one person doesn't take over!" 
I could see that she was right, but I feared that I did not have the personality to take over that leadership role.That's just not something I can do, I thought!

 So when the same type of situation reared its ugly head with the present woman, I first consulted with Nancy on techniques for handling such a person. She suggested that this type of person actually has some sort of anxious lack of confidence, which they sound of their own voice compensates for (if I remember you correctly, Nancy.)

 She suggested combining "cutting in, but with a compliment", such as, "So sorry to interrupt, but what you are saying is so interesting, that I can't wait to hear what so-and-so has to say about it!" Nancy said that the compliment would assuage the talker's low self-esteem and make it easier for them to take the fact that someone had stopped them from continuing.  I find both the theory and technique Nancy gave me to be a valuable.

I also talked to a woman who moderated discussion groups for former drug-users, for years, in the prison system. This woman has a photography meetup in Colorado, and she told me that that group refuses to meet in the winter when she is not there, because there is one guy who "goes off on tangents" when she is not there to moderate. Talking with this woman reinforced to me the importance of the moderator's role, in those situations where a problem arises.

I also had consulted with the other long-time members of the travel club: e-mailed our two members who were gone for the summer, (babysitting for their grandchildren in the east coast) and gone to visit another member, Mary, at her home. They were all helpful to bounce ideas off of (such as having more of a format and having that format include a specific place for asking for other opinions.)

Ann, my co-organizer, said,"Sometimes you wonder if such a person has anywhere else to talk!"

Maybe more important, talking to them made me realize how much our club was important to them, which helped give me the courage to take on the leadership role necessary.

So, what did I actually end up doing? Well, a lot of times I just straight-out interrupted "the Talker", and the weird thing is she didn't even seem to notice that I was doing this. I had more confidence to "take action" because I'd discussed the problem with the other members and found out that she bothered them also.  The thought would go through my head, "I'm not having my friends' eyes glaze over in my travel club!" which gave me the courage to be more pro-active.

You remember the photos of Brussels which Sandy was helping me put onto my laptop, for the purpose of giving the group a presentation on my five days there? Giving that presentation seemed to spur the conversation into many different directions, which stretched out the length of the presentation, but also gave me the opportunity to use "let's get back to the presentation" as an excuse to move things along whenever she started going on and on.

Mary, who gave me a ride back to the motel after the meeting, said, "I think our friend did better tonight." (Meaning that "The Talker" didn't bother us as much).

 She said she'd noticed that the problem with this woman was that she kept adding unimportant details to her stories. For instance, she was talking about teaching school in Ash Fork, Arizona, and as she started into her story, she started giving actual driving directions to Ash Fork! ("You know you get to Prescott and take Highway blankety blank and then turn right at blah blah blah").

"You're right," I said, I myself had not noticed this. I realized that a  diversionary technique in that sort of digressing would be pretty easy, as in, "So what was interesting about the school you taught at in Ash Fork?" or something like that, to move her story along. (It turned out she actually had an interesting point, at the end.)

Anyway, learning techniques for managing a group discussion is a new subject for me and an interesting one. It feels good to have had a problem come up and learned to do something about it.