Rock State Park

We have amazing State Parks in Maryland.  Each one of them has something that makes it a unique destination.  Years ago when I was teaching the girl how to drive, we drove past this place called "Rock State Park".  We didn't stop - we were very lost, and the thought of pulling over somewhere and potentially getting more lost was something that the freaked her out beyond words.  (Yes, I did have a cell phone with GPS, which I was following in an attempt to get to Belcamp.  I'm still not certain how it ended up directing us to Rock State Park from the Baltimore area...)  But I digress..

One beautiful day last year, husband and I set out to go see the park.  We packed our lunch and a picnic blanket and our thermos of water.

The day did not disappoint.  We started early, hoping to beat the worst of the crowds and be able to keep as much distance between us and other people as possible.  

We began with a hike up to the King and Queen Seats.  I don't know how we stumbled onto the easy hike, but we did, somehow hiking down less than half a mile from the parking lot.  The views are stunning.  It made me think of the Lord of the Rings - you know, the spot where Frodo goes and is attacked by Boromir just before the Fellowship falls apart?  It felt like you could see forever and a day.

 

As this particular spot in the park began to fill up with people, we hiked back to the car and pulled over by the side of the road by a scenic pull off.  We walked down to the water and what did we see?  This amazing, beautiful area full of butterflies puddling in the shallow water.  It was magical.  There were so many more butterflies than this photo captures.

 

We finally stopped in a picnic area for lunch around 11.  We pulled out our blanket and our basket and watched the river flow by and kids playing.  What a wonderful way to spend a day!

What a beautiful view!

Palm Sunday

 For those of us who are Christians, today is Palm Sunday.  Today marks the beginning of Holy Week.  This is the day when we commemorate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Ten years ago, I was teaching 7th grade Sunday School with one of my best friends.  We decided that the Sunday School needed to have their very own re-enactment of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  We had taken our thought to the Education Director who hopped onto our plan and made it even better.  She was going to arrange for a Donkey.

Palm Sunday arrives.  All of the kids are lining the long hallway in the Education wing - they all have palm branches, and they have put "cloaks" down on the floor.

Our kids are dressed, and Andy was thrilled that he was going to be playing the part of Jesus.  The rest of the class were his disciples.

We go to the end of the hallway, and we see a wagon - you know, a kid's Radio Flyer Wagon.  And there's a pony on top.  A rocking horse pony from the preschool.  It is placed precariously atop the wagon and held down with a bungee cord.

Excited beyond words, Andy hops onto the rocking horse, and as he attempts to squeeze his very big 7th grade self into this rocking horse designed for a 4 year old, the kids in the hall start waving palm branches and cheering.  Before Andy is completed settled in, his "disciples" begin pushing and pulling the wagon down the hallway.  As the wagon bumped over each and every cloak, the horse moved just a little more off kilter.  

Halfway down the hallway, the fire doors were open, but there was a rough junction on the floor, because that is the spot where the new and old buildings were joined.  When the wagon hit that spot, the rocking horse slipped off on one side and Andy was holding on for dear life, trying to keep himself from crashing off and onto the kids standing on the side of the halls.  As the kids pushing and pulling saw everything start to slide, they decided the solution was to move FASTER down the hallway.

As they burst through the doors at the end of the hallway, Andy did a "tuck and roll" into the grass.

The kids fell on the ground, laughing so hard tears were running down their faces.  

It was the very best Palm Sunday I've ever had. I have a picture of that group that shows up in my Facebook Memories every year.  You can see the grins on the kids faces, and Andy is perched atop the riding horse which was entirely too small for a 12 year old.

I ran into Andy recently.  He's a grown man now.  As we were catching up, he told me that that Palm Sunday Parade is still his all time favorite Sunday School memory.  Palm Sunday has been one of his favorite Holy Days ever since.  

To my friends who are Christian, I hope you have a memorable Holy Week.

My Mom

 Mom has had a rough few years.  

She had a Colostomy after her Colon ruptured about 6 years ago.  Her bowel was obstructed by a tumor.  If she'd ever had a colonoscopy, she would still have her colon. Alas, she refused and ever since, she has pooped through a bag on her stomach.  If you've ever wanted a good reason to get a colonoscopy, there it is.  No control over that bodily function, and you wear a bag to collect your waste 24/7.  She survived the surgery, spent 6 weeks in the ICU and another 4 in rehab before she could come home. (PSA - get a colonoscopy.)  She's learned to live with it, but she's never been happy about it.  She even named her bag after my Dad's second wife... so there's that.

Let's fast forward to Election Day, 2018.  All of this happened just after I stopped writing for this blog, and I had no idea how to even put everything into words.  Let's see what I can do.  As far as I knew, Mom was on blood pressure medication and was taking it every day.  My sister was living with her.  (OK, another story for another day.)  We BOTH though Mom was taking her blood pressure medication daily.

Election Night, they were watching the returns, when Mom got up to go to the bathroom and crashed to the floor.  She couldn't stand, she couldn't walk, and she was slurring her words.  My sister called 9-1-1, and they came out to the house and took Mom to the hospital.  I got a call around 11 pm telling me that Mom had fallen and everything should be fine.  I asked if she needed me to come down - it was a 2 hour one way drive) and she told me to get some sleep, and she'd see me in the morning.

6 am, I get a call from my sister that they were transferring her to the hospital in Arlington from where she was just north of Richmond.  I drove down to the hospital, found out that mom wasn't there yet and sat down to wait in the cafeteria.  My sister had been with Mom through the night and was headed home to get some sleep.  Mom arrived around 11 am, and they began to run a bevy of tests on her.

She'd had a stroke.  When she was admitted to the first hospital and run her bloodwork, it showed indications of a looming cardiovascular event.  So they transferred her to a larger hospital with a higher level of care.  She had another stroke that first night in Arlington before they got her blood pressure under control.  She lost control of one side - I think it was the left side - things have begun to run together.  Whichever side it was - it was the one that didn't affect speech.

Once she was stabilized, they moved her to a rehab hospital where she stayed for the next month while she relearned how to walk, eat, and dress herself.  Eventually, she went back home and moved in with my very overwhelmed sister.  We hired nurses to help her 24/7 for the first few months and then cut down on the amount of time they were there as she improved.  She had another stroke a few months later, and then several TIA's.  It was time to move her someplace where she could get the assistance that she needed.

Over July 4 weekend in 2019, we moved her to a place in Arlington.  She's close enough to Washington that she can see the Capitol and the White House on the other side of the river.

Moving day was awesome. Tempers were high, as you can imagine.  We couldn't find a moving van that day, so we all showed up with our various assorted cars to move her things.  My sister and her boyfriend showed up in two cars.  My daughter and her boyfriend showed up in another.  I showed up in my CRV.  (Did I mention husband was out of town?  Of course he was....)  AND, we had several of our friends from college who showed up to help.  

Let's give a huge hand to lifelong friends here.  We graduated from college in the last century.  NONE of us are young anymore.

And so we piled everything we could into the cars and moved her an hour and a half up the road.  I had her in my car in the front seat.  My sister was behind me, and my daughter and her boyfriend were behind her, and our assorted friends were behind them.

I had the box springs for her mattress on the roof of my CRV.  Keep in mind, I have no roof rack on my car.  I put that grippy stuff that you use on the bottoms of kitchen cabinets to keep glasses from breaking across the roof of my car, rollling the ends in through the back seat windows.  We put the box springs on upside down, and then we bungee corded the whole thing down - with cords across the front row and middle row.  I had the clasps just over my head.  It was something I tried not to think too hard about.  We then tied a heavy rope from my front bumper over the top of the car and around the back bumper - think tying down a kayak.

My sister had the mattress.  And she wanted it on the roof of her car.  She refused to have any bungee cords over her head, and she didn't want to damage her car with ropes from front to back.  So, the mattress was bungee corded through the second row of windows in her SUV.  Just the second window.

We set out in a caravan.  Our route took us straight up I-95.  If you're not familiar with 95 through Northern Virginia, be very thankful.  That traffic is some of the worst traffic in the nation.  I stayed in the left lane, put my blinkers on, and kept my speed to around 60 miles an hour.  My sister pulled over into the leftmost lane, and my daughter pulled behind her.

Do you know what happens when you hit a major interstate with a mattress strapped down only across the middle and hit NoVa traffic speeds?  It turns into a taco.  The mattress stands straight up and bends almost all the way back like a taco, held down only by the bungee cords.  

Daughter dropped back to leave room between her car and my sister's car so that if the mattress did fly off, she'd have a chance to stop or veer onto the shoulder.  And she put her blinkers on.  But my sister didn't slow down - she kept charging right on up the highway.  When she slowed because of traffic, the mattress would flatten out and become a quesadilla.  All the way up the highway - taco/quesadilla, taco/quesadilla.

My daughter told me that a couple of times they had cars who pulled in front of her, then the mattress would pick up again and look like it was taking flight and all of a sudden, they'd veer back over to the other lane.  

Eventually, we got mom safely moved into her new place.  The furniture was installed.  We helped her unpack and hang pictures. The staff took her down to dinner so that she could meet her new table mates.  When the day was over, we drove home through Washington DC so that we could at least look at the festivities on the Mall and all of the happy people celebrating.

Honestly, I will never forget the sight of the mattress taco in my rear view mirror, passing me on the left and flying past me up the highway.   

Random Pictures

 So many images to share!  I've taken these over the last couple of months around our part of Maryland.

2020 Bingo.  I did NOT get a bonus for "Fill the Card", but I did Bingo several differnt ways.  We did remodel a room in the house.  I did buy a kiddie pool for the carport over the summer, and did sit out there several nice days and enjoy the water.  Joined in a Car Parade to bid farewell to our pastor, don't want to talk about the toilet paper.  (We're seriously looking at installing a bidet when we renovate the Master Bathroom.) Our summer vacation was to a Delaware Beach. Among the many live stream concerts we attended, Straight No Chaser's Christmas Concert was my favorite.  

 

I was gifted this little kitten litter box by a very good friend.  I keep it on my desk at work. It comes with a tiny little rake, and on very stressful days, I pull out the cats and their rocks and rake the sand. It truly is very Zen.

We used to live near this lake.  Pushing the kids around this lake in a stroller was my primary form of exercise for years.  We stopped by a couple of weeks ago to walk around the lake. You wanna know something funny?  It's a whole lot easier to walk the 2.5 miles around the lake when you are NOT pushing a stroller!

Walking around a pond in Gaithersburg at sunset. Such a gorgeous sunset!

Hermie adores her feathery sticks!  We had just gotten a new one from Chewy.  I thought I had stashed it where she couldn't get it, but she pulled open the drawer where I had stashed it and pulled it out.  She is one very determined little cat!

Last one for today - I found this in an Amazon Ad on Facebook.  A Bubble Pea Pod Carrier?  For a cat?  I want to know if anyone has successfully managed to use one of these with a cat.  Or unsuccessfully tried to use one.  I would love to hear your story!  I can just imagine a pissed off cat face pressed up against that clear plastic bubble, terrorizing the villagers.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

If you've delved through the blog, you know that I am a Librarian.  And one of my great joys is sharing beautifully written stories with people.  I just finished reading Black Sun and it was PHENOMENAL.  Below, you will find my review of the book.  Thanks for reading! 

Image:World Cat

In this book, we see the culmination of a prophecy.  It is said that the Crow God will return when the Earth and Sky converge under the Black Sun.  In the Holy City of Tova, the solstice is a time for celebration. However, this year, it coincides with a solar eclipse an event which signals a great unbalancing of the worlds.  As we join the story, we are 11 days before the solstice and events are quickly coming to a crescendo.  This fascinating story is told through three voices.  As the characters race to the City of Tova for the solstice, they share the story of the journey that brought them to this place in time where their stories will unforgettably collide.

 

Roanhorse pulls on the Pre-Columbia cultures of the Americas to set her story.  Laced with intricate details that combine many of these cultures into one, she builds a world that defines the best fantasy novels. Her characters are written with great depth, and I appreciate how she delves into their backstory while advancing the plot.  Each of the three main characters: Serapis, Xiala, and Nara have a major part to play in this story that is set to unfold over three books.

The neutral gender in this story is denoted by the terms Xi and Xie.  It did take a while to get used to those terms in the story, as it was unexpected at first.  But, as we do not have a standard gender neutral term in the English language, these words do work.  It also feels as if they naturally stem from the world Roanhorse has built.

Readers who enjoy high fantasy with deep world building will enjoy this book.  Her world is  believable and has rich characters that add great depth to the story.  This is the first book in the Earth and Sky Trilogy.  

5 stars

#ownvoices

Moving the Girl

After graduation, the daughter moved back in with us while she looked for a full time job.  She kept her dog walking business up and going, found a paid internship, and got some hours at a local big box store that she had worked at since she graduated from high school.  (You know the one.  You can't wear a red shirt in there without being asked to help someone find something.)

She found a job in November 2019 and has been working there ever since.  Problem is, the job was in Washington DC, and we live in the hinterlands, well over 2 hours away.  She commuted using our car through November and December at which point she had saved enough money to put a decent down payment on a car and a security deposit on an apartment. 

They found an apartment closer into Washington and moved in over Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend in 2020. 

But let me tell you about moving day.  She and her roommate found a beautiful apartment.  Lots of light, sunny, and enough space for them to spread out and each have their own privacy.  It was on the top floor - the 4th floor - of a walk up.

Moving day came, and we brought the UHaul over to the house.  Her roommate had loaded it first, and we had some space left to put her things in the back. And then we filled the back  of the CRV.  And then the back of her Sedan.

But wait, there's more.  Her grandmother (my MIL) wanted to give her furniture from her condo as she was downsizing to a senior living apartment.  She had a bunch of heavy solid wood furniture that she gifted to daughter.  No way on earth were we moving that, so we hired professional movers to take care of that.  

75 stairs.  That is the number of stairs up to the 4th floor.  And I walked them, a lot.  She and her roommate, the Dads and brothers helped us move everything upstairs.  My pedometer told me that I walked 5 miles that day.  It was a lot of steps.  We moved everything into the living room, and shoved it all to one side.  We returned the U-Haul about 20 minutes before the movers showed up.  Now here's the fun part.  Daughter took the loft area of their apartment to be her bedroom.  There's no door, and it's open to the living room.  Her roommate took the master bedroom on the first floor.

The movers arrive and then haul this very heavy solid wood furniture up 4 flights of stairs - and then once they maneuver into the apartment, find that they have to move it up one more, much narrower flight to the top of the loft.  I give them credit, they were professional and cheerful where I would have been cursing like a sailor.  (Wait, I was cursing like a sailor earlier in the morning as I helped move all of those boxes and assorted crap up the stairs.)

Our move began at 8 am, and all of the parents and assorted siblings left at 3 pm.  I heard they ordered take out pizza for dinner Saturday night.  The parents all shook hands in the parking lot and vowed NOT to help them move out when their lease was up!  Husband and I stopped for carryout on the way home and then crashed.  It was a long, tiring, exhausting day. It reminded us that we are not 25 anymore!

The view of all the assorted junk shoved to one side.

 

Rice Pudding

 I love digging through old cookbooks to find vintage recipes, don't you? I love seeing how people made food in a time when convenience foods didn't rule the day, and food was lovingly made from scratch with ingredients that were already in the house.   

I found a recipe for rice pudding that seemed simple enough for me to pull together on a Sunday afternoon.  It was from an old church cookbook published over 50 years ago.  I had all of the ingredients on hand, so I decided to try it.   This was magic.  Rich and creamy, with a nice depth of flavor.  I remember one of my Grandmothers making something like this for breakfast.

The recipe calls for cow's milk, but I used unsweetened coconut milk.  I imagine it would work well with any of the plant milks as long as the milk is unsweetened.

My Grandmother's glass.

Rice Pudding

1 quart of milk

1/2 cup rice

3/4 cup sugar 

Pinch of salt

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Wash the rice.  Add sugar and salt to the rice in a large saucepan. Add milk; bring to a boil and simmer until rice is tender, stirring often about 20-30 minutes. Beat in egg with half a cup of milk and add to the rice mixture. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool, stirring often.  Add vanilla and stir.

New Cat!

Hermes is her name.  Today is her 1 year anniversary of living with us.  As the Pandemic took hold last year and things really began to shut down, our local shelter held an event to clear the shelter.  They were searching for people to foster the animals so they wouldn’t be alone in cages for an unknown duration of time.  

And so we brought home a 2 year old black cat that was absolutely terrified.  She had been left at the shelter 2 weeks before, and she had dropped half of her body weight.  She spent most of the first month hiding from all of us. 

But time marches on, and we spoiled her when she came out and ignored her when she hid.  In the last month, she finally seems at home.  She has started curling up on us during the day, and sleeping with us at night.  We are starting to see her sassy little personality come out.  And we love it! And so, I’d like to introduce you to Hermes. (We call her Hermie for short.)

And we're back!

 It's been a while.  So, let's catch up with what's been going on with me for the last 3 years.

1) After 25 years of part time work, I went back to work full time.  The resulting adjustment to full time work let me wiped out at the end of the work day and for most weekends. I never expected this adjustment to be so difficult! 

2) I am still working full time.  I am so very glad I had a full time job last year when the pandemic hit, and that I was able to keep working from home for a majority of the year.

3) Kids - 

Oldest is almost done with his PhD.  Due to the pandemic, he has been living at home for 10 of the last 12 months.  We are holding our breath for an August Graduation.  I asked him today how his dissertation was coming along, and he told me "I have downloaded the template.  I've put my name in the appropriate spot".  August graduation?  We'll see.  I've had standing reservations at the hotel next to the campus for every graduation for a year now, and I've cancelled the reservations a month out.

Middle is living in Kansas, still.  He spent three months alone in his apartment last year, not going anywhere and not seeing anyone.  He is now starting to talk about looking for a job on the East Coast.  I would love to have him home, but I am not counting on it until it happens.

Youngest got a job in Washington DC in the fall of 2019.  We moved her into an apartment at the end of January 2020.  She wanted to be closer to her work. (2 hours one way from here)  4 weeks after she moved, her commute went from an hour on Metro to walking down the stairs to the kitchen table. 

4) Parents

Mom turned 90 last month.  She never got COVID, which is a blessing.  We had to move her into an Assisted Living Facility - which is a post unto itself.  It's a 9 story high rise close to Washington, DC.  Their facility was hit hard in the early days of COVID, and they lost two entire floors of residents.  Thankfully, they were all vaccinated in early January.  She has not weathered the pandemic nor the isolation well.  

Mother in Law went blind last year.  Talk about another post.  I can't even begin to put this all into words. She's well, but she can't see. 

Like everyone, we have lost loved ones to COVID.  I personally know 20 people who have died of COVID since December.  I know so many, many more who have had it and survived, and I know many who are struggling with the long haul symptoms.

We've had more than our fair share of family drama over the last three years.  Maybe I will be able to write about it at some point.  Who knows?  It's been a drama filled time, and writing will help me process everything.  Wow, will you all be in for a treat filled batch of dirty laundry if I do post the stories!

And so, after 3 years of silence on the blog, and a year where I shut it down completely to get my head organized, I am back.  Thanks for joining me on this crazy journey!

 

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together today to get through this thing called Life."

Prince, Let's Go Crazy.