Category: Musing (Page 23 of 31)

over Memorial Day weekend our family, grown now by two, met in Front Royal, Virginia to celebrate birthdays.

Specifically, Bayley’s.Because it was the big one. From left to right, starting in the back, Tom, me, Bayley, then Greg, Meghan and Dan. Nice, yes? It was a great time. We visited the Skyline Caverns. Tom, Greg and Dan had never been. Meghan, Bayley and I had been there in 1992. When we had the Passport Motorhome and traveled in the summer.

Twenty years ago. My. How time flies. The place is a marvel of eerie and almost unnatural views. To the left is the formation called The Eagle. See the wings spread out across the top? This took hundreds, thousands of years to form. Makes you feel a bit small, short lived, like the way we look at flies. We were treated to marvels. The ‘snowballs’ which are fragile formations that can deteriorate quickly when in contact with humans. Meghan and I both gasped when a man, also on the tour, reached around the netting protecting the

formation from touch and did just that. Touched! If I had been closer I would have slapped his hand. What responsibility to we have, my family and I to protect what is not ours, but is? Whether we were in the state in which we live, the United States or anywhere else, something as precious as what has developed over thousands of years should have the opportunity to be protected by all.

Ah, but I digress. The best part of the weekend was The Book. Tom did this for Meghan, and now it was Bayley’s turn. What a gift! When each of the girls were born I started a journal. LOL, I tried to write it as if I was them. Telling what was going on, putting in cards, bills, pictures, whatever was there to show their lives before they remembered. Before they knew to remember. But, alas and alack, it’s tougher than I could have predicted to keep the writing going. And, after a few years, the notes, pictures and other memorabilia ceased to be tucked into the books. For Meghan’s thirtieth birthday, Tom pulled out the book and all our pictures and updated hers with school photos, birthday pictures, ballet pictures, camp badges and the stuff that made up her years. And then it was Bayley’s turn and he did it again. I may have started it, but it was Tom who was able to give the girls a gift they could cherish, with their husbands, children’s, nieces and nephews.

A lifetime gift. Now, that is family!

June 6, 1964, forty eight years ago. Wow! I graduated from Bishop Alemany High School in San Fernando, California. For me it was a sunny Saturday starting off with a baccalaureate mass, then off to the campus up in the foothills between the Eden Park Cemetery and the Catholic Holy Cross Hospital for graduation. Garnet caps and gowns because our colors were garnet and grey. It was a good year. 1964. I had just turned seventeen. The beginning of the beginning for me.

But, historians remember this as D-Day, 1944, Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword. The five sections of the Normandy coast. Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, Dwight David Eisenhower. Ground force command to General Bernard Montgomery. An operation of land, sea and air elements.  The beginning of the end for Nazi Germany and the Axis Alliance. The day we took a huge chance and went after a terrible horrible enemy. Not just of the Allies, but of all humanity. Seems hard to believe now, when we use terms like Soup Nazi in Seinfield, or call our political adversaries ‘Nazi’, or Hitler. It seems amazing that almost seventy years ago we knew the face of evil. And now, some chose to forget it. We have graduated to a conversation built on hyperbole. hyperbole |hīˈpərbəlē|noun exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. But we do, and this is the norm. Perhaps it is the stress of the times; the economic stress, the bombardment in the news of the the bad news, the fact that your paycheck goes fewer places or that your tax dollars go to more places than you can afford. But it is a world where the worst is standard. When was the last time you heard good news that impacted everyone. Not the human interest story. Or the success of one. But where we, as a whole, understood what it means to be understated, moderate and human. Sometimes it seems as if the whole human race, all over the planet is in need of a new graduation, the beginning again!

Ever wonder why February only got twenty eight days, April, June, September and November only got thirty days, but seven months got thirty one days. I mean couldn’t they have distributed the 365 a little more equitably? I mean every month could have gotten thirty days, but there’s always that straggly little problem with the fact that you can’t evenly divide 365. There’s always something left over.

So. There are several different kinds of months. Who knew? Lunar month was the first, because the ancients could chart the moon’s phases, about 29.53 days.  There’s that pesky fraction again. Then the Sidereal month, divided the path of the moon into lunar mansions. The Tropical month had to do with the equinox and the position of the moon and this month was 27 days 7 hours 43 minutes 4.3 seconds. That’s probably why it didn’t last. Too many fractions. The Anomallistic month approximates the moon’s orbit as an ellipse rather than a circle, 27 d 13 h 18 min 33.2 s, but, since the moon’s orbit is not fixed this is a problem, not to mention, more fractions.

The Draconic month, which sounds rather fierce, 27 d 5 h 5 min 35.8 s, has more to do with the plane of the elliptic orbit and gravitational pull, but this is cool, The name “draconic” refers to a mythical dragon, said to live in the nodes and eat the sun or moon during an eclipse. And last is the Synodic month, the average period of the moon’s revolution with respect to the line going the sun and earth and running 29 d 12 h 44 min 2.9 s.

So how do you remember which months are which. This chart on Wikipedia is kinda cool and I don’t know why I didn’t know this before. But, Sigh, I didn’t. Now months, the word, came from the Egyptian God Monthu, was a falcon-god of war,  an ancient god, his name meaning nomad, originally a manifestation of the scorching effect of the sun, Ra. So that kinda makes sense. The war god, nomadic, having different names as the sun travels across the sky.

…what was it Mark Twain said? Every one complains about the weather, nobody does anything about it. Well. That was then. This is now. And now when it rains, what you hear is, ‘we needed that.’ Seriously? My back yard grass is green because it’s molding. Even the dogs have a problem going out there and pooping on the wet grass. And, who’s going to not agree? The dogs are right. It’s yucky. And, yet. My darling adorable husband continues to water the yard. The sprinklers are set for 6 minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I say, God is providing the water free of charge, turn off the sprinklers. But no.

Then there’s the puppies.  Missy, pictured, in her Thunder Shirt. Because when it storms we may be watering outside but inside she’s in the closet. I think the shirt holds her bones and skin together,  otherwise it would all just fall apart because of the shaking. Must be the ears. Because I feel certain Missy can hear the thunder in Virginia and we’re about a hundred plus miles from the next state.

Sammy on the other hand would rather be out in it, not just watching it through the study window. I do love the way the weather forecasters predict the percentage of chance that it might rain. Or snow. Or be sunny. Like they can really predict? No. But we tend to believe more and more, that’s why there’s a weather channel, which I find to be the most amazing channel on cable.

Okay, enough rambling now. I’ll leave you with a quote from George Carlin: Weather forecast for tonight:  dark

So. Bayley. Thirty years. Wowzer! Hard to believe it’s been that long.

Here you are at your college graduation. That was one big milestone. Congrats on that, baby daughter. And on the success you’ve had along the way, including  your marriage last year. You’ve done well. You’ve stuck to it. You’ve pushed when you should. You’ve pulled when that was the only way. And, by golly, you’ve made it to what I always think of as THE PERFECT AGE, Thirty. You’re still young, energetic and full of hope and yet, you have the confidence of some experience and the understanding that life is a journey, never a destination. So. Kudos!

You look older than twelve now, but not by much. You’re little [remember when you made five feet?], have a winning smile and a willing attitude and, truth be told, good things do come in small packages. So I wish you a very happy birthday and this Irish blessing.

May you live as long as you want,  And never want as long as you live.