Silver and Gold

Make new friends and keep the old,
One is silver and the other's gold.

It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

I have a friend. My oldest friend, in that she has been my friend longer than anyone else on earth, apart from my Mum and my sister.

This is my friend Janet.

This is me.

I have been working on this post in my head for a long time. I wanted to tell you about Janet. About how remarkable it is that, although we have only seen each other once in the last 42 years, we still call each other "friend."

But especially, about how remarkable I think she is as a person.

I have mentioned a couple of times that as a girl I really only wanted two things: to be a ballerina and to own a horse. I didn't get either, although Annie managed to "kind of" fulfill both aspirations. My friend Janet was an avid horse rider when she was young and I was ever-so-slightly jealous. We were pretty good friends at school, but didn't spend any time at each other's homes because we lived in different villages. We attended a little village school in Middle Littleton, which was where Janet lived. My family lived in North Littleton. There was also a South Littleton. You get the idea! I could spend pages telling you about that school and my teachers, but maybe some other time. This post is about my friend.

Janet used to call me occasionally from the phone box by her house. We got a phone, with the number Badsey 733, which I had to recite when I answered the phone because my Dad had his own plumbing business. It was an exciting event when Janet called me. No one else ever did, you see. Call me, I mean. I was sad to leave Janet when we moved to New Zealand, but we promised to write. I was eleven at the time. And write we did. For some reason, we started this thing where each time we wrote, we would beat the last letter's page total. I think we were up to over 30 pages by the time we got to be into our teens and, I assume, too busy for such time-consuming pastimes.

The years passed by and pretty soon we were all grown up. Jan went to university and graduated and got married. I notably DIDN'T go to university (sore point with my parents), although I did some traveling and served a mission and then got married shortly after Jan and Steve. We didn't see each other again until we were in our mid 30's. My sister and I had planned a trip to England with our daughters. Anne wasn't able to go in the end, so Bethany and I went alone. After spending a week with my aunties and uncles in Birmingham, we went to the Cotswolds to stay with Janet and her family. Jan was the proud Mum of a toddler and a baby when Bethany and I visited. I must admit, I was very surprised to discover that Jan was profoundly deaf. Not only had she shown no signs of it (that I knew) when we were children, but she had never mentioned it since. She was pretty awesome at coping with it, using a combination of hearing aids and lip reading. It was a bit nerve-wracking when she was driving though, because she would be looking in the rear-view mirror all the time to watch her son talking. I never told her that before, sorry Jan! We had a fun week and then went home. Since then, it has mostly been Christmas letters and the occasional email.

Several years ago, Jan got a cochlear implant. I was interested in this because I had done extensive research on the deaf community while studying for my music therapy degree. Jan's surgery was rather groundbreaking, something to do with new robotic techniques, and she was featured in a TV programme. Since then, she has become an advocate and support for potential and actual cochlear implant recipients. She also volunteers for a local charity teaching life skills to people who have mental illnesses or learning deficiencies. Not only that, but Jan is an avid biker. This girl thinks nothing of going out on a Saturday and churning out 100 miles. She rode Le Jog a few years ago, the ultimate act of hard-core biking. Well, maybe not THE ultimate, I suppose Lance might have something to say about that. But Le Jog is the route from Land's End to John O'Groats, the entire length of the British isles. It's rugged by any standard. I keep trying to talk her into coming and riding the Seattle-to-Portland, but only because I want to see her again. I suppose it might seem a bit tame after Le Jog. Jan is also a wife, Mum of two, and a businesswoman.

There, in a nutshell, is almost 50 years of a friendship.You may wonder, what makes two people hang on to a relationship where their paths cross so infrequently? Especially when, in retrospect, we only knew each other for four years and didn't ever play together outside of school. I think maybe it's because we are like-minded without even knowing it. Jan reads my blog faithfully; all of the UK entries in the sidebar are her. (Apparently her ISP wanders!) She wrote in her last email, in which she told me about her volunteer work, that a lot of the things I say and do echo her life and thoughts very accurately. So we are, as it turns out, and in the words of Anne Shirley, kindred spirits. Maybe that's the answer.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you forget the question?

P.S. I just added "visiting Jan" to my bucket list. I will take photos of us together, looking fierce on our bikes.

Auspicious beginnings

In honour of the new year, I decided to wash a load of whites.
Mostly because I was out of underwear.
Which necessitated clearing off the dining table so that I could wash the tablecloth so that it would be clean for my un-New-Year's-Eve party tonight.
I picked up my purse to put it away and noticed that it was full of crap.
So I cleaned out all of the random papers that had accumulated.
Then I noticed a credit card in my wallet that I never use any more, so I started on the wallet.
I made piles on the counter: recycle, cut up, throw away.
Then, on the counter, I saw the pile of Christmas cards and photos that kind people had sent.
So I sorted those into piles: recycle, throw away, cut up to use for gift tags next year.
Put a DVD back in its cover and noticed the mess of movies on the floor by the TV.
Cleaned up the movie mess.
Finally, back to the tablecloth.

My grasshopper ways will be the undoing of me yet.

Another thought on that last post on creativity.
I used to have a bumper sticker on our old Vista that said "Boring women have immaculate homes." I still subscribe to the philosophy, although I do like a tidy home and always aspire to it. I've decided that I'm a goal-oriented person. Hence, the party tonight. Today, in addition to visiting the Evergreen Aviation Museum (home of the Spruce Goose) with our free passes from the library, we will be cleaning house. Nothing like a party to get the old cleaning juices flowing. If you're reading this and didn't get a call from me, crash it anyway.

May we all have a happy and productive 2010.

My trusty sidekick

A creative mess is better than tidy idleness.

I don't remember my first sewing machine. I learned to sew in Intermediate School when I was about 12. I've no doubt my Dad was thoroughly excited for two reasons. First, my eagerness to use my new talent would save us money. Two, I became creative, and my Dad was all about being creative. He could look at anything and figure out how to make it himself, then go home and do just that. From then on I sewed almost all of my clothes, plus most of my sister's and my Mum's clothes as well. Skirts, pants, blouses, jumpsuits, ballgowns. All I needed was a few hours on a Saturday to churn out whatever new lovely I needed for a hot date that night or church the next day. I remember sewing couch cushion covers, piped all around, when Dad got it in his head that he could re-upholster an old couch.
At some point I acquired a snazzy Elna, which I loved and took with me when I moved to Wellington and then back home again after my Dad died. Due to voltage differences, it stayed in New Zealand when I moved here in December 1979, but the first thing Jeff and I bought after we got married was an inexpensive sewing machine. I sewed for a drill team in Huntington Beach that first year and made dress samples for a friend in the fabric business after that, so I felt justified in upgrading to my trusty Viking a couple of years later. It cost $475, which was a small fortune at the time, but I was earning money on it and, once again, sewing all of our clothes on it. I made Jeff a brown, wool suit shortly afterwards.

Here it is, almost thirty years later, almost none the worse for wear. It did lose its zipper foot sometime back, a victim of one child or another, so I have to hand-sew all my zippers. Not a big sacrifice, because I avoid zippers like the plague anyway, and they actually look better when they're sewn by hand. I suppose I could buy a new zipper foot, but that would be too easy.

The machine got a real workout when the kids were little, I even sewed the girls' underwear. I never attempted boy's underwear, for obvious reasons. Then, when they were all teenagers, it lay idle for months at a time, except for making prom dresses and curtains and the occasional bit of mending. Since Kenzie was born, the old Viking has seen a resurgence in activity. That girl loves her dresses and skirts, so it's been fun to get creative again.

This is the result of my break from work. Nine baby blankets, a music bag, a shopping bag, and (not pictured) a cover for my doumbek.

What's a doumbek, you ask?

That's my drum. It is a very special doumbek because it has a tambourine inside.

My big push for 2010 is to be creative with all of the fabric and yarn and doodads that are in my so-called sewing room. Somebody asked me, why don't you just give it away? Well, I suppose I could, but I'm needing a challenge. This will do until I can figure out the bigger one.

An unexpected precipitation

Carl Reiner, the actor, once said, "A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."

It snowed unexpectedly yesterday.

Commuters took hours to get home.

Even the weather forecasters were caught by surprise.

In less than an hour, everything was covered in a white blanket of powdery snow.

The view from our back window was suddenly picturesque, instead of grey and bedraggled.

It snows rarely enough around here that I forgot the eerie glow that the snow reflects at night.

I took this photo a few seconds later with the flash.

I stayed in the house all day, except for a quick trip out to the shed to look for my car's chains. Jeff and Jon had been eagerly anticipating their outing to see Avatar last night. Sadly, it took Jeff three hours to get home and their plans fizzled. They have rescheduled for when Jon and Jenny get back from their trip to Utah.

I kind of missed the excitement that a snowfall brought to the house when kids were young. All the bundling up in boots and gloves and jackets and hats. Holding mugs of hot chocolate to warm the hands when they dragged back in. Melted snow puddles on the floor. Blasts of cold air as they enter and leave the house. Piles of wet clothes to wash. Runny noses and red cheeks. Frozen toes and fingers. Footprints all around the garden.

To tell the truth, I was a little bored.

There, that's twice I've used the word in the last week.

Must be time to get back to work.

High fashion...

...for lounging in front of the woodstove on a cold winter night in Oregon.

Black stretchy pyjamas.

(They're slimming you know.)

Green knitted-by-me prayer shawl.

Pink fuzzy socks gifted to me by piano students.

Playing on Jeff's laptop and waiting for Tom Selleck in Jesse Stone: Thin Ice.

Wake me in April, would you please?

The Hummer

Jeff and I had a quiet Christmas day. We slept in, ate leftovers, thought about going to the movies but by then it was too late to catch a matinee. I refuse to pay $10 each to see a movie. We puddled around on our computers and took a nap. Getting, frankly, a little bored.

Then I got the brilliant idea to take Jenny and the boys to see a light show that I had heard about at a house in Amity, about 20 miles from us. It is apparently fantastic, with 20 minutes of lights synchronized to music, mostly Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which plays on your car radio. I told Jeff to copy down the directions and address while I took a shower and off we went. We drove around for almost two hours and couldn't find the house. No one at the general store in Amity had heard of it and yet they have their own website. Strange, we thought. Even if Jeff had copied down the directions or the address wrong, surely he wouldn't have gotten both of them wrong, and it looked so straightforward. The gas tank was almost on empty so we gave up and came home.

Unfulfilled.

Jeff fell asleep and Thomy wanted no more part of Christmas lights.

So we dropped them off at home and drove up to the ritzy housing development in town where they have a whole street of decorated houses. The best part is in the cul-de-sac, although it was mighty cold once you got out of the protection of the street.

Without the flash you get a better idea of the magical effect.

I made a video so that you can see more of the street. When I played it back I realized I was humming. Jeff is sweet and laughs at my humming. It bothers some people. My sister and I were driving in her car a few years ago and I was humming, as usual. She said, "Do you always do that?" in a slightly testy tone of voice. Yes, I do. I don't know when it started, or why I do it. I usually hum the last tune I heard, which, in my life, changes frequently. Sometimes, when I have to learn a difficult tune for my music therapy groups, I have to practise the song 20 or 30 times. Like "I can Sing a Rainbow," which has a key change halfway through. I hummed and sang that one for weeks before I could get it out of my head. And even now it creeps back in sporadically. I hum a lot when I'm at the grocery store. Once in a while I catch someone else humming. We just smile at each other and walk on. As Adrian Monk would say, "It's a blessing.......and a curse."

I can't even figure out what song I was humming, it must have been on the radio before we got out of the car. The trouble is, sometimes I sing notes in my head instead of out loud, so you don't get a good sense of the melody, only random snatches of the tune. If you can decipher it, let me know and I'll make it worth your while.

Oh yeah. We checked the directions when we finally arrived home. Jeff got both the directions and the address wrong. What are the odds of that? Maybe we'll try again tonight.

NOT!

Christmas joy, with photos, hopefully, fixed

Christmas Eve was pretty riotous at our house. Jon had to work later in the evening so our time was limited. The meat wasn't "falling off the bone" yet when he and his family arrived, so we opened presents first. My policy has always been that we read the story of Christ's birth before we open presents. This has been met with various degrees of enthusiasm over the years, depending on the ages of the children. This year, I had about 20% cooperation, but after announcing that there would NOT be any presents unless we read about the real meaning of Christmas, things improved somewhat.

Daniel faded fast. The excitement of it also being his birthday celebration proved to be a little too much.

We gave the older grandchildren money for designated classes this year, in an effort to not contribute to their piles of stuff. Here is Thomy opening his envelope. He will take art classes in January. He has incredible fine motor skills, which Jonnie attributes to playing video games. He also has a lot of patience and is painstaking in his colouring and art work, so I think the classes will open his eyes to new ideas.

Daniel got money for basketball or science class, depending on what is offered when the new Park and Rec schedule comes out. Kenzie gets a month of horse riding lessons.

Everyone got cozy fleece pyjama pants from Nana and Papa.

Natalie, showing off her new pants, hairband and purse. The girl has impeccable fashion sense, don't you think?

Let the feast begin. Roast beef with mashed potatoes and corn and peas and killer rolls. Sparkling grape juice. My rolls have been less than marvelous lately but these were divine. Maybe it was all the butter I slathered them with before I rolled them into crescents.

Last Christmas I bought a box of Christmas crackers at Costco. Crackers are an integral part of the Christmas celebration in England, so they bring back sweet memories for me. We've had them a few times with our family, but they weren't always easy to find and even then were expensive. A cracker, if you don't know, consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in pretty foil paper. Inside is a party hat, a prize, and a joke or saying, kind of like a fortune cookie. When you pull it with a partner, it splits unevenly. The split is accompanied by a small bang which is ever so thrilling! The bang is from the effect of friction on a chemically impregnated card strip. Crackers were invented in England in 1847 by a sweet (candy) maker as a promotional gimmick. Thank you Wikipedia.

Chris got the prize he had coveted, a mini tape measure. These were high-quality crackers. Daniel got a metal yo-yo.

Jon and Jenny look less than thrilled with their cracker experience.

Note the quality silver party hats.

If you can get past Bethany's fearsome face.

Jeff, eating his peas and corn. I think that was all he ate.

Jonnie, expounding on the evils of monoculture, specifically potatoes in this instance. Luckily, I had prepared yellow potatoes that were organically grown by Farmer Brown, rather than the ubiquitous russet.

Natalie, at the end of the day and with chocolate face, riding her and Joshie's new rocking horse.

A Happy Christmas to all my friends and readers.

I hope your day is (or was) as merry as mine.