Ninety for 90

My Aunt Addie is turning 90 in April. To celebrate this milestone, her kids arranged for each of the 90 days preceding her birthday to be marked with a unique gesture of love from one of her kin. I am one of the privileged members of my extended family to be invited to do so - and I say privileged because 1) I adore her and 2) there are waaayyy more than 90 people in my family to choose from. We are a proper and prolific Irish clan.

Aunt Addie has always been on short my list of people who I want to be when I grow up. My earliest memories of her involve big family gatherings in Madison, Nebraska, and how she and my Aunt Helen were in the center of it all, coordinating the feeding, caring and oversight and sleeping arrangements of a ton of hungry cousins.

In addition to raising large families, they were both nurses. I remember how competently and efficiently they managed the day when their mother (my Grandma McGill) had a stroke. I was in my early teens and pretty honked about not being able to play the cool organ Aunt Addie had in her house because they were trying to keep things quiet for Grandma. (Sorry, Grandma.) Once, my younger brother Steve was with her in a restaurant and they ordered coffee. When the waitress poured and Aunt Addie took a sip, the war-horse nurse in her came out when she said, "Oh, I could VOID coffee warmer than this." I think Steve spit his out when she said that, but it was such typical stuff from her. Aunt Addie kicks ass. A few years ago she went to see my Dad in the hospital. He was whining about wanting to go home. Once approved, she put him in her car and took him back to his assisted living facility, got out her walker and made the long trip to his room with him, got him settled and adjusted his catheter, grabbed her walker and made the long trek back to her car. (She later told one of my siblings that she wished his room was closer to the entrance.)

Aunt Addie was widowed early, but she pushed right on and maintained. She was the first one in the car for a trip to the casino, and still is - she loves to gamble. She makes it to family events, keeps track of who was who and does it all with astonishing humor and good grace. One of the best parts of going home to see my family is a trip to Madison to see her. I could sit at her kitchen table and listen to her for hours. She radiates wisdom, humor and good times.

My most precious memory of her is when Mom was in the hospital /hospice with pancreatic cancer. They cousins brought her out to Lexington so she could see her sister one more time and I was sitting in Mom's room when Addie arrived. Mom was pretty narc'd up at that point, but when Addie came in she raised her arms and thickly murmured, "Oh AAahhhdiiiee." Addie sat on the bed and held her little sister and talked to her, touched her face and the love was so unabashed and naked I had to look away. I've never witnessed such strength in my life. I weep now as I am writing this, remembering her grace, how she didn't lose it, she didn't cry, she just poured out such love and kindness and goodness. I'm sure she cried a river of tears later, but those last moments they had together were spectacularly beautiful. We should all be so lucky.

Back to the matter at hand - what am I going to do for my "Ninety for 90"? I thought about doing several different things, but many have already been done. She's had cakes, pies, flowers, phone calls. Chicago White Sox memorabilia, gift cards, lunches and dinner out - all kinds of great stuff. Since the economy is sour, one person minted her a trillion-dollar bill . She took it to the Senior Citizens lunch and presented it to pay for her meal. (They didn't have enough change.) Oh, and did I mention she is hand writing proper thank you notes to each of us for her gifts? She is grace personified. Wish her a happy birthday!

 

The Internet Wins

Part of having officially arrived at "Old Fart" status is coping with my hyper awareness of the lack of research, accuracy and useful information disseminated by the media. The demands of a 24 hour news cycle have made it impossible to give a story it's due and move on.  It has to be whipped into a frenzy and subject to all kinds of speculation by "experts" who clamor for attention and air time. Most troubling is how hard it has become to watch the news without frequently hearing, "according to unconfirmed reports" and "X Network News reports" when you are on a different network than X News and they don't have a clue if it is accurate but the teleprompter rolls with it anyway.   I understand how the Internet has conditioned us to expect instant access to events, but without any practiced eye reviewing them for content, factual accuracy or relevance? In doing that it has also made many of the people who bring us that news incredibly lazy.

This morning was a case in point.  For the second time in as many days, my husband (who serves in elected office) was misquoted regarding a city issue.  The really sad part?  I listened to him patiently  explain -  point by point - to the reporter how he was misquoted the day before, yet after all that the reporter went ahead and published the same damn misinformation for the second time.  Joe even attempted to help the kid out by recommending he call someone else connected with the story, to the extent he gave him the name, place of work and street the guy lives on to help him out.  The reporter's response?  "Oh.... I'll just Google it."  In the process of "just Googling it" the reporter came across some clearly outdated interviews and presented that information as current. Additionally, he didn't bother to "Google up" the one person who could clarify the information and make this article oh, I don't know, ACCURATE?

[caption id="attachment_2861" align="alignright" width="300"] Bass Rocks, Gloucester[/caption]

One of the things I love and admire most about Joe is his thick skin, his security in his own ego and his incredible ability to roll his eyes and shrug off the number of inaccuracies in newspaper ink.  My Irish soul rails up and demands action - he just shrugs it off as young-reporter-inevitable and goes peacefully on with his life. I admire that ability more than I can express. He is eleven years older and a diabetic, but he will surely outlive me because I will expire of repressed rage and angst. He is so "glass half full" that sometimes I want to strangle him. In fairness, he has wisely (and accurately) stated that if we were both of the same ilk, "We would have thrown ourselves off the rocks a long time ago."  Thank heavens for balance in the universe.

I bet a lot of "reporters" rely on Wikipedia "The Free Encyclopedia that ANYONE Can Edit!" and Google to do 95% of their job for them. Equally lazy college students are picking up material for term papers off the internet and then getting busted for plagiarism because there are software programs specially developed for colleges to combat such rampant abuse. Fast and easy trumps accurate and intelligently researched every time.

Let's end on a high note. One of the best commercials EVER made is this one by State Farm Insurance:



Yup, the internet wins.

Just Keep Snowing...Just Keep Snowing

We are just starting out on the most recent "snowpocalypse" to be forecast with the typical accompanying hysteria and panic shopping.  This one is different, however, because the Weather Channel saw fit to give it a name - NEMO.  This makes it easier to track on Twitter & other social media - I get that - but NEMO?  Seriously?

I'm sitting here writing this fresh out of the shower and with wet hair. After listening to

[caption id="attachment_2848" align="alignright" width="219"] Note Use of Local Dialect[/caption]

sustained winds HOWL for the past hour I thought it would be prudent to scrub down, shampoo and dry my hair while we still had power.  I'm not one for panic shopping (bread, milk and eggs are de rigueur out here) because we keep a pretty well stocked pantry and I've never had a craving for French toast during a blizzard.  If it weren't for the nagging fear of losing power I'd be happy as a lark.  I love a good blizzard as long as I'm safe, warm and have access to charging devices like my iPad.

Not sure how this storm will shake out but all signs point to "very bad" and I worry about people who are not safe or warm. Let's all worry about them instead of preempting TV shows to announce another inch of snow has fallen and that everything closed is still closed.

Historic Paper Piecing - Design Wall Monday

I've got a pretty broad range of fabrics in my stash and what I make reflects that spectrum.  I have an equal opportunity (and era) stash.  However, I do love hand sewing and since I love paper piecing hexagons I thought I'd give it a whirl with some different shapes and historic fabrics.

Oy vey.

I wasn't prepared for all those ANGLES.  I can stitch hexagons in my sleep but the octagons and coffins (my word) were a new ball game. To make matters worse, I PAID FOR THE SCRAPS so I couldn't ditch the project.  No, I am not insane - they are the gleanings from late 1800's - early 1900's quilts that have been rescued and conserved by loving professionals. In some cases, entire portions of the quilt had to be removed and the surrounding fabric was lovingly harvested and sold for around $8 a bag.  To a good home, you might say.

I bought a bag of the scraps just to touch them, to study up close and personal how those fabrics were made, the stunning colors and intricate designs.  They just breathed life.  I didn't know what I would do with them until I hit on the idea of paper piecing a little something to go on my end table. (Okay, probably under glass, I spill a lot of coffee.) I felt compelled to gently hand wash them, let them air dry and used the survivors in this bit of piecing. I like the idea of giving those very old fabrics a very new life.  The gold connecting squares and the border fabric are not old, just reproduction fabrics in the same color family.  Even though from now on I will probably stick to hexagons, I really like this little bit of a thing and can't wait to see it finished.

I Did It. My Way.

We've already established that reading pattern directions is my kryptonite. Even when I was making dresses and blouses for Home Ec I needed help translating arrows and darts. The fact that my mother was a pretty accomplished "sewist" didn't help matters because she was left-handed and (to me) did everything upside down and backwards.

[gallery ids="2825,2826,2816"]

I wanted a purse made from my treasured stash of Japanese fabrics.  I knew how I wanted it to look, and I knew I had all the hardware and fabric and fusible fleece to do it.  I even had the right size hexagons to paper piece the top part so I dove right in and then spent an inordinate amount of time ripping it apart.  Ironically - I understand purse construction SO much better that now I might actually be able to tackle reading a pattern!

When I made this I tended to put pieces together and then say, "Hmm, I should have put those snaps in before I joined the 2 pieces together."  I honestly think I made a purse upside down and backwards.  While I don't think Mom would be proud,  it is finished.  I might need to remake one of the snap-in inserts, I got so caught up in stippling that the finished insert might be too heavy for the purse.  I was always so afraid to stipple but I'm finding it can be very Zen-like.  (It's also quite a workout for your upper arms, let me tell you!)  I have no explanation for my obsession with pockets other than to admit I have a fantasy of presiding over a completely organized purse. I bought a special zipper for the topmost closure - just in case those pockets get overstuffed and unseemly, I can zip the whole thing shut and no one will know.

I'd say it came out about 85% like what I wanted, and I might up that percentage after using it for a while. Think I'll move into it and give it a test drive next week.  But YAY, I finally (after years of waiting) did it!