Things I've Seen

I need to blog

Can I get away with just posting a winter-scene photo again? Dave likes my photos, anyhow.

2-8-08. Finally finished this.

1-15-08 Hey, this isn't finished ... but I need to post it anyhow. Begun on 1-9.

Hard to believe this was just a week ago, even though this was in Kalamazoo, where I'm guessing close to a foot of snow fell while we were there over New Year's. Temperatures rose to 65 degrees here on Monday and the snow is completely gone.

The Holidays passed better than usual for me. Odd, too, because it was the first Christmas without Dad ... Mom stayed with us from Dec. 21 until after the New Year, although she did make the trip - Grandy in tow - to Monroe for a couple of days at the end of the week.

I think what made it better in some ways was that I had to rise to the occasion and try to be a better Christmas person - something I've not been so good at for several years now.

First of all, we had to figure out some way to get most of the family together for the holiday. Thanksgiving, in many minds, had not been ideal. Each sister (there are four of us) pretty much did her own thing: Nance had Mom over for dinner; we went to Monroe to see Margie and Mat and family (first time in all the years they've lived there!) and Loraine and family celebrated at home and in Muskegon with Jeff's family. My in-laws gathered with Clay's mom's family. In years past ALL these people have gathered together - close to 30 people in some years - and this, the first Thanksgiving after my Dad's passing, was not considered an ideal situation in most peoples' minds, although at the time we were planning things, this did not occur to most of us - or to me, anyway.

After nearly a month of mostly unsuccessful planning using a Google Group, it was decreed (by me, because I set up the group, which left me also guiding what little planning/conversation there was) that the clan would gather at our house for Christmas on the Saturday prior. So Mom arrived on the 21st to stay through the holidays, Meagan was released from school on the same day and came home with suitcases full of laundry, and we planned an as informal, inexpensive get-together as we could.

I just asked people to bring their favorite Christmas 'treat,' whether an hors d'ouevre, candy, cookie, or what have you. And everyone had to bring a $5 'fun gift' for a person of their same sex. We hosted about 20 people and had plenty to nosh on. Of course the highlight was the gift to Mom from Loraine and family of that darn cute little dog. And I think everyone thought the gift exchange - new for us - was fun. So even though Joe and Erin arrived very late (she had to work; they got lost) and Drew's girlfriend had to leave early (she got the showiest gift - a photo frame from Susan) and Margie and Mat weren't there (but they usually aren't), this felt like an adequate solution to the "what do we do for family Christmas now?) dilemma.

Then came Christmas eve - Mom hasn't been to church in years on that night, and last year, we didn't go either. But Meagan and I both wanted to sing in the reunion choir, where the college kids always come back to sing with the remnant adult choir.  We always sing "And the Glory of Lord" and "Halleluiah" from Handel's Messiah, and since I've been almost two years out of choir now, I really wanted to sing. So Clay, Mom, Susan and Amberly went to the service, while Meagan and I sat in the loft and sang. After the service we drove home looking at all the holiday lights, as has been a tradition since my own childhood and one we've carried out with our own family. It was pretty much all that Christmas eve is supposed to be.

Christmas Day was a little strange, but it was also best of all. I had asked Drew more than a week before how he wanted to handle the morning. This is his second Christmas living on his own, and last year I picked him up at his place early and brought him here for our usual gift opening and big, special breakfast of egg casserole and cheesy potatoes (his favorite). This year he an Michelle are together and I wanted him to be sure about his Christmas morning plans. Would she come over with him? Would she go to her own family? Would she stay at their place by herself? He told me he'd come over by himself. We said, OK.

Christmas morning when I called him, he said, "There's been a change of plans. I'm bringing Michelle with  me." All kinds of thoughts ran through my mind at once: first - how would the girls feel about an "intrusion" on their family Christmas morning? What would Mom think? Then, the really big consideration - in all the Christmas preparations, I had not once thought to buy a gift for Michelle (this is a brand new relationship). So shame on me. I paused only a few seconds and bought some time with, "will she feel comfortable?" trying to appeal his sense of the potential awkwardness of the situation (mostly with his sisters,  but I couldn't bring myself to say that). By not expressing this directly enough, I got nowhere, of course. "She won't feel weird," he insisted (Michelle is VERY outgoing). "I can't leave her here alone," he said. And of course he was right.

So I broke the news to the girls, who, as I'd guessed were not very amenable to having this relative stranger here in the midst  of our family traditions. "It's what Christmas is about," I reminded them and now I was sure of it myself. Michelle would be here with Drew and she'd be welcome, by god.

Then the mad scramble began. What to give her?  Clay suggested my last bottle of wine. Great idea! I knew Michelle liked it, because we served it at dinner when she was here after Thanksgiving and she raved over it. I rummaged through the gift wrap trappings in the basement and came up with a wine bag and tag: "To Michelle." Inspired, I thought, "What else?" "She's got to have a stocking. Give her mine," Mom offered, getting into the spirit.

So, wine, check. Stocking with candy cane and chocolate (most notably a big bar of noir 60% cacao - yum!). I was getting into this! What else can we give?

Then, a final thought. In our room I had, wrapped, my gift for our god-daughter and niece Lauren. I had the same gift under the tree for Meagan and for Susan: a cozy pair of "pink-ribbon" ankle socks and a silver bracelet from the Breast Cancer site. We wouldn't see Lauren until New Years - plenty of time to find another gift for her that would be  just as meaningful. The socks and bracelet would be Michelle's. And easy and right-feeling decision.

I'm sure Michelle didn't expect anything from us, but you can't have people as guests on Christmas without giving gifts! It's what the season is about, for heaven's sake. And so Susan went to pick up her brother and his girl and our morning began. I don't know what she really thought about us, or our gifts, or the traditions of loud, slow gift opening, lots of attention to dog gifts and cat gifts, plus long exclaiming over everything. But she seemed pleased - genuinely surprised, too - at being included. Michelle is anything but shy, and she joined in and fit into the morning chaos like she was one of us.

Breakfast was a joyous sort of tragedy - for the first time ever, the egg casserole didn't set up in the hour allotted it in the oven, so we drank juice and coffee and ate crockpot cheesy potatoes, banana bread and clementines while we waited for the casserole to finish up in the microwave. Any other Christmas morning this would have sent me into a pouting quiet, but this year I just said, "oh well," and we laughed and chatted while we waited - and ate the eggs, ugly now, but still tasty, when they were cooked through.

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So let me finish this up.

Since the kids were born, we've always spent Christmas afternoon and evening in Muskegon - afternoon at the VanderVeldes and evening at the McBrides. In the early years we spent the night - Meagan and Susan at my folks and Drew, Clay and I at Clay's. In the past couple of years, we "adults" have had things to get back to Grand Rapids for, so we haven't stayed over. Meagan and Susan however, continued their tradition of spending the quiet calm hours of Christmas night with my folks.

Of course this year had to be different. Mom was staying with us, and Michelle was with Drew. Clay's folks, early on in the season, had made it very clear that they expected Mom to come with us to their house on Christmas day. Bless those special, loving people. Especially after we called Christmas morning and told them Michelle would be coming with us too!

Christmas day at the VanderVeldes is always special. Her house is always carefully and exquisitely decorated for Christmas. A beautiful, perfect, white-lighted tree with a satiny skirt. Lighted villages on the bay window sill, Hummels and Santas everywhere, greenery on the mantle, the tiny foil pond with skaters on the low table near the sofa that have been there every Christmas that I can remember. Not garish or overdone, but tasteful, joyful, quiet, lovely. My mom was welcomed with love, gentleness and kindness of old friends - who know and understand the losses people their age experience.

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Obviously I didn't start out to recount details of this special Christmas with this post. I just needed to write! But now, more than six weeks later, here you have it. I haven't really captured the the sad sweet joyful melancholy of it all. New relationships, loss, enduring love - So much of what Christmas, and life are about.

New year

It's gettin' deep

Am I getting lazy or what? Phone pictures, and obvious subjects at that. Well, it's a cold, snowy, lazy weekend ... Spartans beat Iowa, anyhow, 81-49.  Memphis (nation's longest winning streak now with 14 games; Florida got knocked off their winning streak, among others) is trying to beat Gonzaga ... Meg and Suze are in Detroit at a Jack's Mannequin concert ... nothin' else much going on!

Update: Memphis squeaked by Gonzaga in overtime, 78-77.

Blizzard-y

10 a.m., Saturday: Since 6 a.m. at least five inches have fallen, if not six. More is on the way -- maybe up to 10 inches total. Temperature: 9 degrees F.

New phone, 6 a.m.

Takes better photos in full light ...

I know, I know -- I just got a new phone about a year ago. But then, technology years are even shorter than dog years, so my phone was ancient. I wouldn't have replaced it though, if Meg's hadn't quit working completely last week during a week of "what else can go wrong?" You know those weeks. As it was we had to wait till payday to get to the cellphone store. Where we all got flippy new camera phones which we pretty much wasted the weekend playing with. And mine is pink.

Walking stick

Haven't seen one in years, although I guess that's this guy's point.

Volunteers

More willing than you'd imagine

For most of the summer we watched these "pretty green leaves" wending their way toward the ground from the place where the old cherry tree splits. Obviously, we never looked at them too closely or we'd have noticed what they were. Well, a couple of weeks ago they started to bloom, and as you can see, they're impatiens.

So how did they get there? There's a pouch of impatiens hanging above them on the left tree trunk this year, as in most years, so I suppose seeds or natural "cuttings" from that fell there and took root. But one thing makes us wonder: Some of these flowers have been pink, while the plant hanging above them sports only deep red blooms. There are pink impatiens around the sassafras tree some yards away. Is is possible they traveled in the wind? And how is there enough growing medium here for these to take root? Will they come back next year, or is this a one-time stint for these volunteers? Hmmm. Don't know; can't say. We'll just enjoy their surprising presence while they're there.

Leaving season

The bird has flown ...

It's leaving season. Parents all over the country are starting to pack up their first-borns and their belongings as they venture from home for the first time to head off for college. 

Had he followed that arc, we'd have done this three years ago. So I guess you might say we've been lucky to have him around a little longer. While other parents wondered from afar what their kids were up to -- what new friends they'd made, what hours they were keeping, whether they were eating right, sleeping enough, partying too much -- we knew. We watched him shed his curfew, eat anything and everything he could find in our fridge or freezer, sneak in at 3 a.m. and sleep till noon or stumble in at midnight with a goofy too-much-to-drink grin on his face, only to grab a jacket and leave again, walking down the street to his buddy's, where the party still was in full swing ...

We got to watch him learn the ins and outs of finding a job, losing it, finding another, then another. Girlfriends, bank accounts, junk cars, court dates. Friends in some kind of trouble or another, friends having their first babies, buddies going off to the military or coming home from a far-away war.

It isn't easy having another adult in the house and we've all agreed for awhile now that it was time for him to go. But the timing and opportunity weren't right. Until now. He's moved into a house with a couple of friends from high school, a few miles away "down by the river."

He spent all of yesterday packing up his stuff. Not all that much for his 21 years: a few clothes (though I still have a lot of his socks), TV, dresser, easy chair, a few books and papers, toiletries, the infamous "trunk of mystery" left to him by a friend who moved to Florida a few years ago. At about 5:00 his buddies rolled up in a red pickup and in just two trips, they'd taken it all. Then he was gone.

Before he left I managed to get a hug from him. He was anxious to get going and didn't say goodbye to his dad, who was in the basement and didn't hear him come in for the last of his stuff. In that way it wasn't much different than any of his other comings and goings (except for the hug). Kinda left things open for him; after all, he still has to come back and get the bathing-suit beauty posters off the walls of his room. Maybe it was easier that way.

Summer flowers 2006

At the front of the house

I just had to share this photo. I think these flowers are so gorgeous. Even better than last year's.

We do not garden. I really have no patience for it at all. Back when we lived in married student housing at MSU, we rented a plot in a community garden with my sister Loraine and her husband Jeff (a real gardener and man of many talents) who were also students at the time. Cool idea, community garden. Wonderful way to have fresh vegetables and salads ... but all I remember is bugs, weeds, mud and hot sun ... and having to haul water in a 5-gallon pickle bucket out to our little plot. Oh, and lots and lots of zucchini...

As I said, we don't garden, but we do usually have some nice annuals in summer. The house had some pretty decent landscaping when we moved in 10 years ago, and Clay keeps that up pretty well (although he did kinda destroy the ornamental cherry on the northeast corner of the house last week, trying to shape it back to a more landscape-y size).  We keep trading ideas about what we might do in the way of  more permanent  flowers, but so far,  it's just talk.  Still, we are looking ahead to the big double graduation openhouse next June for Meg and Suze. Anything we do to the house and yard will have to be done this summer. Hmmm. Hostas seem pretty easy. Maybe a row of those along that bleak and shady back fence?

Rhodo

Suddenly they're in full bloom