Story of the Day 5/ 13/ 2014 #2

My older brother has three children.
The last time I saw them was when his youngest was 5.
She is no longer 5.

I speak with my brother often, and I often get to speak to his wife and children, on the phone.
I speak to them, sometimes more than once a week, but actually seeing them doesn't happen.
We have busy lives and his is led in California, and mine in Indiana.
As a result, his kids grow and change and I beg for pictures.
And I beg.
And I beg.

He sent some.
Three.
The most recently sent one was when his oldest daughter was about 5.
She is now in high school.

That doesn't mean that I haven't seen any photos of them. I have the photos I took the different times I have seen them.
The most recent time being when the youngest , Laura, was 5.
This is certainly more recent than when his oldest was 5. Unlike his eldest, his youngest is not yet in high school, she is only in 5th grade.
So, as you might have guessed, I am left guessing what his children look like.

Until today, when everything changed.

My mother is visiting ( from New York). I see her quite a bit more frequently than I see my brother and his family.
New York is closer. Slightly
And because of my mother, I have now seen photos - lots and lots of photos of my brother and his family from as recently as last year.
Last year, my mother spent a month with them
On vacation.
In Vietnam.

Now, my mom has not been out here , to Indiana, to visit us in years. Soon, it will be seven years. Whoops. make that eight years.
That doesn't mean I haven't seen her.
First of all, she is much better than my brother at sending photos.
Also, we have travelled and seen my mother, in New York, where she lives, but also in St. Louis and other spots where other family lives.

So we see her more frequently, in real life and in photos.
But not my brother and his family.
And when my mother sees my brother and his family at least once a year, I usually beg for photos of them, which she does not send.
Apparently, whatever the disease my brother has regarding photos of his family, it is contagious.
But, as I mentioned, she does send me photos of herself.

I really can't complain that she goes out to visit my brother and his family much more frequently. Espiecially since doing so means that they take her off to a month long tour of a foreign country.
While my idea of treating her to a nice vacation, when she comes to visit us ( like now), is to drive her to visit a cousin in a small town and to go shopping at WalMart.
You can clearly see how my vacation-spot offerings pale in comparison.
Sigh.
Maybe this is also why my brother prefers to visit other places/relatives.

And on the all -expenses-paid-for by my brother and his wife vacation in Vietnam, last summer, my mother took lots and lots of photos.
Of three very gorgeous , very much larger than I remember them kids.
No, she did not send them to me, even though I asked for them, last year.
And I asked several times.
Although, she has sent me , since that trip, at least half a dozen photos of herself.
And a video.

But, my mother, who will be 80 in a few months, has acquired a laptop.
And on this visit, she brought it.
So I have seen photos.
Recent photos of my brother and his family.

And they are gorgeous,
And a lot bigger.
A lot.

Now, if I can figure out how to get some of them off of her laptop....

Story of the Day 5/14/ 2014

My mother and my son, Aaron, the middle child, drove off, before noon.
They are on their way to St. Louis to enjoy my nephew's graduation from college.
As I pointed out to Aaron, "You see, some people actually GRADUATE from college." It was just one of many minor hints I have dropped, over the past....few years.
At any rate, they pulled out , headed in the right direction.

Earlier, this morning, my son proudly announced that he had made a packing list. This is something that I have traditionally made and given to my children, so they can do their own packing. In the case of my oldest child, Ely, he has long since mastered this skill and makes his own packing list. I think he may have mastered it about 10 years ago.
My son, Aaron, however, seems to a bit of a slow learner, and this is one of his first attempts.

He read it to me.
I said, " You forgot deodorant."
I thought a moment.
"And pajamas."

He added them to the list.
I asked him to see it, to double check. I find visuals work best for me, I am a bit too ADD to be sure what I heard 57 seconds ago.
I look down the list.
Underwear.
Socks.
Shirts.
toothbrush and toothpaste.
I do not see a comb listed, but he hasn't used one of those in years.
Not since he discovered the "buzz cut".

Hearing aid batteries.
Alarm clock.

I smile. I think of my sister and her household being awoken, tomorrow morning, and Friday morning, and Sunday morning, and Monday morning by this special alarm clock we purchased that is able to wake my deaf son.
I imagine their relief when he pulls out of the parking spot in front of the house to head back here.

There were a number of other things, but it looked good.
Despite his original omission of deodorant and pajamas.
This is a huge improvement from when he packed for Israel and forgot to take any shirts.
I hand the list back to him and go back to my work.

Later, after an early lunch, they drive off.
I come back into the house, my arms a tad sore from waving like a maniac, and notice that sitting on the kitchen counter,
in a plastic travel bag,
is my son's toothbrush.

Story of the Day 5/ 13/ 2014

My mother has been visiting. She lives in Brooklyn which is part of another country.
It is a country of cement and tall buildings and lots of accents. Accents that are not simply country twangs.
And while she has been here, we have been doing things that are exotic to her

This morning, we drove to visit my cousin, Kathy.
Kathy is the daughter of my mom's cousin, who died a number of years ago.
Kathy lives in a group residence and , when I visit, always has a list of things that she needs to get.
When I go, I take her out, we get the things on her list, and we have lunch out at a restaurant of her choosing.
Of course, she always chooses the same place.
Subway.
She chooses this after naming other places she would like to go.
naming the places, and then deciding on Subway means , obviously, that sit is a considered choice.
She also always has exactly the same sandwich with the same chips and the same drink.
After looking at the choices.

Kathy lives in a small town where there are about a dozen restaurants, but there is only one store that sells clothing and shoes is the WalMart.
As a result, that is where we tend to go.
I am not a huge fan of the corporation, but it does let us buy her things like bras and sneakers without having to drive to another city.

My mother hadn't seen Kathy in years.
This is what happens. Everyone started out in Ohio, and then scattered, and it is almost an accident that Kathy and I live in the same state.
Forty years ago, some of my aunts and uncles attend college in Indiana, but they have long since left.
On my mom's side of the family, Kathy and I are the only Hoosiers.

My mother grew up in the midwest- in Ohio.
She attended college there and spent the years that she was married to my father in a mid-sized Midwestern city.
Mid-sized by midwestern standards.
Where she now lives , it would be a rather small suburb.

And Indiana is a very different place than where she now lives- where she has lived for many years.
The 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bathroom homes on half acre lots in my neighborhood sell for substantially less than the very cramped ,2 bedroom apartments in hers.
Our cars sprawl in our driveway.
And we can go to sleep with our windows open, unlocked, unalarmed.
Well, we could , if it wasn't raining.
We have a large garden. An area for vegetables, and several beds of flowers, a pear tree, and ...well, no partridge, but we do have a bird box on the post by the patio.
My mother's garden is on her third floor fire-escape.

So, to my mother, who lives in Brooklyn, ours is an exotic land.

And we have been doing really exotic things, like driving to the small town in which Kathy lives, and going to Wal-Mart.

I had no idea that Wal-Mart was considered exotic.
I mean, they have them in Binghamton, and Syracse and Rochester, and all of those are in New York....but those are "upstate" New York, and my mother, who spent a week at a minority caucus in her state's capitol, told me of people from " the city" who rented cars and drove off to visit Wal-Mart on this rare chance that they had, while in upstate New York.

So, while Kathy's list was small, my mother did an extra tour of the place- remarking on the inexpensive bed linens, and the dinner plates, and the soap dispensers.

But, in the end, she did her real shopping at the dollar store.
A soap dispenser.
For a dollar.
An unbelievable bargain in the country from which she hails.

Story of teh Day 7/ 2/ 2013 #2

Sarah and I have a list of chores for the day.
One of them is to stop at the Apple store in the fancy northeast side mall. A place that normally causes us to break out in hives, but Sarah is approaching the start of college and there is this big item necessity, a laptop, that we will need to purchase.

Now, it might be fine and dandy for most people to look and pick things like this out on the internet, but we have questions.
We have the kinds of questions that caused Sarah to email a professor to ask what they recommended, which laptops would work well with the programs they would need to use for civil engineering.
And we have questions bout her hobbies; will such a laptop support moviemaking?
And we have questions about screen size.
So, going and bothering a real live person, now that she is fairly certain she wants a Mac, is the next step.

But that is stop number 2.

Stop number one is the Good Earth.
If you are not from Indianapolis, you will think this is the title of a book ( one that I actually enjoyed, even though it was assigned reading in high school.)
In fact, however, if you live in Indianapolis, it is the natural foods store. Not "a", "the".

Whole Foods is the sanitized, yuppie version and Trader Joes is a slightly less pretentious and more than slightly better priced "Whole Foods"- so , yes, I would also describe it as a yuppie version.
The Good Earth is the place where you go if you really want organic peanut butter and red lentils and to buy your spices and grains weighed out into bags.
And The Good Earth is in Broad Ripple, so it has been shoved down to our second stop, and the Apple Store has been shoved down to our third stop because .....Yats is there.

And Yats has several excellent vegetarian and vegan meals that are...beyond excellent.

So, I called , this morning, at 10:35.
You can't call before 10:30 and be sure that they know what they are cooking.
I asked, "Are you having the spinach mushroom etoufee' , today?"
And the young man who hard answered said, "Yes, we will.'

And , as I always do, when I get that answer, I replied, "I love you!"

Usually, that gets a "Thanks"
I am sure they hear this kind of thing often from their grateful fan base, but they always manage to be polite about it.

Today, however, he responded, "I love you more!"

But he is wrong, as I said, " I doubt that is possible!"
After all, my love is magnified by my hunger.

Story of the Day 5/ 9/ 2014

Last week was the "drop off" for entries to the Hoosier Salon's 90th Annual Exhibition.
On Friday ( there were 2 drop off days, assigned by last name), I drove over with Vandra and we left our pieces at a very impressive mansion on Kessler.

This week, on Wednesday, was the jurying. A list of accepted works was to be posted. Well, not what was accepted, but the names of the artists and how many of their works made it into the show.
You can only enter up to 2, so it would be the list of names and the number 1 or 2 beside each name.

I didn't really bother to check until Thursday.
No reason looking for bad news.
I also nee dot explain that part of why I checked, on Thursday, was because I was headed off to draw at Herron, and there is someone who is absolutely insufferable when she gets something in. And she is often somewhat nasty to people who do not.
She has, on occasion, been especially nasty to a good friend of mine who is a sweet person.

Anyhow I wanted to steel myself , if necessary, for the evening's conversation.
I was pleased to see she had not gotten anything in.
Of course, my name was also not on the list.

So, Thursday was quiet.
I congratulated a friend who got a piece accepted to the show. Her husband didn't- a surprise , since he is an excellent painter.
The person I dislike was very quiet. Didn't even mention the exhibit.

So, today, after art, Vandra and I drove over to the impressive mansion to pick up our rejected pieces.

The woman who runs the gallery - the administrator, not one of the judges, and a very nice lady- pulled me aside and started apologizing.
I've had that happen, before.
Usually it is about how nice my work is , but you know how "they" do not like things that show nipples or ( gasp) pubic hair.
Hearing this over and over again, I am always tempted reply, "Well, I will have to tell all of the models to shave, and , perhaps, wax."
But I don't.
At least, not yet.

This time, what she said was somewhat unexpected, even though the drawing I had entered had a very blatantly exposed nipple ( although, no pubic hair...because of the pose, not because of a wax job.)

Apparently, it was an oversight.

My name was left off the list and they did accept the nipple.
I mean, the drawing.