birthdays and Jubilee

As I mentioned in this post, spouse B, daughter T, and I were recently in London, UK, visiting daughter E, her spouse L, and granddaughters ABC and JG, who live in East London with L’s parents.

The main reason for the timing of the visit was that it was half-term break for ABC and her fifth birthday. We were so happy to be there to celebrate with her. Due to a number of health issues – thankfully, not COVID – and other complicating logistical factors, we spent most of our time visiting between their house and our apartment hotel. ABC was thrilled to even have an overnight in our unit.

Because ABC lived with us in the US for her first couple of years, she is very comfortable with us. For JG, who was born in August 2020, we are virtual strangers or, at best, figures from a computer screen who inexplicably appear in person. Still, she was able to relate to us better this time than when we visited last December/January. Both ABC and JG relate more to Auntie T than to Nana and Grandpa. Aunties are obviously much better playmates!

It’s also nice that JG is finally able to be out and about more in public. As a pandemic baby, she wasn’t able to go visiting or go to stores, libraries, churches, etc. for a big chunk of her life, so people beyond her household can still be daunting, exacerbating the developmental stranger anxiety that waxes and wanes throughout infancy and toddlerhood. As she gets older, we expect that she will warm up to us more quickly when we visit.

The timing of our visit also meant that we were there for Queen Elizabeth’s seventieth Jubilee. As we are crowd averse even in non-pandemic times, we didn’t go to any celebrations in person but watched them on BBC One. I saw the trooping the colour, the lighting of beacons, the service of thanksgiving, the Derby, and the Jubilee concert. There were also various block parties. There was so much celebrating that there was a shortage of decorative bunting!

It was ironic that as soon as the Jubilee celebration concluded, there was a no-confidence vote among the Conservatives in Parliament on the leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Johnson survived the vote, but the narrow margin suggests that he may have to step aside as PM in the coming months. We’ll see.

It was nice to see people being so supportive of their aging monarch, even as she, understandably, needed to pass on some of the hosting duties to her heirs. It was also touching to see the Tree of Trees sculpture that celebrated the Queen’s request to plant a million trees in honor of her platinum Jubilee.

We had a bit more celebrating to do, as T’s birthday was the day we returned home. While we could not have a “tree of trees” to celebrate her, part of her birthday gift was a donation in her honor to a project that is working to preserve the ‘ōhi‘a trees of Hawai’i. The trees are being killed by a fungal disease for which there is no known remedy so there is an ongoing seed banking project in order to restore the population after the fungal disease has run its course.

I appreciate that these commemorations celebrate the past by looking to the future. There is so much to do to secure a future for the younger generations and the planet. Our history gives us both positive and negative examples of how to react to and make change. Instead of rosy nostalgia, we need to be clear-eyed about our past and present and use that knowledge to improve the situation. especially for those who are now children, teens, and young adults.

orthodontia

I’ve spent years dealing with other people’s orthodontia. Spouse B in his twenties needed braces to correct his bite and preserve his teeth for the long haul. Both of our daughters inherited his jaw and went through an assortment of jaw growth appliances, full wires, headgear, and retainers.

I did a lot of traipsing people to appointments and making soft foods and supervising tooth hygiene and such, but never had to directly deal with orthodontia myself.

Until now.

My mouth has always been small for my teeth. I had to have all four of my impacted wisdom teeth removed surgically because there was nowhere for them to go. My bite had been good in my younger years, so I hadn’t had to worry about braces, but, as I’ve aged, my teeth have moved and crowded together in such a way that my bite is affected. In order to preserve my teeth for what we are hoping will be another couple of decades, I needed to take action.

Last week, I started treatment with the Invisalign system. Several weeks before, my dentist’s office had taken a series of digital photos and measurements, which Invisalign used to create fifteen pairs of clear aligners which will gradually shift the teeth into their new positions. Each set is worn for two to three weeks. There are little pegs bonded to some of my teeth to help keep the aligners in place, although they fit pretty tightly on their own. The system is designed for the aligners to be worn at least 20-22 hours a day. They need to be removed to eat or drink anything other than cool to room temperature water.

Adjusting to this is…a process.

I’m finding that taking the liners in and out is subject to a fairly steep learning curve. By design, the liners are tightly fit and put pressure on the teeth to shift them, so there is a fair amount of finesse required to get them out and then snapped back in place. As you can imagine, the teeth of a 61-year-old are not especially inclined to move quickly in a new direction and will probably noticeably loosen a bit to accomplish this, but these first few days are causing considerable discomfort, especially during the removal and insertion process, while brushing, and while eating. Due to my particular problems, biting into anything with my front teeth is not possible at the moment.

My mouth is fairly comfortable when the liners are in, so I am minimizing the number of times I have them out. Fortunately, I often only eat twice a day and don’t snack or drink anything other than water between meals, so I’m cutting down on the amount of pain. I’m trying not to catastrophize this initial adjustment period as indicative of the eight to nine months of expected treatment time. I spoke with the dentist’s office yesterday and, while I seem to be on the more severe side of the discomfort scale, they expect that I will get adjusted soon and then be more in line with the usual day or two of discomfort when progressing to a new set of liners.

We did decide to adjust when I would make that move due to a personal commitment. Rather than moving to set two next Wednesday night, I am going to delay to the following Sunday. As it happens, I will be travelling to Northampton, Massachusetts, that Wednesday to attend my fortieth reunion at Smith College. There will be lots of group meals and receptions and some longer periods of time when my liners will need to be out, so it’s best to not have the extra pain and complication of a new set of liners thrown in on top of that.

I’m also hoping that I will be more adept at getting the liners in and out by then. My goal is to get to the point where I can accomplish this in under a minute. Now, it can take several (uncomfortable) minutes in front of a sink and mirror, which may be difficult, or at least embarrassing, to engineer on a campus with thousands of soon-to-be-graduates, students, staff, alums, and guests.

I am nothing if not persistent, so I will keep working on this adjustment and deal with whatever complications come my way. This trip to Northampton will be a trial run for travelling with Invisalign because B, T, and I will be heading to London late in May to visit daughter E and family. We will be there for granddaughter ABC’s fifth birthday in early June.

At least, birthday cake is easy to chew!

One-Liner Wednesday: Happy 96th!

banner with two hearts saying 96 YEARS LOVED

A gift from my sister to honor our dad, known here as Paco, on his 96th birthday last week. ❤

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2021/03/31/one-liner-wednesday-had-to-run/

SoCS: 60

Very soon, I will turn 60.

I’ll be saying good-bye to an old decade and beginning a new one.

I guess the bigger question is “is sixty old?”

Well, if not old, I think it’s at least getting there…

I’m not a big “numbers” person. We all get older one day at a time, so I don’t usually fret about my age, which is always one day older than the day before. I admit that I had established sixty as the date by which I hoped to have a book of poetry published, but that isn’t happening. A friend told me she thought I should give myself an additional year on my goal because I have been a chapbook contest finalist, so I guess I’ll go with that. I also have several poet-friends who didn’t publish a book until 60+ so I am in happy and comforting company if I do manage to publish my chapbook or something else in my 60s. Right now, my chapbook is still out in five places and I have three more prospects lined up for submission, so working on it…

Birthdays and anniversaries, especially milestone ones, do remind me to consider how blest I am to have gotten here. I think about my friend Angie who died when she was 54. We used to dream about our respective, then unborn, not-even-dreamt-of-by-our-children grandchildren meeting up at the lake for summer vacations. She does now have grandchildren, whom she never got to hold.

This will probably sound morbid, but, even in my twenties, I made big decisions in my life using the lens of “if I knew I were going to die soon/young, what would I want to have done?” In my case, this has often meant setting aside a personal ambition or accomplishment in favor of taking care of people and doing volunteer work. I’m privileged to have had a choice to make.

It has meant that there have been opportunities that I passed up and that were not able to be retrieved at a later time, especially when it came to my role as a church musician and liturgist. Much too long and complicated a story to stream of conscious-ness.

My hope is that, when I am old, if that grace is to be mine, I will be able to look back with equanimity and not regret.

If I can, that will be a grace, too.

*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “new and/or old.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2020/10/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-3-2020/

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley!

SoCS: penny box

Like many people, we have a coin jar at home. When our daughters were young, when the coin jar was full, I would roll the coins and bring them to our credit union for deposit to the girls’ accounts.

That was a long time ago now, but I still have a coin jar. I didn’t fill it very fast in recent years because I would only take coins out of my wallet when it got over-full. I used to do a lot of my everyday shopping in cash, so I would spend my coins. Since the pandemic, though, I seldom use cash, so I’m not accumulating coins.

I was concerned this spring because there was a coin shortage caused by lack of commerce and I was anxious to find a couple of 2020 pennies. Two of my long-time friends have penny boxes that I gave them for their birthdays. The idea came from a book for children titled “The Hundred Penny Box” which had a centenarian who had a penny from each year of her life. Each year, on my friends’ birthdays, I would send them a penny for that year.

My friend with a May birthday had to take an IOU, but I was pleased to pay cash at the grocery store self-checkout one day in late June and receive three shiny 2020 pennies in change. I sent a (very belated) birthday card to my first friend and had a penny to send to my friend with an August birthday on time.

I used to supply pennies to two other boxes. One was a birthday box for my friend Angie, who passed away in 2005. (If you search her name, posts will come up about her here at TJCM.) The other was an anniversary box for my parents, known here as Nana and Paco. We added the last penny to it last year, a few weeks before Nana passed away.

Someday, I may make a penny box for B and my anniversary. Maybe in two years for our 40th. That was when I gave my parents theirs and they wound up making to their 65th.

May we be so blessed.

*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week was to write about something of which we had more than a hundred in our home right now. Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2020/08/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-29-2020/

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley!

a May flower

This spring has been slower to warm than usual. Most years, we have lilies of the valley by Mother’s Day or by Nana’s birthday on May 16th at the latest. Lilies of the valley are the birth flower for May and we always picked bud vases for her while they were flowering.

Years ago, B and I transplanted a few pips from our childhood yards in New England to our home in New York. Lilies of the valley “spread aggressively” as horticulturists say and we now have a patch at least 25 square feet (2.3 square meters).

I’ve written previously about some of the hidden blessings of not having to deal with the complications of 2020 last year as we spent our final months with Nana. We were able to bring her beautiful, fragrant bouquets of lilies of the valley for her last birthday, which would not have been possible with the later spring blossoming this year and the restrictions on visiting skilled nursing facilities.

Lily of the valley, with Paco’s card to Nana and birthday card made by artist-friend Jim

Nana’s ashes are in an indoor niche at a memorial park in our town where fresh flowers are not allowed. I’m hoping someday to find some beautiful artificial lilies of the valley to leave there for her, so there will always be a bit of spring and her favorite May flower nearby.

Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday tribute

Last night, my family had hoped to watch a livestream of a special birthday celebration for composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim in honor of his 90th birthday. The performers were all in their own homes and there were pretty massive technical difficulties which delayed the start for two hours. It was too late for us to watch live, but T and I were able to watch it on youtube today:

I loved it!

There are performances from generations of Broadway stars, some jaw-droppingly amazing given the unusual circumstances, all heartfelt. Most of the songs were well-known, but several were less so. It was a tribute to Sondheim’s incredible range as a composer. While a few were more light-hearted selections, most were poignant, which is a quality I notice often in his songs.

The first Sondheim musical I saw was a community performance of Company when I was in high school, which seemed very adult and sophisticated to my small-town teenage self. I most associate Sondheim, though, with my daughters.

We had a video recording of Into the Woods, which was a favorite of E’s when she was young. She especially liked singing Little Red’s “I Know Things Now.” When T was old enough to watch with her, we would only let her watch the first act. (If you know the show, the first act ends with what could be construed as “happily ever after”; the second act gets dark pretty quickly.) This worked for a little while, until E told T the rest of the story and we relented and let her watch the whole thing, which she did not find upsetting. I guess that the non-bowdlerized Grimm version of fairy tales, which involve quite a lot of mayhem, endure for a reason that I had not hitherto fully appreciated.

T’s favorite Sondheim musical became Sunday in the Park with George. She and E would often break into Sondheim songs around the house, just for the joy of singing. And they sang them very well, which is an accomplishment, because Sondheim is very difficult to sing accurately. T and I especially liked a video clip in the tribute of a young Iain Armitage singing “Finishing the Hat.”

E and T often did summer workshops at our local playhouse, some of which involved singing. Sometimes, Sondheim worked his way into those performances. I especially remember that in summer of 2001, E sang “Not While I’m Around” from Sweeney Todd. A few weeks later, when the 9/11 attacks occurred, I found the memory of her singing that song oddly comforting. “Nothing’s gonna harm you, Not while I’m around.” Not that I thought her singing would protect us from terrorists, but that sense of caring and sheltering resonated in those circumstances.

“Not While I’m Around” was part of last night’s concert, too. It and several other selections that have that same poignancy of love, protection, and care brought tears to my eyes.

The power of music.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sondheim, and thank you.

calendars

I have forced myself to undertake one of my least favorite change-of-year tasks – transferring dates onto the new calendar.

Yes, I still prefer paper calendars. I carry a small one for noting appointments when I am out and about and keep a monthly one near the phone in the dining room. (Yes, I also still prefer to use my landline; only people who may need to reach me at any time have my cell number.)

I need to fill in appointments that are scheduled in 2020 on both the pocketbook calendar and the large calendar. This is tedious, but not especially challenging. What is more poignant for me is filling in birthdays and anniversaries, some of which include the applicable number of years.

Generally, age doesn’t bother me. I’m proud that B and I will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary this year. Maybe, we will be blessed to reach a 65th anniversary, as my parents, known here as Nana and Paco, did.

Which leads to the poignancy of writing dates on the calendar…

As family members pass away, I make commemoration notes for birthdays and anniversaries on my calendar. This year is the first time that Nana’s birthday and Nana and Paco’s anniversary will be memorials rather than celebrations.

I think that Nana fought hard for a last chance to celebrate Paco’s birthday in March, their 65th anniversary in April, and her 87th birthday in May. She died a few days after her birthday. One of the last things that I helped her eat was a fruit tart that I got as a birthday treat for her from her favorite supermarket bakery.

Changing her dates from celebrations to memorials is just one more small expression of loss, added to so many others.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Learn more here:  https://lindaghill.com/2020/01/02/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-2nd-2020/

SoCS: dress

Our granddaughter, ABC, who just moved to London, has lots of cute dresses. Well, she has had many sets of cute dresses in a variety of sizes. She often wears them with leggings, which were not available when her mom was little.

When E (ABC’s mom) was little, she didn’t wear dresses often as an infant. For her first birthday, though, she wore a white and lavender striped dress. She had just recently started walking on her own. She walked into the dining room and sat herself down on the carpet, spreading her dress around her, as though she was setting herself up for a photo op for her parents and grandparents.

Thanks for the prompt, Linda, which brought back this sweet memory, just as my firstborn child and her firstborn are settling into their new life on the other side of the Atlantic.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “dress.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-26-19/

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley!
https://www.quaintrevival.com/

87

Lily of the valley, with Paco’s card to Nana and birthday card made by artist-friend Jim

Today is my mom’s 87th birthday.

Because her heart failure symptoms cause her to be sleepy a lot of the time, it is difficult to predict when she might be alert, so we keep celebrations ad hoc and catch bits of time with her as circumstances allow.

This morning, I picked her a few lilies of the valley from our (rapidly spreading out of control) patch. The original pips came from the yard of my childhood home in Massachusetts and from the yard of B’s home in Vermont, only a few miles apart. Lily of the valley is the birth flower for May and I have often picked some for Nana’s birthday. Our spring this year has been chilly and damp, so they have just begun to bloom with only the very bottom bells open, but I picked some regardless and will bring a few more when they open more fully.

On my way up to the skilled nursing unit of my parents’ senior living community, I swung by Wegman’s grocery store and picked up an individual size fruit tart. Nana would often buy large ones for special occasions, so I thought she might enjoy a little one for her birthday. I was pleased that, though small, there was a nice variety of fresh fruit over the custard, a large halved strawberry, a piece each of pineapple and kiwi, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberry. Nana was quite sleepy this morning, so I put it in the refrigerator with her name on it so she can enjoy it later today, or tomorrow or the next day, depending how she is feeling.

I brought her a card, too, which had bleeding hearts, which are also in bloom now, on the front. She has lots of cards from family and friends, including a packet of cards from people at her church.

A bit later in the morning, my daughters E and T and granddaughter ABC arrived. Despite ABC’s careening about the room, giggles, and squeals, Nana slept a good share of the time that she was there, but there were times that she was awake for kisses and a bit of lunch, some of which she generously shared with Ada. Her lunch tray arrived with a bonus, a large vanilla cupcake with white frosting and decorations. Nana decided to send it home with us instead of eating it herself. After all, she does have a fruit tart waiting for her, as well as some coffee ice cream sent over by a friend. When she is ready for one or the other of them, Paco will hop on his scooter and fetch them from the leisure room refrigerator. Of course, Paco got some kisses from ABC, too.

Both of my sisters called while I was there. My older sister just returned home from a few days of visiting and my younger sister and her family will arrive for a short visit this weekend. The main reason for the trip is my niece’s commencement ceremony in Cortland. She will be a newly minted teacher, with a job as a kindergarten teacher and a master’s program in New York City all lined up. Woo hoo!

B and I made another quick trip up for a visit in the evening, bringing another card that had inadvertently been left at home in the morning and some of Nana’s favorite toiletries.

We were grateful that we were able to celebrate Nana’s 87th birthday with her, or, as Paco says, the beginning of her 88th year. Last year, we celebrated her birthday at our local hospice residence. We didn’t think that we would be granted another whole year with Nana.

We all love that we have had this time with her.