Boys & Girls Club

Hi Mom and family,

It's 4:30 AM, Thursday morning, dark and quiet. Ziggy just erupted from the couch in a barking frenzy because a big German shepherd mix came to the security screen door, and now he's curled up again on the couch with his eyes closed and his big head tucked into his curled up legs.

Yesterday I finally seemed to regain my energy, but on Tuesday I was still pretty tired. It was a cold and windy day, the kind of day which, during my working life, would prompt me to say, "It's the kind of day when you wish you could just stay in bed and read."

 Well, I did! I spent a good part of the day reading a love story about an excessively tidy and dignified lady who slowly realizes she is falling in love with the messiest guy on the planet and his messy children.

I did finally go through my bills and found out which ones absolutely must be paid before I go to California tomorrow.

In the late afternoon I went up to the Boys & Girls Club and made the calls to the parents of the kids who practice on Wednesdays. It was a very good thing I did, because in the process of waiting for the desk staff to look up the phone numbers for me, I  found out that sports practices will be increased to three days a week. This means that the drama club kids who are in soccer will miss soccer practice for an hour on Wednesdays.

I was really glad I found this out, because I was thus able to point out to them that drama club rehearsal time should be moved a half-hour earlier, or else I'd need to go round them up out of soccer practice, which would take up half of my precious rehearsal time! Whew! That was a narrow escape. (We only have about three more rehearsals before we perform before about fifty of their parents and friends, as I will miss one rehearsal because of coming back from California on Monday!)

This is the kind of thing which is always happening to me at the Boys & Girls Club because I am an unofficial part of their program. Drama is not on their regular agenda. So if the "powers that be" in the organization decide that all the clubs will have sports practice more often, that schedule change happens and I work around it. On the bright side, they always tell me how much they like the drama club and how grateful they are that I'm doing it.

While there, I got in a good unofficial practice in with Jaycee, the girl who had the loss of confidence on Monday. Also, I found out from a parent that one girl will have to quit, and found a girl to replace her in the role.

I had another narrow escape earlier in the afternoon, A hair-raising, heart-pumping narrow escape! I had just parked in the far corner of the small Wells Fargo parking lot, near where it adjoins the huge parking lot which serves the Safeway and assorted other stores.

There was no moving traffic in the parking lot, and I started to cross over to go into the bank.

Suddenly I heard the screech of brakes and rubber as a souped up 80's car came tearing into tiny parking lot at high speed, burning rubber to make the two 90 degree turns at the entrance! I skedaddled out of the way, terrified, having to run five or six steps to avoid being hit. The car continued through the parking lot (two more rapid 90 degree turns, loud screeching the whole way) before he screeched to a stop at the exit.

I tried to see the license plate number, which I could not read from that distance. I looked up from there to see the youth, a shock of brown hair falling over his forehead, glaring at me as if to say, "I'm memorizing your face in case someone turns me in for this!" And he was gone, with another screech, turning on to the Apache Trail at high speed.

There were half a dozen cars parked in the parking lot. Amazingly, but he didn't hit any of them as he careened through it.

I went into the bank, shaking.  The tellers were sympathetic, though they said that could not hear the screeching from inside the bank. I had already filled out my deposit slip and had everything ready, which was good because I was too rattled to think straight for a few minutes. I truly think that if I'd been a person who could only walk slowly, I'd have been hit!

Yesterday, Thursday, I woke with the wonderful sensation that my usual energy level had finally returned. It's just really been a hectic month! I was finally able to get some things accomplished.  In the morning I got an hour or show of shredding done and made a small dent in the piles of papers in the guest room. I got all of the pepper plants planted in the one remaining garden bed, and covered them with crates so that they might have shade to help with transplant shock.

I took photos of the newly planted pepper plants, and then forgot to bring my camera with me to Starbuck's.

I had a very good practice with the Wednesday drama club group. The phone calls the day before had helped; everyone was there. I was pleased when Jaycee asked me, after practice, if she could go over the other scene (the one we practice on Monday) with me.

One of the kids in the club, a tiny little sprite of a thing, has trouble with school work, both reading and math are very difficult for her. I sometimes help her with her homework if she's still there at the club after practice is over. She always, at first, denies stridently that she has any homework. Because the level of homework she is given is beyond her ability to do on her own, it's very frustrating for her. What makes it worse is that her older sister, also in the drama club, functions at grade level or above.

Their mother is very nice, but  she picks them up from the club at 7:00 PM, having come straight from work. There cannot be much time for her to help them with homework in the evening.

First we did some reading, and and then I found a math paper in her backpack. Problems like "6+7".

"No, I can't do those, I hate them, I don't know them, no, no, no!"

I coaxed her, saying, "Let's just do one one them."

"No, no, no!"

This page of problems had a little bit of space after each problem (her other math paper did not) so I showed her how to make six little circles, followed by the "plus sign", then seven more little circles, and to count all of the circles. She got very excited, and did twelve problems in a rush! She was able to count very accurately, and never lost track, so every answer was correct.

That was about the limit of her enthusiasm, but it was still a very satisfying accomplishment for her, and for me.

I just wrote this Thursday morning, Mom. I will send it mid-day today, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow in the late afternoon.

My list for today:
wash clothes
tidy house
do more shredding
Connie's to pay for earrings she made
pay water bill
Starbuck's
pack
water front of lot across the street, 
& back yard and front yard




Love,
Lennie

Tired Monday

Dear Mom and family,

5AM. Feel tired but have been lying in bed for an hour unable to go back to sleep. Breezes blowing yesterday and last night, overcast, a pleasant change. Bothers Dale Sr.'s allergies something terrible, though.

Really tired yesterday---all I did all morning was to watch episodes of New Tricks, the Brit mystery series which I bought at CostCo.

 In the morning. Dale Sr. was going to Home Depot and I asked him to get pepper plants and sage, five bags of citrus/palm tree food, and he did get all of those things.
 
Here are the pepper and sage plants:

He is employing Cam this week to re-do the wooden bed on his large flat-bed trailer.

I flooded the garden bed which the peppers will go in, to level it. I always do this, so that the bed can be flooded easily later. The way I level the bed is to keep raking it as the water sinks down, as soon as part of the dirt shows, I rake it into the deeper parts, and repeat over and over until the water disappears completely. It takes some patience, but it's well worth it later.

In the early afternoon I watered everything in the back end of the lot across the street, including the established trees. It was very pleasant with the cloud cover and the breeze blowing.

I was pleasantly surprised that one of the "red yuccas" (not a true yucca) is going to be the yellow-flowered variety. They've been in the ground several years and just now are starting to flower. .

They are not striking now, but when mature they will have great splashes of color in the two colors. 

Of the desert trees (and one shrub) which you see below, I planted six out of seven of them. From left to right, "foothills palo verde", "blue palo verde", "palo brea" "shoestring acacia", "jojoba" (the shrub) "Texas ebony", "spineless prickly pear" (partly obscuring the Texas Ebony, this cactus was developed by Luther Burbank) and the branches in the foreground are also "palo brea". My aim was to create a natural-looking but prettier version of desert, and I think I've succeeded. The only one which I did not plant was the foothills palo verde. 

(When we bought that lot, it had been bull-dozed completely, except for a large dying ironwood tree. Since then, two young ironwoods have grown to full size, but they are not shown in the photograph.)

All of these still need watering every two weeks, some still need it every week. The baby shrubs, such as the "pink fairy duster" and the" brittlebush" below, need watering twice a week still in the summer. They look insignificant now, but when mature will measure 3' by 3'.

 
When this little landscape is completely mature, I will be able to leave for an entire month, even in the heat of summer, and the plants will all be fine. But I'm finding out that the plants that need little water, also grow slowly. And if you water them more often so they grow faster, they do not bother to develop the deep roots necessary if you want them to eventually be able to go for a month without water. So patience, patience!

After a shower and getting ready to go out, I went up to the Boys & Girls Club. I was perplexed by the behavior of Jaycee, a third-grader, (startlingly beautiful, which can cause its own problems) who has consistently been my "star actor" this year, (naturally loud, expressive, gestures, etc. from the "git-go"). At least, she was thus when we were reading still from our scripts.

 Now that we are trying to go through the skit from memory, this girl has completely deflated.  She was so terrified of making a mistake. Her lack of energy was "catching" and the other kids also complained of being bored.

In spite of their protests I did make them go through the short scene twice. Then, because a very helpful middle-school aged girl was there, helping, I could ask her and one of the girls to practice their other script, if sent the two youngest kids to the supervised computer room.

 I took the girl who had lost her confidence over to the side and we went through the skit again, and I kept praising her effusively. This time she remembered everything, but it was still as if the spirit had gone out of her.

It's the first time I've had that happened, that someone who was so ultra-confident before, so completely deflated when there was a chance she could make a mistake. Tomorrow I'm going up there again, to make some phone calls to see if I can get better attendance for the Wednesday group. I will see if I can work with this same girl again, for a short while, on her own.

She is such a perfectionist that the idea she might not be able to remember terrifies her. I think I'll practice one line with her over and over, and at Monday's rehearsal only ask her to remember that one line, and cue her with the others.

There is another girl, Nevaeh, who has not been coming to rehearsal because "she doesn't feel like it". I really hope to get her back into it because not only is she a super performer, but she has so many problems at home that I feel that being in the drama club production would be helpful to her. 

It turns out that although she doesn't come to our rehearsals, she has been joining two other drama club members, on their own time, in practicing a dance number which we were planning to include in our little performance. I had to make it clear to her that she could not participate in performing the dance number unless she started joining us for rehearsals again.

When  Nevaeh's grandmother came to pick her up, I mentioned this to her grandmother, that her grand-daughter might not realize she could not perform the dance number with the drama club unless she started joining us for rehearsals. I was dumbfounded when the grandmother yelled across the room at the girl in an angry combative voice, "Git over here!"

"You didn't go to drama club??", said the grandmother. And she slapped the girl 'upside the head'! Not real hard, but not playfully either. 

This grandmother, who looks younger than I, is what you might call a "real piece of work". When she went into the computer room to get the other sister, out of the sight of the front desk staff, she (the grandmother) started giving a shoulder massage to one of the young men working there.

I will try to get these Jaycee and Nevaeh to both go through their lines with me this evening, even for a short while. I've learned from experience that the more little side practices I can do with kids, it pays off a great deal.

One time Nevaeh was sitting near us when I was doing some extra practice with the older girls, and one of the characters in that scene happened to be named Leslie. We were sitting at the long tables with attached benches, and Nevaeh leaned against me and said, "It's sad to me to hear that name because it's my mother's name and I never ever get to see her again."

So, have you heard the name Nevaeh before? I hadn't either, but since volunteering at the Boys& Girls Club I have encountered three girls with that name. It's "heaven" spelled backwards, quite popular around here.

I mentioned the inappropriate shoulder massage to the desk staff, in a low voice. Once before, I had seen the same lady reach over and stroke another young male staff member, on the neck.The desk staff just rolled their eyes when I told them, I guess it's nothing new to them either. If they made a big thing about it, the woman might remove Nevaeh and her sister from the club, and the club is a good influence on the girls.

So, you can see I learn a great deal about people, volunteering up there! When I coached drama at the middle school, I tended to get the highly-achieving type of student in the club, not kids with huge problems.

One of the Renaissance Festival street performers, who goes by the performing name of "Lady Tess", has become more of a friend this year. At the festival, she would let me perform at her little shady spot during times when she didn't actually have a show...much appreciated.

 It turns out that in her day-to-day life, she is remarkably involved in Apache Junction civic affairs, not only on the board which overseas the Boys & Girls Club, but also on the boards of planning and zoning and several others! Chatting to her, I learned interesting information, such as why last year's B&G's activity director (great enthusiasm, unreal expectations) did not work out. The new activity director knows her personally, so it puts me more "in  the loop" that I know her, and that she has told me he is a good person with a known history in the organization. (And, of course, I mentioned to him that she'd told me good things about him!)

Love,
Lennie

Last Weekend of the Renaissance Festival

Hi Mom and family,

It's 5:30 AM,  the first birds chirping outside in the cool darkness. Ziggy is lying on the floor looking a little pique'd because nobody had given him his breakfast...I usually wait and let Dale Sr. feed him because he has so much fun doing it. Usually he tosses him several pieces of dog food as he takes the dog bowl back to the place we feed him, Ziggy backing up as he catches the little bits in his mouth.

I had a great last weekend at the Renaissance Festival, especially Saturday. I did not sleep well Saturday night, and suddenly felt so tired mid-day yesterday (Sunday) that I came home in the late afternoon instead of staying until closing and for the "cast party" afterwards. It was an effort to sing my last set of songs, and it didn't feel as successful as it is sometimes. (But part of success is just "showing up" and delivering what you can!)

I started getting  tearful when I hugged Chris good-by. She said, "Oh no, don't start that, it's catching!"

They had invited me to stay on and go to a party given by the Clan Tynker family in the evening, but I just didn't feel up to it at all, though the Clan Tynker are some of my most favorite people (and performers) at the festival. As soon as I got home, I crawled into bed, put on a DVD but couldn't stay awake more than a few minutes. (Later I did wake up and watched Masterpiece Theatre.

Here are some performers listening to the entertainment director's morning message, in the morning before any customers arrive. As you can see, the "Queen" is letting some fresh air under her skirt, airing out her legs. When the public arrives, she is dignity incarnate.

Saturday I really did have fun. I performed well, went to see some of my favorite shows again, gave out the photo prints I'd taken  to the relevant people,  and was rewarded by their pleasure in receiving them. I loved dancing at the "drum jam", the energy was magical. 


This is "Tartanic" a drum and bagpipe group. I love the sound of the bagpipes.

I have a feeling of satisfaction because there were a few times this year when I achieved a higher level of performing than I ever have before. It's a thrill to know that this can still happen at my age. One of the reasons that it's still very worthwhile to me to put in all of the effort involved in doing the festival. The other reasons are my good friends, and that feeling of being included, for a time, in a "family" of so many performers, many of whom I admire so very much.

One more photo, of an acrobatic troupe: hard to tell where one of the three starts and the other begins!

But it's also wonderful to have that feeling of finally being "off the treadmill"!


Love,
Lennie

Miscellaneous Chores and Commentary

Hi Mom and family,

Written Friday morning:

It's 7:30 AM, and I'm sitting in bed with my coffee, looking out on the garden outside. Dale Sr. is still fishing at Roosevelt Lake. While I certainly would not like to live alone most of the time, it's been nice to have the house absolutely quiet for a couple of days.

It's really something to realize that 26 years ago today I had just had my first baby, who of course was Dale Jr. I was sitting in the hospital room and no one came to tell me why they'd taken him away and not brought him back (he was in the ICU unit because of fluid in his lungs). Things have changed a lot since then!

Yesterday morning I finally got on the scale, and as I've feared, I had gained five pounds more during the fun but stressful time of Lyssa's visit and the pizza party. I now weigh 194, almost twenty pounds heavier than I was when I went to British Columbia for Waylon's birth. This was upsetting, but it was a relief that I'd finally get the courage to "face the music." Getting on the scale again is always the first step which puts me back on the road to eating a healthy amount of food.

I still felt very tired, all around the eyes. There was a mound of dishes in the sink, and I still hadn't finished the beds to plant the squash seeds and pepper plants.

I was still very upset  about Republican candidate Ted Cruz' comment about cordoning off Muslim neighborhoods in the U.S. It had been my one hope that the Republican convention would somehow not nominate Trump, but apparently their runner-up is of a similar xenophobic turn of mind. I have that sinking feeling I had in 2003, and remembering that that horror turned out so much more tragically even than I feared does not help at all.

At that time I wrote many letters to people in government, saying that the war they were embarqing on would be a disaster and would sow the seeds and breed many more terrorists. They didn't listen to me, and though some political commentators refer to the Iraq war as one of the causes of the so-called ISIS, it isn't discussed much.

David Brooks, the Republican commentator who regularly appears on both NPR and PBS, said that the reason that he and other Republican strategists were taken by surprise by the Trump candidacy, was that they made the error of not conferring with all classes of Republican voters. He said that the white working-class vote, which they have depended on but not understood, has now made its anger and frustration loudly heard. He vowed that in the future he would mix with a larger variety of people, so that he would have a more complete understanding of what the population thinks.

Yesterday morning I did some much-needed watering, mostly in the lot across the street. Everything was still alive, but the baby ocotillo had lost half of its leaves, so the watering was just in time. Later I drove to Tempe for my Arabic lesson, and back out for drama club rehearsal. Spent about an hour in Starbuck's on the way home, doing the blog.

An e-mail from my friend Laure said that she had got a paying job, full-time, from the Jewish Family and Children Services of Phoenix, where she has been interning. She will be starting in early June. I am very excited for her, and the job offer is a validation that her late-in-life career change was the right one. By taking this job and quitting her teaching job, she will be losing up to 20% of retirement money from the school system. But by taking it she will be counseling full-time, which is what she so wants. (Many of her clients are Spanish speakers, primarily, and I'm certain that her fluency in that language was a factor in her obtaining both the interning position and this job offer.)

My plan had been to get a lot of things accomplished yesterday (Thursday) and do an eight-mile walk today. But except for going down to CostCo to order some prints to take to friends at the Renaissance Festival, all I ended up doing was a little digging in the garden and a lot of lying around. It was very pleasant to sit reading with a cup of coffee on the patio after my shower, so peaceful with no TV on in the house.

In the evening I watched Learning to Drive, a movie which I'd bought at CostCo. I liked it very much, Ben Kingsley was great as the Sikh driving instructor. I forget the name of the actress who played opposite him, but I was very taken with her also. And we can sure use anything which portrays the situation of immigrants in a sympathetic light.

Written Friday evening:

In contrast to yesterday, I got quite a bit done today. I actually finally unpacked the shredder from the Office Max box (which it came in when I bought it two months ago!) and used it to go through 12 inches of papers. Actually only a small percentage of those papers had information that needed to be shredded, most of it could go right to recycling. 

I have at least half a dozen boxes of papers which need to be gone through/shredded/recycled. When I've done that, there will be a place to put some of the stuff which at the present time is sitting on the floor of my so-called guest room. So it felt like an important step to finally start on that process.

I planted squash seeds in one bed and sunflower seeds and wildflower seeds in another. First I flooded the sunken beds and used the water to level them. I sure could feel the extra stomach where the twenty extra pounds are situated, bending over to plant the seeds in the sunken beds! All that remains is to buy pepper plants and get them planted.

The rest of the afternoon was also spent in a useful manner. I washed almost all of the "mound of dishes" still left over from all that entertaining. I bought tickets for the weekend of April 1st-4th, for Berkeley. (That's Friday to Monday, because Tamika is going out of town that weekend.) I picked up the photo prints I'd ordered in CostCo yesterday. 

Love,
Lennie

Hi Mom and family,

Monday morning I did some housework, and dug some more in the remaining garden beds, but not enough to start planting them yet.

The tomatoes have grown several inches since I put them in!

I walked up to the Boys & Girls Club with a stop at Starbuck's. It is about five miles, and it seemed very easy.

I had a really good practice with the kids who were there. This Friday I absolutely must drive up to the club and call the parents of those kids who have not been attending!

As we had arranged, Dale Sr. picked me up at the Boys & Girls Club at 6:30 PM. We went to the "Rodeo Lounge", a small bar attached to a Village Inn motel in Gold Canyon, the ritzy suburb just to the east of Apache Juction. We were goingto hear Terry Foy and Eddie Jeff Cahill. They are both from the Renaissance Festival, and they play ever Monday evening at this cozy little bar.
They were so good, I really enjoyed it. They had another guy with them adding touches on the concertina, which added to the mix.

Elliot, the guy who hosts the Monday morning music jam on the festival site, showed up and I invited him to join us. It turned out that he is an enthusiastic fisherman, so he and Dale Sr. had something to chat about. Elliot has a home in Duluth, and the fishing is good up there.  I realized that don't think I have met another Jewish person who is enthusiastic about fishing. It may be that I have, of course, but that hobbies or religion did not come up in conversation.

Elliot, at 73, is going through something that many of the people who make their living through the Renaissance festival must face as they age. He is realizing that a) traveling every year and living in a trailer is getting difficult, and b) their Renaissance Festival lifestyle does not give them any security for their retirement, and less social security income because their income was not that high.

In another decade or so, Chris and Peter may be facing the same thing.

I found out from Elliot why the festival grounds have been so much more dusty than previously. The pump on the well broke, so they have not been making the usual weekend morning rounds with the water-spraying truck. (I had to ask someone if they had a throat lozenge part of the way through the day, because my throat was so choked up I could not sing.)

Last night I closed all of the windows and doors, so we wouldn't have to breathe the smell of whatever is being burned in the middle of the night. The culprit is some unknown neighbor, probably someone who cleans yards for a living and does not want to pay the fees at the dump.

  But Dale Sr. left the cooler on, and it sucked in the outside air. I woke up at midnight smelling that awful smell. Whatever they are burning, it is not just plant matter!

Unfortunately, Dale Sr. feels the heat much more than I, so even though the temperature has only been in the nineties, he wants to run the evaporative cooler at night. Maybe I could start wearing an air-filter thing over my mouth andd nose at night, like they do in Beijing!

However, it's possible that the evaporative cooler filter, while letting in the smell, does catch a lot of the harmful particles that go with it. I hope so.

About five years ago I had a security screen mounted on the bedroom window, for the express reason of being able to have the bedroom window open, and have that fresh air at night. No more. (If the windows are closed at night, we don't have to breathe the pollutant, because by morning the smell has dissipated.)

I was rather in a hurry when I did yesterday's blog about the weekend, so I neglected to write about something which happened Friday morning. I was walking through the living room while Dale Sr. had the TV on, and I saw and heard my first Trump advertisement. It was aimed toward those who have a fear of crime from illegal immigrants.

 My blood pressure shot up so high I had to go outside and sit down. I finally calmed down, and went to get some earplugs to put in my ears. Ever since then, when he turns on the TV, I surreptitiously put those ear-plugs in. (I know my husband well enough to know that if he had an idea that the TV bothered me, he would not turn it on, even if he wanted to).

The add was similar in message to that notorious Willie Horton ad from George W. Bush's candidacy. I felt sick at heart all day, it was like, "Oh no, this is really happening." In the evening I called my friend Merrill, though many of my friends feel as I do, she's about the only one who is good to discuss politics with.

Tuesday I felt extremely tired. Not surprising, as I was very tired the two days after Lyssa left, a full weekend at the Renaissance Festival, and then Monday I'd walked five miles, coached the drama club, and then had the evening out.
 
I am so very upset to hear about the bombings in Brussels, and to hear mentioned the area I stayed in, Schaarbek. Sad for the victims, and upset because anything like that helps Trump's candidacy, and because it's my opinion that a Trump victory would make Isis's recruiting so much easier.


I heard on NPR also a disturbing quote from Ted Cruz, that the US should consider cordoning off Muslim neighborhoods in this country. So I can no longer cling to the hope that the Republicans will somehow avoid choosing Trump, as it looks like his runner-up is just as xenophobic.

I had to get the house tidied up because Chris and Peter, the glassblowers, were coming that evening. I kept doing a little and then wanting to sit down and read and/or eat.

Mid-day, I went to my computer tutoring lesson and then went to vote in the primary. I was sure that I'd re-registered in 2012 as a Democrat while volunteering on the campaign, but they didn't have a record of it. I did get to fill out a provisional ballot.

Maricopa County had huge long lines at the primary polling places because they had estimated that few people would vote in the primary, and trimmed their polling places down to sixty from two-hundred. It was quite the scandal, the Maricopa County Recorder came on and publicly apologized. She said that because of the large number of Independents in Arizona, and the large number of people who had asked for early ballots, that few would turn up.

Part of the problem is that if someone thought they were mistakenly left off the list of those who had registered Democrat (like me) they still had to give them a provisional ballot which would be counted only a) if the election were really close, and b) if the person actually did turn out to be registered Democrat.

 Luckily, I'm in Pinal County.

I got the rest of the house ship-shape in time for Chris, Peter, their daughter Gena and their son Gray to come over. Dale Sr. had done all of the cooking over at 5th Avenue, and he brought a pot of beans, deliciously tender smoked chicken, tortillas, guacamole and two kinds of salsa. All I had to do was heat up the tortillas.

It was a lovely evening.

Love
Lennie

P.S. A funny poem about the limited usefulness of a spell check on your computer:

Eye have a spelling chequer,
It came with my Pea Sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss Steaks I can knot sea.
Eye strike the quays and type a whirred
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It tells me straight a weigh.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your shore real glad two no.
Its vary polished in its weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.
A chequer is a bless thing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right all stiles of righting,
And aides me when eye rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The chequer pours o'er every word
Two cheque sum spelling rule.

Weekend at Renaissance Festival

Hello Mom and family,

I had a nice weekend at the Renaissance Festival, though after the week of Lyssa's visit and the pizza party, I was more tired than usual.

Gena, daughter of Chris and Peter (of Chapman-Andres Glass) is visiting from England. A remarkable young woman (she obtained a fully-paid scholarship to Cambridge University, among other things) it has been so great to be able to spend time with all three of them together.

 Here are a few photos from the festival:

It's been over ninety degrees, and the Palo Verde trees have suddenly bloomed all over town. This is Dale Sr.'s signal to go fishing for catfish. (He's going on Wednesday through Sunday with his cousin Pete.)

 Love,
Lennie

Lyssa & Mike & Waylon & Pizza

Hi Mom and family

Monday, while I was still madly doing yard work and cleaning, Dale made the dough from the recipe Mike had given him. We'd decided on 20 lbs of flour.

 The dough rose all day on ice, per Mike's instructions. For this Dale Sr. used two large camping "coolers".

Mike and Lyssa got home late that night. They called from Blythe, and Mike told Dale Sr. to press down the dough.

The next morning he and Dale rolled 60 balls of dough. Lyssa and I went to Safeway to get the beer, the wine, and the rest of the groceries.

Around mid-day, they patted  out the dough balls into rounds.

By around 4 PM, they made the first pizza ever in the new pizza oven. Dale Sr. had built the fire early in the morning in there and had been adding wood to it all day. 

Lyssa chopped ingredients most of the afternoon. I was setting up for the party.

The party was a great success. People took their own uncooked pizza dough, chose the ingredients they wanted on it, then Mike slid it on to the "pizza peel" which was sprinkled with corn-meal.
It cooked half-way, then he eased the pizza peel under it again and brought it out far enough so that it could be rotated. He was always glad to let those who wanted to try, cook their own, under his guidance.

Here are a few photos, including Dale Jr. and Jerry Gargalione playing and singing for about an hour toward the end (Jerry on the gut-bucket bass). There were always kids swinging on the swings and running about, about 40 guests in all. The core members of my travel club came en masse, as did my computer tutor and his family. His outgoing 3 year old daughter struck up friendships with Ethan and also with the 3 year old son of one of Lyssa's high school classmates. 

I was so glad when Lawson and Marie showed up. She had decided to decline the catering job because they wouldn't return her calls in a timely fashion.

The woman to the side of me in the photo is allergic to wheat, so she brought her own non-wheat dough to make her pizza out of.

The following evening was a lovely, quiet, relaxed time. I got back from coaching drama club to find Lyssa making nachos and Mike and Dale Sr. playing cribbage on the cook-shack table in back, drinking lemonade with gin.

Dale Jr. bicycled over with Shelby, and Mike and Lyssa were teaching her to play cribbage. 

Dale Jr. and I were holding Waylon so that she could play cribbage. (I got a lovely photo of him, which I will send to your display device, Mom, as Lyssa does not want photos of the baby on blogs. )Later in the evening he got a little crochety, and Dale Jr. got my guitar and played quite close to where I was holding the baby on the swing. He was entranced by the guitar-playing for a half han hour before getting crochety again.

 Love,
Lennie

Weekend of March 12th & 13th

Dear Mom and family,

Yesterday was this month's travel club meeting, and it was a hike instead of a restaurant meal. The five of us who have been with the group the longest came, and one of them brought her husband. We had a lovely time. Perfect weather; sunny, breezy, and about 75 degrees.

One thing that I noticed about the dynamics of a small group hike (as opposed to a small group around a restaurant booth) was that there is a greater variety of person-to-person communication. When people are walking, they tend to group together, then break off into pairs or threesomes, then all together again, etc. So there are more chances to talk to each person individually.

I had been a little grumpy about driving "all the way into Phoenix" to go to South Mountain park when I have so much to do to get my house ready for the party. It was actually only a thirty minute 'jog' east on the 60, then five minutes south on the 1-10 E (which goes south right there). Not far from where I go to the dentist.

 We met up at a Safeway parking lot. Then carpooled the small distance, through an expensive Ahwatukee neighborhood of two-story tan stucco homes with professional-looking desert-plant landscaping, to the park entrance with one of our members to meet the last two at the trailhead.

There were so many cars parked there, and many hikers, bicyclers, and joggers, most of them very fit and wearing bright athletic wear.

 

Everyone was very friendly and it was easy to find someone to take the group photo above.

I am planning to meet one of our members in Prague this October. The idea is to spend a few days there and then take the train to Berlin. We solidified the date to meet in Prague (I will fly there a couple of days early and stay in the hostel I stayed at last time). 

However, she asked me not to buy the ticket until the end of this month, when she finds out the result of a biopsy of a lump found in her breast. She is concerned because the doctor asked her to go to the Mayo Clinic for the biopsy. She was very matter-of-fact about it, but I feel for her so much.

Here's a photo of three of our group on the trail.

During the walk it developed that Ann and Diane may meet us in Prague also. As a group, we've talked about all meeting in Europe some time, but have never done it yet. We could talk about it because "the Talker" wasn't there at the hike. She is the one "regular" who is not also a real friend.

I also had a conversation with one of the members about renting. (When we get enough repairs done on the trailer next door, we may rent it out.) She said that she would never rent to someone without a good credit rating, background check, current pay stub, etc. 

She belongs to a group which meets monthly, all landlords. Their group has an arrangement with an outfit called "doctorevicter.com" whom they call on if someone stops paying their rent.

I told her that I'd talked to a friend (my friend Laure) about renting to her friend Victoria (the one I went to the dance event with).

"Is she working?"

"She's doing baby-sitting and is paid 'under the table'."

"Does she have a good credit rating?"

"I would be very surprised if she had a good credit rating."

"Where is she living now?"

"She's living with a friend of mine in return for doing housework."

"Don't do it. It could be very hard to get her out of there if she stopped being able to pay."

So that was interesting. I could see that everything she said was true, and that if things came to that, it would be doubly hard to evict Victoria because she is a friend, not one of my best friends, but still, a friend. And itt could damage my relationship with Laure, who is one of my very closest friends.

Of course, it will be a long time, and thousands of dollars of repairs, before the trailer is rentable. For now, because of the condition it's in, all I could get on it was liability insurance.

I stopped at Costco and ordered photographs of the different stages of building the pizza oven/smoker. I wanted to put a display up with about ten photos on it. Also, John Ducette would like photos of the construction stages. CostCo was very crowded.

I also stopped at Lowe's to get hardware to mount the dowel on the shelf brackets, for the curtains on the dining room window. It has been bare of curtains since Dale Sr. built that nice shelf over it.

When I got home, I started doing some deep cleaning in the kitchen. I am obviously not going to get to cleaning the entire house, so I'm remembering something that you said, Mom. You said, "What people really notice is if the kitchen and bathroom are clean." So I'm starting there.

I found out from Ann on the hike that The Migrant Trail Walk registration is open, so I went last night to Starbuck's, opened up the website, registered and paid the fee. So I've made that plunge. I was pleased that it seemed to be so organized
(there are support vehicles for those who can't keep up with the group) and it was interesting to read the history of the walk. (Apparently when we start out, the group will be blessed by a priest!)

I mentioned this walk to Dave, the pastor who is often at Starbuck's preparing his sermons or his Bible group sessions. This instigated avery good discussion, because the immigrant issue is huge with him. He has had differences with other pastors in Apache Jct. because he is so sympathetic to immigrants, whether or not they are legal. He told me that he has had parishioners leave his church over this issue. 

He has been upset to see so much zenophobia developing in the last few years. "I try to teach them that this was not Christ's message."

He said that he had been becoming friendly with a group of "Christian bikers" who sometimes hung out at Starbuck's. These people wear vests covered with patches, with the group's logo on the back. Then he noticed that one of the patches, they all wear, a little one near the bottom on the front, said, "Speak English or go home." Dave said that he hadn't really been as friendly with them since.

I also found out that his daughter, whom I see in Starbuck's now and then, is in Washington DC, with a group of "Democrats of faith". The group will play a part in the Democratic Convention, as they did in the last one. She was chosen to open that groups main big gathering. I've always liked her, and was thrilled to find out that she is so involved in this way.

After talking with him, I thought as I walked to my car, "We are friends," (meaning Dave the pastor). I had always put him in the category of "one of the nicer Starbuck's regulars", but not in the 'friend' category.

Sunday morning I planted the rest of the tomatoes before Dale Sr. and I went to CostCo for the big "pizza party grocery run".

I had been dreading the CostCo grocery run, because I don't usually shop for groceries there. But Dale Sr. was quite familiar with the grocery section. We had the list which Mike had helped us make up before they left for LA.

Here are some of the groceries we bought for the pizza party:

In the afternoon was the music jam meetup, which was held at the home of another of the members. It turned out to be really fun, especially when this one very animated guy arrived, an excellent musician. He was late because he didn't read that the meeting place had changed.

The woman in this photo is one of the nicest people who come. She lives quite near Lyssa as the crow flies, but a long twisty mountain road away, "as the car drives". The young man shown is an excellent musician but not used to playing with people. He is the one who told me that this stuff (meeting new people) is difficult for him because he has social anxiety. He seems "loosen up" more each time he comes.

Love, 
Lennie

Hi Mom and family,

Yesterday I did a lot of yard work. I basically weeded all the parts of the back yard that had to be hand-weeded, and raked the entire back yard so that when Dale Sr. goes over it with the power mower he won't encounter any unpleasant surprises. 

Brian came by, he was out this way to borrow some tools from his dad. We talked a lot about the political situation, sitting on the patio drinking coffee. They are still having a rough time; Diana, Marie's mom, had to go in the hospital again for a biopsy.

Marie can't come to the party because she has a catering job Tuesday night. making the dessert for a $100/plate "pop-up" dinner. This was the first I'd heard of "pop-up" dinners, which Brian says are like a one-night restaurant dinner, with a fixed menu, but it's held in a house. Brian thinks that the real reason is to get people interested in buying the high-end home.

She got the job because one of her customers at the restaurant she just got let go from had become a fan of her baking. Brian said that one of the things that made it hardest about Marie losing her job is that the owners of the restaurant were some of their oldest friends, and that friendship has been damaged.

He said that he might be able to come to the party, but sounded a little hesitant. I surmise that he wants to be on-hand to help with the catering job. 

It was nice to sit in the rocking chair and look over the result of my efforts! Also, it makes me feel less panicked about the upcoming party. 

So I'm pretty sore today, again! 

I made this window-box after going on that Rick Steves G-A-S tour ( Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) with Nancy in 2008. I really liked the window boxes I saw there, and also the decorative wooden details on the balconies. The front two legs of it are cemented into the ground.

Before I did my day of yard work, there were weeds growing under the whole window box, some of them tall enough to grow through the floor of it and up between the potted plants.


Love,
Lennie

Hi Mom and family,

It's 5 AM Friday morning. Chilly enough for the sweatshirt and the furry throw around my legs. It's been cooler, much of the week, since a wind blew in late Monday afternoon, the remnants of the storm that you all recently experienced in California.

We've been getting ready for the party and enjoying Lyssa's visit. They've been continuing on finishing the pizza oven, we've been working on the yard work, and, for the last two days, we've been enjoying Lyssa and Mike and the baby's visit (and last night a wonderful evening with all of us at Dale Jr.'s for dinner).

Monday morning, Cam from down the street was working on the finishing touches of the metal work. He attached the decorative brand of trim on the tops of all the steel doors of the pizza oven, and the magnificent "deer antler" ornament, the one made of transmission parts, on the chimney over the fire pit. They look so classy.

Here's a photo of Cam and Dale, "sighting" the ornament to decide how high to place it. Cam had already drawn little pencil lines to center it with.

Cam has also welded some extra ornamental and strengthening pieces to the hook/pulley that we had had the Renaissance Festival blacksmith make for us. I don't know if "classy" is the word for the way that piece of hardware came out, but it's certainly unique.

I did an hour of weeding, all of one of the vegetable garden beds, the one I have been letting re-seed itself with alfalfa and Mexican basil. It took longer than usual because I had to be careful not to pull up any alfalfa or Mexican basil seedlings. The Mexican basil seedlings had not sprouted yet anyway. Their appearance is always received with joy on my part, there's just something about baby seedlings sprouting.

I went through all my bills Monday, which took two hours because it's been too long. I am now an honest woman again, as far as the property tax office of Pinal County is concerned. I should have paid the second half by January, but sent it in February, so extra charges had accrued.

It's a relief to have all those checks in the mail, as I've been telling myself that I've let too much time go by since I went through everything. Before my last weekend with you, I did go through and check all the ones I call the "turn-off-ables": gas, water, power, sewer, etc.

Dale Jr. called and said that they would be able to make the party. I'm so glad.

He said that he was sorry it had been so long since I'd seen the kids. I said, "Well, I haven't called either, I got behind on everything when I had the flu, and can't seem to catch up."

I barely finished the bills before it was time to take a shower and get up to the Boys & Girls Club for the drama club. The kids that were present worked really hard, but I'm have trouble with absenteeism. I've learned from experience that I only get great attendance if I go up there the night before and call the kids' parents with a reminder that drama club is the following afternoon. (Legally, if I call the parents I must do so from the club's land line.)

On the way home, I stopped at Wal-Mart to see if I could find tomato plants. The only plants they had in Early Girl, (the hybrid type which works for me here) were largish ones, and I cringed at the price.  I've been using seeds the last few years, but it's really gotten too late for that.

Checking my e-mail at Starbuck's, I was pleased that our cousin Grace had replied to my e-mail invitation and that they'd be pleased to come to the pizza party. I didn't look at all of the other replies yet, I just felt like concentrating on getting the remaining invitations out first.

I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I find that I don't really feel alive unless I do things which make me nervous. "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." (Just a little bit past it.)

Tuesday morning Cam brought over his first attempt at making the counterweight for the lid on the smoker. (In the past Dale Sr. has always used a large piece of plywood for the lid.) For the counter-weight he used the press cylinder from some sort of machine press. At 38 pounds, it was several pounds too heavy, so Cam took it back home to cut it down.

I was relieved that my computer tutor canceled because prepping the tomato bed prep took all day. In sections, I dug out the top six inches or so of soil, then dug out an amount of the subsoil which was approximately equal in volume to the amount of compost I would add to that section, and cart it away to use in landscaping across the street.

Then I mix equal amounts of compost and topsoil together and fill in the hole. Because I use sunken beds so that I can flood them, the volume of soil in the bed cannot increase, which is why I have to dig out some of the subsoil each time I add a significant amount of compost.

The last step is to flood the bed and use the level of the receding water to make sure the whole thing is level. The bed must be level so that  all through the season, I can just stick the hose through the fence at one end, and the bed will flood evenly.

In the evening I was so tired that I would have been happy to grab a sausage and a nuked potato. But it was really nice that Dale Sr. cooked: pasta with sauteéd sausage slices and veggies and canned tomatoes in it, with shredded Mexican white cheese (sort of like feta).

I made the phone calls I had to make, to those people whose e-mail I don't have. There are still three or four for whom all I have is a mailing address, so I sent them them notes in the mail. The notes should get there before next Tuesday.

 Wednesday morning I was very, very sore from all of the digging on Tuesday. I managed to do the dishes and a little tidying, but when I went out to plant the tomato plants in the newly prepped and leveled bed, I could only do about four before I just hurt too much.

For my Arabic lesson I wrote sentences having to do with exiting the freeway. About seeing a sign on the freeway which said to exit the freeway due to an accident, hearing the same thing on the radio, exiting the freeway, etc. My rule to myself is that if I have to explain something to her in English (in this case, explaining why I was late) I must write as part of my Arabic lesson, whatever I said in English. My reason for doing this is that it causes me to learn, in Arabic, the vocabulary and verb forms which are used in the conversations of daily life. 

 Similar to Monday, only half of the kids were there for drama club, but they practiced really hard. For the last quarter-hour of our rehearsal, I let them do the "improv" games they like so much. Then two girls were showing me how they were trying to do the tango, apparently a popular music video includes a little bit of tango in it. ("And then the guy puts a rose in his mouth!", they said, which cracked me up.)

 I called Dale Sr., and as he still hadn't heard from Mike and Lyssa, I stayed later and I helped the girls with their homework. I like to do that if I can, because the drama club takes them way from their usual homework time at the club. I'm really enjoying working with these particular kids.

Lyssa had suggested that we all go out for Mexican food when they arrived. Good Mexican food (none at all, practically) is not available in their part of British Columbia and Mike hankers for it. They didn't arrive until 8PM, so our favorite local Mexican places were closed.

I was surprised that they still wanted to go out to eat, after that long trip with the baby. But little Waylon was doing great, having slept almost the whole way on the plane. (When they got off the plane, people in the nearby rows of seats expressed surprise that there had been a baby there at all, as they'd heard nothing.)

As soon as Lyssa and Mike arrived, she and I  took him in the bedroom to change his diaper, and he kept grinning at me.

We went out to look at the pizza oven/smoker, which they were very impressed with. Mike kept handing Waylon over to me so I could hold him.

Dale Jr. had suggested a Mexican-themed chain restaurant which would still be open, Chili's, at the big shopping center about fifteen minutes away. (Dale Sr. and I rarely go to a chain restaurant, and never to a big shopping center unless he wants to go to the big outdoor supply store). Dale Jr. also invited us all for dinner the following night.

We had a good time; the baby continued relaxed and looking around him, until he dropped off in Lyssa's arms. I held Waylon for a while so that Lyssa could eat, and he just kept looking around. By the time we got the waitress to take this photo, he had dropped off to sleep.

Sorry this photo is so small, I don't seem to be able to get it to copy large.
 


Yesterday morning I was even more sore, and grumpy because of it. I woke early, sat there agitated about all there was to do getting ready for the party, but then fell asleep again, and was barely up, showered and dressed when Lyssa and Mike arrived. I was grateful that Dale Sr. had gone out to Safeway to get bagels and jam. Lyssa and Mike stopped over before their drive down to Tucson to see Lyssa's high school friend Melissa. Dale Sr. cooked them scrambled eggs, and Mike helped me figure out a list of ingredients to buy for the pizzas.

I had a hair appointment, which took up the morning. I was so sore in the afternoon that it seemed difficult just to do a little yard work. I raked leaves and into piles looked all over for the pitchfork. Finally I called Dale Sr. and he admitted that it was still in his truck. So I transplanted some plants into pots.

We had a delightful evening at Dale Jr.'s. Ethan was hilarious. He and Shelby do a lot of energetic horseplay, the whole time he was there he was running, running, running. Because I could see that he enjoyed the physical play so much, I motioned him to me and lifted him high up in the air several times, to his delight.

A little later, for the first time ever he called me "Grandma", which thrilled me; he came over and tugged my sleeve and said, "Gamma, come see," and took me to his room to see his box of tiny Lego figures.

He is learning his colors, "Red, geen, bue, puh-poo, and ye-ee-yoh". Of the picture-books I got him, the one that seemed to make the most impression was one I almost didn't buy, one which had different quantities of big colored dots on each page.

Dale Jr. had done most of the cooking, starting the "carnitas" (shredded beef cooked in the Mexican style) and the pot of beans the night before. He had warm tortillas under towels, and lined up on the stove and counter, the beans, chopped onion, tomato, and pepper, guacamole, etc. Delicious!

I took Waylon outside for a while so Lyssa could eat, and Ethan followed me out there and was running round and round the patio, pushing  his plastic tricycle, talking excitedly. I can see that it's really good that this kid has a place where he can run!

While we ate, we talked more about the pizza dough. Lyssa and Mike would be leaving early to drive to LA to go to that wedding, so it was my last chance to "pick his brains" about the pizza-making process. I was quite relieved to find out that the dough actually will get made the morning of the day before the party, raised in a cooler, and then rolled out twice that evening. Then the rounds of dough are placed between sheets of wax paper. I was quite pleased that the rolling out of the dough will not be taking place the night of the party; it should simplify the logistics quite a bit.

Sorry again for the size of the photo. Dale Jr. is planning to send it, regular size, to your display device, Mom.
 

Love,
Lennie