Weirding my way into winter

 

Weirding my way into winter

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No longer can I remain in denial. I am an addict. I am addicted to sunlight.

When I lived in Poulsbo, Washington, on the Kitsap Peninsula where it rained ten months of the year, I remember how hard it was by February to keep up my spirits.  That is normal behavior, pretty much.

Now, these years later, after a mere couple (2) cloudy days with rain, and I begin to wonder if a Prozac Big Gulp would really work.

Having grown up in a country of constant drought, I love the rain. However, I love it more here, where (usually) the days have a mix of sun and rain (when it comes in season). When it is weird, like now, not so much.

Three weeks now, well entrenched in the Dry Season, October to June, three weeks, I repeat, three weeks of rain. The skies have emptied their black crumpled doomy-gloomy clouds of rain, rain, rain every day. Makes me want to lay my head on the chopping block like a chicken who gave up, go a-head, ready for the pot. (Sorry, couldn’t help the pun.)

When we are gifted with two days of sunshine, sunlight, sunglow, glorious, beautiful, warm, brilliant, sizzling, sun, as we are today, were yesterday, ah. Happiness is.

Forecast for tomorrow is cold, cloudy, doomy-gloomy and rain.

Nobody wants to give attention to the words “climate change”. Simple. I understand. Overworked becomes overlooked. For my own benefit, I’ve changed the words. Admit it or not, we are well entrenched in Weather Weirding. (Along with other kinds of weirding but . . . )

Winter is bad enough without going weird. With harvest well under way, thousands of acres of corn are now ruined, good only for silage. Cane harvest has only just begun so should be okay except for the small amount of cut cane on the ground.

On a personal level, cold and wind and wet often find me huddled shivering in a blanket. In an effort to take better care of myself, I splashed out.

A good bathrobe is a lovely and decadent way to treat oneself with gentle care. I never knew that until now. After an evening shower, I cuddle in my plush hooded robe, double wrapped in front, which almost drags on the floor, with a book and a cup of steaming tea with a candy cane, warm and cozy, waiting for my hair to dry.

I take my pleasures when and where I can, luxuriate in such simple joys. I give them my attention, thank them for participating in my life. Makes me feel rich.

Look out the window at my dog, Lola. There she is, on her back in a puddle of sunshine, legs uplifted into the air, a look of silly satisfaction on her face. She is a good model for mental health.

In the Garden Weirding department, remember the lime tree I witched a few months ago. I had tried being nice. I had even threatened that if she didn’t pop out some limes soon, I would rip her out and replace her with a guava. Then a friend who looks good in pointy hats and is handy with a broom, suggested I witch my barren lime tree. Feeling foolish, I followed instructions. My lime tree today, who can say how or why, coinkydinky I’m sure, has branches so heavy with fruit that some are near to kissing the ground.

The Weirding part though is not that. In addition to limes, she is giving me lemons. Uh huh. Lemons. And the same branches also have limes. Mostly limes. Some lemons. Explain that! Weird!

If I could, I would follow Lola’s example and go lie on my back in the sun and soak it up the sun before the clouds invade. If I get my creaky bones down to the ground, I fear I might never get up! I suppose I could roll under a lime tree and suck on a lemon.

However, it is clouding up and rain is on the way. Where did I put my bathrobe?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Raining in December

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A Different Kind of Day

 

            A Different Kind of Day

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Interesting how we carve time to suit particular purposes. I won’t look it up, but thinking about it, I’d not be surprised that our universal way of dividing our days started with the Industrial Revolution, as a way of getting the workers to be where and when the bosses wanted them to be. That is as political as I am willing to be this morning.

My day began yesterday, actually. It rained yesterday, so that jiggered up walk times with Lola, but we managed to wriggle them into slots that worked for us. I don’t walk in the rain and Lola is definitely not a water dog. She is a huddle in the warm dog house dog.

Then there was a very large and very loud wedding at El Eden, just a couple kilometers down from my house. Weddings around here are not quiet and seemly affairs. This one was huge. It began early with music blaring from a wall of speakers, punctuated by fireworks, day and night. Music is live, with bands lined up to cater to every taste, beginning with the brand of music we older folks tend to like and remember, and I’m grumphing here, it is downhill from there.

I’ve always wanted to walk over, just show up, if asked, I’m a friend of the bride or the groom, whichever. For the food. Oh, the mountains of food. Fill a plate, sit in a corner and watch the people. This would be, of course, early in the event. Food, of course, is accompanied with quantities of liquids.

Back when I used to go with Kathy to her resort, we watched a lot of weddings. Thus, I know by the noise level, pretty much what is going on down the way. Eventually the elders retire and the youngers take to the floor. We would say, Rock and Roll.

Until five in the morning, I kid you not. So that was my night. Fortunately, even with interruptions, I am an easy sleeper. So I woke at pretty much my usual time, according to the light. Sort of. I don’t use a clock for wake up. Sunlight, even muted, does that job.

Something seemed off, the day didn’t sound right, but after ablutions, I got dressed, ready to go walk my dog. Looked out the window and all plans came to a stop.

It could have been raining all night from the looks of it. And it looks like it could rain all day. Sorry, Lola.

This is our third rain in a week. The first one blessed us with more rain than we had in the entire (nearly non-existent) rainy season. Farmers are well into corn harvest. Cane harvest just began. Oops. Not good timing.

My tomatoes are beautiful and in full blossom, so not sure what this will mean for them. Everything else must be soaking up the moisture with gratitude.

I feel discombobulated. My whole routine out the door just turned in the door. I had to turn my light on above my desk. I never turn on a light in the morning. Natural light is plenty. I have to laugh at myself. I look out the window. Raining. The forecast for the day hasn’t changed in the last hour and a half. The forecast still says rain all day, all night. 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December 7, 2023

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I Don’t Know

 

I Don’t Know

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I don’t. Truly, I don’t know.

Life is so much more interesting when I don’t know. When I “know”, I limit myself to where it is difficult for new and different information to filter into my brain. Hey, because I already know! A closed door. Right?

Take something simple, like tortillas. What is there not to know about tortillas?

I feel pretty puffed up that I can make decent corn tortillas. I seldom make flour tortillas because they always come out looking like amoebas.

I had leftover sweet potatoes, so on a whim, I decided to invent sweet potato-flour tortillas. Okay, I borrowed the idea from rotis. Flat bread is flat bread, I figured. If it works in India, it should work in Mexico.

My Grandma taught me to cook, and even her written recipes called for things such as “butter the size of a walnut” or a pinch of this and a handful of that. So when confronted with a recipe, I look over the list of ingredient, frequently substitute, add or subtract: kitchen chemistry.

Though I use a Mexican foods cookbook I’ve had since 1975, with recipes from various regions of the country, I tend to use recipes as, well, suggestions. The other day I decided that maybe I don’t know, so I read the directions. Knead the dough? Let it rest in a cool place before rolling? Who would have thunk it? I didn’t know.

In my usual fashion, I mixed my sweet potato and flour, salt, shortening in proportions that seemed right to me, drizzled water, kneaded the dough and put it in the refrigerator to rest.

All my life I’ve made pies. I roll out a mean pie dough, perfect every time. I allow myself a sweet burst of pride over my pie dough. So rolling tortillas should be a slam dunk, right?

Wrong. I mean, I’ve nothing against amoebas, but an amoeba doesn’t hold fillings the same way a perfect round tortilla holds them. For those of you not keen on reading all the directions, in case there is another of us, form the ball, flatten it with your hand, roll once, quarter turn, roll once, quarter turn, roll, turn until your beautiful round of dough is the thinness you desire.

Pretty slick, eh? See what I mean? I could have been making my own glorious flour tortillas all these years, but I already “knew”, thus limiting myself.

That’s a pitiful small example, but, believe me, it works on a larger scale with important stuff.

Dreaded winter is here. During late November, December, January and early February I am an icicle. This year I did something different. I spent money. I bought a different kind of space heater with hope. Hope that it might work warmly. Then I went all out and blew my limited budget on a posh, thick, men’s extra-large bathrobe. Men’s because men’s are better made, and larger to double drape over my legs.

The day after Thanksgiving I pulled my heater out from behind the chair in the corner and read the directions. See, one can teach an old dog new tricks. Plugged it in and within two minutes, I knew my heater was worth every hard-scrabbled peso. See me smile?

Last night, after my shower, I pulled my bathrobe on and fell in love. I felt like I was held in warm, cuddly arms.

Speaking of love, I have fallen head over heels in love with a real man.

My morning routine includes short readings, from poets, other writers. They make me feel good, make me think, give me something to chew on throughout the day. A few months ago I added Gerald Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889, English poet and Jesuit priest, to my list, simply because so many writers referred to him, a stranger to me. My degree was in History. I missed a lot of Literature.

For weeks and weeks, I wondered, why am I reading GMH? What was so brilliant about him? But gamely, I kept going, until one morning I had an on-the-road-to-Damascus experience.

I got it! How could I not see it? How could I not know? How could I be so ignorant? The man is beautiful, brilliant, genius, full of love and light and life. I’m his. Now I can hardly wait for our morning tryst.

So, see. Every day now I try to remind myself that I just don’t know. If I don’t know, incredible gifts tend to fall in my lap, like love.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December? Already?

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Pardon My Turkey

 

Pardon My Turkey

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One of the many things I have come to respect about the Mexican culture, the Mexican people, is their ability to celebrate. Times may seem grim and the larder near empty, but they somehow will scrape together beans, tortillas, tomatoes and peppers, gather family and neighbors into their homes to share a feast, and maybe even shoot off a few fireworks, always with music in the background, even if from a radio. Remember radio?

We, my friends, in our country, seem to have whipped ourselves up into a real mashed potato mess, appear to be in several varieties of a ‘pickle’, may think no amount of sugar and marshmallows can redeem the yams, despite all this, we could take a page from the book of “Be Happy” from our southern neighbors.

Celebrate. Celebrate that it is snowing. Or that it is not snowing. Or that the water pipes didn’t freeze. Or that you woke up breathing. Or that you have leftovers.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. Most of you, my friends, cooked up a big family dinner, turkey or not, with all the trimmings. How many times have I heard you say, “The best thing about Thanksgiving is the leftovers the next day.”?

Yep. So how about we pile the goodies and build a sandwich, throw on a gob of cranberry sauce, squeeze a slice of pumpkin pie onto the plate, and deliver it to a neighbor, a friend, or, even better, an enemy. (Try that last one, just once.)

Deliver the plate with a few words suggesting that it feels good to celebrate gratitude more often than one day a year, and what better way than with the best of the leftovers, so, here, share with me.

Throughout the year, I might find occasion to share more plates. Just a suggestion. Maybe my chosen recipient throws my offering in the compost bin when I turn my back. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that it sure made me feel good to prepare the plate with my best, just cooked or leftover, no matter, decorated with a sprig of cilantro or rosemary or mint, and share it with a smile.

If we all do something like this once in a while, I guarantee, life will look less messy; will seem just that little bit more kind and gentle. Me, I’m selfish. I do this for me to feel good.

Don’t worry. Be happy. Would you like gravy over your sandwich or in a dish to the side?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

Thanksgiving? Already?

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The Winter of, The Summer of, My Disillusionments

 

The Winter of, The Summer of, My Disillusionments

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My friend Jim from Glasgow sent me a short video clip of the Little Rockies, Three Buttes, Snake Butte and the Bear Paws. Immediately, I yearned, homesick. I shared the video with friends. “This is my beautiful country.” Their response, not unexpected, “Ah, yes. Uh huh. Beautiful,” as they looked for an exit. Which brought on this following chain of thought.

To some this will sound as though I am describing two foreign countries, and I am. Both countries have disappeared.

My earliest years were spent in Indiana, not far from the Ohio River, a mile wide, where often we sat on a bank and watched tugs push three, four and five barges laden with coal or ore or other goods.

Uncle Jim came to visit. He and Dad talked late into the night. Not long after my Uncle left, Dad came upstairs and sat on the edge of my bed one night. “How would you like to go to Montana?”

“Where Uncle Jim lives? Oh, yes!” I thought Dad meant a visit, a vacation. By the time I figured out we were moving, I was horrified. Not that I had any voice in the matter. I was ten.

During the Great Depression, Uncle Jim had gone to work on a family friend’s wheat ranch south of Chinook. He never looked back. Dad had worked for the same man, before the War. Montana had burrowed under his skin, into his heart.

By the time we moved, Jim owned a Valley farm and a partnership in an implement dealership in Harlem. Dad was going to buy the farm.

We had our farm sale on a sunshine April Fools’ Day, green grass, daffodils waving their silly heads. The following day, our car already packed, we left for Montana, in the rain, an omen if ever there was one.

I left an entire family of aunts and uncles with cousins my own age. (Uncle Jim’s children were older.) I left an excellent school which encouraged students to find ways to illustrate lessons, left all my friends, and everything I knew. I left my rock collection, the geodes, all my toys, yes, toys. When I was ten, we were still children. I was allowed to take one ‘toy’. I chose my books.

On a cold afternoon, April 5, we drove into Harlem on the old highway, along a deeply rutted dirt street, icy and banked with drifts of dirty snow. I’d never seen a more desolate, ugly town, although we had been driving through the same towns all day. Thaw was a couple weeks away.

On my birthday I climbed on the school bus for my first day at Harlem Elementary, terrified. At lunch, a girl grabbed my hand, "Come with us. Sally and Sylvia (classmates) are going to fight in the park.” Now I was terrified and horrified.

Fight, they did, actual fisticuffs with blood. Girls!  In my country, boys wrestled in play but I’d never seen a real fight.

By the end of the first week in my new school, my classmates hated me. Nobody told me you weren’t supposed to have ideas.

I was yet to discover gumbo mud which stole rubber boots from my feet, mosquitoes so thick they covered my skin. Drought. Wind. Temperatures over 100 degrees and minus 40. A different country, harsh, a different culture, hard.

I cried myself to sleep every night that first year, remembering a softer, gentle life.

When I was thirteen, my Dad put us on the Empire Builder and sent us home to Indiana for the summer, a truly wonderful summer, with cousins and school friends.

Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

There were all the remembered friends, flowers and fruit. Along with red clay dirt. And chiggers. (At least mosquitoes are visible and don’t burrow.) Copperheads in the weeds and slithering through the blackberries. Humidity which made 75 seem 105. I had to reconnect with friends. Or not. Nothing was recognizable. People I had idolized grew pimples. Or warts. (Metaphorical.) Depending on age. On our old farm, house, barn and my swing tree had been razed to the ground to make way for a sprawling brick “ranch-style” house.

At summer’s end, we climbed aboard the Monon, transferred to the Empire Builder in Chicago, and returned home. Home. Home to Harlem, where the streets were still dirt, but home.

Nothing had changed but me. I could see with different eyes, could measure on a scale more balanced. I never lost my love for Indiana, but I knew my home. 

I’ve learned to make my home in many different places. But Home will always be that harsh, hard country I love.  

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November—yikes--middle

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There is a hole in our lives.

 

There is a hole in our lives.

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There aren’t many of us here on the rancho. Not all of our houses have their people. But the last several days, we  who are here, me, Nancie, Julie, Lani and Ariel, Tom and Janet, frequently found ourselves running up against, no, not a wall, but a hole.

This hole has a specific size and shape, exactly the size and shape of Leo. Leo helps all of us with gardening, planting, pruning, mowing, cutting, watering. But Leo is more than a gardener. He has helped all of us, at one time or another, with translating, with information, with getting necessary services, with business, with appointments, with shopping. He can be kind of a catch-all.

For most of us, he has become even more. He’s a friend, a son, may I say, a grandson?

Leo was out with Covid. We all ask, “How did he catch it?” I’d say it caught him.

The last ten days of October are the annual Festival, a time of celebrations, parades, community dinners, all manner of festivities. Everybody in town has relatives who work in the States. There is a lot of travel back and forth, especially during Festival, followed by The Day of the Dead. Many residents work in Guadalajara, back and forth daily. Opportunities to cart around viruses abound.

In addition, last week Leo took care of his nieces while his sister worked. They were home from school, sick with flu. What kind of flu? Nobody went to the doctor to ask, “Is this Coronavirus?” When school kids are sick, and whatever the flu, and, it laid out the entire class, the mothers did what we all know to do. Tuck them in bed, plenty of fluids, a basin, warm water and wash cloths nearby.

Where he got it or where it got him matters not. He got it.

Out came our masks, our polite distances, our test kits. We all had had contact. Out came our anxiety.

By the second day of Leo’s absence, we were learning how much we depended on him, in ways we didn’t think about often. By the forth and fifth day, the hole left in the shape of Leo, had become distorted to giant-sized.

For me, gardening is only part of the picture. Even I can do enough to keep the whole mess from outright dying. Mostly. No, it was more the little things. Leo stopped by most of our houses daily, “Need anything?” or just, “How are you doing?” He’d sit, drink a glass of water, eat a cookie, chat a while, catch us up on the news in town.

Meanwhile, underlying our dependence, is a strange current of dichotomy. We tell him, “You are young, you have a university education, you are smart, you have skills way beyond pruning plants, valuable skills. You need to be thinking about your future.”

Then we follow that with, “But, we would miss you. What would we do without you? We couldn’t cope. We love you, our dear Leo.”

We talk out of both sides of our mouths, sincerely.

We want to see this young man do more with his life, get ahead, whatever that means. At the same time we don’t want to lose him.

Consider this: maybe, just maybe, it is we who have grasped the wrong end of the stick.

When Leo decided he didn’t want to teach school, that he wanted to work outdoors, with plants, with people, maybe our young friend, has found his life’s work.

Maybe he is smarter than we are. Maybe his genius, his gift, is in working with elders. Maybe we should be going to Leo for advice. Maybe pruning and planting are merely his tools, disguising his real work. Maybe.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November here we are!

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Life is not a bowl of tortillas.

 

Life is not a bowl of tortillas. 

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Last week a registered historic hotel in Glendive burned. The night the fire was started was also the night of the first winter blizzard. Firemen from a hundred-mile radius came to fight the fire which razed the hotel and a neighboring building.

My daughter’s office is in the upper floor of a building adjacent to the hotel. Firemen battled the blaze all night and the following day to keep her building from burning. For three days the hotel fire smoldered and flared. For three days Dee Dee was not allowed into her building. From necessity she slipped through the back entrance with a big flashlight to retrieve her computer, noting extensive smoke and water damage.

Do you ever look at your kids and wonder from where they came? Found beneath a cabbage leaf? Flown in by a stork? Delivered by an alien space ship from Planet X? Sometimes I think, “That child is no relation to me.” I haven’t the backbone of steel, the determination, the pure heart to carry on under circumstances that would break many of us. She has them all. That woman is my teacher.

With the retrieval of her computer, she is back in business, seeing some clients by video. With the restoration of electric power and the okay by the safety inspectors, she is back in her smoky, leaking offices, seeing clients strong enough to brave the stairway and the conditions.

Me, I was a wreck for a full five days, from 2500 miles away. My girl is still recovering from radical surgery, from the removal of a cancerous tumor. She stands strong in her community, still helping others.

One of my good friends said, “Oh, no, she doesn’t need this.” No, she doesn’t. Neither does Acapulco need Hurricane Otis. Most of us can look at our own lives and find our own personal fires and hurricanes. We didn’t need them but they came. Like my daughter, we dealt with them the best we could, hopefully with help.

Let me tell you about tortillas. In the mid-70s I lived in California and began making my own Mexican food. Tortillas were always a challenge. I had a tortilla press. One can buy masa harina in any grocery.

My tortillas would be sticky. Or they would fall apart in the middle. Or the edges would crumble. Seldom did I make what I would call a really fine batch. I didn’t try often. The tortilla press would gather dust in the back of a corner cupboard. It is too easy to buy a bag of tortillas, all perfect, in any grocery. They never fall apart or leak.

However, periodically I would drag out the press and try again. Dough too wet, too dry, and the press went back to the cupboard. Living here in Mexico, I keep masa harina on hand for a lot of thing, cornbread, gorditas, or sopes. And I have a dandy-fine press.

Sometimes I buy a handful of masa from one of the women in the market who process and grind their own corn and with their delicious masa, I make better tortillas.

On a whim, just because I was hungry for breakfast tacos, I wiped off my press, grabbed my masa harina and made tortillas. I aced it. I made the best yummy flat rounds with plain ol’ masa.

It all had to do with intention.

Tortillas take masa flour and water. That’s all, Folks. I drizzled warm water into the flour, took my time, gave it my full attention. Then I worked it and worked it and worked it, with my hands. When the dough felt ready, it told me, because I listened. I made small balls with my dough, pushing and pressing them in my hands, with love, keeping the works covered with a wet cloth.

Instead of the usual 6 inch tortillas, I made 4 inch, like almost everybody in town makes. Cooked them on my comal (griddle), medium heat, 30 seconds on one side,  40 on the other, plopped them into a towel lined covered bowl. 

They were perfect, my tortillas, tender and fluffy, and I claim bragging rights. I already had my taco ingredients chopped and ready. Ate too many but I didn’t care.

Life, Folks, is not a bowl of perfect, bendable, scooper tortillas. Life is more like my hurried tortillas, the ones I used to make, which would split in the middle, or crumble around the edges. Messy.

When Life gives us those perfect little tortilla moments, I say, brag, shout, eat the goodness and enjoy the whole experience. My daughter taught me that.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November already!

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When we get back

 

When we get back 

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My friends, Nancie and Julie were touring Italy for two weeks. Their husbands showed no interest in Italy. The women said, “That’s okay. We will go by ourselves. Keep the home fires burning. When we get back we will have so much to tell you.”

If I went to Italy, I’d choose a small village, maybe near Lake Como, and stay for the duration, get to know that area, maybe even get to know some of the people. Same plan if I wanted a city immersion.

However, for an overview to hit the high spots, tours are a great way to see a lot of country quickly.

We all knew that the women would be too busy, too much on the go, to send reports. Nancie is her family photographer, so she sent photos almost daily, photos of famous palaces and cathedrals and statues, pictures of hotel rooms, shots of food, of restaurants, of streets, of stores.

Based on their photos and my own tours or tour-ship watching, I have taken liberties and extrapolated their trip.

On only two days, her photos included a picture of herself and of Julie. Each time, sitting at plates of food. Looking glad. Or, looking exhausted. One of them seemed to be thinking, “This is it? This is all?” Or, maybe her feet hurt.

When the women returned, they said, “Oh, it was marvelous.” “We saw so much.”  “Would you like more coffee?” “This weather is ruinous. I can’t believe the garden looks so—ragged.”

They don’t tell us about the other people on the tour. No mention is made of lumpy beds, welcome nonetheless, at the end of a day tromping through museums, churches, up streets, down streets.

They don’t tell us how glad they were to kick their shoes off aching feet at the end of each day.

“Hurry, hurry,” the guide says, “We’ve so much to show you. Fifteen minutes here and meet back at the bus.”

We don’t hear about the strange foods, though many plates rated photos. The only meal with honorable mention was fish and chips in Sorrento. They neglect to say that some meals were merely bread and coffee, because the plate in front of them, “Well, we couldn’t eat ‘that’, could we?”

We know they walked through innumerable Cathedrals, each one breathtakingly beautiful, hurried, scurried through ‘because there is a schedule to keep so we can see everything’, until each Cathedral mushed together into one, like mashed potatoes.

Our friends don’t tell us about all the jewelry stores on the list (expensive) or the tourist trinket stores (cheap, imported from China).

They don’t mention the buff young men or dissolute middle-aged men who might have approached them, offering ‘private tours’, because all American women tourists are rich. And who can blame them for wanting to help themselves.

No mention is made of street vendors, in their faces, pushy, relentless, loud.

Neither woman mentions the smells. Venice, Rome, Florence, each has its own odor, even in the tourist areas, and nobody is encouraged to explore outside the designated tourist area.

The photos they show us are not equipped with sound. What is the street noise like? Every city sounds different.

They don’t talk about their companions in the tour group. About the giggly matron who is revealed to be so kind behind her provocative mask, dressed like she is fifteen. Or the man who drinks too much, always laughing, to ward away the tears. Or the couple, we know they are a couple, who never speak, never look at each other, don’t touch. Or the kind person who seems to know how to put everyone at ease. Or, the pair at the back of the bus, the back of every queue, content within themselves.

I made up the parts about other people. Details may vary, but I know from experience it is true enough.

They have so much to tell us, but they cannot, can they? How do you condense each day with thousands of new experiences into a conversation? Over the years, individual memories will pop up, in relation to something seen or something said. We will get a glimpse. Meanwhile . . .

“We have so much to tell you.”

But they don’t.

 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

How can October be over? Boo!

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Instruction Manual: Care and Feeding of a Funk

 

Instruction Manual: Care and Feeding of a Funk

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The other day I found myself feeling a little low, a little down in the dumps. The problem is, I was enjoying the feeling, to some extent. The next problem is that I found it so dag gone hard to maintain the slump.

We don’t come with an instruction manual so I figure it is high time somebody writes one.

***This does not apply to real depression. Depression is a serious matter. For real depression, see your doctor. Please.

One of my friends said, “It’s your bio-rhythm. Wait a few days and you will cycle through it with a mood upswing.” I said, “You are so stuck in the ‘70s. Hmmm. I wonder whatever happened to my mood ring.”

Another friend told me, “Ah, yes. One of the planets is in retrograde.” She didn’t know which one and I wouldn’t know what that means anyway.

Two poets told me that feeling sad is the human condition. “Amen,” I said. “So is feeling joy.”

I figured my slump in the funky dump meant that on some level I wanted to wallow in a little self-pity. I think that feeling sorry for myself brings its own reward.  I also know that like the planets and bio-rhythm, this too will pass. After I drain my funk of all the pleasure I can squeeze out.

I don’t waste too much time figuring out what causes me to hit the low notes. They comes. They goes.

One of my long-ago friends used to tell me that when she really wanted to feel pain in her life, all she had to do was take the ferry to Seattle and visit her abusive mother. She said she always drove home thinking about driving into a bridge abutment at 90 mph. But.

But. But, she returned to her little home and her son grateful for life, grateful that she was alive and that she did not repeat her mother’s parenting pattern. She, a forever friend, always made me smile.         

My restlessness meant I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to go anywhere. But, I couldn’t sit still. Several times a day I wandered out to my back yard to a little patio slab I had made beneath the jacaranda tree.

Now, this is a real mood wrecker. Immediately I was surrounded with butterflies, eight, ten, a dozen, all sizes, all colors, the huge white bed-sheet butterflies, the colorful oranges and yellows and browns and purples and all combinations of colors, including a huge black moth, as large as a bat. And, they didn’t care. They didn’t care if I felt up or down. They didn’t care that I am human and dangerous. They simply are. And, they flitted all around and played tag in my face. 

I no more than sat down to become butterfly entertainment, than the silly little partridge doves were at my feet. Same story. They didn’t care. They didn’t care that I might be wondering how many dozen of them it would take to bake in a pie, more than four and twenty.

When a flock of my favorite black-bellied whistling ducks flew low overhead, I gave up. I went back to the house to make a pie. Apple pie. On my way to the house I pulled a juicy lime from my broom-stick tree. That lime smelled as good as I felt.

I’m sorry. I had failed again. This isn’t much of an instruction manual. I tried. You will just have to figure out what works best for you.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October, leaves, they are a turning

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Job Application for Sports Person

 

Job Application for Sports Person

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Dear Editor,

I recently spotted an opening for a sports person for the newspaper. I didn’t read the description closely but am confident I could quickly polish and perfect my qualifications for the position.

When I was nine or ten years old, before we moved to Montana, my Dad took me to a Cardinal’s game at the stadium in Louisville, Kentucky, a skip, a jump and a slide across the Ohio River from where we lived. The game was at night and the field was well lighted. I did wonder if the players had a hard time keeping an eye on the baseball when it flew through the shadows. I noticed that while sitting up in the bleachers. I am most observant.

The hot dog with mustard and relish was fantastic, as was the Ne-hi Orange soda. That was the first time I ate a hot dog in a bun. At home we had wieners cut up in a can of Van Camp’s Pork and Beans, which had very little pork. It is not the same thing. That is neither here nor there, but demonstrates that I can fluff up a piece when I need to do so. I still like a good hot dog.

In high school I attended a few football games on nights, badly lit, when the snow blew in circles and it was always bitter cold. We girls huddled in a cluster on the bleachers. We were there to watch boys, not a pigskin. In later life I watched one Rose Bowl Game on television. Same story with better snacks.

Basketball was more my speed. I will say the gym was always stinky and noisy. Always. Unfortunately, we did not have girls’ basketball back then. I found basketball more to my understanding.

My Dad used to referee girls’ basketball, back in our little community in Indiana. I suspect he refed with more of an eye for the girls than for the basketball, but what do I know. He did say that it was a hoot and that the girls fought harder than the guys.

In the spring, we had track. I have a rudimentary beginning knowledge of track events. In my youth, all sports were for boys. We did not have a baseball team.

We did not have girls’ sports of any kind back in our day. I still have residual bitterness that the boys had full seasons of sports and we had zero, zilch, nothing. I will be vigilant in reporting girl’s’ and women’s teams equally with boys’ and men’s teams.

I would have been good at baseball. I have read everything W.P. Kinsella wrote. Everything. I will say “Shoeless Joe” is better than “Field of Dreams”, but I confess to a book bias. Still, I enjoyed “Field of Dreams”.

Yep. I’m reckon I am fairly good at baseball. I assisted the director as well as played the role of Rose in “Bleacher Bums”. Go Cubbies.

 

 Of course, I must climb to the top of a steep learning curve. The world of sports no longer revolves around football, baseball and basketball. Now even in small communities we have wrestling, boxing, soccer, softball, swimming, dance, gymnastics, volleyball, hockey, curling, tennis, golf and even that strange sport where you either catch or throw (?) the ball from a funny basket on a stick.

I am up for the challenge. In every community, there is a café with a round table back in the corner in which around ten in the morning, several retired men gather for coffee and confab. These men know all there is to know about sports. They know the characteristics of every team and of every player. They know. Ask them. They know.

If I hang out at an adjacent table and take notes, in no time at all, I will be up to speed in sports.

In addition I would be able to address such often ignored but important things as sportswear, equipment, community support, snacks, and the spectators, without whom, sports would flounder.

When would you like me to start?

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October, season changing quickly

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October is the best month!

 

October is the best month! 

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September ended here in my little patch of Mexico with record-breaking heat. The heat I can handle. The humidity is brutal. Early this morning, 70F, humidity in the 90s, go hang laundry on the line, come inside with sweaty wet hair. In the afternoon, when  it is 90, when I return to the house with dry laundry, I’m hot but dry. When we Montanans say, “Yes, but it is dry heat”, we know what we are talking about.

October will be different. Won’t it?

And the critters, oh, my, the critters. Critters in the house. Last night I found a scorpion on the bathroom floor. Alive. Alive when I saw him. The horrifying thing to me is that I never had that stomach lurching moment of fear. More an “Oh, another scorpion.” Stomp. Smash.

Tonight it was a lizard in the bathroom. It is still alive, somewhere up the wall. Somewhere.

I’ll bet you don’t go to bed wondering if a lizard might scrabble across your face in the night. Have you ever looked at their hand-like feet? Let’s not even allow a thought to form about scorpions in the night.

There are two varieties of ants that are ever-present, in the kitchen mostly. These little buggers are so tiny that you only notice them when they move. Okay, they move pretty much constantly. Vinegar in a spray bottle. Doesn’t stop them but keeps the population down. I am sure my diet is well supplemented with miniscule ants. Protein. We all need protein.

Then the big brown ants show up. Oh, don’t worry about them, I’m told. They just are passing through, looking for water. ???

Depending on the time of year, I’m also told bugs come in the house to get out of the cold, for shade from the heat, away from the wet, or because outside is too dry. Choose your myth, I say.

House centipedes, roly-poly bugs, silverfish. They are just nuisances. At least they stay on the floor. Spiders are everywhere, all seasons. I have the bites to prove it.

The lizard should be able to find plenty to eat while it shelters from the blistering sun, indoors, wherever it is now.

Both flies and mosquitoes seem to know their season is waning, the cold will come, giving us a few months respite. Knowing this, they zero in, frantic to chomp flesh, mine in particular. That’s not really true, I just feel like they target me in particular some days.

This morning I watched two huge flocks of whistling ducks heading north. I will miss them. They are so beautiful. They leave but their loss is balanced by an influx of colorful others. One bird sounds like a scold and when I scold back, it gives me what for in no uncertain terms. Another helpful bird screams out, “prime the pump, prime the pump”.  I’m certain that bird met up with Desert Pete. (Kingston Brothers)

In amongst the songbirds, is a bird which screeches like a banshee. What does a banshee sound like? Well, I don’t really know, do I? But if I did know, a banshee is what that bird would sound like. You can’t refute my logic.

If you are interested in animals on the move, the iguanas move out of our yards during the rainy season, finding feeding grounds in the fields more to their gourmet satisfaction. Once the corn harvest begins, the ugly critters scurry back to our yards, lush with hibiscus and every possible flowering plant we can scrounge from the Viveros. They especially seem to thrive on flowers grown from smuggled seed, not that any of us would smuggle seed, but we do have the odd contact. Nudge. Nudge.

Despite the ravages of iguanas and leaf-cutter ants, our gardens seem to thrive. Well, we tend to overplant them so have plenty to share.

Like I said above, October is the . . . wait, wait, that’s a typo. What I mean to say is, October is the pest month!

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

October, obviously

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Writing Down A Quilt

 

Writing Down A Quilt

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Usually I sit down to write with something specific on my mind. Today I have a scrap of this and a scrap of that. What does one do with scraps? One makes a quilt.

Michelle called. “Let’s go to the Plaza for cake.” In the Mercado a teeny coffee shop recently opened, fancy drinks and baked goods. They make the best carrot cake.

Michelle, Ana and I found a bench in the shade in the Plaza, where we enjoyed our drinks and cakes put our worlds in order. During this time, I had a realization. I am truly a resident, no longer a “tourist”.

The Plaza is the Town Center, lots of activity, with vendors of crafts, foods, clothing, even tools. The first years I lived here, I wanted to see everything, a tourist. Now I only want to visit with my friends.

Back home, I noticed the bed-sheet butterflies have returned. Even in the animal world, there are residents, here year-round, tourists, passing through, and snow-birds, here for a few months. For the next month, some go north, some go south, some settle in for the winter. We come. We go.

I have a new resident in my home. For the last couple years, I’ve nattered on and on, wanting a dressmaker manikin but not wanting to spend the money. At present, my entire wardrobe is the result of the work of my own hands. I took apart a pair of pants for a pattern, easily modified; the other garments I make by guess and by gosh. Often that means, stitch, take apart, adjust, recreate what I’ve just created, to fit!

Ruby Red-Dress has come to stay. As you might guess, given choices, I quickly bypassed black and gray and navy, and said, “Ruby, come live at my house.”

She will help me immensely, not just with sizing, but with the ability to be more creative. Why did I wait so long! Already my new friend is assisting me to make a top I could not have made without her help.

A few months ago my daughter sent me a box of puzzles, most new, but some from her local second-hand store. Puzzles allow my mind to shift gears.

When I dumped a previously-owned box of puzzle pieces onto my table, I sniffed, ah ha, “This belonged to a family with children.” I could smell it. I knew their home was lived in, maybe chaotic at times, but in a good way. Then I noticed a barely legible scribble on the boxtop. X MISSING PIECE. Does that mean ten missing pieces? Does that mean one missing piece? A puzzle within the puzzle.

What fun for me to work what other fingers had worked. In the lower left, one piece is missing, though frequently I would have bet on more than ten. And a horse’s head is well chewed by a teething toddler. It all worked together to make this 999 piece puzzle more special.

Seasons are changing, winter is coming. I know I should not gripe. October is pleasant. November is tolerable. December and January are downright cold. To me, that means 40s and 50s, F. Not so cold. Unless you live in an uninsulated, drafty house with no heat source. After a day or two, that is Cold!

I’ve made do with a space heater, which knocks the chill down a few pegs. But I’m never quite comfortable. When I get chilled, my bones hurt, so, those two months, I’m miserable.

My daughter told me about a different type space heater they bought last year for their basement. They live in a hundred-year-old country house. I figure their basement is about equivalent to my house in terms of size and heating problems. If it works in her basement, it should work in my home.

I went to the site we all order from, similar to our old Sears and Sawbuck Catalog, and asked for the same heater as Dee Dee bought. It told me, not available, don’t know when. Dee Dee, strangely, could order the same heater, but they would not ship it to Mexico. What’s up with this?

My girl and I spent an entire week looking at heaters, trying to assess whether they would work as well as hers, the one I wanted, the one I knew would work best for me. . Each one we chose was deemed not available.

Frustrated, and on a whim, I went to their Mexico site. The first heater depicted was my daughter’s exact heater. One minute later, it was purchased and on the way.

Laugh with me. I think I can have my cake and eat it too.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September flew too quickly bye

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I Can’t Believe I’m Going To Tell You!

 

I Can’t Believe I’m Going To Tell You! 

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Some stories should stay hidden and this might be one of that kind. It is ridiculous, embarrassing and impossible.

I have three lime trees in my yard. In the back yard, I first planted a key lime. After three naked years and lots of talks, including veiled threats, she began producing limes in profusion. So I planted a regular-type lime in the front yard. It made limes a mere toddler and hasn’t paused yet. So I planted another regular-style lime in back next to the key lime. I use a lot of limes.

This poor dear dangled a few limes when I planted her but nary a lime, year after year and another year. I cajoled, begged, pleaded, threatened. Nada.

We several women friends talk regularly via email. I said, “I’m close to digging her up and replacing her with a mango or a papaya or something flowery.”

Karen said, she really did say this, “Take a broomstick and whack the tree trunk in each of the four directions, north, south, east and west.”

“You are joking, right?”

“I did it with my lazy apple tree and that year my apples broke branches, the apples were so full and heavy."

I can’t believe I did it. I can’t believe I admit to you that I did it. I carefully scanned the yard, to make sure nobody could see me out in the back lawn holding my broom and looking guilty. My yard is enclosed by a tall brick wall grown up with all manner of bushes, trees and greenery. The only way anybody could see me would be with one of those flying spying things. I struck a nonchalant listening pose, just in case. Air above me was clear of all but birds and butterflies.

I explained to my lime tree that this would hurt me more than it would hurt her and that it was for her own good. Then I gave her a whack, once in each direction; north, south, east and west. I sneaked back to the house blowing my nose and propped my broom in the corner.

That was a couple months ago. I didn’t give my lime tree a lot of attention until the other day while gathering a handful of key limes. I glanced over and about lost my eyeballs. My lazy lime tree was full of limes in all phases of growth, big limes, little baby limes and middle-size limes. I had to circle her twice just to make sure it was real.

Magic? Of course not. She was ready, right? It was her time to bloom, right? I know it was a co-inkydinky. A whack with a broom will not make a tree bear fruit. But it was kind of a kick just to do it, sort of gave me more patience with my slow tree.

However, if you want real magic, I got a taste of the true stuff later the same day that I noticed my tree full of limes.

I had a bag of frozen mango I’d taken out to make a pie, but changed my mind. I also had a quarter of a fresh pineapple I needed to use soon. I’d been grating Mexican-type zucchini into my pancake batter and figured a mango-pina syrup would enhance pancakes like a charm.

I whizzed the fruit in the blender. Syrup is easy, right. Fruit and sugar and water. A pinch of salt to enhance the flavor. Heat, stir, and voila, syrup to spare and to share.

Ha! Anybody who has ever worked with chokecherries knows how difficult it is to make jelly. One must be precise in measurements, exact in standing over the heat and stirring, assiduous in testing for the jell stage, and nine times out of ten, instead of jam, one makes syrup. Just the way it is. Syrup is good, so we pour it into jars and process it. Yummy, drizzled or drenched over pancakes on those cold and snowy mornings.

Fruits with natural pectin are easier to jell, but still, without care, one makes syrup. This time I took no care, measured approximates, wanting and expecting syrup.

I poured my syrup into jars, one for the freezer, one for my immediate use, one to share with Lani and another to share with Janet. The syrup seemed kind of thick but it is easy to thin out to the right consistency.

The next morning, given a chance to cool, my beautiful jars of fruit syrup had jelled. No syrup. Just jelly. Now that is real magic.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

The almost end of September

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My head is in the clouds.

 

            My head is in the clouds.

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Every morning these past few days, when Lola and I take our early morning walk, the clouds are rolling down the mountains. We move through the mist, feet on the ground, heads in the clouds. 

Another hour and the sun burns the air crisp and brilliant with shadows of orange.

As happens, my day turned topsy turvy.

I was all self-hyped to go to Dr. Imelda, my dentista, to finally have my last crown set onto my tooth. This crown has been a process and practice in delay and patience. Dr. Imelda nixed the first attempt immediately.

Turns out that the trusted lab she has used for years had a machine break down. Please understand I’m telling this to the best of my Spanish to English understanding. The lab farmed the tooth crown out to another lab while awaiting their new machine.  

Dr. Imelda also rejected the second attempt. The lab tech said new machine takes new skills and new learning. She filled my mouth with goops, 1, 2 and 3, yet again. Each goop a different color. Not fun. I have great respect for this woman for not accepting less than perfect.

The third attempt has arrived but Dr. Imelda’s son was very sick and she was nursing him. I understand. No problem. We are now into this process two months. Finally, today is the day. I gear myself up for the ordeal.

Then, while waiting for my ride, my dentist called from the hospital in Guadalajara where she accompanied her husband who is very ill. Another delay. What can I say. Please, take care of your husband, my tooth can wait. I’m happy to wait.

Back in the day, I learned to drive a stick shift. We all did. I have no problem shifting gears, actually or metaphorically. I had chilis and tomatillos and tomatoes and extra limes to deal with in the kitchen. I’ll have a jolly kitchen day.

Then Leo showed up to water the gasping, thirsty plants. “When I finish watering, I’ll hang your baskets and hearts. I need you to show me how you want them.”

Down shift a gear while I fill in the back story. Several years ago I bought baskets to hang on the rafters of my covered patio/outdoor kitchen. Each basket is a different, size, shape, color, all made with natural reeds. I don’t put light bulbs in mine for the same reason you probably would not light yours—mosquitoes. I don’t entertain at night. No reason for a well-lighted patio.

I live in farm country. While not in the middle of the corn field, dust is still a constant. Last week I had Leo take down the baskets and hose them clean, hang them on the gates to dry in the sun.

Another year I bought a multitude of colored blown-glass hearts, which I hung on the brick wall to the side of my house. Meanwhile a tiny ivy-like plant, purpose bought, grew and grew and grew, like Jack’s magic bean, until it completely covered my bare-naked wall, entwining and encompassing the hearts. I searched out the long-invisible hearts, cut them free and cleaned them.

Why not hang some of the large hearts from inside the baskets, and then hang the extra hearts on strings from the same beams? I question my ideas because I never know.

Today, we hung baskets, each with a large colored heart hanging from the center. We strung together the extras, five sizes, and hung them from the beams, blue, green, gold, aqua, red and orange. Baskets. Hearts. I like the colorful effect.

Back in the kitchen, I blanched the chili peppers; jalapenos, the long banana peppers, and the little scrunchy green ones, hotter than firecrackers, and put them in my freezer. Same process with tomatillos. I squeezed the limes to make limonada and aqua frescas.  

I eye-balled my half bushel of tomatoes, knowing an equal amount or twice more is yet to come. I don’t eat that many tomatoes so why do I plant so many? My daughter, who is recuperating nicely, by the way, suggested I can my good tomato-apple catsup again. Yes, good idea. Out in the bodega, I counted the jars left from my last batch. I’ve at least enough for another year.

I bagged my tomatoes, kept a half-dozen for my own use, and handed Leo the bags to distribute to the neighbors and to his sisters.

We don’t know, do we?  When I got up this morning, I was prepared to go to the dentist and spend the rest of the day, down-shifted to grandma gear, reading and napping, my usual routine on dental day. We just don’t know.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

The exact middle of September

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We don’t talk about that!

 

We don’t talk about that!

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I was excited. I had just signed the papers and prepaid for a cremation plan. It is the sensible thing to do. I live in Mexico. I, no doubt, will die in Mexico. Dying in Mexico is a hassle when one’s family and citizenship are elsewhere.

For one thing, the customs are different. If one dies on a Monday, one’s body is washed and dressed for viewing on Tuesday and the funeral and burial are Wednesday. Or even Tuesday.  

I live in a tiny retirement community. Most of the year, there are not more than a couple, or four other gringos here. In the middle of winter, maybe eight or ten. There is no need for a formal good-by production.

By my wishes, my end-of-this-life plans are even simpler. No viewing, no funeral, no casket. The funeral man will pick up my body, whether I did at home or in a hospital anywhere in the area, deliver it to the crematorium and return my ashes in a box.

Okay, just imagine the alternative. No plans. My daughter is my personal representative. She would have to drop everything in her life, make a fast, expensive, unplanned trip here, and, a stranger in a strange land, deal with decisions, decisions, decisions.

And all this cost me a thousand dollars, more or less, by today’s exchange rate. I was excited.

When I get excited I want to share the news. Several years ago, a group of us who’d graduated high school together, started keeping in touch with email. After these many years, we are closely knit, we talk about everything. Everything. I thought we did. Frequently we carry on all-day-long conversations, zinging messages back and forth between our various spots on the planet.

Of course, I wrote to them immediately. I figured this would be good fodder for intimate talks for days. We all share when somebody close to us passes over into the great beyond. (Forgive me waxing poetic.)

I waited. And waited. And waited. I’m still waiting. Not one of my friends responded. Not one. Not even a weak acknowledgment, “That’s nice sweetie. What are you making for lunch?”

The odd thing is that not a week goes by without one of us losing a friend, a relative, or an acquaintance. We talk about it. At length. Always.

Let me reassure you. I don’t plan to die today. But who does? My health is good. Creeping arthritis is a pain. I don’t seem to need any medications.

Just last week, I had a really ugly blood clot in my right eye. Looked like somebody slugged me a good one. Most of the white of my eyeball was brilliant stop-light red. I know what to do. Warm tea bags, right. But with a rare prudence, thought I’d get my eye looked at professionally.

I had Leo, my gardener-transportation-translator, take me to see Dr. Firmin at the Hospital Paris in Etzatlan. While all my vital signs were checked, Leo, sat over in the corner cringing. As each number was read out, he would say, “Your numbers are better than mine.” Each and every one. Leo is thirty-five.

My eyeball was healthy. The violent sneezing fit first thing in the morning probably caused the bloodshot eye. I went home, took my medicine for swelling, squinched in eye drops, and soaked my eye with another tea bag. Couldn’t hurt, right.

While I don’t plan to die today, I still think it sensible to plan for the unplanned, while admitting that is not my usual way, planning. When I first began talking about looking into a cremation plan, my daughter didn’t want to hear about it either. 

She mentioned what I was doing to a woman who works with her, a Hispanic woman. Alicia said, “My Grandma did that and it made it so much easier for the whole family. All the decisions were made and there was no fuss.”

What I don’t understand is why my closest friends went radio silent. Is it that we don’t want to think about the unthinkable? I do tend to blurt out whatever crosses my mind. That is unlikely to change.

Now I’m working on small changes to my last will. It is simple too. I’ve not much to deal with.

I really like the inscription I read about, used on a lot of Roman tombstones. Translated from the Latin, it reads, “I was not. I was. I am not. I don’t care.”

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September 8, dry as dust, season turned.

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EPs and MPs

 

            EPs and MPs

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While waiting for my daughter to get okayed for an operation at the hospital in Billings, I dumped a puzzle onto my table. Jigsaw puzzles are a good distraction.

I had loaned this particular puzzle depicting an antique car show in front of a typical diner to snowbird friends to work last winter. Intact. One thousand pieces in the box. It is a particularly challenging puzzle, fun, so I borrowed it back.

When I finished the car puzzle, on the day of Dee Dee’s surgery, I had two MPs and one EP. Go figure. I’ll return the puzzle to my friends’ house, note attached. When they finish the other puzzle, a mountain lake scene; they will be able to shuffle pieces to the appropriate boxes.

EPs and MPs seldom work that way. Generally there is either a gap or extra parts and how on God’s green acre did that happen!

The good news is that my daughter came through surgery without a hitch. The operation went smoothly, no surprises, no glitches. She now has Missing Parts and that is a good thing. Prior to surgery, she had an Extra Part. Nobody would choose to hang onto a cancerous tumor. The really good news is that she caught it early and arranged for the surgery immediately.

By now you have figured out our Family Speak for missing parts and extra parts. Most of us have history of putting together children’s tricycles the night before Christmas, remember, trying to decipher directions written in China. Then going out in the tool shed to scramble for an extra washer or the right sized nut, or, contrariwise, holding three extra pieces in our hands and wondering where they were supposed to go. Oh, well, hey, the trike works. So no worry.

My first EP experience happened one winter day when I crawled under my broken down washing machine and fixed it. Ended up with a long strange part and a couple other small leftovers. This was back when a washing machine had legs and wringers on top. I’ve always been fairly mechanically inclined. I plugged in the machine and it worked. Threw the EPs into my tool box and washed a mountain of laundry.

If only our bodies were so easily fixed! My daughter now faces the painful process of recuperation. I would like to be with her but I’d be one more person for her to worry over, more a hindrance rather than help. I’d be her EP.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

September One, 2023

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