Good Garden and Good Drama Club Rehearsal

My some of my green tomatoes are more than an inch across. We moved the wooden frame from last year's bed and I've started tying them up.

 Some volunteer basil came up in the summer squash bed! I was so glad to see it. 

When I was cleaning out the closet yesterday, tripped on some of the piles of junk in front of it, and wrenched my shoulder when I fell. I don't think I tore anything because it's a little better today. But still the pain made me feel tired and unmotivated all day. 

The one teenager in my club, who had apparently vanished, resurfaced today. She has been sick, but studying her lines, and will be at the club for both Monday's rehearsal and Tuesday's performance. Whew! That was the one last loose end I hadn't tied up yet.

When we went through the scene we practice Wednesday, they remembered almost everything. I was very pleased. 

Love,
Lennie

 

Photos from Saturday and...

Hi Mom and family

Here are the photos from Saturday which I was unable to post yesterday because I forgot to bring my camera to Starbuck's:

My alarming heat rash from where my jeans rubbed against sweaty legs from my ten-mile walk in the heat: (My leg is not swollen like it looks, it's just the fore-shortening effect of the camera).

Saturday morning I took these photos of the new shade roof which Dale Sr. and his friend Dennis Tresness built while I was gone Friday. Dennis was back again early Saturday, and they put the tar-paper on the roof of it. Dale Jr. came over to ride down to the baby shower with us.

And here's some of the party:

The father-to-be is modeling a cowboy hat which someone crocheted for the baby.

I got a kick out of this little girl playing with all of the tissue paper:

I was tired yesterday because I did not sleep well at all Saturday night. Too much ice tea at that baby shower. Also, I keep worrying about the drama club performance, and that I'm not making any progress on organizing the house.

I really enjoyed the new shade cover over the cooking area out in the back yard, when I was watering the plants back there yesterday. I sat in the shade and ate one of the last few oranges, enjoying being out there with the plants and the sound of the water running on them.

My music jam was held at the home of one of the members who is going back to Wyoming soon. I've grown fond of him over the year that he's been coming. There were only four of us there and it wasn't as lively as it sometimes is. Maybe it was just that I'd had so little sleep the night before.

Love,
Lennie

Long Walk and a "Lil Cowboy" Baby Shower

Hi Mom and family,

Friday I did my weekly long walk, this time trying for ten miles. I didn't start until noon, and the nine-mile route took me so long that I had to call Dale Sr. to ferry me back the last  mile and a half to my car, because it had gotten too dark to walk safely.

About a quarter of the way, half-way to the turn-around point, I had a snack at a Mexican food truck, which seems to be permanently parked in front of a patio in front of a closed up store front. Six tables with large umbrellas, and lively "cumbia" music on the sound system. (Cumbia music originated in the part of Columbia where the influences were mixed African-American and native American.)

I walked the same nine-mile route I used last week, but made two half-mile side trips which brought it to 10 miles I believe. The first was to withdraw money from the bank where I keep my savings account, and back-tracking a half-block to deposit it in a Wells Fargo, which added a mile to the route. The temperature was around 96 degrees.

My strategy is to park the car somewhere half the goal distance from a restaurant, to take a break at that restaurant and walk back to the car.

By the time I got to my turn around point, Thai Patio restaurant about four and a half miles northfrom my starting point, I was so wiped out that I drank a whole large glass of ice-water too fast and then felt almost sick. There were hardly any customers at that time of the afternoon, so I just sat there in the shade at my outside table until I felt better, which was about an hour.

I had practiced my current bunch of Arabic study cards on the way, by looking at a card and repeating the sentence on it for about a block, then changing to the next card. I tested myself while sitting at the Thai Patio. With 50 cards on the ring, my score only increased from 50% to 66%. Which is worse than it sounds, because each card has a sentence on it, and I don't count it as correct if even one word of that sentence is not correct. 

Across from that restaurant, under the same shade roof, was a place called "Señor Taco", a chain restaurant with the kind of Mexican-style food which appeals to "gringos" and hard liquor. Even though it was only 4:00 PM,the patio was filled with loudly socializing Friday-afternoon drinkers who all seemed to know each other.

The way back was really difficult. Sore legs, trudge trudge trudge, and I was so glad to finally get to the Starbuck's so I could sit down and take a rest. I ended up staying there an hour, and then decided to call Dale Sr. rather than walk the last mile in the dark.

When I got home I was shocked to see dark red marks on the inside of my calves, where my jean legs had rubbed against the sweat on my legs. The marks are still there this morning. Perhaps, on the long hike, I should alternate wearing jeans with wearing a long cotton skirt. Because I must remain protected from the sun, I don't have the option of shorts. (Back when I had that basal cell growth removed from right smack in the middle of my nose, the skin surgeon warned me that sunblock doesn't block all of the dangerous kinds of rays.)


While I was gone, Dale Sr. and Dennis Tresness were working on a new roof for the shade structure in front of the pizza oven. It is solid wood and flat (only very slightly slanted, enough that rain water will not pool) and extends out further. Solid shade, and a lot more of it. He's been wanting to do that for a while.

On Saturday, we went down to Dale Sr.'s cousin Pete's in-law's house, in Queen Creek, a rural area to the south of here. which reminds me a little of where Gabo and Dad lived, except it looks like the average income is lower. (Broken down vehicles in driveways and other evidence.)

Only time I've ever been to a party where the majority of the males present were wearing cowboy hats, snug fitting jeans, boots, and belts with huge belt-buckles which most of them actually earned participating in rodeos. I will have to put photos of the "Lil Cowpoke" baby shower on my next blog because I've forgotten to bring my camera to Starbuck's today.

The house had a huge porch on it which the owner had built almost entirely of salvage materials which he obtained when he was doing salvage work (instead of taking the materials to the dump, he took them home. The kids' playhouse had been obtained the same way.

It was nice that Dale Jr. came also. He'd been fishing with quite a few of those guys, and family connections are important to him, whether on our side or his dad's.

I feared I might be bored, because Dale Sr. often goes and stands with a group of guys who are discussing hunting and fishing, at Clark family events. But one very friendly lady pulled a chair next to her and practically ordered me to sit down! They turned out to be a pretty humorous group of older women. 




Well, I have to go, photos of the new roof over the BBQ area, my terrible heat rash, and the "Lil Cowpoke" baby shower next time.
Bet you can hardly wait.

Love, 
Lennie

Up and Down Week

Hi Mom and family,

It's been an up-and-down week.

I was in a really foul mood all of Monday because I was feeling so bad about the present I'd given Ethan pinching his thumb. (The catapult, made with large rubber bands that snap it like a mousetrap, had snapped right onto the little guy's thumb.)

It seemed so difficult to go do the errands I had to do. I was really glad that I'd gone to buy the cashier's checks (IRS and Arizona Department of Revenue) on Saturday.

Then I realized that I would have to go to the bank again. When putting the forms in the envelopes with the checks,  I'd put the IRS name on both of the cashier's checks, instead of the Arizona Department of Revenue. So, into the car to drive down there again. I had ripped up the check, and in order to make it cancel, they had to tape it together and put it through the machine. They were all consulting about it.

Mortified, I apologized profusely. "It's okay," the teller, Rosa, said. (Over half of the tellers are Hispanic because so many of the customers are more comfortable in Spanish). "Next time just don't tear it up."

Then it was on to Starbuck's to go on-line to find the address to send the government one to, as they'd put that information on P.4 of the instructions, and I'd only printed out Pps 1-3. The whole day seemed  like "three steps forward, two steps back", all while moving zombie-like through the funk of a bad mood.

While at Starbuck's, I wrote an e-mail to Dale Jr. saying how very sorry I was that the toy I'd given Ethan had ended up hurting him. "You tried to warn me off giving it to him, but I didn't listen. You gave him a wonderful party and I enjoyed it very much."

The drama rehearsal  was troubling because the one girl who doesn't know her lines well enough was taken out of rehearsal by her grandmother, half way through. What was really aggravating was that they left so fast that I didn't have a chance to remind her grandmother to ask her hip-hop dance teacher if she could miss one class in order not to have to miss our performance.

I stopped back at Starbuck's to put that long weekend blog online, and it was wonderful to get the following e-mail from Dale Jr. It said, "No need for apologies Mom, he really likes it, he was playing with it after the party."

Relief spread all through my whole body. Not the "grandmother from hell" after all!

I wrote back that it showed a lot of gumption on Ethan's part, to "get back on the horse." (That is, to get right back playing with a toy which had injured him.)

When I got home, I told Dale Sr. about getting the e-mail that Ethan liked the toy. Dale Sr. said ruefully that when the injury happened, he'd had the same reaction as me ...we'd seen that the little guy's hand was in the wrong place but our brains didn't register fast enough to get down to the floor to stop him from pulling back the catapult and letting it go.

Tuesday I did four hours of yard work, pruning, re-potting, weeding, watering, and raking. I'm still so behind on all of it, from those several weeks of fatigue I had.

I went to pay my phone bill in person, so that I could ask them to put my phone on the correct date. I don't know when it started saying tomorrow's date instead of the correct one, but it really was messing up that app I've been using which lets you you log in your food and exercise each day.



On the way home I stopped at the Carniceria/Panaderia "El Rancho" (Butcher/Bakery) and ordered some dinner to go from their steam table. I really liked the red stew, the rice, and the beans, but the green chile stew had large pieces of floppy cooked pork rind in it. (The chickens got that.) Dale Sr. said the beans, to him, had "a funny taste"; I think maybe it was epazote.

They were also rolling out balls of dough for one of the myriad kinds of  "pan".

 
Around 4:00 PM I went up to the Boys & Girls Club with the worksheets for those lines which had been missed when I tested them Monday. I had my eye on the door like a hawk, to be sure not to miss any of the parents, and was able to talk to all of the other parents/grandparents about our second choice of performance dates. To my intense relief, all said the alternate date would work out for them. A couple of them said they were really excited about it (the performance) which made me feel good.

One of the moms is a girl who was in my drama club many years ago when she was at the Jr. High school. She said she could ask her work if she could leave an hour early and make it up another time, so that the other girl wouldn't have to miss her hip-hop dance class. I told her how grateful I was. She said, "Those classes really do cost a lot."

When I came out of the club into the parking lot, I got this photo of the rather moody-looking sunset. 

 
On Wednesday I left for Tempe two hours earlier than usual. I had heard about a "bluegrass music jam" which takes place every Wednesday at noon in the Tempe senior center. which is in the same The complex as the Tempe Library where I go for my Arabic lesson.

It was a really nice group, about fifteen old guys sitting in a circle. (I had to remind myself that I myself was as old as half of them were!) The leader, who played slow but very nice banjo, did a great job of leading them. He really made sure that everyone quieted down so that, even in a group that size, even the guitar, mandolin, banjo, and fiddle solos could be heard. There was much that was a real treat to listen to. And he constantly showered the group with compliments.

 A lot of the songs were old-timey songs I was first exposed to in the Alan Lomax songbook, when going through it with my recorder as a teenager. Some that I knew from the bluegrass group of the friends Oscar and I and John played with. 

The guy with the fiddle, second from left above, did slowish but tasteful fiddle solos. Skeleton-thin and gentlemanly, he looked and sounded like he should be on a front porch of an old cabin in Tennesse.

I went right from there to my Arabic lesson, and right from that to the Boys & Girls Club. The Arabic lesson was fine, I didn't speak much Arabic but any time I spoke any English I wrote it down and we translated it. For my lessons, I've been looking back in the notebook for sentences which were part of my past lessons, and putting them into different verb tenses and voices. Such as "dual past, female" and "present plural, male", etc.

Thinking about Wednesday's drama rehearsal makes me cringe. I marched in there with a nervous determination that "today I was going to get them to really knuckle down", as our performance is fast approaching. Only to walk into the club and  there were all these riotous activities going on, some sort of celebration where all the kids who had been good had a turn pushing the staff around in wheeled chairs, and all the other kids were yelling and cheering.

Of course the kids in the drama club were grumpy because I made them leave all this fun and go into the empty "teen center" next door
 to rehearse.
 And I made them go through it five times. Half-way through the fifth go-through, a whole noisy group of kids trouped into the teen center and I told my kids, let's perform our skit for them!

This meant that my club had to perform for a bunch of kids who were sitting on couches very close to them, and Darrel, the autistic boy, kept breaking into inappropriate snorts and giggles. My young actors, usually so ebullient, all performed in a cowed monotone, so of course their performance was not interesting to watch. As soon as we started the skit, I knew it was a mistake but it would have been more awkward to stop it. Afterwards two of my club members said they wanted to quit.

"You can't quit," I said, "because if you two quit, we'll have to cancel the whole thing." They looked miserable, I felt awful. It was upsetting to see a kid with a super live-wire personality deflate so completely.

I'd told myself I was going to come home and give the house a complete going over so that I could start right into gardening the next day. But instead I had a glass of wine and watched a Canadian movie about an older man who arranges to wed a young mail-order Mexican woman, and ends up falling in love with her mother.

Yesterday, Thursday, was taken up with going through my bills, a hair appointment, an hour up at the Boys & Girls Club and an evening at the Handlebar Pub and Grill.

At the club I made some phone calls so that parents know I need the lists of names of people they want to invite.

While we were eating, Dale Sr. noticed Bob Schoose (the guy with the mega-personality who built Goldfield Ghost Town). With him were Ron Feldman who owns the riding stables near there, also someone who's known Dale Sr. since he was a teenager, and their wives, sitting at a nearby table. I went over to say hi, and a little later LuAnne came over to chat for a minute.

 I hadn't recognized Schoose, now totally grey and thinner than he once was. Dale Sr.  hasn't been that friendly with him since Schoose and Jerry G. had a falling out.

When I asked Dale Sr.  what the argument was over, Dale Sr. said, sotto voce "Oh, Schoose screwed him over like he has everyone else." 

Schoose came over to chat for a minute, and I got this picture of the two of them. I have to admit Dale and Gary are right about Bob Schoose's faults, but I also feel that on the whole he added a great deal to their lives.

At the other front table were Kurt Decke (who taught at AJ school district for years, the last decade at the alternative school with my friend Laure) and his neighbor. They are also big fans of Hans Olson, and we really had a fun time enjoying the music. Kurt has had a very difficult time adjusting to his wife's death.

Hans is such a good musician and the songs he sings are so wonderful, that hearing him was a great cure for my emotional week.

At the table behind us were an older Mexican man in a cowboy hat, immaculate white tee shirt and pressed khakis, and his bearded, intellectual-looking son. Hans was singing "The Night the Bottle Let Me Down", in response to the older Mexican man's request for some Merle Haggard. I noticed we were both singing along with the chorus, so I went and stood by their table and sang it with him, the same harmony I used to sing with John.

 Before they left, the older man stopped by our table and asked us if we liked mariachi music. He said they were in a mariachi group, he played guitar and his son played the trumpet. But he said what he really loved was country music, in particular Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard, "and Linda Rondstat's songs".

Then he was telling us some terrible jokes.

"D'ya know why people come across the border two by two?" he asked.

"No...why?"

"Because they saw the sign that said 'No Tres...passing' ". (You may remember, Mom, that "tres" means the number three in Spanish.)

His son came over to fetch him, and asked if he could leave him with us.

Love,
Lennie

Not a Lazy Weekend

Dear Mom and Family,

Friday I slept in until 8:00 AM and consequently did not get much done in the morning. In the afternoon I walked up to Starbuck's and then did some further walking, a total of around 6 miles. It was a beautiful balmy day, with a slight damp haze which reminded me of being near the ocean.

I saw this gorgeous specimen of a cactus on my walk, I think maybe it's actually a euphorbia:

And the Palo Verde trees are still in bloom:

I really felt that I had gotten my energy level back, which was so nice.

Saturday morning I woke up with the list in my head of things I had to get done. It was quite a list: 1)walk the three miles left in my "nine miles within 24 hours" weekly March goal, 2) get to Starbuck's by 9:30 AM half an hour early for my beading meetup so that I could commandeer three tables and put them together for the group, 3) have the beading meetup from 10:00 to noon, 4)get to the bank, 5) go to the library to make the form I need for drama club and print out the Migrant Trail registration packet,  6) come home so that I could sew litle bean bag ammo for the catapult I was giving Ethan for the birthday party the next day, and 7) practice the two songs I'm supposed to learn for when I attend to the "Valley Acoustic Group Meetup" which will be in Mesa, tomorrow, after Ethan's party. Whew!

On top of all that, that evening Dale and I ended up attending a "Mad Hatter's Tea Party!"

I took Ziggy with me for the three mile walk, and he absolutely loved it. It was a beautiful morning. Unfortunately I was so concentrated on getting out the door in time to walk the three miles before I had to be on to my next thing, that I forgot my camera.

The beading meetup was a lot of fun. The conversations have been fun at every one of these get-togethers. I don't know if the cause is that people who like to make things are nice people, or if it's because when people are working on a project which takes part of their concentration, their minds relax and they forget to be nervous with eachother. 

I forgot to take photos during the beading meetup. But here's a photo of what I was working on, the beginning of a many stranded necklace.

At the library later on, I enjoyed looking at the desert which surrounds the library parking lot:

 I encountered the two animals in the following photos, whose owners were taking them out of the library. The animals had been the guests of honor at a "read to the animals" program, in which little kids read their favorite books allowed to animals. 

The Vietnamese pot-bellied pig seemed happy to lie in its little wagon. People came up, some of them besotted with fascination. When the pig was stroked and petted, it would start snorting with enjoyment, in a very comical way. Isn't the macaw gorgeous? It was tame enough that the owner was inviting little kids to pet it, also.

When I got home, there was a call from Cam, the guy who made the doors for the pizza oven. They were having a "tea party, mostly girls, my daughter's got it all decorated up like Alice in Wonderland".
As you can see, she certainly did! 

(She even had little flasks with "Drink me" painted on them.)
 

I've been into their back yard a couple of times before. It's hidden behind the "two story trailer" down the street from us, which our kids used to point out and laugh at when they were little, every time we drove by it, which we did any time we went anywhere

On top of a regular motor home, Cam added a bedroom and an observation deck, with a welded metal circular stairway, made entirely by him, going up to it from the back. Here's a photo of part of the circular stairway (it doesn't usually have paper flowers on it).

I have always called their back yard "fantasy island". There is a circle of trees in the middle with vines growing up everything. There is only one place on the back wall where the original motor home is even visible.

Here are a couple more photos of all of the decorations. The daughter had so much enthusiasm for the whole creation, and her friends (all friends since elementary school) were all excited about it also. Beverly, Cam's wife, and the daughter had scoured second-hand stores for much of the stuff, and they'd put it together for two days. It would take almost that long to take it all down.

Cam and Dale Sr. played pool while I chatted with the women.The daughter is 28 and an elementary school teacher, and some of her friends have the same kind of job I had, in our local school district, so there was lots to talk about.

 The daughter lives at home with her parents. The three of them go rock-hunting (the "island" circle of trees is surrounded by a low rock wall built entirely without masonry) and do other things together.

It seemed so wonderfully serendipitious  to me, that on a street of trailers in a lower-working-class street of a town like Apache Junction, to run into something as wacko as anything you'd find in Beserkeley....

At the end of the evening, "Alice" was playing ping-pong:

Sunday was Ethan's third birthday party. When we arrived, he said, "Come see Bounce House" he was really excited because a "bouncy castle" had been rented for the party.  He had to show us how he could crawl in and out of it, and jump.

Here I am holding his little sister Shayla, a very easy-going baby:

In the next photo, he is opening presents. Dale Jr. had tried to warn me off of giving Ethan the catapult I bought at the Renaissance Festival.  I figured it would be all right if I made little bean bags for the ammo. He jumped in and tried it so fast and it pinched his thumb. I feel so bad about it and cringe to think about it.

The offending catapult is dead-center in the above photo.

We left there at 2:00. Dale Sr. was going to meet John Ducette at his man-cave, and I had rsvp'd "yes" to the other guitar meetup I'd been hearing about. I was so upset that my grandson had gotten hurt by the present I gave him that I wanted to scream, and I figured that singing was the next best thing.

I had a good time, it's very organized but that's okay. They rent a space to meet in, a historic building in the Main Street area of Mesa, so they charge dues of 5:00. My only complaint is that it would be good if all the rhythm guitars would play more quietly when someone was doing an instrumental, so you could hear it better. But the people were friendly and enthusiastic to each other. I liked the songs they picked, and I liked the leader.



Well, that's about it
Love,
Lennie

A Nice Day

Hi Mom and family,

Yesterday was a nice day. I still felt tired, but---hope against hope---not quite as tired.

In the morning I had arranged with my friend Ann to be at her house at 10:00 AM, at my request, so she could show me what she packs for the Migrant Trail hike. It was a good thing to do because I now feel much more at ease about the whole undertaking. She lent me a kind of pad which rolls up small but inflates to about an inch thick as soon as you unscrew the stopper. She also had a sleeping bag which she assured me would be plenty warm, because the June desert nights do not get that cold.

I had planned on buying a sleeping bag (the ones we have are huge and thick, for mountain nights) but I'll just borrow the one she's lending me.

Besides the sleeping bag, I am allowed to bring a small duffel about the size of the sleeping bag. Ann said that some people bring more, but that the organizers encourage less. Two changes of everything, apparently you can rinse out things and they'll be dry the next morning.

She also brings a small folding chair, the kind which folds into a long thin shape. The list they give you does not say to bring a chair, but everyone who comes a second time always brings one, and people who don't bring one try to sit in the chairs brought by people who do. "A word to the wise," said Ann.

Everybody gets put on a team (food team, safety team, etc.). We also get rotated in and out of a team which stands night watch and wakes everyone else up in the morning. You have to pack up everything except your Sierra Club style cup before you eat breakfast, and breakfast is just coffee and pick-up food such as a bagel with peanut butter.

She said that all decisions were supposed to be made "by consensus" but that in reality, not so much.

"Yes, I think I know about that," I said, "I've lived in several communal situations. The strongest personalities win."

"Yeah, pretty much!" said Ann.

Last year, she herself volunteered to go on whichever team she was most needed on, and they put her on the food team. This year she was asked to run the food team.

I told her that I would rather be on the food team, in order to spend more time with her. But that I hope to be altruistic enough to volunteer to be on whichever team most needed members.

We walked over to a Mexican restaurant and had lunch and a great conversation. I was interested to hear about the "non-Roman congregation" renegade-type Catholic church which she has joined.

Apparently this group, which like the humanistic Jewish congregation event I once attended has no fixed building of its own, and does not mandate that members pledge belief in God, rents space in a building which also rents space to several other congregations and flies a rainbow flag. The leader of Ann's group is a woman, and the congregation is mostly made of people who were raised Catholic but do not hold with many of the patriarchal beliefs, prejudices, and celibacy requirements for clergy of the official Catholic church.

 Ann was "babtised" by this church, after attending for quite a while and deciding that she really felt at home there. So they must keep enough of the original practices that they babtise people, though she was never asked to pledge actual faith in God or belief that Jesus Christ was immortal.

 She herself was not raised Catholic, but at her late husband's request, her children were. (He was Irish, and their kids have dual citizenship.) She attended the catholic church with him and them, while never making a secret of the fact that she herself was not actually a member nor wanted to be.

She said that one of the congregations had rented space in the building was an evangelical Christian group, but that group left when the other congregations voted to fly the rainbow flag outside the building. Surprisingly, a Babtist group then started renting that space, and said the flag was fine with them.

"Love between people, that's what God is to me," Ann said with a beatific smile. Of course the question, "So what's the point?" flashed through my mind....I think she finds comfort in the ritual, and in the work with the local homeless people which this congregation does. She also said once that when she would go into a church while walking all the way across the top of Spain on the Camino de Santiago, that she felt closer to the memory of her husband.

After a short nap at home, I drove to the Apache Junction Library, which is right on the way to the Boys & Girls Club. I printed out tax estimate forms, and created a study worksheet on Microsoft Word for those drama club members who missed lines when I tested them on their memorization on Wednesday.

During homework time at the club, some of the girls got interested in filling out their own study worksheets. The worksheet has a space at the top to write in the cue which came before the line they missed, and the line before the cue as well. Then there is a solid line, and below it is written the line which was missed. The idea is that the young actor covers up the area below the solid line, so that only the cue is visible, and tries to say the missed line without looking at it.

I was pleased that they wanted to fill the worksheets out themselves, because that will help memorization even more.

One of the girls, always strident and self-confident, broke into tears when I told her the date which the club staff and I had agreed on for the performance: Monday, May 2nd.

"That's my hip-hop dance class, I can't miss that!" she wailed. She's got one of the main roles in the scene, so hopefully we can work something out. I know I can't do anything on Wednesday evenings because so many families attend Wednesday night Bible study groups. Not a majority of families, but such a self-righteous, vocal minority!
Welcome to the American hinterland, you who live on the coasts have no idea what it's like! (All the time I worked in the school system, no evening event was ever scheduled on a Wednesday evening.)

Love,
Lennie

Stormy Monday, but Tuesday a Good News Day

Hi Mom and family,

Monday I felt tired all over again. Except for doing a little pruning, weeding and watering on the far side of the lot across the street, I didn't feel up to much.

Working with the kids at the Boys and Girls Club usually revives me, but instead we had the worst rehearsal in recent memory.

It seems that sometime during the spring season of the drama club, there is one rehearsal when everything goes wrong, and this was it. The kids were all bored with their parts. Two of the eight member cast were picked up early by their parents (although all the parents received a letter when their kid joins which says when rehearsals are, and that attendance is important). The two six-year olds in the group had gotten in trouble earlier and been denied their usual afternoon snack, and they pronounced themselves so exhausted that they lay down on the floor and said their lines that way!

Then, half-way through my alloted hour, another parent came to pick up her daughter early, marching purposefully across the huge room to where we were rehearsing on the stage area.

I asked her if she could wait until we'd finished rehearsing.

"Well," she said in a cutting tone, "Last Monday I waited until 6:30 to pick her up, and you weren't even here!"

(As you remember, I was flying home from California last Monday.)

"I only get to have her four days a week," the girl's mother said, "so I don't get that much time with her."

"Mrs. Clark was in California," several girls said in my defense. The lady rolled her eyes, as if to say, "Well, some people can afford to go to California."

"Sure, totally understand, go ahead, take her," I said. But somehow the encounter took the wind out of my sails. I sat down and tears started coming to my eyes.

"I think I'm going to cry," I said, and the kids all immediately rushed to get into their places!

Almost of them were genuinely sympathetic, now that they could see how frustrated I really was, except one girl.  (I've had to talk to this girl in the past about laughing when other kids make mistakes.) She was eyeing me with a speculative gleam in her eye, as if she were thinking, "Is our drama coach really going to cry, what fun!"

(I didn't give her the satisfaction.)

When we practiced the little dance number they are doing, they all revived, including, miraculously, the "starving" six-year-olds!

Tuesday morning I had an appointment for my annual physical. (As you remember, I had my bloodwork done last week.) I dreaded going to this physical, because I haven't been feeling any energy, and I've gained weight since the last time I went, and I've only been taking my prescriptions an average of four days a week. 

I was really surprised when he begain showering me with praise! "Everything looks better," he said. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!"

"It must be all the walking," I said. I was quite jubilant, but thought to myself, 'Well, no matter what you say, I don't want to keep eating like a garbage can.'

I really do still want to lose the weight I've put on. The stomach really gets in the way when you've gotten used to not having it. And my face looks more....matronly would be the word, I guess. When I'm this much heavier and there's an extra half-inch of flesh around the chin line. Pretty weird to be 68 and not want to look "matronly".

"You are the first doctor here I really like," I told him, truthfully. "I got so attached to Mary Quihuis, the nurse-practitioner, and was upset when Medicare dictated that I must go to one of the doctors instead of her. But it's all right, because I really like you."

"That's very nice of you to say," he said, as though he really meant it.

"They're all good doctors, it's just a personality thing, but still, it's nice," I said.

(One of those other doctors had told me, when I returned from Egypt with a broken ankle, that he couldn't see why anyone would ever go to Egypt.)

At my computer tutoring session, my tutor helped me get one of my song lyrics successfully copyrighted.  (I copyrighted it as a "poem", so I wouldn't have to get into the issue of the fact that I sing it to a melody which someone else wrote) The process took the whole hour because the government form is so exacting. The other lyrics will take less time because they let him save the form on a template.

The melody I sing it to is an instrumental, ao the lyrics are totally original. Perfectly kosher to copyright them as a poem.

 It will be more difficult to copyright the song translations I've done, and perhaps it won't be possible at all. Yes, I did compose the translation, but no, the ideas behind the lyrics came from the person who composed those original Spanish lyrics. I imagine that it would take hiring a lawyer, asking permission of the lyricist, etc.

 It's too bad, because my two English verses to the famous Spanish song "Besame" are quite singable, and quite good, I think.  Perhaps I'm glorifying myself, but I can see the possibility of someone having a huge hit with that song in English sopeaking countries, using my English verse and chorus, combined with the Spanish verse and chorus. And if someone were to have a huge hit singing the English verses I wrote, I should get some royalties. Nancy, maybe you could ask Wendell about this issue?

I'd decided that I was worried enough about the drama club's lack of progress that I'd go up to the Boys & Girls Club around 5:00 PM, every evening for the rest of this month. On the days we don't have rehearsals, I'll just help with homework and try to sneak a little memorization practice with the individual kids who had had to leave early when we'd had rehearsal. That way, I could at least feel that I'd done all I could to save our early-May performance.

Luckily for me, this year most of my drama club members were not participating in the club's soccer team, which practices on the days when I don't have rehearsals.

It was difficult to even go up to the club after my depressing experience the day before. But I left there feeling wonderful, because not only did we get some practice in, but I'd been able to do some crucial help with their homework. A couple of them really do have trouble doing it by themselves, and when their mom picks them up at 7PM, there can't be much time for her to help them with it at home.

One girl had to write a math word problem. I had her pick her favorite actress and write, "Selena Gomez had 293 lines to learn for her movie. She has learned 84 of them, how many does she still have to learn?"

"See," I told them, "Your favorite movie stars have to memorize lines, just like you are having to do."
 
Yesterday, Wednesday, I still felt really tired. It seemed to take all of my energy to drive into Tempe for my Arabic lesson. I left the lesson early so that I could stop by the house and let Ziggy out for a bit in the yard, before going up to the drama club rehearsal. (Dale Sr. having gone fishing with Cam and Jerry.)

The good thing about Wednesday was I finally started eating the kind of meal which will allow me to lose weight, because it occurred to me that poor eating habits could be causing my lack of energy.  My "go-to" weight-loss meal is a potato and vegetables boiled in broth, with 200 calories of protein added. Filling, and it tasted really good to me! I made enough for two meals, and ate half of it before going into town and half of it when I stopped by the house between Tempe and the Boys & Girls Club.



Here's a photo of the Boys & Girls Club: 

And one of kids playing a raucous game of "Dodge-Ball"

I was so tired when I got out of there that I could hardly summon the energy to stop by Safeway to get the coffee I needed for the following morning. I sure hope I get my energy back soon.

 I remember that Daddy had a virus once for which the only symptom was a great deal of fatigue. I've had such periods of fatigue three or four times in the past....one of them lasted an entire month.




Love, 
Lennie

Nice Weekend, Though I'm Still Tired

Hi Mom and family,

I'm writing this Monday morning, it's almost six, pale dawn outside and the birds are chirping.

Saturday I was really tired all day, from that nine-mile walk Friday. I'd been unusually tired all week, so much so that I was beginning to suspect I had some sort of low-grade virus. But maybe I was just still tired from the go-go-go all of March.

 So Saturday  was pretty much a wasted day, except that I had a great chat with my friend Laure at Starbuck's in the late afternoon. She brought me a lovely pair of earrings she had made from Czech glass beads and silver filigree, and she had lots of news.

She has been interning for hours after work every week-day, and some of the weekend also, at the Jewish Family and Children Services in Phoenix. Most of her clients are more comfortable being counseled in Spanish (she's fluent). The agency has offered her a full-time counseling position there starting immediately. But in order to take it, Laure faced possible penalties for breaking her contract with Apache Junction Unified School District #43.

She was able to reduce the damages by pointing out, in a letter to the school board, that as the school district is facing staff cuts (budget reasons)  her leaving would save another teacher's job. One of my favorite former bosses, Dottie Hunt, who is now working in our local district administration offices, helped her write the letter.

Laure had to go to a school board meeting, plead her case, and wait outside in the hall while the school board consulted "in executive session". What a relief to her that their decision was to be as lenient with her as the rules allow. She will of course get less retirement money in the end, than if she had finished out her career at the local school district.

She wants us to give a party, on an evening in mid-June, in honor of her graduation from her counseling program. (Dale Sr. said "yes, of course.") She and I will sing some songs, her son Xander will sing a duet with her and also do a short comedy bit (he's been doing some stand-up comedy at local comedy club jams).

Laure was the one who encouraged me to give our first large party, about a decade ago.  I'd always thought would be cool to be the sort of person who gives parties, but feared I did not have the personality for it. But because she said we should give a party together, I said I'd give it a try. We set the date a few months away to give us time to practice some songs to perform  at it. That was when we built the little stage in the back yard.

Then, the party still several months away (I'm still describing ten years ago) Laure had a severe bout of depression. Because she was going through stress, her psychiatrist had suggested she take leave from work for a while. Not a good call, because not working, for Laure, was the worst thing possible. She would sit in the dark all day and cry, and our weekly singing practices were one of her few social outlets.

But she pulled herself together for the party, which turned out great. Shortly after that her sick leave money ran out, and she went back to work, which lifted her out of the depression! She's a gifted teacher; it's what keeps her going. (She also thinks that her psychiatrist got the medication wrong for that black period of her life; medication is crucial for her because she is manic-depressive without it.)

That was all many years ago. Since then, Dale Sr. and I have given quite a few large parties, and they've really added to our lives. Dale Sr. wasn't sure about them at first, but when he found out how much his friends appreciated his cooking and hospitality, he started really enjoying them. A wonderful thing that happens at our parties is that Dale Jr. and Jerry usually play a few songs.

Back to the present, and our Saturday chat. We talked about her taking photos of me (as soon as I lose this blasted ten pounds I put back on in March) in dance costume, to use for my dance meetup page photo. (She's a great photographer.) Some of the "meetups"I have started have gone well, but I haven't had hardly any response to my meetup for older women who are interested in getting back into middle eastern dance. A nice photo up at the top, of me in dance costume, might help.

 I also told her, with some hesitation, because it's an admittedly frivolous idea, that I am also interested in starting a meetup about "fashion and fitness for the woman over fifty". To my surprise, Laure, who is 55, expressed interest in being part of such a group. She suggested the name, "Silver Style" which I thought was really good. And it is so much easier to start a meetup if a friend is doing it with you.

After our chat, we went to the huge, newly-opened "Arizona Gifts" store a few blocks away. I had heard that it was a great source for beads, but had never stopped in there. It's quite a place. The owner is a middle-aged Asian man.

 
Yesterday morning, Sunday, I still felt very tired. But I had to pull it together and work on the house a bit, because I had a music meetup in the afternoon. I also made some bean soup and went to Safeway for some wine and bread and cheese.

The music jam "meetup" turned out to be really fun. Only Laure and I and one other guy had rsvp'd, but two other regulars, quite good musicians and enthusiastic and fun, also showed up. We started strong from the "git-go" and played and sung for three hours.

 
Love,
Lennie