A Rainy Day

What I do on a rainy day, this being of no particular interest but me. When I was a young girl my rainy days consisted of cutting out recipes from my Nanis' torn-out-of-magazine collection. Then I would carefully glue both the picture and recipe on one page and put it in a notebook. This was the start of my all-consuming passion for cooking.

I would go through the Sears catalog and, having 4 brothers and 2 parents, with a counting system I can't remember, initial the product that each of us would get. Kind of like eeny-meeny-miney-mo. Out of the 7 products, whoever got the best, won. Anal you might say. This was the start of my passion for shopping on the internet.

I read the dictionary cover to cover. We had the kind that used the words in sentences so I also built a little bit of a vocabulary as well, not to mention learning to spell pretty well. This was the start of my passion for reading more interesting things, like fiction.

Flash forward to the present and in the same little house, I might add, I have new rainy day favorites. I now cross stitch for no one in particular, just the things that appeal to me. They might go in a drawer, or if someone likes what I've done, they can take it. I just finished a Christmas stocking for Cade, Dori's son; a ballerina for Claire, Derrick's daughter; and am doing an outside scene with a gold bird landing in a field of wild grass.

I still read fiction voraciously with my taste leaning toward action thrillers, same as my movie taste.

I plan trips on Microsoft Streets and Trips, both camping and bed & breakfasts. This I would say is my greatest passion and most probably comes from my childhood unrainy days. When we took trips to Minnesota, Washington and California with many states between, as we arrived at a gas station, we 5 kids would pile out of the car, into the office, and get a state map apiece (they were free). I proceeded to mark our course as we traveled along the highways (there were no interstates then) which is something I still do to this day. I have an atlas that I mark when I get home and there are road tracings in every state except Alaska of vacations I've been on.

I love rainy days! They are when all my passions crash together.

She Made Me Eat My Words

When we found out Dori was having our second grandchild, I preached to her, same as when Pearce was born, give them their own name. Don't name them Jr. or the III or just plain Frank, like what Pearce ended up with as a first name. And her Dad, Donald, preached the same thing. Give them individuality - even though we named both Derrick and Dori after Donald, his second name and theirs also. Derrick is Derrick Ray and Dori is Dori Rhea.

So they went about looking for the perfect name as all parents do and they came up with Cole, another really cool name like Pearce. But they couldn't think of a name to go with it, so on the day Cole was born he still did not have a second name.

On the third day of Dori and Cole's stay at the hospital, we went to visit and Dori told us she had signed the birth certificate. They had named him Donald Cole. I immediately gulped and broke out into tears, which in turn did Dori. She was crying because she thought I was upset about giving him just plain Donald as a name and once again naming him after someone. I was so absolutely blown away with love-abiding emotion and honor that the poring of tears was unpreventable and this has become a top 5 joyous moment.

Then this past spring break Pearce and Cole stayed with us for about 4 days and while Cole was here, for some insane reason, he told us he wanted to be called Donald from now on. We'll probably never hear that again because I think he was especially enamored with his Ada (all the guy stuff they were doing) but the joy goes on.

The Only Way to Go

There is such a variety of vacations people can take and most don't ever experience all they can because they just don't know what's available and just how to go about it.

To clarify, I'm only going to talk about my adult life vacations because my parents took my 4 brothers and I on many since my Dad's families lived in Minnesota, Washington, and California . . . with distant relatives at points in between.

My first perfect vacation is one that I suspect most mothers don't attempt. It was in the late 70s and Derrick and Dori were 12 and 6 respectively. Donald had a job that he thought couldn't live without him for more than a week at a time and I wanted to go see my brother in Washington which was going to take at least 2 weeks. This not counting our stops at landmarks like Mount Rushmore, Custer's last stand, Yellowstone on the way. And then on the way home, I couldn't pass up Las Vegas where Dori could stroll past the swimming pool at Caesar's Palace and pretend a great play (going on only in her mind but fun to watch.) It was Donald's suggestion that we take this trip without him, making him the most non-controlling, trusting husband a woman could want to be married to.

And that started the whole thing. Donald never liked driving for long distances and I was born and bred to wander, since I am from Viking stock. So my journeys have covered all 48 contiguous states many times and Maui.

I've been on perfect vacations where I took my kids, one of their cousins, and Donald's mother. I've been on perfect vacations where I took my parents and my kids. I've been on short vacations with just Dori and I and we've also spent lots of fun weekends in bed and breakfasts together.

And my most perfect vacations have been totally alone. I find that myself is the most interesting person for myself to talk, sing and laugh at. We've had many one-on-one conversations and come out with quite a few answers to many others' problems. I laid on a picnic table at the top of a mountain reading a book for an hour; I sat on a roadside watching children play on haystacks while their Dad pitched the hay into a wagon drawn by a tractor; I have had a glass of wine, eaten my dinner and read my book in a window seat at a restaurant next to a beautiful lake as the sun set; I've climbed a glacier; I laid down by a river in high grass and took a nap in sweet smelling wild flowers with the sun warming my face; I have walked trails that no one else would want to; I've settled for a bag of Cheetos for lunch because I was in the middle of nowhere with only a gas station that sold Cheetos and gas; I've stayed in little Route 66-style motels; I've driven only country roads or highways (the best being without shoulders); I've played games like stopping every 100 miles to take a photo no matter where that might be; and on and on. Alone is great because a companion wouldn't share all the time spent stopping to do nothing at all.

When I'm 100 and bittersweetly thinking about my journeys, the one that will stand out most will be the one where I took 2 weeks to wander driving through the Dakotas, Glacier National Park in Montana, and then picking Donald up at the airport in Bozeman with all of his clothes and flyfishing paraphernalia intact in the trunk of my car. We stayed in a mountain lodge, he fly fished, I read books, then he got back on that plane, flew home and I followed in the car, taking about a week to get home.

The Clock Winked

Daylight savings time just began this weekend. I don't get it. Donald and I argue about when it's time to get up and time to go to bed. For me it's like jet lag - if yesterday I went to bed at 10:00 pm and tonight I go to bed at 10:00 (which was only 9:00 pm last night) I can't go to sleep. Same as getting up in the morning - if I usually get up at 5:30 and now my inner alarm wakes me up at 4:30 because I think it's 5:30 isn't it still really early? He immediately adjusts. But here I sit typing out this blog at 10:40 pm when it's only 9:40 and he's sound asleep in the adjacent room in 10:40 time.

And those people in the next campsite who are still raucously having fun think it's only 9:40 pm and they have until 10:00 to be quiet - don't they know it's after 10? Daylight savings time is really confusing for a lot of people. However, I bet the horses, cows, sheep, birds and various other animals don't care what time it is because they are on the schedule set by God. I wonder what a bird who flies from one time zone to another feels - do they get confused by needing to be back to feed their baby birds by 5:00? I think we humans totally confuse our lives by all these rules.

Don't get me wrong, I love it when the day lasts longer into the night. But when you're already an early riser, the day is dark until much later into the morning.

The Circle of Life

During the career of bringing up my children, while Donald and I were young, working, and climbing the ladder of fame and fortune, we had many house moves. I can only hope it didn't mar Derrick and Dori for life - I know Dori is looking for any small excuse for her self-inflicted, self-named shortcomings. (She has none if you ask me.)

I have 2 favorites and the first is before I was even married. We (my dad, mom, me and 4 brothers) lived in a small frame house in the country. It was probably about 1,000 square feet, had 2 bedrooms, 1 bath and 2 tiny closets. We had a washer for clothes but had to hang them outside to dry. You can imagine the expanse of that clothesline. My mom kept an immaculately clean house; however, I'm almost positive I cultivated a hate for baths at that time (we didn't have a shower in the tub.) Sharing a tub with 4 grimy brothers and my parents just isn't even appetizing thinking about it today. I still to this day take only showers and on the rare occasion I draw bath water I can only spend about 5 minutes there before I start getting an icky feeling (not worth the trouble of gathering all the paraphernalia to have a soothing bath.)

The great move came when my parents decided to build a new 2,500 sq. ft. brick home on the property but a couple of acres away and up on a hill. We moved in right before I was a senior in high school and I thought that was going to up my level of prestige in the Kilgore schools. Apparently, a nice house didn't do it: you had to be a star football player or rich oil kid. I still got a room of my own and a huge closet and I felt like a queen. All of this I enjoyed for about 3 years until I moved away to the big city of Dallas.

Donald and I now live in that little frame house which we have renovated into a beautiful little cottage. The circle of life is pretty amazing. Roar!

My second great move was when we moved back to this little 1,000 square foot house 40 years later. Isn't that a hoot! It is a very peaceful home and we've decorated it in a cottage style. We often have people say if we ever wanted to sell it they would also buy the furniture and decorations. We also have people that knock on the door and ask if it's a bed and breakfast. So we are living a dream and loving it.

Swedish Invasion of Occupied Japan

My Dad was 100% Swede, blond, blue-eyed, looked like Alan Ladd, and 3rd generation American. When we were at war with Germany and Japan, he was actively involved as a "spy" pilot in the Army. The first time he saw me was when I was a year old and that was in San Antonio where he was being treated for war fatigue. After we declared war on Japan and won, he reenlisted (after 2 more kids) and was sent to Occupied Japan. His duty time was for several years and so to be a family my Mom and we 3 kids took an ocean liner trip to Japan. We lived there for a little over 3 years and had many adventures. Some of these are memories of a 5-8 year old kid and some are from my younger brother, Chris, who says he remembers but . . .

We moved quite a bit while we were there - you would wonder, since it is such a small country, why we had so many houses. What I do remember is that they were all mansions because we have the photos to prove it. Some of my memories might actually be influenced by these photos. Many of the Japanese who had lived in these houses gave them up to the soldiers who were now protecting them and we lived better than if we were living in the U.S. We had what they called mamasans (housekeepers) and houseboys (they helped the mamasans.) My Mom must have felt in hog heaven.

The first house was 3 stories slanting down a hillside (looking more like a Japanese Frank Lloyd Wright version.) It had 2 levels of yards, the upper being what you would consider a Japanese garden-type rock garden with shaped bushes and different stone statues. The lower portion of the yard was a large grassy area that you took steps down to get there and seemed like several acres. Outside the gate and fence which protected the perimeter of our house was a wide canal that you could only get to the other side by going over a bridge. On the other side were other houses very similar to ours.

The inside of the house was typically Japanese with paper walls and sliding doors (the Swedish invasion poked many holes in those paper walls.) I believe my brother, Victor, was the one most responsible for the holes. After all, he was only almost 2 years old. While we lived there we went through an earthquake where we had to take cover and a typhoon/tidal wave that destroyed anything close to the ocean. Thank goodness, we were far enough inland that it didn't affect us, but we took many pictures of the destruction. I remember at the age of 6 being really scared. My Dad was flying spy missions over North Korea at the time so he wasn't there to protect us. In fact, he spent most of his time in North Korea, so we lived in Japan mostly alone. My Mom was from a small town in East Texas and she must have been very brave and very in love to travel all that distance to be with my Dad.

One of my brothers was born on the Army base while we lived there. I also attended kindergarten and first grade at the Army base. I traveled there by Japanese train (the transportation mode at that time.) I don't remember that we had a car.

My Mom tells a story about being on that train when an enraged Japanese man, still angry at Americans for Hiroshima, went wild. My Mom, blond and beautiful, and we 4 kids, all blond ourselves (we must have looked like something out of the movies), were immediately surrounded by the other Japanese passengers and protected from the man until the police could subdue him.

Our second house was more spectacular than the first. It had such a large yard that there were several pagodas in the yard, surrounded by a moat of water, and you had to cross over a bridge to get into the pagoda. It was quite a fairyland for a young girl of 6 or 7. There were also stone statues placed throughout the grounds. There were many rooms inside of the house that were off-base for us and now I regret not sneaking into some of them. This house was also surrounded by a concrete wall. There was a little door at the back of the house that we kept locked, but when my Mom wanted to take a short cut we would go through that gate and it was like the opposite of "The Secret Garden." We would suddenly be in the midst of Japanese enterprise that you couldn't hear from inside our concrete world. It was in this house that my brother, Chris, swears my Mom and I would sneak out to the movies after she thought the 3 younger kids were asleep. Chris couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 and I have to give him credit for a really good memory and a grudge held for a long time - he didn't get to go. But I say that's the privilege granted for being the oldest.

My Mom took me to the Japanese ballet a couple of times which is very different from what most people in the U.S. are familiar with because they didn't dance on their toes. The stage scenes were very colorful, flamboyant, and surreal. The dancers' costumes were so colorful and glittery and they fought on stage so there was a lot of activity. It was all spoken in Japanese but that didn't matter because it was very exciting.

We had several picnics on a lake at the base of Mt. Fuji and I remember paddling some kind of boat on the lake, probably a canoe of some sort. It is a memory of a lifetime and whether it's through real thoughts or manufactured ones from photos, it was magical. It might explain my current passion for travel and adventure.

The Best Garage Sale I've Never Been To

I have a new birdhouse. I've collected them over the years and as they sat outside they've aged, faded or just fallen apart. So I don't have as many as I used to. But I have one now that will be cherished inside never to see the light of day. It's hung in the doorway between my dining room and kitchen and it's special because my oldest grandson, Pearce, gave it to me for Christmas.

It's not a store-bought birdhouse nor is it homemade. Pearce's Dad took him to a garage sale and Pearce, using his own money, shopped very carefully for his Mom and me and then presented each of our presents in gift bags. When I look at that birdhouse, it makes me feel warm, comfortable, loved and gives me good thoughts.

His Mom had a truly emotional reaction when she opened her carefully chosen gift from the garage sale - it was a unicorn. She hasn't collected unicorns in some time, but I'll bet this unicorn will never be tucked away in a drawer. That is, until Pearce gets old enough to beg her to "let it go, Mom". You see, she had the exact same unicorn when she was a child and couldn't believe what the chances were of getting that very one from Pearce (so carefully chosen). He is only 10 but he listens and observes well and I believe he must have been so satisfied with his discoveries and then giving them.