Last week I wrote about how my mother got her friend Kitty to do all the ironing. Well the proverbially acorn has not fallen far from the tree.

Now she is retired and seriously considering blogging. So I hope this little journey into blog writing will encourage her to begin a web-log of her own.

Please remember to read the Friday posting of the LBC authors. They are listed under Writers Consortium at the right side of my blog. Enjoy!

The Gold Shovel

As I was fumbling around on the side of the house, looking for an empty pot or two to start some planting, I came across a forgotten shovel with its scoop spray-painted gold. I recalled that I brought this “gilded” shovel north to Petaluma from Ridgecrest. I have never been able to bring myself to actually use it because it has served as a memento of a place and a time and a person or two that led me to one of the great adventures of my life.

On a cool, clear and blustery spring afternoon in 1991, my friend, Sally and I decided to attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the first new school in Ridgecrest in many years. At the time, I was the most junior member of the administrative team, a recently hired elementary school principal. Dignitaries from both the city and the school district were assembled on a flat patch of scrub-covered desert in the northwest corner of what would become the new school grounds. The school to be built was a joint project with the city using redevelopment and school district funds. The district staff bought several shovels for the occasion and spray-painted them gold to add a note of festivity to the event. It was a small gathering with a few speeches to formalize the occasion along with the requisite ground-breaking using the spiffed-up shovels.

The ceremony was short and as the dignitaries started to drift away, the district staff found themselves with an abundance of gold shovels and quickly offered them to the officials involved in the ceremony - most of whom declined. I stepped up and said that I would take one.

My friend Sally and I stood and chatted a bit about what it might be like to open a school. I have to interject that Sally has little recollection of this event, but it was a pivotal moment for me. I knew at that moment that despite being an unlikely candidate, I wanted to be a part of this new school. I wanted to be the one who would lead this new school community and help to make it a great place to teach and learn. I could
feel the excitement welling up in me of the possibilities for this school and that the future for this school was as wide as the vista stretching out in all directions in front of me. And just as I stepped up and asked for the shovel, I would step up and apply for the job.

And that is when the adventure began. I was selected to be the first principal at Gateway School. In short order, we hired teachers and staff, we ordered furniture and equipment, we ordered books and supplies and we
put it all in place for the first day of school - including assembling 700 desks and tables in one morning with the help of the school community. And while the bricks and boards and books and pencils were put in place, we began to come together as a team of teachers committed to work together in new ways.

The first day of school was one of the most amazing days I have had as a professional. It was thrilling to realize that there was a whole new school community learning together in what had been a large patch of empty land at the edge of the town. And that was just the beginning.

I had five wonderful years collaborating, leading and sometimes corralling (Maria in particular!) a great team of teachers and staff. I don’t want to leave the impression that we achieved some kind of miraculous state of perfection in education. We didn’t. But I do think we found a way to work together as learners to get things done that made school better for kids. And we had fun!

And what made this possible? Was it a person, a place, a thing or an idea? For me, having the encouragement and help of friends and colleagues like Sally was invaluable. Having the gift of being at the right place and time was critical. But what was magical were the ideas and dreams that shaped our work. And so at the Gateway Cornerstone Ceremony I quoted Kermit the Frog, “Life is like a movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending! We’ve done just what we set out to do!” And we did!

I am now at another juncture in my life: full-time retirement. As someone who let work and family structure their life, I feel like I am casting about and somewhat immobilized not knowing what to do next! However, my Gateway adventure gives me some clues on moving forward. I know that when I have an idea or dream and I step up and make it happen, my life (and hopefully those around me) is the better for it.

Oh, and Things? Well, for me, my gold shovel is a symbol of all of that.

I dug up this old photo of the puppies to wish you all an early Happy Valentine Day. I celebrated a birthday this week.. . very quietly. I had dinner with friends from my widow group, a luncheon with school friends, and breakfast with a new friend. I seldom see my boys or Dawn on my birthday. Usually they have been down for Christmas and this is a little early for another trip. Kristi is so busy with work and with twins, that we just couldn’t find a good day to meet. So she mailed her gift and card to me. I also received home-made cards from little Danica and Eric. I treasure them so much and like every proud Nana, I have them on the refrigerator where I can see them every day.

Our weather pattern is sunny for a few days, cloudy and rainy for one or two and then back to sunny. Hopefully, sunny will hold for awhile. My gardener is going to do some brick work in the backyard as soon as we dry out. We will make the brick walk wider and also increase the size of the patio area. Right now the patio table and chairs are squished up into a tiny area. Adding more bricks, will mean we can arrange the area in a more comfortable manner. I am also thinking of adding two more chairs and a little table near the back door. This is shaded in the spring and early summer and perfect for early morning coffee.

Living in a small town and doing all of our medical exams in Los Angeles at UCLA, has created a problem for us. We have no doctor in town if we become ill. We thought we were on a local doctor’s list, but when I went to make an appointment, I was told that since neither Bob or I had made an office visit in the past four years, we were no longer patients.

I suppose this makes sense, but we just haven’t been ill. So I started out looking for a doctor here and found it a difficult task. We have a problem keeping doctors and we have do not have enough doctors to meet the community’s needs. After being told over and over that such and such doctor was not accepting new patients, I found a recently arrived doctor who was taking new patients. I grabbed the opportunity and made an immediate appointment.

So today, I sat waiting an hour to see a new doctor. At this point, I wouldn’t complain if I had a two hour wait. When I finally got to see her and we discussed my good health, she wrote a lab request for a blood test and also a bone density test. I left happily knowing if anything happens to me, I am now Dr. Anvar’s patient.

I was going to make an appointment for Bob as he needs to find a doctor, too. The only problem is Bob is hard of hearing, the doctor is soft-spoken and English is her second language. So now I have to start looking for another doctor for him. Wish me luck!

Once again it is Friday and time for a topic chosen by the LBC, a group of writers who take turns choosing a subject to write on and to post weekly. This time the subject is” Visit or Visiors”. I have listed all the writers for this group on my sidebar under Consortium Writers and I invite you to go to their blogs and enjoy their different writing styles and their creative approach to the subject.

When it was announced that this week our topic would be visit or visitor, I was reminded of an old family story about Uncle Charlie and his unannounced visit.

Many years ago, about the time I was a teen-ager, a rather pesky relative decided to write a book about the family. Uncle Charlie was not really an uncle. He was, as the family was fond of saying, a second cousin twice removed. He was the widower of a distant relative on my mother’s side of the family and for some unexplainable reason decided to write a book about his wife’s family. The problem was Charlie was very old and had a lot of trouble keeping the many facts straight. All of this to the chagrin of my mother and her sisters who feared he would not only publish errors , but also release some old family skeletons that had been closeted for years.

I remember my Aunt Gladys calling my mother and going on and on about Uncle Charlie and how in Chapter 5 he had her first son born two years before her marriage to Uncle Angus. The stories of mistakes went back and forth across the telephone wires until most of the aunts, uncles, and cousins were either laughing hysterically because the mistake was embarrassing to someone other than themselves or howling angrily because it was their history being mangled.

Everyone agreed that what happened in the family needed to stay in the family and definitely should never be published. . . . ever. So over the weeks, the consternation rose as Uncle Charlie who did not like to telephone just dropped by uninvited to ask questions, or leave another chapter or draft of his writing for some unexpecting family member to read.

At this time, my mother had a good friend named Kitty. Kitty lived down the block from us and often stopped by early morning for a cup of coffee. On this particular morning, my mother was ironing clothes. She had started early because there was more than the usual amount that week. So when Kitty arrived, she was ready for a break even though she had just begun the tedious task of ironing the family’s clothing.

My mother had earlier shared the stories about the family and the self-appointed , but bewildered family historian, with her kaffeeklatch friend. So when my mom looked out the front window and saw Uncle Charlie slowly making his way up the front steps, she jumped up, announced to Kitty that she was going to hide in the basement and please would Kitty go to the door and tell Uncle Charlie that she was out shopping.

Mom quickly made her way down the basement stairs and her friend dutifully went to the front door to deliver the message, but Kitty thought she could make the story better. So she announced to Charlie that she was hired help and was there to do the weekly ironing. Well, old Charlie was more than a match for Kitty. He simply stepped around her and said, “Don’t matter, I’ll just sit here and wait for Grace to get home.”

This left Kitty in a dilemma. If she left, she would be caught in her embellished version of my mom’s lie. If she stayed, she would have to do the ironing. After all, she had just announced she was there to do the family ironing. My mom was stuck in the basement and Charlie’s ample backside was planted firmly on a dining room chair, right next to the ironing board and the huge basket of clothes ready for ironing. So quickly Kitty picked out a blouse, turned on the iron, and started to work. Doomed to the chore by her falsehood, she ironed, and ironed, and ironed while Uncle Charlie, who was known for droning on about all subjects, proceeded to talk non-stop. Poor Kitty was a captured audience for his stories and he was warming up to his visit with the hired help.

After my mom had spent two long hours in the basement, Uncle Charlie ran out of stories to tell Kitty. He stood up abruptly and announced that he would be on his way. As he left , he stated that he would catch the streetcar and visit cousin Esther. Kitty waited until he was safely away from the house. Then she called out the all clear to my mother who rushed upstairs to find her laundry basket empty and all the ironing completed. The two women laughed and laughed.

In telling the story later, my mom said, “The next time that fool comes to the door, I am going to make sure I have a book in the basement. I had nothing to read the whole time I was down there.” Kitty said she hoped it would be Tom Sawyer because my mom would enjoy reading or rereading the part about whet-washing the fence since she and Tom shared a cleverness at getting someone else to do the work.

Uncle Charlie continued to make surprise visits to relatives, but thank goodness, the book never did get written and I do believe the drafts that family members were given are long gone.

Once again it is Friday and time for a topic chosen by the LBC, a group of writers who take turns choosing a subject to write on and to post weekly. This time the subject is” The Perfect Life”. I have listed all the writers for this group on my sidebar under Consortium Writers and I invite you to go to their blogs and enjoy their different writing styles and their creative approach to the subject.

I don’t believe the perfect life exists although I have often thought that others might have fared better and from my view, their lives indeed looked perfect. In other words that old “the grass is greener” adage seemed pretty true. Well I no longer hold this idea to be bona fide.

Instead, I know that everyone has good times and bad times, but the perfect times, are fleeting for all of us and I have come to value the perfect moments that come and go in daily life rather than to envy the perfect life which more than likely doesn’t exist.

My life has never been perfect, but when I think of perfect moments in time, I realize there have been many. Here are three little snippets that come to mind:

Evening meal - quiet dinner for two. A meal prepared with love. Sweetest comments on “Gourmet meal” received, quiet conversation and then because I eat faster and less, I head to the piano and play for his enjoyment while he continues to enjoy a leisurely meal.

This to me was the perfect moment in a not always perfect life. I miss those dinners, but the problem with perfect moments is they are fleeting and seldom repeat themselves.

Another perfect moment is one I remember when hiking with my boys. The trail was difficult, the path winding, and my pack heavy. My youngest was ten years old, red-headed and freckled, and caring. He made his way up the path like a small mountain goat, turned to see me struggling, came running back down the hill, big smile on his face, and said, “Let me help you, Mom.”

It has been a long time since my son died, but when I remember him, I always remember that one perfect moment in time.

A New Years Eve - aboard a cruise ship docked just outside Acapulco Bay. Standing near the railing, my husband’s arms around me, I lean back against him, sipping champagne. All around the port brilliant fireworks explode in bright colors that light up the sky, dazzle the eye, and thrill the soul.

As I write this so many perfect moments rush to my mind. They are like snapshots of time and I realize in all of them there is the magic of living in the moment. Perhaps that is the answer. Live in the moment, love those around you, and treat each perfect moment as a gift and then if you believe in fairy tales, all those wonderful moments will bind together and become the perfect life. If you don’t, then just try to enjoy those fabulous moments when life seems perfect.

Snow is very unusual here and after three days of El Nino rains pouring down all over Southern California, our temperature dropped dramatically and for the first time in many years, it snowed. It was also the first snow for the puppies and they were caught somewhere between being horrified, curious, and cold. I caught these pictures of them in the backyard.

Verizon has worked sporadically and we are often without e-mail or web ability so I will hurry and post this before the next storm.