Happy Easter

Debbie sent me this card last Easter. It still cracks me up.

Fried Green Tomatoes has been pretty quiet lately. I've been trying to keep the Fiber Guild's blog somewhat current and interesting -- it's been hard to find time to even do that.

We went to Black Mountain a couple of weeks ago to inter Debbie's ashes at the columbarium at Christmont. Sad, but also good to do that in that way sad things can be good.

A funny thing from that weekend was that we asked our neighbors Dennis and Becky to feed Eloise while we were gone. Of course, Eloise wouldn't come in the house when we were ready to leave, so Duncan called Dennis and told him she was outside, but would probably be waiting on the step when they went to feed her. After we had been home for a few days, Dennis admitted to Duncan that he came over and there was a cat on the steps, but he realized he didn't know what Eloise looked like! This first cat ran off along the creek bank and then Eloise appeared and somehow acted enough like she owned the place for Dennis to let her in. We'll have to start leaving a picture on the refrigerator. This is a nice one.

Mom came back to Charleston with us after the weekend in the mountains. We didn't do much to show her the town, but she spruced up my flower pots and ferns, cooked some wonderful meals, and had a taste of early spring before leaving yesterday in time to see early spring in Cary.

I'm hoping we'll get to Person County in late April and maybe get to see early spring there as well. There is a method to our madness.

What I'm Thankful For. . .

This year's big thing is that Debbie died in April, suddenly, unexpectedly, and pretty much inexplicably. Even in that, there are a million tender mercies, circumstances that aligned in the best possible way, people who have been unbelievably kind, an entire family of relatives and friends who have found ways to help each other through. All I will say here is that I am profoundly grateful for her -- for my life as her sister, for the gifts that shone in her, and the good work she did so well in the world.

I am thankful that we now have a President who speaks in complete sentences and paragraphs. I just feel better when the person in charge has a command of the English language.

I have a job, a good job, a fun job, an interesting job. It has a decent salary, health benefits and 401(k) with employer match. Plus free parking. And I can leave it there. When I get home I can “kick off my shoes and waltz around my kitchen singing “I am a piece of work!”

One of the things you miss when you don’t “work outside the home” is – office parties. Where else can you eat brownies and artichoke dip before lunch? In my four short months of employment, I have attended two birthday celebrations and a very elaborate baby shower.

Mom and I traded cars this summer and I now enjoy cruise control and automatic locks.

Maybe the most enduring gift that came this year was when Debbie took Mom and Uncle Bill into a StoryCorps booth in Ashville and got them talking about their memories of growing up and of WWII. We now have a 1-hour CD that is a special, priceless record of family history. I’m also thankful for the afternoon the whole family gathered in Chapel Hill to listen to it for the first time, together.

As always, old and dear friends have been so important. Christy and I got a weekend away this year. I spent several days in Greensboro, staying with Julie Knight and playing mad Banana-gram. I got in an overnight visit with Pat Weathers, and a recent girls’ weekend at Lake Gaston with Lee and Kathy – board games also a fun part of that visit. Is there a theme developing here? The miracle, though, was when it finally made it through my thick skull what good friends I have right here in Charleston. Life is good!

We have especially enjoyed the good friendship that has developed over the year with Marcus and DeDee and 2 year-old Fiona. They live very close by and during the summer we got into the nice habit of meeting at the swimming pool after dinner and just floating and talking and playing with Fiona. It was so lovely for all of us and now, I think, we are just all very special to each other. And, there is nothing quite like being special to a 2 year-old.

I bit the bullet and got a real, grown-up cell phone this year and like it more than I thought I would. We’re still holding out on cable, but for entertainment are thankful for CNN.com, Netflix, and Hulu.com -- and friends.

It is Thanksgiving, and impatiens are still blooming in Charleston and in my yard.

Duncan. I’m eternally thankful for Duncan. He has been patient with and supportive of me in my unemployment, in my grief, and in my incessant travels. He often makes me laugh before breakfast and every time I leave the house he always tells me to “Be careful.” which is his code language for he loves me. Like I said, life is good.

Girlfriends' Weekend #4

Well, this is hardly a picture of Kathy, Lee and me, but while my camera continues to be the most erratic piece of equipment I own, I must be creative with finding illustrations for these musings. I have been very clear with Santa about the importance of a working camera.

I've known Kathy and Lee since the summer after freshman year. There were years and years when seeing each other was a rare event. Now, we are not especially good at staying in touch -- not even through e-mail, but for the last few years, we have managed a nice weekend together in a different location. This year, Kathy drove from Manassas, Lee came from Staunton and we converged at the house at Lake Gaston.

What a great, comfortable house this is. It is much the same as it has always been, but spruced up a bit (freshly painted this summer in wonderful colors!) and just well cared for.

We first knew it as Dr. & Mrs. Taylor's house. Then, we came to think of it as Uncle Vic and Doris' house -- now time has marched on and Mark and Margie have stepped up to the plate to be the ones to deal with upkeep, spider nests, and guests who leave wet towels to mildew on the bathroom floor.

Over the years I have had a few mishaps as a houseguest there. Most that remain in my memory now were run-ins with snakes. But thank goodness it was not me who flipped off the breaker for the refrigerator on my way out the door at the end of a stay some years ago. That's all I'll say about that until I am sure Mark and Margie don't walk into a flooded basement next time they go up there.

As usual Lee and Kathy and I had an easy, fun weekend. Kathy always likes to plan menus and cook interesting things. Part of her challenge, aside from Lee being vegetarian, is to make the most of some key ingredients so that our grocery list isn't too long just for one weekend.

This time it all worked out perfectly with one meal a roasted cauliflower in cream sauce over whole wheat penne pasta (way better than it sounds, due to the addition of walnuts), and another dinner of cheese ravioli with salsa and black beans and a very dense, moist cornbread. Extra nice salads with everything and generous servings of wines. All good.

When we weren't eating, we walked dogs, caught up with each other's lives, discussed Obama's first term, Lee's plan to run for county council again next year, and played board games -- when have I done that?? It was relaxing and just a lot of fun! They were good enough to listen to the StoryCorps CD Mom and Uncle Bill made earlier this year. That generated a lot of stories about their parents and grandparents and how everyone survived The Depression and what they did in The War. The premise of the StoryCorps project is absolutely true. Everyone, everyone has a story -- and hearing each other's stories is better entertainment than anything else that is offered to us.

We had such a good relaxing time, it has made me realize how backed-up I am feeling all the time these days. To violate my own "No Whining" rule for a brief moment, I have a pile of summer clothes on the chair in the bedroom that need to go in the attic, and there is a large group of winter clothes somewhere and I'm not remembering where. I have a printer that is connected but won't print, we have a major leak in the shower that we can't seem to coordinate with the plumber to see about, there's a roll of very cool paper that I ordered for origami boxes that I haven't even opened yet. Oh yeah, and I hit a stray key while paying bills on-line and they deducted $4, 516.40 from our account instead of $451.64. That took some dancing. And the cat needs to go to the vet. And the cat doesn't want to go to the vet. Is everyone's life like this?

And Debbie is still dead. It is inexplicable that this is such a huge weight that it slows everything down to a slogging through the mud pace. It cannot last forever, but it is that way for now.

Even in this state of discombobulation, I am using drive time to mentally compose my annual list of all I am thankful for. An annual weekend with friends of 30+ years definitely makes the list.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Spoleto on the Cheap

I don't have much this week.

Duncan and I did Spoleto on the cheap this year by volunteering to usher and we will definitely do that again -- as we have realized many locals do every year. You don't have much control over what you see, so your experience is a little random, but that's sort of the point of Spoleto, anyway.

We ushered for Don John -- very interesting staging, but overall, a bit dark and gritty for our tastes, and Good Cop Bad Cop, which was a lot of fun. We took tickets at the Finale at Middleton Plantation Sunday night and that turned out to be a really nice experience. People went all out with the picnic dinners -- some carted in dollies with tables, chairs, china, silver candelabras, table linens, flower arrangements and cooler after cooler of food. (We took a blanket and chicken from the Colonel.) The program included no introductions, no speeches, no thanking the sponsors, no previews of next year. Just beautiful music for more than an hour and spectacular fireworks.

Otherwise, I have a new "client" for writing services and several projects stretching into the summer. Today is Debbie and Wilson's 25th anniversary -- a well earned milestone for them. The plan was to be on a walking tour in France. I wish it were so.

Our Family's Experience with Story Corps

Somehow, Debbie made a connection with someone who works for StoryCorps and one thing led to another and Debbie got an appointment on the day after Mom's 81st birthday with the project in Asheville. The plan evolved for Uncle Bill to go too, and for them to talk about whatever they wanted to.

Debbie said they got to her house in Black Mountain and said "What will we talk about?" and then they didn't stop talking for the rest of the weekend. From all accounts, it was a golden weekend with lots of time for Mom and Uncle Bill to sit on the porch, looking out over the mountains, and remember the course of their long, good lives and tell their stories – some very familiar and some new. Sometimes, same story, two versions – you know how that goes :-)

The only thing missing was Uncle Vic, the oldest of these 3 siblings. He is almost 91 and lives in Chapel Hill. Between the three of them, they have a lot of life experience and memories are in good working order -- so story telling sessions can be quite lively.

For the actual taping, Debbie interviewed Mom and Uncle Bill and guided their conversation from memories of growing up on a depression-era, Piedmont tobacco farm before electricity and running water (Uncle Bill said “Sure we had running water – you took a bucket to the spring, filled it with water and then you’d run back to the house with it!”) to their memories of their own parents, to their favorite foods and least favorite chores when they were young.

They talked about WWII where Uncle Bill ended up as a prisoner of war in Germany. My mother was a teenager at home where scant news traveled slowly and a whole rural community sweated it out with them not knowing his fate and the whole community celebrated with them when they got word of his safety and release.

Mom and Uncle Bill spoke briefly of their marriages and of their feelings of love and appreciation for each other. At the very end, you hear Debbie thank them both for talking with her and she tells them she loves them. –It's Priceless.

On Mother’s Day, Mom and Duncan and I went to Chapel Hill and gathered with the Uncles, one remaining aunt, all the cousins and their children – to listen together and receive this final gift that Debbie instigated and orchestrated. It was good to be together to share our sadness over losing her, and at the very same time to celebrate our family’s story of strength, surviving and thriving, and always at the very end, loving each other.

This picture was taken last summer at Uncle Vic's 90th Birthday party. He's on the left, then Mom and Uncle Bill. Standing behind are the cousins: Mark Bowles, Me, Jo Ann Wilson, Debbie, and Marie Schmitt.

Just a Reminder