Category Archives: family

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Frail

I wrote this two years before my father died. I did find him…..

Frail
We are going sailing
My partner says to me
“Invite him if you want.”

Then I am busy for a while

I think of calling, then forget

He was not at chorus on Monday

At last I say,
“I haven’t called. We’ll just sail.
Just us today.”

I haven’t called
because he was not at chorus on Monday

He is frail
55 years of camels
two packs a day
as if each cigarette
destroyed one alveolus
in his lungs
one tiny air/blood interface
built to exchange oxygen
and carbon dioxide
the loss is cumulative
He is frail
he is proud that the choral director
says, “I need you.”
He can’t sustain
but his entrances and time
are the best
among the basses.
They need him.

Chorus
is our winter link
two introverts
we hug at the start of chorus
sing for two hours
and talk for a few minutes at the end

Occasionally we go for a beer
I invite him for dinner
but he comes less and less
he often does not feel well at night

He looks smaller at chorus
this season
this is normal in emphysema
the body sheds weight
too much tissue to oxygenate
too hard for the lungs
and the heart, working overtime
to make up the difference
he is blessed with low blood pressure
genetic, from his father,
tough English stock,
otherwise I think he’d be dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because I am afraid

I’ve driven out before
when he has not answered the phone
for a day or two
wondering if I would find him dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because he was not at chorus on Monday
because if he didn’t answer today
I would not go

 
I took the photograph in 2009

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Summer sunset

I still don’t stay up much past nine most nights, but my young adult offspring talked me into a beach walk the other evening. We went down to Fort Worden and the Point Wilson Lighthouse. The sunset was glorious. I went back to the car for a jacket right away because the water temperature is around 51 degrees. It cools down quickly. The tide was coming in, so we only walked about half a mile, but it was gorgeous. This is looking north from Point Wilson towards Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands…. over the kelp beds.

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Morning coffee

This is for Photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #62. I have a Little Free Library built into my fence. There is a bench that goes through the fence. Sometimes I put out a carafe of coffee. On the back is a small table that folds down. Now that the sun is getting up so early, I am often out there watching the dawn….

The red rose has been there for years, but never bloomed until this summer and last summer, because the deer ate the buds as fast as they formed. The deer have come in once when we left the gate open, but we’ve been careful since then.

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Katy B’s Fruit Torte

Katherine White Burling was my maternal grandmother, and this recipe is attributed to her. I still have the small three ring binder that my mother gave me when I was in high school, explaining that my sister and I had to do some of the cooking. We told her what we wanted to make and she would write the recipe in our book and help us. I wrote this recipe out in the 1970s.

preheat the oven to 350 F

cream: 1 C sugar
1/2 C butter

while the butter is softening enough to cream, cut up fruit: apples, pears, peaches, rhubarb, or use berries…

Add: 1 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
salt
2 eggs

Spread in in a buttered, floured pan. Cover with chopped fruit: apples, pears, peaches. Today I am using rhubarb and a peach. I particularly like the tartness of rhubarb.

Sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice
Dot with butter on top.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.
Cook until browned a little in the part that rises around the fruit, and when a toothpick comes out clean.

mmmmmm

For a while I lived at 7500 feet and had to alter recipes:
subtract 3 tablespoons sugar
use 3/4 tsp baking powder

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Nipple of Knowledge

After the graduation ceremony was over, we wandered around the  Washington State University campus to take pictures. My son explained that the window on the top of the library is called the Nipple of Knowledge, an important photography destination.  Hooray for all of the graduates and many thanks to the font of learning!