2013 Annual Review
I’ve never been very superstitious about the number 13, but
this year has made a believer out of me. 2013 - so long, farewell, and don’t
let the door hit your rear on the way out. But it really started in December
2012….
December: One of our young cats, Rajah, developed a urinary
tract blockage- on a Friday night of course. Emergency vet - $2000. And we
failed to get picture of him with his “poodle”
cut- they had to shave his legs and part of his tail for IV lines. Since he
needed to be watched for any other stones, he went to Wisconsin with us for
Xmas. He didn’t yowl the entire way - just for 2/3rds of the trip. We arrived
to find my mom in the hospital with flu. Two days later my dad could barely
breathe and after 5 hours with him in the urgent care center and then emergency
room, he was admitted. Meanwhile the hospital was trying to release my mom, because
they couldn’t get a rehab center to take her due to her flu diagnosis, but
eventually they did find a bed for her. Did I mention I had left my wallet in a
McDonalds in Pennsylvania on the trip? We did get it back, fully intact, on our
way back, but for the trip I had no license and all the cash for the trip was
spending quality time in the McDonald’s safe.
January At 5pm on Jan. 5, our cat Rain, the smartest,
bravest cat I’ve ever met, was in the
house. At 8:30 she had vanished into thin air. We tore the house apart, put up
posters, walked the neighborhood…nothing.
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| We love you Rain, wherever you are |
Jan 20 – Lela’s 9th
birthday. We had dinner out and went to Chris’s (Jamie’s mom) for cake since
she was not well enough to come out with us.
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| Lela's friends party and Family Day (January 25) went on but subdued as you can imagine |
Jan 24th Chris passed
away.
Chris’ burial on the 30th was private, just the family, at the Pinelawn National military cemetery in the same site as her late husband, Nick Pines.
We were all doing OK until the Marine guard presented the flag, “on behalf of a
grateful nation.” (Chris was a woman Marine in WWII teaching aircraft and battleship silhouette recognition.) There was an open house that afternoon for friends. Chris was a wonderful mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, great cook, and kept a warm and inviting home... but was not defined just by that... she had a career that she loved, traveled, read, wrote and was published, kept her mind sharp. She was kind and generous. She was active and contributed to her community in many ways. She did get her final wish, to go peacefully in her sleep in her own home. I am so grateful that the girls got to know and love her and be loved ... and are be old enough to remember the remarkable grace and strength that she exemplified.
February was not too bad – other than being February. Life went
on - the girls both had Girls Scouts, and ice skating, Lian TaeKwonDo, and Lela basketball, me thousands of volunteers
activities. We had Blizzard Nemo, but
after Sandy that seemed tame. I was one of 25 recipients of the Science Museum
of Long Islands achievement awards. We went to our Families with Children from
China Lunar New Year Party, but had to leave early as Lela started to come down
with the flu. Lela and friends performed in the school talent show, and it was
much better run this year - we were not there until after 11 pm.Jamie turned fifty something
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| That's a back walkover Lela is doing |
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| A trip to our favorite museum, Nat Hist, or the American Museum of Natural History |
March We went to the circus, which has become an annual
event. Lian got her green belt promotion in TaeKwonDo. Lian turned 8, and had a
slumber party. There were supposed to only be 6 girls sleeping over and several
others whose parents had responded would not be sleeping over, and a few
friends of Lela’s. Once the “going home” girls found out there was a sleep
over, they called parents and begged. Net result- 15 little girls doing
mani-pedi’s on each other, decorating cupcakes, and consuming anything with
sugar and not much else - wired to the
ceiling and getting up at all hours of the night. NEVER AGAIN!!!! Jamie got laid off- the small
marketing research company that he had worked for the last 6 years was barely
treading water and began to close down.
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| Easter Baskets |
April Since he had time to do some household chores, Jamie
decided to clear out some brush and weed trees in the yard - and accidentally
chain-sawed his leg. The girls and I were out, but luckily our neighbor ran
over, put Jamie in his car and took him to emergency. It could have been worse-
while he took a chunk out of his shinbone, he didn’t break the bone or hit an
artery or take out a lot of muscle. But he was laid up for almost a month, I
became his personal chauffeur, and he had to be wheeled into church for Chris’
memorial service. Lela started softball for the season, and the girls had a
packed schedule of birthday parties and play dates. I received an award from the
US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, which Jamie could not attend due
to his leg. Lela and some good friends accompanied me into NYC to receive the
award. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d10ed0d99d826b068525735900400c2a/2e5e212d26cb2c4785257b520055cd32!OpenDocument
May It was a wet month. School field day was cancelled
because while it was not unseasonably blistering as it usually manages to be, it
was mildly soggy. I proctored the exam portion of the LI Envirothon, being the
only judge who knew something about cows and range management (thanks to 4-H
waaay back in WI.) Memorial Day we marched in the local parade, girls and Jamie
(back on his feet) with the Girl Scouts, me with Community Chest, and I was
fired from my job of 13 years as Facility Manager with the church by the newish
rector. Yep it just gets better and better.
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| Puddle jumping s a favorite activity |
June HarborFest is a big event in town, I manned the
Manhasset Bay Protection Committee booth and Lela and friends performed at the
open stage. End of school events came thick and fast- class parties, class
picnics, concerts – Lela had started violin this year, so we were treated (and
I use that term lightly) to sawing strings. Field day was re-scheduled and was
a pleasant day for a change, but Lela’s last softball game got rained out. Lian
saw Dr. Sachs to start the process that will lead to her bone graft, probably
next summer. I was the docent for multiple
tours of Manhasset Bay sponsored by the Port Washington Library Nautical
Advisory Council – talking about the Bay is something I can do for an
indefinite period of time, but 2 two-hour tours back to back is taxing even for
me.
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| Recycled boat race |
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| Field Day |
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| Spring Concert |
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| Last day of school |
July The girls went to the Little Dragons Chinese culture
camp out east and stayed (without us) with friends for the week of the camp.
Jamie played with the Community Summer Band once again, four concerts in the
month of July. Jamie and Lela paddle in the annual Kayak Run, though Lela
decided to drop out when she got to my check in station - still she had paddled
over a mile. The girls started swim lessons with good friends.
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| I lead a group of young volunteers in cleaning the stream at Stannards Brook, a property that the Port Washington Parks Conservancy (which I chair) has been instrumental in getting restored |
August Lian’s cleft team sponsored a fishing trip on a
party boat for fluke. They are sneaky creatures. I think they stole more bait
than the combined weight of the 3 keepers that were caught – that was for the
whole boat, not just us. We took our usual trip out to WI. Sister Carrie and I
spent a chunk of that time visiting nursing homes to pick one for our mom, when
we weren’t hacking (sans chainsaw) at the burgeoning undergrowth that was once
my mom’s garden. I turned even older. Jamie got hired to a new job- a small marketing research firm
in Port. We went camping with friends at Little Pond Campground up in the Catskills.
It’s a beautiful spot and we were in the remote (walk-in) sites – but I’d
brought a hand truck so while it was not fun it wasn’t a nightmare. Jamie came
up the next day (yep I got to set up camp by myself – and with the help of our
friends- but we hadn’t put up the tent for 2 years and had not put the
instructions in the bag. It was interesting. ) We took a “moderate 2.9 mile”
hike. They failed to mention it was poorly marked and ¾ of a mile vertical
climb to start. Once we were up it was nice though. The hike we thought would
take 2-3 hours took 5, but I never go anywhere without food and beverage. A
black bear was terrorizing the campground while we were there, raiding coolers,
tents and cars, but it preferred the more densely populated drive in
sites. We did see bear scat but no bear
even though the girls were agog at the idea. Bobby the dog camped and hiked too
on his 4” legs. Check out my Pinterest board of our trip, http://www.pinterest.com/jwpines/little-pond-campground-ny/
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| Roaring waterfall in Ohio at
the Cuyahoga National Park on the way to WI- this is just after
torrential rainfall and heavy flooding |
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| The girls' favorite hotel |
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| Little Pond Campground, Andes NY |
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| Bobby the camper |
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| It rained just about every afternoon, as we were getting ready to cook dinner |
September School was off to a late start even though Labor
Day came on the 1st, because the week would have only had two school
days due to the Jewish holidays, so they punted to the 9th. Buying school
supplies at random in August seemed to have been a good strategy, since our
district can’t get it together to send out supply lists until the 3rd
week in August when there’s not much left. Lian decided she wanted a new look
before school started so she had a major haircut – enough to donate 9” to
Pantene’s Great Lengths which makes free wigs that are distributed by the
American Cancer Society. I volunteered to be a class parent for Lela this year
– Lian next year. So far it’s not too taxing. Lian’s 6th Family Day came around,
hard to believe it’s been that long. We had the annual International Beach Clean up, 18th year for me to Captain the event. The Bay is a lot cleaner, we work hard to make 100 pounds of debris these day, down from tons.
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| Beach Clean Up |
October The job Jamie had started didn’t work out – it was
a start-up and everyone there was 20 years younger. Chris’ house sold the first
weekend it was on the market and closed in mid-November, the end of an era –
and leaving multiple boxes of stuff from her house stacked up in ours. For the kids, all things Halloween took
center stage. Lela decided she wanted to be Katara, a character from the Nick
series Avatar the last Airbender. Yes there is a costume for that, snapped up
from Party City. Lian was more conventional with a mermaid ensemble. We had a
warm up event, Halloween on Main St. where the kids trick or treated the shops
– which started last year in the aftermath of Sandy when many neighborhoods
were unsafe with power lines and trees strewn about. I did the Halloween party for Lela’s class,
oops class parents do have to do something. I scoured the online craft sites and
came up with six activity stations, and decided to go easy on the snacks since
sugar overload was now only hours away, pretzels, juice, gluten and nut free
cupcakes baked by another mom, and yes some candy. The girls went out with
friends in our neighborhood, but by 7:30 it had started to drizzle so everyone
crammed into our tiny living room to swap candy. A good time was had by all.
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| At the school Halloween parade, which was nearly canceled due to post Sandy Hook security concerns |
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| We went to the Rise of the Jack O' Lanterns a fun, but freezing event with thousands of carved and decorated pumpkins |
November Kicked off with a Rainbow Loom party for FCC that
Denise S. and I put together. We had about 40 people show up –in case you have
been under a rock, it’s the latest kids’ craze- making jewelry and other items
from small rubber bands. Following in her sister’s footstep Lela decided
(finally ) to cut and donate some of her long, long hair. It’s still past the
middle of her back.
We volunteered at Garvies Point Museum for the Native American Feast. I am the native foods maven and the girls are now old enough to help out too. Tuesday the 23rd was the annual interfaith
thanksgiving service, re-scheduled from Wednesday to avoid landing on the first
night of Chanukah, or Thanksgivekah. This year we went down to North Carolina, Raleigh/Durham area, for Turkey Day.
Jamie’s mom came from there and we met all the Rose relatives. We were scheduled to depart the Wednesday at
5am, as a soggy Nor’easter roared up the east coast. We actually made it out
the door at 6:15 but that was not early enough, between T’Day escape traffic
and pouring rain. We made ‘Jersey about 2 hours later and then it wasn’t too
bad until we got around DC – and then crawled in the mass of traffic, doing
about 40 miles in 2 hours. We got into Raleigh over 12 hours after we had left,
just in time for dinner – an 8 hour trip according to Google maps, not. Jamie and I took a late night trip to the Evil Empire to get my new camera, Target, Costco and Amazon had let me down. Since we were out of town, Jamie and Lela
signed up to run in a 5K Turkey trot down in NC to continue the tradition, and
we barely made the start time of 8am in the sunny but freezing morning. I will
simply refer to all of Jamie’s relatives as cousins as I don’t have a genealogy
chart handy. We stayed with cousin Johnny and his wife Edna and had
Thanksgiving at their daughter Kelly’s house with her family, husband James
and children Kirby (girl) and Liam (boy) so now we had two James and Lian and
Liam. Jamie’s sister, Christy, had already arrived via plane, and was whipping
up some traditional Pines T’Day treats like corn pudding. Too much food was
eaten by all, including not only the traditional turkey but a slow-cooked,
pulled pork, yum.
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| Cousins bonding over a mutual love of My Little Pony Equestria Girls |
The next morning I awoke very, very early with severe indigestion, so
after eating a pile of Tums decided, “I’m up, might as well go Black Friday
shopping.” Thank goodness for GPS because otherwise I would have had no idea
where I was going. Arrived back at the house in time for a quick shower and
then it was off to Southern Pines to Cousin Rob’s house for an oyster roast.
It’s about an hour and a half drive through the piney woods. He has an
interesting mid-century modernist house,
which looks to my eye to be the Carolinas version of the Frank Lloyd Wright
prairie school. Two shallow pits had been dug in the yard, one to burn down the
red oak into coals and the other for the coals over which a piece of sheet
metal, topped by oysters and then a wet gunny sack to keep them moist, so they
steam in the shell. There was a sheet of
plywood with cutouts over two trash cans for convenient shucking. Rob’s sister,
Merrill, Johnny, Edna, Kelly and gang, Jamie’s brother Kirby and wife Marie were
there, so now there were two Kirbys, in addition to about two dozen of Rob and
Meryl’s friends. The kids had a great time playing in the big rope hammock
while the adults swigged quantities of Milk Punch, Ginger cocktails and beer
along with the oysters and country ham and biscuits. We arrived back in Raleigh
in time to take Johnny and Edna out for a dinner of BBQ- east North Carolina BBQ that is, which
is served with a spicy vinegar dressing,
not to mention hush puppies, slaw and potato salad made with pickle relish. Yes
even more food. We departed for home Saturday about 10am, and as I write this
the sun has set and we are on a two lane highway somewhere in Maryland, having
abandoned Hwy 95 around Fredricksburg
for local roads. The GPS says we will be home at 9:29, I’m guessing more like
midnight. (10:45 – we split the difference)
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| There's a long story behind this mule |
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| Most of the relatives, L to R, Kelly, Merrill, James holding Liam, Johnny, Kirby and Rob |
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| Impromptu concert |
December We will head out to WI and hope for better times. But first - the Annual Cleft Team Holiday Party at the Long Island Children's Museum
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| First Santa of the season |
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| Craft table |
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| An indoor sandbox, what could be better |
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| Native American drum. Lela is studying the Iroquis in 4th grade |
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| Fun with mirrors |
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| Lela and I went into the city to meet with some Facebook friends |
Pet update:
After Rain had been gone for 5 months we had pretty much
given up hope. Then I got a call from a lady who had seen our poster at her vet,
and she said she thought Rain was coming to her patio to eat- but she lives
quite a ways from us. I went to see the cat and I was sure it was Rain. She was
trapped but once we got her home I realized while this cat was nearly identical
it was not Rain- this cat had never had her jaw broken. She was already fairly
social, so we named her Stormy and she joined the pack. I hope that someone did
that same thing for Rain that we did for Stormy. We miss you Rain.
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| Stormy |
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| Rain - you can see how a mistake could be made |
We are pretty sure that Tiny is Tiger’s brother- and we’ve
seen him around the neighborhood for the last few years, and he seemed social,
so I trapped him to see if it would work out. He loves people, sleeps on top of
us, demands petting - but he does not like the other cats except BigEyes and
especially dislikes his brother – and to express his displeasure he would
periodically pee on our bed - while we were sleeping. Nothing like having to
change the bed at 3am. That seems to have subsided thankfully or Tiny was going
to lose his happy home. He is really Tiny, weighing in at about 5 pounds.
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| Tiny |
And last came Lilly. Lilly appeared this fall and was very
friendly, but unclipped (neutered ferals have their ear tip clipped to identify
that they have been “done.” ) We bagged her but had missed the free spay clinic
by days and it’s only once a month. Lilly had such a relaxed personality that
we turned her loose to mingle. It was then that I noticed as she scampered up
the stairs ahead of me that Lilly had little fuzzy balls, so Lilly became
Willy. Willy and Tiger have become best buds and stage mock attacks all over
the house.
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| Willy |
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| The three newbies |
So now we have (in age order) BigEyes, Patch, Stormy, Tiny,
Tiger, Simba, Rajah and Willy. I saw a magnetic cat that I think may
end up in my Xmas stocking – “One cat away from Crazy Cat Lady.”
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| Most of the crew, from L to R, Simba licking brother Rajah, Willy, Stormy, Tiny and BigEyes. Tiger was downstairs and Patch was under the bed |
Three Deaf Crayfish doesn’t have quite the ring of 3 blind
mice, but that’s who has taken up residence in a fish tank in the girls’ room,
courtesy of a 4th grade science project. (Crayfish don’t have ears,
they “hear” by feeling vibrations.) They are named Fuzzy Boo, Buddy, and Killer.
Killer is the boy. Update- Fuzzy Boo’s
claw tips have turned red so he’s a boy too. Buddy molted and they stuffed the
molted exoskeleton into the bottom of the plastic aquarium plant, weird. Next
spring they go in the backyard pond, but it was already too cold. Oh, in
addition to the 40 odd goldfish in the pond, a bullfrog arrived this year, two
originally, but the feral cats that haunt our back yard got one. How it got
there is a mystery since we are in a nearly urban part of suburbia.
Bobby the dog is a traveling dog- he went to Wisconsin and camping but didn’t come to NC with us, but was housed by
our friends, the Massingills. He was last seen terrorizing Aldo, their enormous
Italian Spinoni, whose head is bigger than Bobby’s entire body. He continues to
be cute, perky and annoying – we have not been able to break his begging habit.
My old camera died early this year and I’ve been using the
girls’ cameras, not top quality. I just got a new one Thanksgiving eve, a Canon Powershot 50 (long
story involving having to resort to the Evil Empire) so the quality and
quantity improve at that point.Sometimes you just have to stop and enjoy the beauty before you - and shoot it.
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| Love that new 50x zoom |
And I've also taken up Genealogy. I found out that my 6x Great-grandmother was from the Narragansett tribe in Rhode Island. That two of my great-great-great grandmother's sisters took wagon trains west to Oregon in 1852 only two years after they has arrived in Wisconsin from Wales. Yep, Wisconsin, and only about 40 miles from where my parents house is now. G-G-G grandma Grace followed them west in 1879, after farming in WI for 30 years. Thanks to my mom who had started to research and gave me her papers, my "cousin" Dorothy who has done the Wilson research and Cousin Bill who worked on the Armstrongs. My tree so far - still lots to enter and lots to figure out, http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Wilson-Family-Tree-15257
Our tiny, pet and fur infested house is cozy and warm, the
fridge full, we are reasonably healthy (and about to get our way too expensive
COBRA health coverage switched to Obamacare, yippee.), and we are
together. So a New Years’
(non-denominational) blessing. May you have a better year than we did! May you
have family and good friends to support you in times of trial, like we did. May
you find the beauty and blessing in what you have. A Healthy, Happy and Hopeful New Year to one
and all.
