Archives

Up At Bat

Jul10

Equipped with a towel, I stalked the little brown bat. When it flapped up the stairwell, my cat Jerry chased after. Sighing, I slowly trudged up the steps, hoping the wee creature didn’t decide to come back down to fly a few more rounds in the dining and living room.

In the upstairs hallway, I found Jerry leaping at the flying rodent as it looped back and forth overhead. Prepared to swat it out of the air as it flew past me, I readied the towel in hand. I swung too soon, and the towel barely touched the bat. It fluttered close to the floor but quickly recovered.

I grumbled, “It’s been such a long time since I last had a bat in my house. I’m losing my touch!” When I swung the towel the second time, I knew I had once again jumped the gun. To make up for my haste, I lunged forward and knocked the bat to the floor.

The minute I lunged forward, I knew my body was not prepared to make that type of movement. Searing pain in both of my calves made me gasp. Despite the pain, I had a mission to complete. The stunned bat lay on the carpet in front of me. The creature still needed to be put outside. I picked it up using the towel like a potholder. Recovering his senses, the little beastie inside the folds of fabric chattered and hissed angerly.

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Empty Nest Flight

Jun5

My husband Arnie sat down at the dining room table and announced, “I want to see mountains when we vacation this summer. Mount Rainier is on the top of my list!”

I placed bread and butter on the table, settled into my chair, and pointedly commented, “Seattle, Washington, is a long drive from here. In fact, to visit any decent mountain would be a long drive for us since we live in Wisconsin. I hate spending most of my vacation in a car! What fun is that?”

Starting when our daughters were six and ten years of age, I occasionally took them on camping weekend vacations during the summer months. Then, as they grew older, Arnie began taking the whole family on late summer vacations to places like Mount Rushmore, Kentucky, and to Canada for a sightseeing train ride and to visit Sauté Saint Marie. These vacations were always taken by car and at times I suffered motion sickness.

I asked, “Didn’t you get your fill of mountains when we visited Mount Rushmore?”

Arnie exclaimed, “But that was ten years ago! I want to see the mountains again!”

Our eighteen-year-old daughter, who was at the table with us eagerly suggested, “We could fly! Do you want me to use the computer to find the cost of the tickets and other attractions we could see while in Seattle?”

Having found an ally in Tammie, my husband smiled broadly as he ordered, “Find whatever information you can for us. This’ll be a special vacation because you’re leaving home this fall.”

At that time, Arnie and I were far from comfortable navigating the cyber world in a computer. I didn’t even know that a computer could be used for comparing prices and buying tickets, organizing places to stay, and signing up for tours.

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Hooked and Cooked

May29

Once supper was over, I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. My husband Arnie left the house once he finished eating. From the window over the sink, I spotted him walking into the shed where he kept his boat. Golden evening sunshine streaming into the dining room and living room windows made me feel happy and content. I loved the longer, warmer days of spring. I was reaching into one of the cabinets to put away kettles when I heard the back door slam. Arnie walked into the living room.

Having finished my evening chores, I strolled through the dining room, sniffing appreciatively. The scent of our delicious supper still lingered in the air. We’d had one of Arnie’s favorite meals; potatoes, pan fried in my trusty old cast iron skillet, kielbasa, and Van Camps pork n’ beans. I came to a sudden halt when I reached the living room. My husband was sitting on the sofa. He had his fishing tackle box on a small tv table in front of him and was sorting through the fishing supplies.

 I exclaimed, “Arnie, what in the world are you doing? And why would you do that in the living room?”

My husband defensively replied, “I’m going fishing on Saturday, and my tackle box needs to be cleaned and put in order. I thought I’d do the job here so I can watch television as I work.”

Dropping into a chair across from the sofa, I warned, “You’re going to be in big trouble if you drop a fishhook in the carpet and I end up stepping on it.”

Arnie promised, “I’ll be careful.”

The next day I cleaned the house and vacuumed the living room in preparation for having my daughter Tammie home from college for the weekend. Figuring she’d arrive late Friday afternoon since she was hitching a ride with a friend, I decided to run a few errands after work before going home.

I heard Tammie screaming the minute I unlocked the back door. Rushing into the living room, I found her laying on her belly in the middle of the carpet. “Help me!” she demanded. My mouth dropped open in amazement. A fishhook from Arnie’s tackle box was tangled in the carpeting. Its sharply hooked end had completely gone through one of my daughter’s finger pads, effectively preventing her from being able to get up to call for help.

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Moments of Grace

Mar27

I put down the book I was reading. My husband, Arnie, fresh from having taken a shower, stretched out next to me on our bed. We talked about our day and who we had seen and talked to. I told him what our children, Niki and Tammie and I had done that evening. Then, yawning, Arnie turned to his side.  He said, “I’m tired.” Then he fell instantly asleep.

Placing a bookmark in my book, I set it on the bedside table. The lamp’s light made our pale peach bedroom walls glow a warm, happy color. I glanced over at my sleeping husband and experienced a moment of total appreciation for the love we shared. In that blessed moment of realization, I leaned against my husband’s warm body and breathed in the scent of his freshly showered skin. I very clearly remember thinking, “Remember this! I may not always have this for as long as I’d like.”

After my husband died in 2007, I remembered that moment with especial tenderness and recognized it as a moment of grace. Memories like that one gave me comfort amid the loss.

A moment of grace is a time where a person is totally aware of the preciousness of what is possessed. Sometimes it is a moment of respite between the troubles of the past and whatever future troubles that we might have come. My husband and I had weathered the loss of an infant and had raised another one with a handicap, but that was all behind us. We anticipated growing old together. I had no idea that soon a radical change would take place in my life. I never dreamed that Arnie would die at such a young age as 56.

Now, looking back, I recognize that I have experienced these special moments of grace on several occasions through the years. One of these moments happened when I packed and moved out of my childhood home. I stopped at the door of my bedroom to look back and remembered my growing up years. I was happy to be a young adult, but the future felt both exciting and scary. Another moment of grace in my life happened the moment my first baby was placed in my arms. I looked at her and understood, “This baby needs more care than the average baby, and I’ve never been a mother before!” Sadly, Christy only lived two months.   

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The Trip that almost Didn’t Happen

Mar6
It’s hard to imagine what we would all have missed!

Feeling indecisive about what to pack and what to leave at home, I stood at the foot of my bed inspecting piles of clothing that I’d placed on the bedspread. On Saturday, three days from now, my daughter Tammie and I were leaving on our long-anticipated trip to Rome. Excitement and nervousness coursed through my body. It seemed surreal that the time to leave was now so quickly approaching.  

Our flight to Europe would take off from Minneapolis airport. Since my daughter had come to Wisconsin a few days ago to attend her cousin’s wedding, the plan was for me to go back with Tammie to her home in Saint Paul. After the trip was over, Niki, my other daughter, would drive to the Twin Cities to take me back to Central Wisconsin.

I could hear Tammie getting ready for bed. She called out, “Are you packing? We’ll be leaving right after I finish work tomorrow afternoon.”

Pulling a suitcase closer to me, I answered, “I’m trying to pack.” A moment later when Tammie walked into my bedroom, I explained, “I’m not getting anywhere with packing because I’m trying to imagine what I’ll all need for the next two weeks. That’s how long I’ll be gone from home, between going to Rome and my staying at your place a few days before the trip and a few days after.”

Nodding, Tammie suggested, “Pack two suitcases. One for everything you will need while in Rome and the other one for what you will need while visiting me.”

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Taxi Cabs

Feb28
All metered taxi in Rome are white.

I opened my eyes to a dark room. The sound of traffic was sporadic out on the street below our apartment windows. Wondering what time it was, I turned on the bedside light and slipped on my glasses. The watch on my wrist showed ten minutes to five in the morning.

A flood of emotions washed over me. Today, my daughter Tammie and I would be traveling back to the United States. I felt sad that our wonderful vacation was over; looked forward to returning home; was nervous about taking a taxi to the airport; dreaded the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean; and realized that after waiting for hours in various airports I’d be totally exhausted by the time we arrived home.

Slipping out of bed, I padded into the kitchen to make tea. As the water heated, I prepared for the day. Tammie’s alarm clock went off by the time the tea was ready. Uncharacteristically, she immediately got up. Our plans and responsibilities for the day that lay ahead were affecting her as well.

With our luggage lined up by the door of our apartment, my daughter and I took turns checking all the rooms to make sure we wouldn’t accidentally leave anything behind. Earlier, I had washed the dishes and put them away, bagged up the wastepaper baskets, and hung used bath towels neatly over the edge of the bathtub. Satisfied with our efforts, we pulled our luggage out into the hall and locked the apartment one last time.

When my daughter and I arrived at the Rome airport eleven days earlier, we had taken a train to the city, then rode the Metro to a station close to our apartment, then walked the two blocks to our destination pulling wheeled luggage. For our return to the airport, Tammie and I agreed that taking a taxicab was a better plan. The ease of doing this outweighed the cost.

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Restaurant Ratings

Feb21
A five star meal of wild boar at a restaurant in Rome.

“Where are we eating tonight, Tammie?” The afternoon was growing late, and I felt hungry. Reading could no longer hold my attention.

Studying the screen on her phone, my daughter questioned, “What are you hungry for? There are dozens of restaurants within walking distance of this apartment. I’m checking for the ones that have the highest ratings.”

Shrugging, I commented, “Ratings don’t mean anything if the chef is having a bad day. As for what I want to eat, I won’t know until I see a menu.”

“Well, I know what I want to eat,” Tammie confided. “It’s on the menu at a small, four-and-a-half star-rated restaurant a few blocks from here. They also offer beer and honey marinated wild boar ribs, which I know you’d like.”

Tossing my book aside, I asked incredulously, “Are you going to order what I’ve heard you call the most iconic Roman noodle dish, pasta Carbonara? You can’t! Well, you shouldn’t! It’s made with dairy products.”

Waving my objections aside, my daughter assured me, “I can’t visit Rome without trying carbonara. Don’t worry, I’ll take Lactaid and I’ll be all right.”

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Ticket, Please!

Feb14

On our first full day in Rome, we spent an enjoyable afternoon sightseeing and exploring stores near the Vatican. When my daughter Tammie and I were tired, we decided to stop at a restaurant for a meal and return to our Airbnb apartment until it was time for us to board the nighttime bus tour. Glancing around, Tammie shared, “Let’s find a tobacchi shop, or a public transport machine to buy tickets for our bus and Metro rides for tonight and tomorrow morning.”

Looking down the street, I questioned, “How are we going to find a tobacchi shop? There are so many store fronts, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Tammie assured me, “Tobacchi shops are all over. You can spot them easily because they always have a large blue or black sign with a huge letter ‘T’ hanging over their door.”

We spotted one of the iconic tobacchi signs at the same time, just half a block away. Before stepping into the store, my daughter mused, “Let me think, we need tickets to get to the bus terminal tonight and tickets to return to our apartment. Then, we’ll need tickets to and from our pantheon visit tomorrow.” I nodded in approval. Tammie was good at planning ahead and she knew how to use the public transport system. Compared to her, I felt like a country mouse visiting the big city for the first time.

I followed my daughter into the tobacchi shop and looked around. Like many shops along the streets of Rome, it was small, but offered a vast array of services. Besides selling transport tickets, this store served as a mini post office, a place to pay utility bills, buy phone cards, stationary, candy, trinkets, and lottery tickets. It appeared to be a cross between America’s 7-11 store and a gasless gas station.

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Roasting Chestnuts

Feb7
The chestnut shells looked charred from the grill.

My daughter brightly chirped, “The outdoor market we’re visiting is just a short walk from here.”

I chuckled. I’d heard Tammie say, ‘It’s just a short walk from here’ every day, sometimes several times each day, since we’d arrived in Rome a week and a half earlier. She especially liked to share this information within moments of stepping out of a bus or subway car to reassure me we wouldn’t be walking a long distance. Often, the two blocks felt like miles to me.

Each small shop called to me as we passed, “Stop and shop!” I was drawn to a leather purse, a table runner, and a bottle of Limoncello. Although I’d shopped every day for the last ten days, everything looked fresh and interesting as though I was seeing it all for the first time. Tammie laughed at my enthusiasm. I grimaced and admitted, “You know what’s going on, here, don’t you? We’re flying home tomorrow, and this is our last day of vacation.” Pausing, I continued solemnly, “One summer day when your grandma had terminal cancer, she shared with me that the sky had never looked bluer, and the tree leaves never looked more vibrantly green to her.”

My daughter nodded in understanding of my analogy and added, “Knowing she’d never experience another summer, she wasn’t taking anything for granted.”

The narrow Italian street we were walking, came to a large open, cobblestoned, oblong piazza, filled with water fountains, statues, and crowds of people. Tammie asked, “Do you remember this place?”

Amazed, I looked around and exclaimed, “We visited this place on our second day in Rome, but we entered from the side furthest from where we are now.”

Pointing to a side street, Tammie announced, “The open market is one block away. I can see some sales booths from here.”

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44 B.C. Crime Scene

Jan31
Crime scene In Italy, over two thousand years after the crime.

I looked forward to seeing the spot where Brutus killed Julius Caesar, but every time my daughter Tammie and I talked about going there, she kept talking about, “Santuario dei Gatti di Torre Argentina” which could be found at the same location. “It’s a cat sanctuary,” she excitedly informed me. I had the distinct impression she was more interested in seeing the cats than seeing the famous Emperor’s historical murder site. The incongruity of the two sites sharing the same space was lost on me.

My interest focused more on the 2,067-year-old crime scene. Not knowing what it would look like all these years later, I wondered with a chuckle, “Would there be a large ‘X’ marking the spot where it happened, and yellow tape cordoning off the area?”

When we arrived at Largo di Torre Argentina (Tower Square), the place managed to surprise me. It was a large open space the size of a city block, surrounded on all four sides by tall, solid buildings, some of which were ornately decorated. Within the walled-in block there were many ancient pillars and paving stones below street level, which dated back to the Curia of Pompey, the Roman senate building, the very spot where Caesar is believed to have been assassinated. Also contained within that block were the remains of four Roman temples built there in the centuries following the crime.

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