A Special Day

“Birthdays are good for you.  Statistics show that the
people who have the most live the longest. ”
Larry Lorenzoni”

February 29th is a day like any other for most of us but imagine if this is your birthday.  As a small child you would have wondered why everyone else celebrates a special day each year; so would your mother and father decide that you would celebrate on the day before or the day after the 29th?

Aeons ago, when I was at school, we had a girl who had been born on February 29th.  Her parents had told her how very special this made her and in the days leading up to the 29th she was insufferable.  I am not sure how we treated her in the three years that she didn’t have a birthday but I am sure that we repaid her for her superiority in the fourth.  Teenage girls…

I have a special blogging friend, Lenore Diane whose birthday is March 1st.  Luckily she missed the 29th February day if in fact she was born in a leap year.  So happy birthday for tomorrow Lenore Diane.

In yesterday’s post Lenore posed the question ‘do I know you?’  As she says, we have many virtual friends now in the bogging world.  After beginning my blog on March 1 last year and somehow attracting people to it, I now consider those with whom I interact in this way, either regularly or infrequently as the case may be, as my friends.

Oh I wouldn’t know you if I passed you in the street – unlikely because I live so far away from most of you – but I feel connected to you because you share your thoughts and feelings so openly with me/us.

So on this special day I should like to say Thank You to everybody whose blogs I follow and to those who follow mine.  I feel that I have come to know many of you during the year.  I have learned a little about your lives that in many instances are so different to mine, and some whose lives run on almost parallel lines.  I shall continue to read and comment on your blogs (that is if WordPress and Akismet ever get their acts together to allow me to comment again).

I look forward to another enjoyable year reading and learning more about you.

As I am going to be away for the next few days there will be no posts on this blog.  But I shall be back after the wedding with much to share with  you.

Related articles

• Leap Day (dougpete.wordpress.com)
• Taking THE Leap: Leap Year (socyberty.com)

And the winner is…

Well I was going to write about this film.  We saw it last week but now everyone knows about it because of its Oscar Best Actor award for Jean Dujardin

By now you all know the story of George Valentin a silentmovie great who refuses to acknowledge the advent of the talkies and is sure that it will never take off.

When he is at his height he befriends a new comer and yes you have guessed it, she becomes a hit of the talkies and an even greater star.  He falls from grace and is reduced to selling his artifacts and belongings and yes, again you have guessed it, she has somebody at the auction to buy everything.

The plot could have been written by any one of us .  The acting, minus a sound track, is no doubt what won the best actor award for Jean Dujardin but for me the actress who played Peppy – Bérénice Bejo – stole the show.

And again for me, the highlight of the movie was the tap dancing which the pair perform together at the end of the movie – click here to watch if you haven’t already seen the film.  Or even if you have, it’s worth a second or third, or fourth watch.  This is worthy of comparison with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell – click here to see their dance routine.

No doubt the move away from the norm was much of the appeal of the movie to the powers that be, but frankly if left me thinking that I had seen so many much better movies during the year.

poster via Wikipedia

Last week we also saw The Descendants.  Of course any movie starring George Clooney has my vote.  In this he really shows his acting skill, demonstrating that he is so very much more than just a pretty face.

Once again, you no doubt know the story.

Matt King is a Honolulu-based lawyer and the sole trustee of a family trust that controls 25,000 acres of pristine land on the island of Kaua’i. The  rule against perpetuities means the trust will expire in seven years so the family decides to sell the land for development.   Just before the family formally endorses the deal Matt’s wife Elizabeth is involved in a boating accident and rendered comatose.

There are two daughters, 10-year-old Scottie and 17-year-old Alex.  Matt is not very close to his daughters but with his wife in a coma he is forced to confront Scottie’s inappropriate behavior with other children and Alex’s destructive behaviors.

Of course, as in all good stories the family pulls together when it is clear that the decision has to be made to pull the plug on Elizabeth.  Meantime, Matt discovers through his elder daughter that Elizabeth has been having an affair with the developer ti whom the trust proposes to sell the land on Kaua’i.

In a scene which for me, shows Clooney’s talents well, he confronts the developer and invites him to his wife’s bedside so that he can say his goodbye.  Of course, the developer does not attend, but instead his wife does.

It is a convoluted story but to my mind, much more interesting than the ‘hackneyed’ story told in The Artist.

Related articles

• Jean Dujardin wins best actor Oscar for The Artist (mirror.co.uk)
• Festivals, Fairs, and Fetes On Kaua’i: April, May, and June 2012 (kauaikolea.wordpress.com)
• …Pass It On (the2womancrusade.com)

More Meanderings on a Monday

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”  ~Erma Bombeck

Well it’s Monday again and now that I am ‘retired’ it is just like any other day.

Mondays have been blamed for many things including comparatively minor things like absenteeism and major things like a school shooting.

The song “I don’t like Mondays” was written by Bob Geldorf and became a number one hit in the UK for the Boomtown Rats.  Geldorf has said that he wrote the song after reading a report about 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer,   On 29 January 1979 Spencer opened fire from her house across the street at children playing in a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California.  She killed the headmaster and the custodian and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime and her full explanation for her actions was “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

I have never been pushed to act in this way even on the occasions when Monday and another working week loomed.  I admit to having occasionally considered a Monday morning “sickie” but quickly dismissed this because as we all know this is the first hint of problem drinking or drug taking.

What else is lurking in this brain on this Monday?

We all hate SPAM but what I hate as much is finding comments made by regular readers and commenters sitting in my Spam folder.  And I really hate that comments I make end up in someone else’s spam folder.

I spent one whole day last week playing catch up – reading and commenting on your blogs and felt very pleased with myself until none of my comments would appear on your blogs.  Perhaps because I made so many comments Akismet thought I was a spammer.  May I ask you to please open your spam box to see if my non-spam comments are lurking there.

Recently Elizabeth at Mirth and Motivation wrote about this and it is clear that I am not the only one to suffer this way.  I have written to both Akismet and WordPress as Elizabeth suggests and am awaiting an answer.  In the meantime, I do hope that you will check your spam box.

Image via Wikipedia

Today the sun shone but it was more like an autumn day than a late summer day.  So after working with my Real Estate Agent friend, we went off for lunch and each had a steaming bowl of French Onion Soup at a local French bakery/cafe.

It was exactly what was needed after a busy morning and certainly set me up for the follow up things I had to do in the afternoon.

Then a call from my daughter found me having a cup of coffee at a coffee shop near her office.  She is so busy that I usually have to make an appointment to see her but today she had time and so did I.  As an added bonus I got to see my two youngest grandchildren, 14 and 12 years old, known by and to their Granma as Darling No 3 and Darling No 4.

Earlier my daughter had told me about her youngest son.  He had been badly behaved yesterday and she had set him a task to clean the inside of the car in retribution.  He didn’t do this and so she took away his mobile phone and told me that he was grounded until his 15th birthday.

It was such a funny tale and improved with her telling of it.  His final riposte was that he was reporting her to the police and she would end up in court for stealing his phone.  Apparently he had bought the phone and so in his mind, she couldn’t take it from him.  I laughed so much as she told me the story that the tears ran down my cheeks and I arrived at my friend’s house to work with mascara runs down my face.  What a good look for a Monday!

So nothing really changes.  I remember the same kind of discussion and penalty (not of course a mobile phone but some other thing necessary to his well-being) when my son was that age.  Children continue to back themselves into a corner that they can’t get out of and it’s only as they grow a little older that they see what they are doing.

So another Monday comes to a close.  And tomorrow we start all over again.

Related articles

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The Big Yellow House

Several years ago when visiting my sister in Los Angeles we spent a few weeks driving through California, stopping occasionally where and when something caught our eyes.

We drove hundreds of miles during those weeks and of course, I have many notes in my notebooks about this.

I particularly remember one place where we stopped for lunch was the Big Yellow House.  This was one of my sister’s favourite places to eat.

My memory is that the restaurant served straightforward American fare   Mashed potatoes and turkey, pot roast and corn on the cob, big bowls of salad; large bowls of soup notably minestrone or chowder with baskets of hot, freshly baked rolls just begging for butter.   Then generous slices of fresh-baked pie with a dollop of ice cream melting on top followed and completed the meal.  We were both full by the time we left.

Because I was intrigued by the building I decided to do some research into its history.  I learned that the historic structure was built as a private residence by Mr H.L. Williams, the founder of Summerland, in 1884.  And then I discovered that at some stage it had been used as the focal house for a spiritualist community that later became known as Summerland.  There are tales of hauntings; of sightings of a large dark-skinned man surrounded by several other ‘spirits’; of things being moved supernaturally, and other unexplained occurrences.

Dr John Griffin PhD who has written of his experiences at the Big Yellow House bemoans the fact that he with various  friends and colleagues didn’t mount ” a scientific study, complete with instrumentation, of what seemed to be a genuine, multi-spirit haunt.” He goes on to say “Over the years, however, there have been various investigations of reputed haunts where spirits have not only been observed, but anomalistic readings on instrumentation have also been recorded. ”  Read more of this at http://www.worldu.edu/library/big_yellow_house.htm.

Note – Of course I hadn’t heard the term anomalistic and so went to our trusty friend Wikipedia where I learned

“In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, without the assumption that there is anything paranormal involved.

On the hypothesis that paranormal explanations do not exist, researchers try to provide plausible non-paranormal accounts, supported by empirical evidence, of how psychological and physical factors might combine to give the impression of paranormal activity when, in fact, there had been none. Such explanations might involve cognitive biases, anomalous psychological states, personality factors, developmental issues, the nature of memory, the psychology of deception and self-deception.”

The property was purchased in the early 1970s by John and June Young.   June Young was one of the founders of Santa Clause Lane and she promptly painted the large house bright yellow with a bright orange roof. The house could not be missed and The Big Yellow House was a landmark for many years.  I was intrigued to learn that for many years, children’s meals were priced ‘by the pound’ – not the food, but the children. Those under 10 years old would be weighed on a large scale and their meals priced accordingly.

Whatever the truth of hauntings and supernatural occurrences, I was very sad to hear that the building was the subject of a mortgagee sale in 2010 and so the restaurant had to close.  But now I am heartened to learn that it has been bought by a local Santa Barbara developer who is looking for tenants.  I hope that one of the tenants is a restaurateur who might continue at least some of the things that made The Big Yellow House famous.

“He may live without books – what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope – what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love – what is passion but pining?
But where is the man who can live without dining?”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, English statesman and poet. (1831-1891)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..Note 2 – Still having trouble with posting comments on other people’s blogs.  Perhaps the ghost of The Big Yellow House is haunting me!

Related articles

• Richard Wiseman discusses Paranormality on For Good Reason (randi.org)
• How can you find out if your body is haunted by ghosts? (demonizerdoom.wordpress.com)

Gremlins in the air?

“An apology is a good way to have the last word.” Anon

After a few weeks of being so far behind in reading the blogs I follow, I eventually spent all day yesterday glued to the computer reading, reading, occasionally commenting and often clicking ‘like’.  So now I am caught up and today have only 32 items in the inbox.  Hoorah!

But now I think I must have offended WordPress in some way.  I have tried to respond to various bloggers today and after pressing ‘post comment’ the comment has disappeared into the ether.  So for the many bloggers I follow and particularly those who have mentioned my blogs in their posts – Elizabeth at Mirth and Motivation and Caterel at caterel.wordpress.com and therefore deserve a response from me, I offer my heartfelt apologies.  Hopefully, whatever the gremlin is it will disappear later today.

____________

I recently came across this quote from Stephen Levine, poet, author and teacher.  It’s in his book A Year To Live

“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?  And why are you waiting? ”

Who would I call?  My two sisters on a three-way call.  Why my sisters and not my family?  Because my sisters would not be able to be with me while my children and grandchildren are here in New Zealand and able to come to me.

What would I say? I would tell them how very special they both are to me.  What important parts they have played in my life.  How I have missed being and sharing with them over the years.   And if it was at all possible, I would wish to be all together again. It is now 12 years since we were all together (and that was for Mother’s funeral).

Why am I waiting?  I am not.

So think about it.  Who would you phone, what would you say and why are you waiting?

A stiff apology is a second insult…. The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.  G.K. Chesterton, English author, poet and playwright.  1874 – 14 June

Recent posts on sisters

• And the best friends of all are sisters
• Ode to a sister
• For my sisters

Words, Words and More Words

Isaac Kaufmann Funk ( 1839 –  1912) was an American Lutheran minister, editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformer.    He is most well known for  The Standard Dictionary of the English Language published in 1893.   We are told via Wikipedia that “He worked with a team of more than 740 people.  His aim was to provide essential information thoroughly and simply at the same time. In order to achieve this he placed current meanings first, archaic meanings second, and etymologies last. ”

We know that he collaborated with his classmate, Adam Willis Wagnalls and the I K Funk company was renamed Funk and Wagnalls and the encyclopedia was renamed Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Encyclopedia in 1931.  It was later renamed New Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia, Universal Standard Encyclopedia, Funk & Wagnalls Standard Reference Encyclopedia, and Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia.quoted the best 10 words in the English language.as :

I read somewhere (?) that Isaac Funk considered the following the best ten words in the English language:

• Mist
• Hush
• Luminous
• Murmuring
• Dawn
• Chimes
• Lullaby
• Melody
• Tranquil
• Golden

These are in no particular order and I wonder how he arrived at this list of ten.  Certainly they are all gentle words with no harsh sounds or undertones.  Was he a gentle man looking to find equally gentle words?  I wonder

My choice of 10 words would be (again in no particular order):

• Love
• Gentle
• Friendship
• Family
• Giving
• Safety
• Tranquil
• Tenderness
• Acceptance
• Delight

What would your words be.  It’s fun to limit the choice to only 10.  Of course, there are many, many other words I could have chosen.  Why did I choose these?  They are all gentle words and maybe reflect where I am in my life’s journey now.

“But now the days grow short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
and it poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year”
As sung by Frank Sinatra – It Was a Very Good Year.

And for me, they have mostly been very good years!

And a final word today from the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE)

“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without
living wisely and well and justly.
And it is impossible to live wisely and well
and justly without living a pleasant life.” 

Some recent posts on words –

• A Lovely New Word
• Kangaroos
• Madman, Murderer and Words

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And if tomorrow never comes

“If tomorrow never comes will she know how much I loved her
Did I try in every way to show her every day that she’s my only one
And if my time on earth were through and she must face this world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes” sung by Garth Brooks.

It seemed that this was the song playing on every radio station on the day my husband died. For years when and if I heard it played I would immediately be transported back to that dark, awful day and would be close to if not in, tears.  I can now listen without the tears but still, remember that day.  Fast forward 14 years….

And  I have to ask how is it that we recognise other people’s children growing and becoming wise and not our own?  Do we still think of them as “our children” even when they are grown and have children of their own?

Recently I was discussing my late husband with a grandson aged 15.  He said that he hadn’t known Grampa but he knew from his parents and his aunt and uncle that he was a ‘good guy’ and that he would have liked to have known him.

Feeling in a rather playful teasing mood I responded that he wasn’t to be trusted as he had promised to love me forever and this wasn’t forever.  My son rapidly jumped in to tell us both that this was his father’s forever. He had loved me until he died and would continue to love me forever. Well, I can tell you that brought me up very short and in rapid time.  How come this child of mine now knows and sees things that I don’t?  All this time I thought I was the teacher and here he is teaching me.

I have had this thought with me for some 14 years – and yes, at the beginning it was an angry thought that over the years has mellowed to be a thought that I had from time to time.  My son has now put it into perspective.   I have always known that “when the student is ready the teacher will appear” and I know that the teacher can be our special other, friend, peer or as in this case a son.

Although my son doesn’t read my blogs I would like to thank him for this insight.   And I really love this quote from Walter M Schirra Sr.  His son is much more famous having been on all of America’s first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo).  But I should like to know more about WMS Snr.

“You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons.
And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out
to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.”
Walter M. Schirra, Sr.

 

One Year On

Today in New Zealand, there is only one thing uppermost in everybody’s mind.  Christchurch and the big one.

On February 22 2011 at 12.51 pm a devastating 6.3 earthquake shook Christchurch, killing 185 people and bringing chaos to NZ second largest city.

Today around the country and around the world, services and memorials are being held to mark this day and to pay tribute to those who lost their lives but also to those who made a difference – emergency workers, medical personnel, first responders, police etc.

Of course, all newspapers in New Zealand are carrying the quake as headline stories  Here’s what our Wellington papers the Dominion Post has to say:

“Today is a day for remembering. It is also a day for learning.

It is a day for remembering the students, office workers and passers-by who lost their lives when Christchurch was struck by New Zealand’s worst natural disaster since the 1931 Napier earthquake.

It is a day to remember the courage of medical professionals and ordinary citizens who risked their lives to help survivors trapped in precariously balanced rubble.

It is a day to acknowledge the forbearance of Christchurch’s inhabitants. It is a day to remember the search and rescue teams that came from Japan, Australia, the United States, Taiwan, Great Britain and Singapore to help search for survivors.

And it is a day to learn the lessons of February 22, 2011. New Zealand sits atop the boundary of two major tectonic plates  the Pacific Plate and the Australian Plate. Earthquakes are inevitable. The only uncertainty is when and where they will occur.

In Christchurch people died needlessly in some cases because buildings failed to cope with stresses they were supposed to be able to withstand, in others because unreinforced masonry buildings damaged by the September 4 quake that preceded February 22 were allowed to stand despite presenting an increased risk to the public and in yet others because of the narrow brief given to engineers.

Instead of being asked whether buildings were safe to occupy, they were asked whether buildings had been structurally weakened by the earlier quake.

For some, the difference between a few words proved the difference between life and death. Cost and the preservation of historic buildings were put above public safety.

The tension between cost and safety is not unique to Christchurch. Here in the capital, the Wellington City Council estimates there are about 435 “earthquake-prone” unreinforced masonry buildings.

Another 350 buildings, built between 1940 and 1979, are classified as “earthquake risk”. To bring both groups up to 67 per cent of the standard for new buildings would cost close to $2.5 billion.

Plainly, that is unaffordable. Building owners have to be able to recoup expenditure through rents. Older buildings, no matter how structurally sound, are not going to generate the same returns as modern, purpose-built premises.

However, doing nothing is not an option either. Hard decisions have to be made and they have to be made soon. There is no telling when an earthquake will strike Wellington.

Some older buildings should be strengthened to preserve the character of the city. Others must be demolished because of the hazard they present, not just to occupants, but to passers-by.

With judicious planning what springs up in their wake can be just as much an adornment to the city as what was knocked down.

The Christchurch quakes were unexpected. Before the first quake struck seismologists were unaware of the faultline that lay buried beneath the city. The same cannot be said of Wellington.

A big one is coming. When it arrives we must be ready.”

Christchurch Cathedral is probably the most recognisable iconic building in Christchurch and there is strong resolve to rebuild a Cathedral in the City’s centre if the land is found to be stable.

Related articles

• One day one tornado and one earthquake 
• VIDEO: New Zealand quake: One year on (bbc.co.uk)
• The dark heart of town (theage.com.au)
• Darkness in the heart of town (smh.com.au)
• Taking a city from shell to shipshape (smh.com.au)

Rosemary and Thyme

Are you going to Scarborough Fayre
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.

Some of you will remember the line about parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme in the old British ballad  “Scarborough Fayre” and later made famous by  Simon and Garfunkel with their hit song  “Are You Going to Scarborough Fair”.

Well here in New Zealand we see a lot of sitcoms both from the US and the UK.  We were recently being shown a series called Rosemary and Thyme, the general theme of which is that two women each with a love of plants, get together to form a gardening partnership.  They are Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme hence the name Rosemary and Thyme.

Image via Wikipedia

No ordinary gardeners these.  Laura Thyme was married to a policeman, was in the police force herself and has a son who is also a policeman.  You can guess where this is going?

Rosemary Boxer was a former university professor and they share a passion for horticulture.

They are also amateur sleuths, with Rosemary being the intuitive one and Laura the practical one.  It seems that as soon as they start a new assignment some dastardly happening occurs.  Plots, conspiracies and killers abound amongst the gardens they are asked to tend and put right.  And in each episode there is a dead body and sometimes even two dead bodies.

A recent episode was entitled ‘Three Legs Good”**.  In it the two women are hired to help recreate  an old garden in Regent’s Park, London.  We are told that the garden was originally created by garden great William Nesfield.   Joggers, students, tramps and even nannies who have lost their charges, constantly interrupt them in their work.  Then their peace is shattered when a little three-legged dog leads the ladies to the body of its owner who has been murdered.

Another murder rapidly follows and they determine (before the police of course) that the original murder was a case of mistaken identity!  They adopt the dog and then in a convoluted way (such is the case in all these sitcoms) they find that the dog had lost its leg in a car accident.  Its master was driving the car with his married lover – she was killed in the accident and the dog lost its leg.

The show is peppered with shots of beautiful gardens, fantastic places to visit and quite often, lovely gracious homes in which they stay.

In all an innocent series and although there are murders and mayhem, we dont see the murders being committed.   The series takes me back so many years, when violence was not shown on television.

**The title Three Legs Good is an allusion to George Orwell’s book Animal Farm. When the animals first turn out the farmer and start running their own lives, their slogan is “Four legs good, two legs bad”. Eventually the pigs move into the farm-house and learn to walk on two legs, and the slogan becomes “Four legs good, two legs better.”

Our England is a garden, and such gardens
are not made
By singing: -“Oh, how beautiful!”
and sitting in the shade.
~Rudyard Kipling, “The Glory of the Garden”

Related articles

• DVD Review: Rosemary & Thyme – The Complete Collection (blogcritics.org)
• Adventures in Netflix! Episode 9: Rosemary and Thyme (with guest EmotedLlama) (soulishexhortations.wordpress.com)

Summer 2012

Look where it is pointing

We know it is summer.  Our calendars tell us so but the weather is anything but summery.  But wait – we have had four good days in a row.  Sunshine, mild (not hot) temperatures, no rain and no wind.  So yes it is summer.

I read the following on www.newzealand.com:

Summer in New Zealand means sizzling barbecues and salads, sauvignon blanc, swimming at the beach, and long lazy days at the bach or crib – Kiwi for a holiday home.

Well that is certainly what we expect but unfortunately this year it hasn’t materialised.  The site goes on to say:

From December to February, New Zealand is alive with the sound of crickets, and not just the insect variety. As soon as the weather warms up, Kiwis vacate the cities and head to baches, campgrounds and holiday resorts up and down the country.

Christmas is a time for relaxed al fresco dining, and the weeks leading up to it and those following are celebrated in Kiwi style.  I wrote about this in an earlier blog.

Image Dreamstime free

So you can expect to see an influx of Kiwis/New Zealanders in the northern hemisphere during your summer,  After all we have most certainly missed out here.

And just because I liked her and love her books –

If life is a bowl of cherries what am I doing in the pits.
Erma Bombeck.

Related articles

• A Kiwi Christmas (allpoetsaremad.com)