Values: you have to be carefully taught

Why are we Americans so uncivil these days? What has happened to our values? When my candidate for presidents lost the election I was disappointed but I was brought up to believe that this person who would be our next president, even though not my choice, was chosen. Believing in the American democratic process, I made peace with this choice, recognizing that we are a disparate nation and we must move on. I revere the position of President of the United States, elected (most of the time!) by the people.

I am worried about this ugliness we see now in our nation, this strange meanness in our society. Where are the values of family and Christianity now? What are we thinking?

When I was a young child I would return from school and find my father in his disorganized study where he was writing a book. I'd jump into his lap, displacing the cat on his chest and he'd draw me a picture, read our book and we'd talk about the day. Later, as I grew up, his lap could not accommodate me, but we still talked.

My father was a devoted Christian and he made sure all his five kids were received in the church. We sang in the choir, were acolytes on Sunday, and we read the Bible. When I asked him, as a teenager, was Christ a communist, he took my question seriously and we had a long dialog going for many years. He was respectful of my questions, very strong in his intellectual way. He knew that he had given me the tools to think. He was a model for me of generosity and the necessity to examine all sides of a question. When I decided that Christianity was not for me, he accepted this.

I believe in democracy. The Constitution is so amazing it makes me cry with humility. I love the independent American spirit, and I believe we are like no other people on earth.

But, still, I am worried right now. I think we now have a president who truly wants to do the Right Thing. He wants to have universal health care so that all of us will be taken care of. Who could dispute this? And yet, we have the Republicans who monolithcally always vote NO, and have no better plan.

I think that we as a nation are very much on the wrong track. We need to get together to make this country work! Stop thinking of lining pockets of politicians (of both stripes), stop thinking of getting elected next time, just do the right thing for the people. Consider the issues. Think about the best values for all of us. Care for each other and stop the vituperation.

The Right Thing to Do

I am hopeful today after the passage of the health care reform yesterday. It is far from what I would like, but it is a start, as was Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. It will evolve into what most Americans want and rely on. This is the right thing to do, as our President has often said.

What concerns me as I think about this fiercely independent spirit of the American people, is the nastiness and meanness and lack of generosity I perceive right now. When is the line crossed?

I am a direct descendant of John Adams who was vilified in his time. Seems he had some cause to be hated, but, he too, wanted to do the right thing. So this is nothing new, this vitriol. We have grown to be a huge and populous country with many agendas striving to be paramount. We must not forget our responsibilities to see beyond the personal needs and desires we all have. We need to look to doing the right thing.

Abortion! o.k. So personally I may be against it. In countries where the people have universal health care, abortion rates are far below ours. This is because young folks have access to free birth control. I wonder why there is such an outcry about this (by old men in gray suits, otherwise known as politicians)? I conclude that this is really a non-issue concocted to get votes for politicians who really do not have a clue. There is another agenda, and it is probably race.

It seems to me that there have been very few politicians these days who vote with their conscience. Like the financial wizards motivated by their greed, politicians are for the most part just seeing to getting themselves elected next time don't ask me about doing the right thing.

Seems we just love the media circus, Glen Beck and all the rest (of both parties). We are the internet generation!

I love America! I love our spirit and I do not want to live in Europe or wherever. I love the raggedness of us, our sassiness, our questions and our inappropriateness. But I wonder about our generosity of spirit in these days? Florida is at the bottom of the heap of states in philanthropic giving and volunteerism. What's happened? Have we become misers, hunkered down with our own issues and suspicious of change? Would any one of us really cast a cold eye on a tiny illegal Mexican immigrant child who needs medical attention and not step up to the plate? Would any one of us kick that homeless old man under a bridge? Would we help?

We need politicians to say "YES" to a few things they believe in. We need them to be responsible to their view of what is the Right Thing to Do. Looking at last night's proceedings in the House, it seemed like such a zoo!

Just thinking..

Moving On and Happy to do It

This is our home now, the place we walk and discover and renew our commitment to the land and each other. We have owned this small patch of Central Florida in the Green Swamp for many years but until now it was not our primary residence.

We have sold our town house in St. Petersburg. The closing is next week. We are expecting to move to a place with our daughter and her son, maybe a duplex. But for now we are in limbo when we want to be in St. Pete where we have deep roots and love to see our friends.

I thought it would be sad to leave the town house after eight years, most of them before we retired. But as I look back, we were hardly ever there in daylight and at night we were busy still working on the ends of our day responsibilities.

As we approached the task of moving out of this place that for so long has seemed very impersonal compared to the ranch, we discovered so many 'nests' of stuff that had to be dismantled: Photos of the grandchildren, small drawings made by my favorite students, boxes of stuff left over from previous moves, and, of course, the junk drawers where everything was stowed. We took yet another vow to reduce the stuff.

We beat it into some kind of order for the packers and movers who will come next week and trucked a few boxes of stuff to the ranch. We incorporated the clothes and books we wanted to keep and took a whole bale to the Hospice thrift shop and the local library. I had a box of my treasures from many trips to South America so I changed the theme in the powder room from cows to the Amazon. Out with all those cows! They have gone to the attic because I cannot yet get rid of all the cow paraphernalia given to me by students. (I will sort out the attic boxes later- much later.)

So that left us with a table full of silver candy dishes and petit four plates and old jewelry from our mothers. Finally, I packed this up into boxes and it too will go into the attic.

For now, it seems that all our stuff has been culled. Today Andy went to a machine in the supermarket that counts coins, with ten years of loose change we had stashed in little containers everywhere. It amounted to $67.83! My studio is swept and the pencils are where they should be.

Tomorrow, I will throw the dimes found in the bottom of the dryer into some small container. I will throw that tack or that eraser or that set of instructions for some one of our possessions into the pristine junk drawer. Tomorrow, the new projects will spill over into disorganized joy.

I hate moving! It is a limited opportunity.

Ragtime

You will just have imagine it, no photo, a large barn on the premises of the Florida Pioneer Museum full of folks having paid to be at this first ever Ragtime Festival in this small Florida town. We arranged ourselves on those hard metal chairs, in front of the stage and the backdrop of farm implements and we surreptitiously eyed the strawberry shortcakes and the chocolate cakes on sale on tables back of us.

We had invited some friends from the city and they were late due to torrential rain in the afternoon, and another friend who found us in the parking lot. But finally, we all connected and settled down with our tickets for the raffle. I am cursed with having to count the house, not only for numbers, but also for the diversity of the crowd. Looking around it seemed to me that the great majority of the folks there in the audience were the white "Q-tips", white retirees from the trailer parks and snowbird homes who are interested in ragtime music. I saw no Hispanics and the only African American I saw was our young guest from Vista.

The program was just stellar! The star of the event was a ragtime pianist from New Orleans, backed up with a Florida jazz ensemble. There was a time for a local brass group from various high schools and we all loved that. (especially the little guy who played the tuba) We got lots of information about the birth of jazz from its beginnings in ragtime music. It was a most appreciative crowd! The next day there was a Ragtime parade to a park where ragtime music was played all day.

Why did this amazing event happen in our little town? Two years ago, two couples went to the midwest to attend an old time music event. They had such a wonderful time they began to think that our little town of Dade City Florida could host such an event. So, Virginia and Val began to plan how this could happen.

Virginia is an amazing person, so intelligent she leaves me in the dust! She is so shy and self effacing I could not believe she would put herself forward to head up this wonderful event. But, when she believes in something, she goes forth and does it. And, wow, was this event something fine! Neither she nor Val were ever in front of the mike. Virginia was not dressed up in costume, but I saw her going around to make sure everything was going according to schedule. As the music was happening I could see her feet tapping.

We loved the evening, the event, and our Florida friends who made this happen.

I love the surprises of living here.

The Princess in our Midst

Here is Princess Caroline with her wings and tiara and tutu and anything else she can think of. She has been visiting this week. This is my youngest grandchild of six, the only girl, and boy is she ever the girliest girl! We all sign on to this persona. But I wonder. What's a princess? Is it someone who is not capable and needs to be waited upon? Does a princess just sit and wave her sceptor and expect attention? Does a princess ever do anything? And do we even ask?

Thinking back of my own daughter, our baby woman, I remember how great it was to have a girl in the family after two brothers. I sewed great dresses for her and her dolls. But mostly she wore overalls and sturdy shoes (when she wasn't going barefoot). There was the time of the "rubber dress", a hand-me-down from an older friend. This thing was black and stiff, made entirely out of some ersatz polymer and had a lace collar and could stand on its own. She loved it and wore it every day for weeks. Like cement blocks, we never had to clean it. Then, that was over and she went back to more comfortable jeans.

Just thinking about this visit from the Princess, her older brother and her parents. We all fall into this play acting, and it is fun for sure. But this princess can catch frogs and crickets and look at a map and find Africa. And she can sure push her brother's buttons. What fun it has been for me, the grandma!

Another topic: we are moving! Our town house was put on the market last week and we have a buyer. So sudden, lots of cardboard boxes. I never thought this would happen so fast. Now we are looking for another place in St. Pete, a compound with our daughter and her son. The ideal thing is to buy a main house with a guest house on the property. Our daughter's house goes on the market next week. So we are all trying to get everything to work out for all our needs. (I thought I was through with all this!) But Grandma Molly is still here at the ranch, very happy with the scene of so much wild life and the gardens, and art in the studio, and the connection to this area.

I dream of being a princess, where all we will be done for me..

All those little gray boxes

Last night I was vegged out on the couch with the dog watching the last of the Olympic figure skaters. My husband finally went to bed and as he left he handed me a remote. When the last lovely skater was waiting for her scores, and my eyes were at half mast, I clicked the power button, and baloop, the screen went dark. You'd think that it was turned off, ready for the next day. But, no! I had done something wrong. When, the next evening, my husband wanted to watch PBS, the t.v. was all screwed up.

In our life we must have more than ten remotes for t.v.'s and radio and such. And each one of these has many many buttons and functions and applications and menus and ways to reach god.

Sorry to sound like Andy Rooney! It's kind of like learning a foreign language to manage these remotes. I know it is more difficult for us rural folk who must rely on iffy satellites to connect with the world. But still, why does it have to be so hard? Why is it that when I want to simply play a video for my grandson, I have to man two remotes and remember seventeen different actions to actually get "Curious George" on board? Aargh!

On my desk I have my three little bricks: my cell phone, my camera, and my ipod touch. I love them all and they have their uses. I especially love the ipod because it expects nothing from me, has a long battery life, and accompanies me with music when I garden and walk and tells me bird calls. This is an easy tech machine, no problem. I have come to know my complicated camera because I always use it. My cell phone is still an enigma. (If it's so smart, why is it so hard to use?) I should have gotten one of those basic old fart models!

My computer, my friend, system 7, works just fine for me. Nothing these days comes with instructions (as has always been the case with kids). You just have to figure it out on a case by case basis.

Even if the remotes are too remote for me to use comfortably, now I can get everything on my computer!

All this will be resolved soon. Remember when all washing machines had computers on board and touch pads and such? No more. We just want to wash the clothes and the manufacturers found this out. I am hoping the remote folks will pay attention.

Authentic

Jack is eight years old and he is in the midst of this year's production of the annual Shakespearean play at his school. All the students are fascinated with this. The 'project room' is full of incipient costumes and bits of scenery and the bulletin boards bristle with wonderful pictures of the various characters in the play. Today I brought a CD of images of Verona and Italy so the kids could see some pictures of Italian arches and architecture they might use as parts of their art for the play tee shirts they will make and wear proudly for this new production.

I go here every week to volunteer in the place I retired from as a teacher and director. My grandson now is in kindergarten with the most talented teacher of small kids I know. Quincy pays scant attention to me, and that is o.k. But he did save me a seat beside him so we could eat pizza together. He told me the entire plot of "Finding Nemo".

In the project room I am looking for scraps to use for designing the tee shirts, and there is a mom there who is helping with the costumes. Katherine and I chat a bit and start imagining the costumes the kids will wear. She has hit the estate sales and come up with some incredible medieval swags, perfect for the sleeves for Romeo's costume and I will connect these to the blue costume, designated for him. We wonder, who in the world would have anything like this in their house?

And, now I know. This evening, after a pelting rain commute home, we went to a so-called cottage meeting of folks hereabouts to learn about our local St. Leo University. We were dressed as usual (but clean!) Despite being under dressed for this catered event, many people sucked up to us because they knew we were major philanthropists in the community.

The house where we went was in a gated community with the usual conspicuous consumption names. A Jaguar and a Lexus in the courtyard. Looking around at the three living rooms, the huge gourmet kitchen, the media room, and the master bedroom with HUGE poofy bed things all in shades of beige, I had to go outside to draw breath. In the massive screened enclosure there was a koi pond ($300 a pop for the fish, as the proud owner told me.) There was a swimming pool with a couple of waterfalls, and I must say, it was quite beautiful.

I love being anonymous- in my jeans and kind of wrinkled and old. So I could poke around. And then, I saw it! There were the swags on some windows- the very ones, found at an estate sale that I will make tomorrow into the sleeves for the ten year old Romeo! Maybe next weekend these people will have another estate sale because of a foreclosure, and , who knows, we may have some more sleeves for Shakespeare!

Life comes around!

What can one say? ("My! You seem you have a large footprint on the earth?") This conspicuous consumption truly disgusts me and I truly wish we could be over that. Yet, I understand that some of these folks are really supportive to our local concerns.

Just so you know, blogger followers, I know how judgmental all this may seem. I try to be humble, but I have been opinionated since birth.

Staying current!

Glen Beck said the other day that he thinks that America is still in the morning, and that may be true. I am discouraged, however. One looks back in history and there have been times similar to these we are in.

Last evening we had a couple of young people here who walked with us out into the property- the swamp and the forest and the fields. They stayed for supper and all the time they talked and talked about what they were doing. They are Vista workers, now attached to Habitat for Humanity. Their main work is uncovering the history of African American cemeteries in our locale. Nia is black, Dave is white. For so long our community never acknowledged the presence of African Americans, and these two people are researching what happened to the families who are buried without tombstones.

Our local museum has since its beginning ignored the history of blacks and hispanics in our community. This is just a small issue to all the small historic preservations across the south but emblematic of where we are now in the 'morning of America'.

The young woman, such an idealistic American, wonders if the place we are in with such a lack of drive in Congress, such partisan bitterness, is really just a new reiteration of racial discrimination.

Her words discourage me, and yet, I cannot think of a better explanation for how so many members of congress just say NO to anything Obama.

Discouraged as I am in the so-called morning in America, I do love the clear skies and the warmth of the sun on my shoulders as I put in the spring garden and tenderly plant the cucumbers and peas and carrots and lettuce and hope for the best for the potatoes.

Sometimes I think that I should never pay attention to this partisan crap from Congress and just love the swamp and the potential of spring vegetables.

Something new to learn

Being out here in the boondocks, our satellite sometimes doesn't work, so no new image tonight.

Every year I try to learn or do something different and challenging and new to me. My project for this year is to learn Spanish. When I visited Colombia in October, I felt so deficient in my ability to get along in Spanish, I vowed to do better.

People told me that on line I could get some free language lessons. How to choose? I went for the Pimsleur method and they sent me ten lessons for free. This takes a half hour each day so I stick in the CD and sit back in my chair, totally focused, speaking back to those speakers who ask how many beers I want and is my husband sick. By now, I am way past those ten free lessons and am cheerfully paying into eternity. They ask you, almost make you sign in blood, that you will NOT look at anything written. You are learning how to speak in Spanish as a child would, all by ear.

As I progress, now almost half way through Spanish 2, I realize I can really operate on a pretty basic level. This week I attended a two hour meeting with Mexican women who were debating what should be done to make a float for a parade. With tremendous focus I could understand everything and I could even speak when asked. I can even speak in several tenses! And they understand (and don't laugh).

Getting over the hurdle of actually speaking out loud is hard, but I put myself out there having to do it. These women are with me on making a community garden so we have to talk about it and I often have to ask the names of vegetables. They are so happy to deal with my halting Spanish and I am amazed that they can understand me.

Learning a foreign language humbles me. I see all the kids I deal with each week who are bilingual. Here they are at a young age, functioning in two languages. I am determined to do it too.

Football is really dog fights

Just a short one. Superbowl night. This is like a dog fight, a blood sport. I would not want my children or grandchildren having their heads and limbs battered as football does to those players, "our heroes". There is enough research done about the many small and large concussions these players endure that make them sorry members of our population.

So, I am not hosting a super bowl party to night. We have no nachos and beer in front of the t.v. I am doing something else.

Being Old is a Hoot

No photo today. You'll just have to imagine.

Opera lovers we are, and so, finally we began attending the simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera that are shown in local movie theaters all across the land. For years we listened to the Met on Saturday afternoons. We work in our studios and hear these productions, imagining the sets and the house and the musicians in the pit. Once a year or so we treat ourselves to a trip to New York to see the opera.

A few weeks ago we saw our first opera on simulcast HD. It was Carmen, and not knowing how popular this would be, we arrived in what we thought was good time and found the house almost full half an hour before the show. So we had to sit fairly close to the screen.

Despite some problems with the satellite, it was absolutely wonderful! Everyone in the audience of the sold out house talked to each other, checking on the plot and the singers.The woman sitting next to me actually clasped my hand as she worried that Carmen's dress might fall off!

Today, in a stiff chilly wind, we went back to this bleak movie complex theater in the midst of a dying shopping mall to see a Verdi opera neither of us had ever heard before. Again, it was a sold out house. We arrived with a bag of sandwiches and fruit we planned to eat before the opera. (The only food available in the whole mall is the overpriced nachos and hot dogs you can get at the theater.)

Outside this sterile theater we can immediately identify the other opera goers. Mostly they are the elderly and retired, all white or Asian. (I always notice these things) Because this is the Opera, we all talk to each other. ( Can you imagine it? Placido Domingo singing Baritone?)There is no play bill to tell us the plot or the names of the singers or the producers, or the names of the contributors. But people stop by our primo place in the front, just before the rail I can put my feet on, and they talk about the opera to come. This is better than any Playbill.

We are all there in this sold out house, in our jeans and sensible shoes, old. We have no fear of being thought odd. We are odd! There was a woman down the row who had brought a head lamp so she could read her book while waiting in the twilight for the opera to begin. And we had our picnic to be consumed while we watched the preliminaries of the opera.

And what a show! We sat there, mesmerized for three hours. The intermissions were fifteen minutes long, but we were shown what goes on back stage as they changed the sets, the musicians in the pit, and interviews with the principals.

The opera was wonderful with such amazing singing, we could forgive the ridiculous plot.

We all left, we q tips and the folks with walkers and a few youngsters. And we were all in agreement that we'd had a very nice Saturday afternoon.

Late Winter

Here is the view from our house these wintry mornings. No frost since the last devastating freezes of December, but it is still cold in the mornings and I don't want to get out in the garden and dig. I did put in a long row of peas and a bed of beets and the new collard and broccoli starts are doing well.

We have had two weeks of guests that I love. Still, it takes energy and lots of rearrangements so we are getting back to our usual routines.

More than ever I am embedded in our local school, Lacoochee. Each Tuesday I go to a certain class and we cook something and spend a lot of time reading out loud. This week, while the mac and cheese we made from scratch bubbled in the oven, we read several chapters of Little House on the Prairie.

Why won't classroom teachers read to kids every day? It's by far the most effective thing one can do to promote reading, as all the research shows.

The kids leaned on me and there was total silence as I read. (I am a very dramatic reader.) Then, we served the macaroni and had conversations. By now, some of the teachers know about these Tuesday afternoons, and they come, supposedly to work on their computers. But, really, they are listening intently, as are the kids, to the story. And they love the food, too.

After my classroom gig I went to inspect the small garden project for parents. Yes, all the plants are well cared for and I see many flats of plant starts also there. So amazing!

On Monday I will go to the meeting for parents and I will bring more seedlings and seeds. I will tell those parents in my halting Spanish that this week we'll have more containers for their gardens, a better hose, and a garden shed for their tools. All free! I have a Vista worker on board to help. I am imagining that eventually we'll have a proper tilled vegetable garden, but for now we are going for containers.

The folks in the Lacoochee administration are great and give me free reign. Parents are on board, kids help.

Meanwhile those teachers struggle with a mountain of paperwork about the FCATS and they never have enough time to do what they really want to do with their groups. Everyone hopes devoutly that the FCAT and NCLB will pull back and actually let teachers teach!

Quilts and craziness

I am still despondent about the state of the world and the state of the union. Go have your tea parties, pack guns and dismiss everything that you fear and do not understand. Shoot yourself in the foot. Climate change will undo you but you will drive your huge SUVs into the polluted sunset. I devoutly hope I will be dead by then.

So, here is a photo of the beginning of a quilt for my dear friend Julie who is struggling with a rare blood disease. Making this is a positive thing for me. While I sew I think of this wonderful and intelligent woman who has shared such wisdom with me.

In this season of my despondency the best things are working in the vegetable garden, weeding out the dead stuff from the prolonged freeze and renewing the beds, planting new collards and seeding the lettuce beds. I have small seedling containers, now full of shoots.

This is a renewal of life going on and I rejoice in this.

Where are you young people who should be revolutionaries?? Why are you not out there in the front telling the nation what you think can be done?? Are you only hunkered down with your Facebook and Twitter and buying things online and you tube on inconsequential matters? It makes me sad.

Saving the Turtles

Here is a green turtle on a quilt I made a few years ago for these amazing people, the Meylans, the only famous herpetologists I know. (Actually, I don't know any other herpetologists.) And here is a portrait of the heroes, Peter, Anne and Stephan.

In this beginning of the new year we had such a dreadful freeze that decimated crops and gardens in Florida we could hardly keep abreast of the magnitude of the stress in all our wildlife. When Anne and Peter and their sons came for a visit today they were full of the heroic stories about how the sea turtles of Florida were saved after the freeze.

Some four to five thousand sea turtles, mostly green turtles, but some loggerheads, were in terrible distress from the cold. Many were dying and the living ones were cold stunned and lying listless in the sea grass mats near shore and in the estuaries.

Peter Meylan, a professor at Eckerd College, enlisted the help of students in his reptile class. They went north to the Panama City area, where with the help of government and environmental groups and volunteers who scoured the lagoons and weed mats, they rescued many turtles, bringing them to the Gulfworld Aquarium in Panama City to warm up before release.

Meanwhile Anne Meylan from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation, and her son Stephan (on winter break from college) needed to take 92 cold stunned turtles from Pinellas to Ocala and the Wakala fish hatchery where they had the tanks to revive the turtles. On their wild ride to Ocala with the turtles they described having those huge hundred pound turtles barging around the floor of the van, getting under their feet, lunging everywhere.

After their turtle drop off near Ocala, they went to Merrit Island where there were hundreds of sea turtles, also cold stunned. Here, NASA let the sea turtle rescue operation use the NASA orbitor warehouse where there was a warmer. Seaworld, Disney, and others helped with their resources. There were lots of veterinarians who helped in the tagging and getting blood samples for genetic testing. Many of the turtles had fibropapiloma tumors, a contagious condition, and these turtles had to be separated from the healthy ones. This was the first time Stephan had had to do really fast work to pit tag these huge sea turtles. (This is the same thing we do to microchip our dog and cat pets.) The rescue operation painted numbers on each turtle after tagging. This took days and cold nights warmed by adrenalin, no doubt.

After warming and the data gathering, the turtles were released into the sea again. The dead ones had to be taken to the dump. Anne spoke of the steady volunteers who helped with this awful chore.

I have probably made mistakes in the telling of this. But what I know is that many many folks here in Florida stepped up to save a huge population of sea turtles. Eighty-five percent of them were saved!)

The Meylans are exhausted. We fed them a supper of rice and beans and listened to their stories.

The best stuff one ever does in life is responding to crisis. We Americans are so good at this. There are legions of ordinary folks who trundle off to New Orleans to rebuild houses, or cook for the homeless, or save manatees, or go to third world nations to repair cleft palates or fistulas. We take simple stoves and water purification and bed nets to places in need of these things. We believe that thing by thing, one by one, we can make a difference. And we do.

But we must also think over the long haul. We cannot just respond to a crisis, and this is certainly good. For Haiti we need to keep on giving in a responsible way after the water and food crisis abates.

We are global, we are our neighbors.

January Blues

Collards covered with frost for the tenth day! How discouraging to all of us who are trying to grow anything. The Glavitches who farm vegetables and sell them in a farm stand told us that the temperature in their strawberry fields was 13 degrees this morning! But still, they had the cherry tomatoes I needed for an old fashioned egg strata I will take to the garden club tomorrow.

We went over to Warren's orange grove to pick fruit to squeeze. At mid afternoon there were still columns of ice around the young trees from the all night watering he's had to do to preserve his grove during this prolonged freeze. But we were all happy to be out with Warren and his big gentle dog and the long handled pickers, getting a little warmth from the late sun. We cut into a few oranges to see if they were damaged beyond salvation. They seemed fine to me, and I know that my students tomorrow will enjoy making juice from them that they'll drink with the bread and butter they will be making.

These doings are small and beautiful gems of hope and pleasure in what I increasingly see as a depressing world. I have begun to think we have reached the tipping point (to what?). The age of civility has definitely passed. I used to love the so-called American spirit of independence, generosity and competence. Now, I don't know where it's gone.. Americans get their information from quick twitters, rumors, and charlatans, aka talk show hosts, pundits and bloggers.

We have "tea party" politicians who oppose abortion in a knee jerk way, and yet can't do the hard work to think through and act to protect the kids we already have. (More than seventy kids in Florida died or were killed last year through neglect or abuse!)

Seems everything is about politics and getting elected next time. I am not sure that our politicians are listening to what people really want. (We all want lower cost and predictable health care! Anyone would love a public option or single payer health care where you could just go and get the health care you need!) Problem is we want everything for free, no new taxes.

The world is just going too fast. How can we think about health care, the wars, climate change and the economy all at once? We don't need this constant yammer about who said what and did what and slept with whom and took what performance enhancing drugs. We need to let our current administration lead us and focus on what NEEDS TO BE DONE to keep our country on track without constantly fending off the gnats.

I did not vote for Bush, but I knew that when he was elected (sort of), he was our president and that the office of President must be respected. I am an American. It seems that so many in Congress are just trying to undermine our magnificent Constitution. We are all a People and this partisanship has elevated to very dangerous levels. Republicans and Democrats- come on! We are all Americans, not out to shoot each other, but to hunker down and work on some hard problems we all have whatever political stripe.

I am discouraged because I now think that in almost all cases our politicians can be bought for the right price. They are beholden to the big pharmaceutical and insurance companies, big oil, local companies. There is a scandal every day. (Did we forget how to be honest? Was integrity forgotten in the wild days of the last decade?)

My husband often reminds me that history replays itself. FDR was hated by many but he navigated the country through a depression that lasted far longer than this current recession will. Lyndon Johnson put in place many social reforms that we now take for granted. I was appalled that my own child had no idea who Lyndon Johnson was and what a long lasting stamp he put on our social policies. What happened to social studies education? Belatedly, she got this information by visiting the LBJ library in Austin.

Is all knowledge of history a thing of the past, so to speak? Do we have to reinvent the wheel over and over again? Has our instant world of the internet and trivial knowledge supplanted everything? Can we have it both ways? Our small grandson has technological know- how beyond mine, but still, we ride around and he asks me the questions of the ages: "Who is god?" and "Do starfish have eyes?" and "When will my mom be back?"

I am not at all sure that I would want to have kids if I were now of childbearing age. I can't see clearly that our values will prevail. I love each day living in this wonderful place, probably an anachronism.

Winter Garden

For the last few days we have awoken to the sight of frost on the fields and that dreaded acrid odor of frozen vegetation. I drive the mile up our driveway to get the newspapers, glad of those ridiculous heated seats. I can see that the day will be brilliant blue but I know that it will be cold all day and we'll be wearing those oddly assorted layers of all the winter gear we Floridians can find. Last week I was wearing shorts and this development makes me crabby.

After breakfast I make the rounds to mourn the demise of the Mexican petunias, the beach sunflowers I have enjoyed all summer and the succulants around the water garden. The pentas are limp and blackened, the ferns possibly hanging on until they are killed by another couple of frosts forecast for the rest of the week. The plumbago is still bravely blooming as are the knock out roses. We covered the newly planted citrus trees and the big begonia. I had taken all the orchids into the house. But there are so many plants and not enough sheets and clothespins to save all the plants.

The vegetable garden has been hanging on with the collards, broccoli, spinach and peas. The carrots are safely in the ground and the cabbage is clearly loving this cold weather. It would be nice if the weeds were to go! All those incredible butterfly attracting flowers are dead, but no doubt they will come back in the spring. I wonder where the butterflies go?

The electric company trimmed back trees last week and left us a huge amount of newly shredded mulch. When it warms up I will down load many wheelbarrows full of it and get the place ready for the spring garden. I have ordered the seeds and have the starter pots ready to place near a warm window. As usual, when all is potential, I have grand fantasies that this year I will have tomatoes in such abundance we will make salsa and juice and ketchup and sauce with enough left over to give away to all our friends. There will be no horn worms, no stink bugs, no blossom end rot. The eggplants will behave and produce only a moderate harvest, not twenty fruits each day. The lettuces will not bolt overnight. The armadillos will not root up the beans.

As my friend Virginia said, "Vegetable gardening is a slow learning curve." After many years you really do get to know what actually grows well in your site. You know that those weird cultivars that look so magnificent in the seed catalog and make you drool just thinking of eating them are probably not going to do well. There is a reason that Farmers Feed store sells pacman broccoli seedlings, never that "new" golden broccoli you see in the seed catalog. So mostly I stick with what is locally available, tried and true. I yearn for the interesting mesclun lettuces and have been pretty successful with growing them in raised salad tables. I keep trying the heirloom tomatoes but I really know that the local Homestead and Big Boy and Early Girl are the ones that can really produce (barring the bugs).

So, even as the frost relentlessly appears each morning, I await my package of seeds and the endless possibilities in those packets. I believe the frost killed plants will rise again in the warmth of spring days. I am not too daunted as I crunch across the frozen fields.

Holidays!

In no particular order here are some images from our holidays. First, the cats, Lewis and Clark, who are the owners of our good friends, Richard and Lucy. We drove up to North Carolina, a four day trip to celebrate the New Year and our friendship. After two weeks of non-stop parties (ours), we looked forward to the road trip in winter. The landscape changed from Florida green to the colorful and sere winter trees along the way. Our dog, Lola, was thrilled to be in a new motel along the way in Athens, Georgia. As we approached our friends' home on a mountain top, we saw piles of old tired snow from a previous storm but the twisty gravel road was clear. And then, there was the glorious view of layers and layers of smokey mountains and wet black skeletons of deciduous trees. I didn't know how much I have missed this image.

Our Christmas was quite traditional, though secular. We loved having so many family members and friends around. Quincy, our youngest grandchild was here on Christmas Eve, helped lay out the stockings (knitted by Lucy)by the fireplace, and put out a carrot for Rudolph. In the morning, he awoke to the stuffed stockings and a shiny new bike. What he loved best was the slinky he found in his stocking, and the tiny stuffed frog. Kids! The hall was clogged with the huge motorized crane from his uncle and aunt and he quickly figured out how to hoist that tiny stuffed frog into the nether.

The next day we had the traditional immense red snapper with green rice to be eaten by twenty friends and family. Norman and Virginia provided the fish, the Meylans brought a wonderful ham, Andy and I cooked collards, Elizabeth made the potatoes, I made strawberry shortcake and the Betzers brought many chocolate items. (A food group!) Everyone helped, the green salad was from our garden. We had NINE dogs in attendance! A record. They were all well behaved.

Before the dinner we all (dogs included) go out for a walk through the fields and woods. We laugh and talk and touch each other and I am thinking how blessed I am to be here right now. Here are old friends and some new ones, all ages, life goes on, the natural world around me is amazing. Quincy finds a small skull and Peter Meylan and Susie Betzer explain. He is clearly enthralled and wants me to keep this skull in my pocket. I hold out my hand and it is immediately filled with his small warm one. I look ahead and see the rest of the group and the long rays of the afternoon strike the golden head of Stephan,Peter's oldest son, just on the brink of adulthood. In this decade I have watched this boy grow up, and I rejoice. I see the daughters of us all there. How we love our children!

The next day after most of the crowd left Andy and I drove up to North Carolina. This last photo is of Lola, our dog, who has never before experienced snow. We made her wear this "dress" and she hated it and was clearly embarrassed to be seen in it. Lola is used to being the alpha dog in any situation but the twenty pound cats bested her!

This is a new year and a new decade, and so many of us hope for a better time. Many of my friends, this last year, have struggled with life threatening health issues. I am thinking of two Julies I love who are recovering. I am thinking of Juliet, my old childhood best friend, who's husband is facing cancer surgery tomorrow. I am thinking of young friends who have untimely lost their mothers. I am thinking of all the friends and family who have lost jobs.

And I am thinking of our president who has such a heavy load to bear. We need to be civil and supportive of each other, we Americans. We are it, that's all we have. Give thanks and be generous, that's what we can do.

Peace and happiness in the new year.

Happy New Year, happy New decade

ve a very wonderful new year!

Smells like Christmas

Here is my guy serving up one of our delicious company meals he has cooked. It is a cornucopia of wonderfully tasty food we have grown and cooked. In this week to come we will host another meal and our friends will burst in on cool breezes carrying additions to the meal and suddenly the air will be full of loud and loving talk and catching up and a lot of laughter. Peter will bring his signature chocolate cookies, others will come with armloads of fish and ham and we'll have greens from the garden. Our grandson, Quincy will run around, happy with the many Christmas presents he received.

I love this season, second only to Thanksgiving. Christmas is not very stressful to me because I do not decorate much or obsess about wrapping the few material gifts I give. I am so grateful for the wonderful family and gifts I have.

What I do obsess about is the expectations we all have. Today I went into our small town to volunteer as an art instigator for a group of twenty orphans, in age from nine to seventeen, from the Baptist Children's home in Lakeland. These kids were here in our town for a wonderful day. First, they went into a local bank lobby where there was a Christmas tree and gifts for every child, provided by local businesses and families. It was hard to tell who the guests were but I could certainly see that there were many photographers and P R people there. All proud to be the sponsors of Orphans at Christmas. The kids pretty much ignored them, but I could not help thinking that these kids were used to being poster kids for the needy at Christmas. (Other times of the year we conveniently do not think about them.)

After the gift distribution, the kids walked down to the art gallery where we had a hands on art activity. I had brought many skeins of yarn, craft sticks and all the rest so that these kids could make (and take) god's eyes. Many of the kids really took to this activity and made professional looking works of art. Those huge male teen agers really got into it, quickly learned the moves and helped the other younger kids. Time passed in a flash and when they needed to move on to their next activity they wanted more. So I filled their arms with many balls of yarn, the left over craft sticks and their brains full of how to do it. I think after this day they will most remember that they learned how to make something beautiful.

And I really do know that what these children want most is to have their very own loving family. It kills me.

I guess it's kid by kid that will save the world. And if you think you are doing it, be quiet about it. We don't need P R and plaques, hand shakes in front of audiences. It is enough to just do it. After Christmas, maybe into March, let's see what those orphans need. Maybe not a fake Christmas tree in a bank lobby surrounded by plastic gifts from China. Maybe they could use and love a few days in the country and learn to ride a horse or plant a garden or look at the night stars and be with a real family. And be treasured. It would be harder, uncomfortable, but worth it.

So much better than candy canes!

Christmas is a gift. Think carefully about this.

Happy Christmas to all.