from Sandy Needham

Friday, July 30, 2010

Cruise Dispatch

We made it onto our cruise ship, the Carnival Splendor, without Jake’s “rum runners” being detected when our luggage was x-rayed. These were sturdy plastic bags with caps that can be filled with liquor using the most adorable little funnel, then packed surreptitiously in suitcases to ‘beat the system.’ Jake discovered this solution to the cruise’s edict against bringing liquor on board, though we were allowed to carry on one bottle of wine each. This did not prevent Elise, Jake, and his girlfriend, Larissa, from sampling the ‘drink of the day’ that first evening and entering the “Mixology” contest. Each of them devised and named a special drink from a long list of available ingredients: Elise, the Banana Boat Float; Jake, the Sweet Pine Splendor; and Larissa, the Frozen Beach. Both Elise and Larissa received notices in their rooms that night that they were finalists for the Mixology contest the next day. I complained to Jake that ‘Sweet Pine Splendor’ sounded more like a toilet cleaner than a drink. Elise and Larissa were told to show up at 12:30pm. We all arrived for the contest together, but when the other finalists did not appear, the activity director decided to let Jake’s toilet cleaner back in the contest. Elise’s drink wasn’t quite sweet enough and Larissa’s was too thick to drink, but Jake’s: just right. It even turned out green, so the pine part worked! He was the winner and the drink was available at any bar on the ship for the whole week.

Jake had woken up that morning with a terrible pain in his ankle from a jump off some ship stairway the night before. He couldn’t put any weight on it, so I called to see if he could have it looked at and get some crutches. The doctor wouldn’t be back till late afternoon and only a wheel chair was available till then, so a wheel chair was delivered to his door.wheel chair

 

 

 

 

 

Now I’m not saying that his drink wouldn’t have won, but his arriving at the contest in that wheel chair may have softened the judges’ hearts! The contest was projected up on the huge screen by the pool and the video was replayed on cabin TV’s all week. Also, Jake’s name and his drink appeared in each daily info pamphlet for the week, so he was getting famous. The problem was, I gave him homeopathic arnica for the foot and it recovered before time to see the doctor, so no more wheel chair – and lots of explaining to people who recognized him! He won this hat, modeled after the ship’s chimney, and several drink coupons. Winning hat

 

 

chimney

 

splend Our group started buying up Sweet Pine Splendors, which instantaneously appeared on many waiters’ trays. They went down very easily and swiftly, tasting basically like pineapple juice and rum, so before long we were exhibiting the effects:

 

 

 

 

 

 

splendor effects 1

splendor effects 2

I kept making Elise repeat the lines from “Titanic” in perfect accent: “There are not enough life boats on this ship”…“enough for the better half.”Jake had already won a nice load of money at the Texas Hold’em table in the ship’s casino the night before, even though he would lose half of it later – to the same guy. I will admit to dreading an affordable American cruise. polka dotsI’m just not one for glitzy interiors, and this one superseded my wildest expectations with metallic pink polka dots closing in on me in every lobby. To add to the sensory onslaught, there were loud announcements being made in our room, loud music in the main pool area, and activity directors who shouted out at intervals, “ARE WE ON VACAAATION?” to which plenty of willing celebrants shouted back. I wore some handy ear plugs when I passed through that area, but had to venture to the outer decks to replace the pink polka dots with the hazy seascape. I could envision getting into Cuba from Brazil, a cruise on the North Sea or to Croatia, perhaps? I actually crossed the Atlantic in 1967 on a 9-day Holland-American Line cruise. barThat had no polka dots or shouting;

 

 

 

 

some avant-garde people enacted a “happening” by throwing something overboard in a most serious fashion! But this cruise fit well into Newton’s LA trade show schedule and my family was loving everything just fine, so I willingly acclimated. Besides, we shared an assigned table in the dining room with a most elegant and friendly family from Spain, and had a very sharp and funny Czech waiter, Martin, who participated whole-heartedly in the waiter-entertainment segments. What we liked best about him was that he moved so

Spaniards

Martin

 

rapidly serving bread, drinks and plates, he would just say “you’re welcome,” or “my pleasure” as he set items down and moved on, before “thanks” was even possible!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

puerto vallerta

 

We made three stops in Mexico over the week.  The first one was Puerto Vallarta.  We were suckers for the expensive taxi at the dock, which whisked us past wh-what? Every known American chain restaurant, including Chili’s, of Mexican food fame. We arrived at Playa Los Muertos on an overcast weekday, so it was not crowded. We chose a simple beach restaurant and enjoyed really excellent food, such as this shrimp ceviche:

 

shrimp ceviche

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too bad they doubled the price when they brought the check as if they had not quoted anything less…so our first day off the ship we were obviously wearing “Kick Me” signs on our foreheads. I found a beautiful tote bag. I do love this photo of me going wild over the colors and designs and my Sugar Daddy pulling dollar bills out of his wallet! I bought the wide-striped one in my hand:

Sugar Daddy

lovely place Our second stop was simply wonderful: the town of Mazatlán. I had read online that one could forgo the extremely touristy beaches here and head straight for the old center of the city which was being restored. Besides the art school, galleries, beautiful cathedral and nice little restaurants, there were several lush plazas, feeding my starvation for green from which I had been suffering since Las Vegas. This reinforced me well to head back to the ship and face the pink polka dots!

plaza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we met this reason-to-live Mexican girl in the cathedral:

mexican girl 

We had left a message for Elise, Jake and Larissa to meet us at a locals-only restaurant in Mazatlán at 3:00 since they stayed up late on the ship and slept late. After lunch, we were lucky to flag an open pick-up truck/taxi with padded benches along the sides. He could take all five of us to the puerto (we had to return to the ship by 5:00pm). We had a rollicking ride when he turned up the rock-n-roll favorites to which neighboring bus drivers and motorists heartily sang along with us! After quite a stretch of time, the astute Larissa asked the question, “Is he taking us to the airport instead of the port?” Sure enough: the aeropuerto. And we had no luggage? The driver turned a new direction and flew. We boarded the ship at 5:55 with the gangplank at our heels and the ship beginning to move immediately. Jake’s fifteen minutes of fame was enhanced by our having been paged beforehand, just in case we had returned to the ship without our cards passing through the machine.

Here we are, missing the boat as they say:

Our third stop was in Cabo San Lucas, a manufactured resort like Cancun, set beside a beautiful stretch of rock formations and beach. This required a ferry ride from the ship and was the shortest stop of all, so we were determined to return to the ship in a timely way. After enjoying the beauty and witnessing intrepid Newton and Elise sample the ice cold water, we headed back in our hired boat to the ferry dock one hour ahead of boarding time. Because the entire cruise population ashore decided on the same timing, all returned late in the end. We did receive special congratulations upon embarking for not being the last ones that day!                  

Here is the Carnival Splendor:   

ship

San Lucas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pool&screen

Our time on board was spent eating, reading in deck chairs, soaking in hot tubs, pretending to be interested in buying expensive paintings to get free champagne, watching the early World Cup soccer games, playing Boggle (how many words can you make in all directions from these scrambled letters in three minutes?), playing organized trivia games, attending the Broadway-like musicals, dancing in the disco, and listening to many types of live music. The motion of the ship was strange and sometimes headache-inducing, as was the smoke we tolerated in the piano bar to hear the indomitable singer/piano player/comedian and to partake in the most happening nightlife with our kids.reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cruise show

deck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

portrait elise

Boggle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

j&l portrait

 

 

 

 

s&n portrait King

Piano Bar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We met a wonderful old man at a trivia game. He was sharp and informed and a great conversationalist. He had been a career sailor; then came the divorce; then the dog died, so his children suggested he try a cruise. This was his twelfth cruise this year, and he took twenty in 2009! I think he likes the sea.

The ship’s crew came from every-which-where, though Indonesia was the most represented. We had vacationed in Bali during our year in Japan in the late ‘80’s and already knew how gentle and lovely Indonesians typically are. Their faces would really light up when we said we had been to Bali and Jakarta. The most talented dancer in the musicals was a darling Indonesian who looked as if he had been born dancing! I am sure they were responsible for the ingenious towel-folding that left a different animal guarding our cabin each night:

frog

monkey

The crew’s assignment on the ship is of such duration that the ship goes to Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska in tandem for the sake of the crew’s sanity (this from the Trivia mariner).

By Friday night, I would say I was completely in the spirit of the cruise. There was a rowdy contest held in the large ‘Moroccan’ lounge where teams of four (five in our case) competed to arrive at the dance floor first with the required action or item, waiving the sign with their team number for the M.C. to call out for scoring. I flew to the dance floor and landed in a splits, as requested, though the M.C. kept looking the other direction and didn’t call out our number 16 till I leaned all the way over to the floor… always graceful and dignified:

lipstick

all nightThe last night Elise, Jake and Larissa stayed up all night with their new friends, among them a bar captain who spirited a bottle of rum into their room. To avoid losing his job when a cruise official arrived about the noise complaints, he hid in the bathroom! Very Marxian, I thought, as in Brothers. Here is Elise in a borrowed sport coat awaiting sunrise:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My best friend, Lenna, just went on a cruise of the Black Sea and the Dnieper River in Ukraine. It was sponsored by an alumni association of America and Canada and offered various lectures and excursions about Ukrainian language, cooking, poetry, history and culture. They boarded at the foot of the “Potemkin” steps in Odessa and ended up in Kiev, the beautiful city of Lenna’s late father. As I told her after reading the fascinating and very moving account of her trip, my cruise dispatch would offer the ridiculous to her sublime: ridiculous (At least Jake and Newton refused to do this!)

Next, my beloved New York.

Love,

Sandy

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Las Vegas/Los Angeles Dispatch

I had several days in Las Vegas with Jake, his beautiful girlfriend, Larissa, and roommate, Charlie, both before and after our family cruise from LA to Mexico. The house was looking pretty good, especially after I did a marathon garbage and recycle haul to the curb to open up space on the kitchen counter and in the dining room. They had organized everything, just never knew which day was for recycle pick up, being very late sleepers. The house was surprisingly clean and neat, and I only succumbed to scrubbing the kitchen out of a rare compulsive flare-up. Larissa is there for the summer between graduate school semesters in Idaho. There are no jobs available, so Jake has deemed her his ‘personal assistant!’

It was a relief to have a computer again and catch up on e-mails and news, both after Tulsa and after the cruise. Thanks, Larissa, for the use of yours.

Jake was playing in a preliminary tournament at the World Series of Poker venue – the Rio – and only had some minutes left after the dinner break before running out of chips. Larissa and I went in to watch. Either because he only had a few chips and not much chance of staying in, or because he has discovered that friendly conversation is more disconcerting to fellow-players than the studied seriousness of a poker face, he was in a very relaxed and communicative mode at the table. Our son is easy-going and level-headed and has great powers of concentration – a good professional poker profile!

Jake & Larissa In this case, his loss was my gain, as this freed him up for a little hike, sushi, gambling  on electronic screens with free drinks at a dive, Italian food, and playing games of trivia, Boggle and Anagrams. Charlie’s brother, a Boggle aficionado, came to visit. He managed to beat Jake at the Boggle word scrambling game. Perverse as it may seem for a Mommy, I am always happy when someone can beat Jake at a game, as if there is some balance to life…or perhaps it is just out of personal sour grapes, since my record is dismal. Jake prevailed as the invincible Anagrams champ. He stole ‘nave’ from me and eventually made ‘naiveté.’ I only stand a chance at trivia, and that is if the questions are not about teen TV shows from the ‘80’s on.

 

 

Jake & I I always opened my guestroom shades in the morning for light and a glimpse at a sparse green tree across the street. There was an adolescent boy shooting baskets next door with headphones on – obviously an MP3 player in his pocket. Is it just me, or is there a season to everything and a time for every purpose under heaven, turn, turn, turn? I could only think of my father who, before taking up tennis later in life and becoming a seniors champion in Oklahoma, came home from work and shot baskets every evening into a hoop he had mounted on a tree. He could sink twelve Zen-like swishers in a row, and even taught me the secret: “See the ball making an arc right through the middle of the basket; concentrate on this.” Chances are, there is music that is appropriate to shooting baskets or enhances one’s ability, now that listening and shooting is even possible. I guess I should be impressed that the kid wasn’t speaking on a cell phone. I’m one of those people who thinks when one goes to a restaurant with friends or family, for example, it is the time for eating and conversing with them, turn, turn, turn, rather than the time to speak via cell phone with somebody who’s not there, convenience and emergencies aside. I sound like a dinosaur, but I’m sticking to my belief that I’ve got this right, turn, turn, turn.

mojave_desert-4 Jake, Larissa and I drove for four hours across the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles on a Saturday to meet up with Newton, who had flown in from China the night before, and Elise, who had arrived from New York around the same time on Friday night. Together at last. I get a mental picture of far-flung points on a globe and marvel at those moments when we arrive in the same spot. My friend Rossana in Natal, who used to live in LA, gave me all sorts of great information about where to go and what to see there. This led us to Santa Monica for an absolutely great evening. Strolling along beautiful Main Street after dark, we started out in a youthful, semi-rowdy bar, had a great dinner outside in the gorgeous World Café patio, then ran into some guys in Beatle wigs on the sidewalk in front of a very lively bar, about to begin their next set. Elise and Jake were die-hard Beatles fans in elementary school, reading the biographies, collecting memorabilia, having a multi-age Beatles-theme slumber party. I took them to Radio City Music Hall to see Ringo, though the performer was a mystery to them till we got there. I remember their asking me if I thought they could stand up and scream when he came out, and just as I was saying, “Well, let’s see what the crowd does…” Ringo came out and I bolted up, screaming my head off. Newton and I took the kids to an annual Beatles Fest at a hotel in New Jersey. It was one of our favorite days, ever. Later, a Paul McCartney concert blew us all away. We followed the wigs into to the Santa Monica bar! Now, at that New Jersey Beatles Fest years before there was a fascinating contest to see who could replicate the Beatlessound of the Beatles most faithfully. A group of pudgy middle-aged men won with a dead-on rendition of “I’ll Be Back Again.” Newton and I love a local Natal group, Mad Dogs, who have performed their own, very different original interpretations of Beatles’ songs four times at the annual Liverpool Beatles Fest. But these guys in wigs at some crowded Irish bar in Santa Monica wowed us with song after song in nearly exact Beatle renditions. The crowd was extremely happy about this and sang along, one and all. We made friends with a middle-aged couple from New Zealand; a young man came up to me at the surprisingly early closing hour of the bar to say I had the most beautiful daughter he had ever seen; it was good to be together again.

 

 

 

 

out in SM

dad's breakfast On Sunday morning we had a 50th birthday breakfast for Newton at IHOP (since the kids hadn’t seen him since before his April birthday). They gave him a new car radio, our previous Brazilian one having been stolen, wrapped in the only gift wrap at Jake’s house and embellished with a balloon dog, courtesy of the IHOP waitress. Newt went to return his rental car to the airport and catch a shuttle to the cruise ship. Now was our chance to sight-see. Elise and Newton had driven around LA on Saturday before we arrived and had seen the Hollywood Boulevard/Sunset Boulevard sights. See photo:

 

 

 

DDonald duck

I had been to Los Angeles once when I was three years old. I remember best the upside-down green bucket I sat on in the middle of the front seat between my parents, in order to see out. This was clearly the pre-seat-belt era, and I’m happy to say that my father was a careful driver. I can also remember someone commenting that “this is Lucille Ball’s house,” and some distant cousins staring at my green bucket. That’s it. The kids and I had to be at the cruise ship by 3:30. Disregarding all other sources of info available, we simply plugged “Hollywood Boulevard” into Jake’s GPS in Culver City and followed the Australian woman’s voice that Jake had selected for verbal directions. This put us on a generally non-descript street for a solid hour – unless one considers frequent pawn shops, endless traffic lights and a total of two attractive Deco buildings descriptive. We gave up on Hollywood Boulevard, considering our time constraints, and plugged some celebrity’s address in Beverly Hills into the GPS – at least something specific. We passed amazing purple trees.purple tree Finally, we were curving upwards around lovely green hills and stopped to admire the view at an overlook. Across the canyon we could make out the outline of smog-ridden downtown LA and the lovely, sprawling houses further up that must belong to the celebs. The problem was, our time was running out, so we got back in the car, plugged in the cruise address in the Port of Long Beach, and hit those famous multi-multi-lane freeways. We arrived at just the right time, parked and boarded. But the cruise is a separate dispatch.

 

 

Beverly Hills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our return to Los Angeles early the following Sunday, we all headed to a hotel in Anaheim, where Newton had to attend a professional trade show that week. Elise, Jake and Larissa were no longer interested in sight-seeing, especially with Disneyland a couple of blocks away, so my knowledge of LA remains only slightly less sketchy than in 1953. Newton went to pick up a rental car and two minutes after driving away, got rammed in the passenger side by a guy running a red light. car accident Newton then hit a car waiting at the left-turn light in the on-coming lane, which in turn hit the car waiting behind it. He seemed to be all right, although now he is having some sessions with a chiropractor in Brazil for his neck. He was able to drive back to the rental car company and drive away in another car soon after, so we are big fans of Enterprise now. The two of us found a laundromat to catch up for the days ahead. Elise, Jake and Larissa could leave Disney Land and re-enter, so we had a great dinner on our last night all together before the kids returned to close Disneyland.

The next morning we headed out to Woodland Hills to see my niece April and family. We last saw her in 2004 with an infant, Ryan. Now he is six, and Addie, the most disarmingly charming extant four-year-old, has been added to the mix. Husband/Dad, Marty, builds sets for movies and TV shows. I got to see a video of the very dashing and smart Ryan playing with his ice hockey team. Addie and I had lots of fun playing with some miniscule dolls I brought from Brazil. After a while, the very open, imaginativeaddie and intelligent darling says to me, “You know, we talked a little bit and played a little bit, and then we became friends!” I also loved the moment when we were laughing and, having learned beforehand that I am her grandmother’s sister, she said, “You remind me of Grandma.” The girl simply steals one’s heart away with her openness…she is certainly related to her Great-grandmother Laurene, with whom she shares her middle name! Besides being a really sane mother, April is an accomplished horsewoman who even has a shot at the Olympics. She runs a stable in Topanga. We loved seeing the gorgeous views from her training ground and the beautiful horses, some of them hers and some, boarders.

 

 

 

April 

Ryan & Jake

 

 

 

 

 

April’s brother, my nephew Todd from Manhattan, happened to be in town on business with his two boys, Sam and Ethan, so we had a family reunion! Todd just published his first children’s book, How About a Kiss for Me, which he was reading to Ryan’s kindergarten class that day. Todd has been writing comic movie scripts (OK, some of them are just the hilarious annual Thanksgiving family video scripts that are more comic to us than to the general public) and children’s books for some time, so we are all thrilled for him. The group had an Italian dinner together in Topanga, joined by Mary, April and Todd’s niece and my grand-niece, who dances with four different dance companies in LA (but who is about to move and join a company in Chicago). I am a proud aunt and great-aunt.

dinner roccos

Mary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then Jake drove Larissa and me back across the desert in the dark to Vegas, and Elise stayed one more day to make a video for Newton’s company with the marketing consultant.

Oh yes, about the cruise…

Love,

Sandy

Monday, July 12, 2010

Tulsa ‘10 Dispatch

Newton and I went to the São Paulo airport to catch our respective flights – one gate apart and with the same departure times – to China by way of New York and to Tulsa by way of Houston. Between check-in and immigration, we headed over to the next terminal hoping to see Elise arriving from Lima, Peru on the South American tour of American teen singer, Demi Lovato. “OK, we’ll wait till 8:00pm,” we said; then, “OK, we’ll wait three more minutes;” and finally “OK, we gotta go,” after which we walked backwards to the escalators, craning our necks all the while to see if she would appear. Alas, she did not. She later explained that she was on the ‘A’ team of the tour, meaning she traveled with Demi Lovato in order to videotape all the fans screaming upon Demi’s disembarkation from the flights. In this case, the entourage was then escorted a secret way to a VIP lounge, having been waived more or less through immigration and customs. Oo-la-la! It would be ten more days till we finally saw her in the USA.

I arrived in Houston at 5:10 am. As if landing at ‘George Bush Airport’ isn’t insult enough (OK, he looked a lot better later compared to his son, but he was never a favorite of mine), the first thing I see at an early-opening news/book stand is a display with a couple of copies of Sean Hannity’s book. More disgusting than the title was some outrageous lie for a sub-title. As I always do, I looked for books with an opposing view – which are displayed together in New York as a rule. Alas, there were none, so I noticed the clerk behind the counter was not looking in my direction and I grabbed the two books and flipped Sean Hannity’s smug little mug to the back. Now at least it was harder to ascertain what the two volumes were. On a roll, I came upon a more elaborate book store. There was Mitch Romney’s prominent mug, Karl Rove’s prominent mug, and, bigger than all of them, Glenn Beck’s mug above a particularly disturbing title and subtitle. I tried the flip-over maneuver on Glenn Beck’s book, but there he was, almost as huge, on the back cover. Then I looked again for books covering, uh, facts, perhaps, and saw none…until I finally discovered the new biography of Obama, The Bridge, tucked over on a shelf with only the binding showing. This, of course, provided me with a great way to cover up Glenn Beck’s face and make a small dent in the uneven offerings. We all try to do our part as citizens.

In defense of Houston’s airport, the bathroom was sparkling at 5:30am, unlike the JFK version where one arrives after an all-night flight to the 30th year of continuous construction and a bathroom with yesterday’s filth. I also nearly died of gratitude for the breakfast taco of eggs and cheese with salsa from a little catsup packet. Heaven at 6:00am!

At last I made it to Tulsa and to the Methodist Manor and was standing in front of my beautiful, Elegant for lunch out wonderful, sharp, funny, 95-year-old Mother. She was looking fine and doing very well, to my joy. We had fun together, whether eating those strange and wondrous Manor meals, running errands, seeing people, or just being together in her room. I slept on a combination of her reclining chair and a pallet on the floor.

Mother -stripes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother & Roses

Mother on a walk Mother gave up her walker for a wheel chair when the arthritis in her shoulders caused too much pain for her to press into the walker. She ‘walks’ her wheel chair to meals and activities, keeping her legs strong; she often declines offers of a push, explaining that propelling herself is her exercise! She has a motorized wheel chair for the long haul to Bridge night. The staff continues to adore her, a true friend to each of them. They take pleasure in taking good care of such a positive, loving resident.

I ventured out on the Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend to find a library for internet access. While waiting for the library to open, I struck up a conversation with a darling 10-year-old boy. By the time they finally unlocked the doors, he had volunteered that he had almost died of spinal meningitis when a baby, that his uncle had caught it from him, and that he was doing 9th grade math in the 5th grade. His handsome openness and innocence reminded me of an Oklahoma I knew very well.

Speaking of which, I got to see some of my old schoolmates that very evening! Linda Butler Jones and Jimmy Walker from my junior high school put on a lovely party on a perfect Oklahoma summer night for several of us who were around. Here is Jimmy with Linda on the right and our classmate Lolly Turnbull Jones of Tulsa:Jimmy & Linda & Lolly

 

 

Jimmy moved to Texas during high school and proclaimed, when getting too elaborate over the evening’s arrangements, that Texans do not know the word ‘prudent.’ Let’s say he was generous-to-a-fault with the food and champagne. Here he is getting birthday kisses from Linda and Steve Reeves of Jefferson City, Missouri:

 

Jimmy's B-day

 

It was just a wonderful gathering, with 15 of us gabbing and gabbing from 6:00pm to 4:30am. No kidding. Our classmate, Bobby “Greenshoes” Parker, showed up to play his Tulsa blues for us. He has a cool new CD, “Keep Cool Little Baby.” Linda has her own private investigation agency. One of my favorite quotes of the trip was from her: “I meet all kinds of people, but they all have an elbow half-way up their arm.”

Here I am trying to remember something along with classmate Linda Roark Strummer, Tulsa, of international opera fame (I told her we were probably trying to remember what we had for lunch that day!):Trying to remember

Also pictured are Jimmy, Nikki Madeira Collins of Tulsa, and Stan Clark of Houston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wilson party 1

Jimmy and Linda: You are the best!

A morning walk and breakfast with my high school friends, Vivian Nemec and Jan Rogers Magee, was also hugely special. We decided we will reunite some day at Vivian’s lake house and continue our endless gab-fest. I can’t wait. Jan just moved her mother to the same section of the Methodist Manor, so is able to give Mother squeezes for me!

Meantime, back at the Manor, I joined Mother for the weekly Bingo session. Best of all was watching her quickly scan her own two cards PLUS the two cards of the somewhat challenged resident who counts on Mother to sit next to her and guide her through Bingo. Mother has that quick mind of a Bridge champ! At the end, we could go to the prize table in the order of most “Bingo’s.” I was very pleased to bring back three little plastic hanger/clothespins – perfect for a house without a dryer.

I picked up a bottle of white wine to keep in Mother’s little frig. I just needed a corkscrew. To Mother’s horror, I went to inquire (she was afraid that wine was not allowed, but I reminded her that even Methodists probably allow 80-year-olds to do what they wish). The front desk couldn’t help, as the only wine-drinking resident they knew of used wine from a box. I went back to the wine store where I received a simple corkscrew for free, as Oklahoma law allows them to sell only items with alcohol. I couldn’t get the cork to budge one millimeter. Then I wandered around with a long brown bag looking for a strong maintenance or security guy, promising Mother that I would not reveal my Manor connection to her! The security woman in charge sent me to the Nursing Center dining room, where a big strong guy was polishing the floor. He laughed as he pulled out the cork, saying, “My Daddy always said to use the corkscrews with the handles.”

Mother and I returned from a walk around the Manor ‘pond’ right when a couple of residents were watching the Capitol’s Memorial Day Concert on PBS on the large screen in the living room area. It was very moving, with actors reading narratives from a WWII soldier and a young widow from the Afghanistan war, marvelous music, and the finale rendition of the music from each branch of the armed services by a joint orchestra. As veterans and soldiers from the branches stood up on cue, Mother turned to me from her wheel chair when “Anchors Away” began and asked me to stand up for her, in honor of my father. Blubbering ensued. I could only conclude that war is hell and the worst waste of human potential ever concocted.

I could receive e-mails from Newton right in Mother’s room. Even though she does not have a computer, she has an HP Printing Mailbox that connects to her telephone and prints out e-mails once a day from qualified senders. While in Shanghai for business, Newton was able to attend the huge World Expo 2010 for one day. Most of the better exhibits had hours of waiting required, so Newt chose the tiny lines for Belarus – photos only inside - and Tunisia – a scratchy video of factories! He also managed the large Black African pavilion with dancing and drumming and the Brazilian pavilion, which had a series of very high tech videos on walls and floors. This was a 50-minute wait among 95% Chinese people who, according to Newton, pushed and shoved their way in line and, at the subsequent opening of each waiting station “acted as if someone had thrown money on the ground.” Ah! It’s amazing how different cultures enact waiting in line or, as they say in NY, “waiting on line.”

My sisters and I decided we would like to get some of Mother’s preferences for her future funeral service. Odd as that seems, the daughters are determined - for our sakes as well as Mother’s - that this occasion will reflect her presence. Mother was fine with the suggestion, and she and I spent quite a few hours over a couple of days examining lists of contacts, singing the old hymns, going over biographical facts, and selecting favorite readings. Mother had to narrow down twenty hymns to just two, so there was lots of singing. Even though she occasionally stopped and said, “I keep forgetting that this is for my own funeral service,” we had such a great time putting it together. I wouldn’t trade those hours for anything.

Mother at lunch

I took off to catch a morning flight to Las Vegas with just enough time for good-byes after Mother woke up. I hated to part, we were having such fun. I don’t know how or why the universe granted me this mother, but that was my lucky day.

Love,

Sandy

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