Category Archives: travel

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End of Life Plan

My End of Life Plan and Wishes are as follows:

1. My plan is that my life should end after a half day of skiing for free at age 125 or 126.
2. My wish is to ski quite brilliantly, smoothly and gracefully, though not as aggressively as at age 110 and below.
3. My plan is that other skiers will ask who that brilliant skier is and that all the lift operators will know.
4. My plan is that I will have a delicious lunch, with a glass of champagne, in a condo overlooking the slopes.
5. I plan to have a hot tub and then a massage from one of the many handsome men who flirt with me.
6. My plan is that I will sit in a comfortable leather armchair with my feet on a foot stool, while three of my male friends vie to be the one to bring me the second glass of champagne.
7. My wish is that I will not need any cosmetic surgery or false eyes or ears or teeth or joints or heart valves and will retain my spleen, teeth, gall bladder, appendix and brain in full operating order.
8. My plan is that I will not be on prescriptions, medicines, vitamins, supplements, medical foods, or nutraceuticals nor under the care of any quacks of any sort.
9. My wish is that my male flirts will all think that I am not a day over 75.
10. My wish is that I will be listening to live music, a woodwind quartet or string quartet, just dropped in to say hello, along with three of my great grandchildren, showing off their olympic ski medals, summa cum laude graduation documents, or Nobel prizes.
11. My plan is that after the quartet leaves, I will fall asleep….
12. ….and not wake up, and that though my attendants are sad, none of them throws themselves off the balcony over the cliff and are all surprised at my true age and at the bountiful gifts I have left to each of them with proof that a long life and compounded interest have excellent results. My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will live long and prosper as well.

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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!

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Dance ready

This is a not very stealthie stealthie. I am ready to dance. The shoes have a story. My daughter and I went to Los Angeles for spring break years ago and to see my friend MP. She is a dance friend, and probably the person that I have danced two step with the most. We usually danced east coast swing in the Washington DC area, but every so often there would be a really good two step song. She led.

MP said, “You have to go to this store,” and handed me an address.

“I do?” I said.

“Yes. The owner designs shoes and has them made in Portugul.”

And yes, I did go and bought three pairs… ready to dance.

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T is for tender

T for tender, in this alphabet of feelings.

Look at the Webster 1913: such a rich variety of meanings. Dictionary.com seems to have toned them down and we have lost the quotations: from the bible, from L’Estrange, from Shak: I realized, oh, Shakespeare…..

Ten”der, a. [Compar. Tenderer (?); superl. Tenderest.] [F. tendre, L. tener; probably akin to tenuis thin. See Thin.]

1. Easily impressed, broken, bruised, or injured; not firm or hard; delicate; as, tender plants; tender flesh; tender fruit.
2. Sensible to impression and pain; easily pained.
    Our bodies are not naturally more tender than our faces. L’Estrange.
3. Physically weak; not hardly or able to endure hardship; immature; effeminate.
    The tender and delicate woman among you. Deut. xxviii. 56.
4. Susceptible of the softer passions, as love, compassion, kindness; compassionate; pitiful; anxious for another’s good; easily excited to pity, forgiveness, or favor; sympathetic.
    The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James v. 11.
    I am choleric by my nature, and tender by my temper. Fuller.

When my daughter was two, my cousin visited with his wife and one year old. My daughter was delighted with this younger child and she was very tender and kind to him. On the third day I realized that she had interpreted “family” as they were now part of the family.

“Camille,” I said, “They are leaving tomorrow. They are visiting us and they have a home.”

She gave me a look of horror and then terrible disappointment. She revised the meaning of family: family doesn’t mean live together. That is how she interpreted family, which is completely understandable. I was sorry to make her so sad, but I didn’t want her to be shocked and sad the next day. She was still loving to the younger cousin and sad when they left. I apologized to her for the misunderstanding.

5. Exciting kind concern; dear; precious.
    I love Valentine, Whose life’s as tender to me as my soul! Shak.
6. Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; — with of.
    “Tender of property.”Burke.
    The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion. Tillotson.
7. Unwilling to cause pain; gentle; mild.
    You, that are thus so tender o’er his follies, Will never do him good. Shak.

What makes us feel tender? A sleeping child, a lullaby, a new baby, a very young animal, new plants or flowers…

8. Adapted to excite feeling or sympathy; expressive of the softer passions; pathetic; as, tender expressions; tender expostulations; a tender strain.
9. Apt to give pain; causing grief or pain; delicate; as, a tender subject.
“Things that are tender and unpleasing.” Bacon.
10. Naut. Heeling over too easily when under sail; — said of a vessel.

⇒ Tender is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, tender-footed, tender-looking, tender-minded, tender-mouthed, and the like.

I bruised my daughter’s tender heart when I told her that they were leaving, but I did not want to lie to her or take her by surprise…..

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S is for sloth

S is for sloth, the sixth of our seventh sins.

I took the photograph of my daughter a few weeks ago. She can’t be accused of sloth, though, because that was the day after a 12 mile mountain bike race. She came in first in the women’s 18-26 division. She also came in last, because she was the only one….

Dictionary.com at present:
1. habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence; laziness.
2. any of several slow-moving, arboreal, tropical American edentates of the family Bradypodidae, having a long, coarse, grayish-brown coat often of a greenish cast caused by algae, and long, hooklike claws used in gripping tree branches while hanging or moving along in a habitual upside-down position.
3. a pack or group of bears.

Webster 1913:
1. Slowness; tardiness.
These cardinals trifle with me; I abhor This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome. Shak.
2. Disinclination to action or labor; sluggishness; laziness; idleness.
[They] change their course to pleasure, ease, and sloth. Milton.
Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears. Franklin.
3. Zool. Any one of several species of arboreal edentates constituting the family Bradypodidae, and the suborder Tardigrada. They have long exserted limbs and long prehensile claws. Both jaws are furnished with teeth (see Illust. of Edentata), and the ears and tail are rudimentary. They inhabit South and Central America and Mexico.

Just think of meeting a sloth of bears, eating blueberries, in the summer… I would not feel slothful then. And looking at the examples from Webster 1913, are we more slothful and sloppy with language than Franklin and Milton?

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Sloth is a sin… but my daughter earned her rest…. and we all need to relax and rest sometimes and change our course to pleasure, ease and sloth…..