kandas-adventures

Saying Goodbye to Oddity the Odyssey

Our Odyssey van was 14 years old and had over 150,000 miles on her.  We'd replaced the transmission, the timing belt, the engine mounts, and 2 sets of tires over the years, along with all the routine maintenance.   

But we were starting to learn the names of all the AAA guys in town.

Tow truck rides were becoming more frequent.  Yes, it was time to consider upgrading to a more reliable family vehicle.

Once upon a time she was new.  Back in late 1999 the 2000 Odyssey appeared with a full-minivan body (previous models were more like a station wagon), and were the hottest family vehicle on the market.  Demand was so high that we had our name on waiting lists at all the dealerships within 100 miles.  After a 2 month wait, a call came in December that a dealership 90 miles away had a shipment, and we had to come quickly if we wanted one.  I was stuck at work, so my husband and his brother-in-law headed out to get it.  It was an easy sale for the salesman, no work at all.  If we didn't pay the asking price (above list), there were plenty of others waiting on the list who would. Unfortunately my husband got the "base model," the one where you had to insert the key to unlock the door, manually open the doors, etc.  During the years to come when I was juggling two babies and bags of groceries in busy parking lots I would have really appreciated keyless entry, no matter what the cost.  That was my only regret about the purchase (other than paying full price).

When we first got our Oddy it was fun to find its brothers and sisters wherever we went.  Above, at Spencer Spit State Park, Lopez Island.

Mall parking garage

 On the street outside the elementary school

I've never been one to follow trends or fashions (the proof is in my hairstyle and wardrobe, which have been the same for 30 years), but suddenly I found myself surrounded by people who'd made the same vehicle choice as I had, and it wasn't like I was living in Cuba with a limited selection.  What surprised me the most was that everyone from welfare moms to Microsoft millionaires seemed to be driving them.

Oddy took many trips to the grocery store

There were more than a dozen trips to various hospitals, with A getting the frequent flier award in that category.

 The cavernous cargo space transported bird feeders to the nursing home (volunteer project I led).

And then there was Girl Scout Cookie delivery time... (5 years in a row)

 It carried a few Christmas Trees home over the years.

It helped with many a friends' moves, and hauled lots of furniture, including new beds and mattresses from IKEA.

 

 There was room for Grammy's giant wheelchair and hiking sticks for the younger set, and still room to seat 7.

Sometimes we ditched Oddy at transit stations and rode away on rails or buses, when we could have driven instead.  Just for fun.

 I loved having a vehicle that could transport my own kids plus several others.  It was especially handy when visitors came from far away...

Friends from England

Friends from Peru

A friend from Switzerland

School friends

Neighborhood kids

More neighborhood kids...

This photo was taken on the hottest day in Seattle history (106 degrees!), at 11:00 at night, in my mom's neighborhood.  The power had gone out, so people started gathering in my van to partake of the air conditioning in the van.  Pictured here in just a bathing suit is my mom's 70-something-year-old neighbor!

Here is our adopted great-grandma Charlotte, who lived in a nursing home. We loved to "check her out" for the day and take her with us on adventures and day trips.

The Oddy was our home away from home.  In the early years the girls could stand up in it.

Many hours of napping took place within.

ZZZZzzzzzzz.....

There were backseat picnics on the way to snow-shoeing in the mountains...

And tailgate picnics in the ferry line on the way to camping.

In the later years it became a place to do homework on the way to volunteering or Girl Scouts.

There was winter driving...

And then there was winter driving with chains on the tires...

 And days of no driving at all, like when I had a severe concussion (no driving for 2 weeks), and when the van was completely iced over during a storm.

 Oh, look, another Odyssey... no matter where we ventured, other Odysseys were with us.

She took dozens of ferry boat rides.

We went on many road trips with my mom as navigator.  (Crossing the 177' high Deception Pass bridge -- don't look down).

When I didn't have a navigator, I used my state-of-the-art GPS unit (a hand drawn map affixed to the dash with a recycled name badge sticker).

The van ferried over 70 foster cats and kittens between the shelter and home.  It was also a "quarantine area" when I brought sickly kittens in for tests.  It was safer to keep them in the van than to bring them into the clinic and possibly infect other animals with the fatal viruses some of them had.

A few medical procedures happened there.

Floormats and towels covering the seats got bleached, and I learned how to properly disinfect the van afterwards.

Some larger animals came into the van, too, though not fully (thankfully).

 Well, Hello there!

The van saw us through 13 camping seasons

 It wasn't the best for off-road clearance, but it sure could hold all our gear.

Sometimes it was a real battle to keep everything clean, especially while camping.  That yellow round thing in the photo above is a travel potty (essential for girls).  We used it for about 8 years.  I even used it once in an emergency!

Here the kids decided to swim in mud puddles at the farm.  How do I keep this mud from getting all over the inside of the van?

And just because they got older didn't mean they outgrew the puddle jumping urge.

It just means a bigger body = more mud.  "Mommy, I'm cold, can we go home now?"

For big messes, like the mud puddle escapades, the girls knew the drill -- I held out a towel beside the van while they stripped, then I wrapped them in the towel and buckled them in.  Muddy clothes went in a plastic bag to be dealt with later. I always had towels and sheets on hand for such occasions.

From the beach to the mountains, from Oregon to Canada, we went on many adventures together.

I enjoyed driving the Oddy, and it was part of our family in so many ways.  I held on to her for years after many of my neighbors traded up to Lexus SUVs or Cadillac Escalades.  I loved having a van, despite the "soccer mom" stereotype.  I could haul whole sheets of plywood, mounds of manure, a half-dozen kids, 2,000 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, big pieces of furniture, multiple bicycles, and much more.  If I was going to get rid of my van, I wanted another one.

During one of my busiest work weeks so far, when I was getting up at 4:30am and driving over 100 miles a day on my school bus, my husband found a used 2010 model Odyssey (with keyless entry!) at a nearby dealership.  I'd always told him that I wanted to be part of the negotiation process, unlike the last time, so that I'd get the features I really wanted (Fog lights!) at a reasonable price.  I did get my fog lights, and was present for some of the negotiation (which lasted 2 days), but I was so tired from work that I wasn't able to fully enjoy the process.  Perhaps if I'd been more rested I could have knocked another hundred off the price, but in the end the transaction was satisfactory.  The next day while I was at work my husband sold our old Oddy through Craigslist to a Middle Eastern man who was planning to drive it with his wife and kids to California.  I didn't even get to say goodbye.  I hope she's enjoying her new life with her new family.  She certainly served us well.

Farewell to Grammy's Pool

When my parents bought their house in the summer of 1965 it came with a ten foot deep in-ground swimming pool.  They didn't realize it at the time, but it was just a hole in which to throw money.  For the first decade it was lovely, in a way.  The back yard had a view of the Olympic mountains before the downhill neighbors planted fast growing, tall trees which eventually shaded the pool in the afternoon.  It's hard to see in the photo above, but along the skyline is the Olympic Mountain Range in the distance.

Even in the winter is was beautiful.  The problem with an outdoor pool in in Seattle, though, is that it is too cold to enjoy it for all but a couple weeks of the year.  First there was a gas heater, but the pool temperature barely got to 65 degrees in the summer, and it cost a small fortune to run.  In the early 1980's my mom (now alone after my dad left in 1975) decided to install a solar system, pumping water up to the roof of the house, where it circulated through a network of black rubber coils, warmed by the sun, then returned to the pool.  Some days in July and August the pool temperature would reach the 70s.  That system had to be repaired and replaced constantly, since Raccoons and rodents would get on the roof and chew through it, springing leaks.  

My grandfather and father working on the pool pump, 1973

The non-working pump, 40 years later.  

 

The bathhouse, with working toilet, built by my father in 1970.  Yeah, that's me, peeking inside.

The bathhouse, with broken toilet and inhabited by rodents and bats, in 2013.

Outdoor swimming pools were a rarity in Seattle because we have just two seasons here: the rainy season, and August.  Even August can be a chiller, with temps in the 60s and days of cold rain.  When the sun came out so did the neighbors.  Above is a rare occurance of people in the pool in late June.  That's me, 13 months old, with the yellow shirt and diaper, in my mother's arms.  In March of 1972, when my mother was 7 months pregnant with my brother, and the water temperature was in the low 40's, she was in the back garden with me when I ran too close to the edge of the pool, tripped, and fell in.   I sank ten feet to the bottom.  Thankfully my mom didn't go into premature labor when she dove in to the frigid water to retrieve me.  She wrote in my baby book that she had to pay $10.00 to get her watch repaired due to water damage, and that an hour after plucking me from the bottom of the pool she'd dropped me off at a babysitter and was downtown for a Coast Guard luncheon.

A fence was installed around the pool not long after my falling in.  Perhaps because of the near-drowning I was a reluctant swimmer, and my mom took me to several different private club and city pools over the years in an effort to get me swimming lessons that I would participate in.  Finally an instructor offered me a reward of grape licorice to get in the water, and then with that bribe, I eventually learned to swim.

My favorite time in the pool was late at night when we'd turn on the single light inside the pool and it would illuminate the water with a ghostly greenish-yellow glow.  Bats would circle overhead, and I would float on my back and watch them swoop down and catch moths inches from my face.  I tried to dare myself not to flinch, but I always did.

 Here is a shot of me in 1981, with my brother running the hose on a slide that we had hauled home from a house a few blocks away that was decommissioning their above ground pool.  We got about 15 years use out of it, before it deteriorated to the point that it became too dangerous to use.  

As kids, my brother and I spent a lot of time cleaning, chlorinating, and maintaining the pool.  My mom did, too.  It was a big job, 12 months of the year, in exchange for two or three weeks of swimming in the summer.  Several springs we had ducks arrive and set up a nest before we noticed, and then we had ducklings in the pool.  What a mess they made!  My least favorite chore, besides scraping algae off the inner pool walls with a brush, was retrieving dead animals from the bottom.  Each time I fished out a rodent or squirrel, I thought, "that could have been me when I was little."  Almost was.

Winter was a battle to keep the water circulating and the pipes from freezing.  One year it got so cold, for so long, that nearby lakes froze so solidly that people were out walking on them (a rarity in the Seattle area).  Several times a day we had to go down to the pool and break the ice near the intake and outflow, and check the pump.  Some years it was a losing battle, and the pipes froze, creating costly repairs.

We did all the maintenance, cleaning, and chlorinating ourselves, until my brother and I left home and my mom's arthritis began, then she hired a pool company to take over, unfortunately at great expense.

Here is Little K jumping in the pool in 2006.  Even though almost no one used the pool anymore, my mom continued to pay thousands of dollars a year to a pool maintenance service to maintain it, so it would look good when she decided to sell the house.  Once you let a pool go, it is even more costly to get it going again.

 

About 20 years ago my mom stopped maintaining the yard.  My brother and I (the resident labor) had left home and she certainly couldn't do as she got older.  The house and pool are built into a very steep hillside.  She couldn't afford to maintain both the pool and the yard, so she chose the pool. Things got overgrown quickly, leaving the pool in shade much of the day.

The past few years we only went in the pool once or twice a summer.  The water was in the 60s, at most, even on the hottest of days.  These photos are of the last swim: August 9th, 2013.  Only the girls were brave enough to go into the cold water. 

The pool hadn't been chlorinated or cleaned for a month, the pump was broken and no longer circulating water, and algae was beginning to grow.

By October the pool became brackish and dark.  My mom looked into decommissioning the pool by either filling it in, or breaking it up and re-landscaping, but the cost estimates went into the tens of thousands of dollars, given the hilly location (no vehicle access), and of course the insane cost of everything in Seattle.

It took almost a month for it to arrive after being custom ordered, but by December the pool was covered with a rigid cover, stretched taut and bolted into the concrete.  It was strong enough that it could be walked on, but most importantly, no one would fall in and drown.

I will never see the inside of that pool again.  It will remain covered, awaiting the new owner of the property, who will likely be a developer that will tear down my childhood home and build two or three houses under the city's new urban infill, higher density zoning.  Already in one block of the street I grew up on, 5 houses have been torn down, and 9 new ones have been built in their place. 

Down Memory Lane for Grammy

Today we were leaving Chicago and begining the part of this trip I had most been looking forward to.  We began by driving north to Wilmette, to the Baha'i House of Worship where my parents were married.

As my mom approached, hobbling along with a cane, and her other arm clutching my daughter A, I thought about how differently she approached this sacred building on her wedding day in 1965.

Here you see my father, right, and my mother linking arms with him, as they are married in the gardens.  They had met 6 months earlier when my mom brought her Volkswagen bug in for service at the Seattle dealership where my father worked as a salesman.  He tried to sell her a new car, and when she declined, he decided to sell himself, instead.  They had one date and then her father died suddenly and she went home to Wisconsin to be with her mother and sister.  He had no idea where she went or why, but kept calling (these were the days before answering machines).  When she returned to Seattle she was still reeling from the shocking loss of her father, and my future dad easily swept her off her feet.  She was his 3rd wife.  

If my mother had any idea of the heartache and struggle that lay ahead, I wonder if she would have turned and run.  I wouldn't be here if she had.

I was fascinated to learn more about the Baha'i faith.  My grandparents had become Baha'is in the 1930's, and my mother and her sister were raised Baha'i.  The faith does not have designated places to congregate.  Most of the gatherings occur in homes or public community centers.  There are no ministers, leaders, or preachers.  There are books and study circles, but each person's spiritual path is their own, and their relationship with God deeply personal.

The principles of the faith are really appealing to me, most notibly "fellowship with the followers of all religions."    The divisiveness of religions through history has sustained many wars, and I don't believe that God would condone war in His name.  I love that the Baha'i faith acknowledges other religions as equally worthy and valid.

There are just 8 "Houses of Worship" in the world, this one in Wilmette, IL being the first one.  Construction started in 1912, and it was 40 years until it was completed.  My parents were not married in the House of Worship -- no one is.  A House of Worship exists only for personal prayer and meditation, and a daily devotional service with recitation of prayers.  Ceremonies such as weddings can take place in the gardens, or in a meeting room in the basement.

It was powerful for me to take the photo above of my daughters and mother, on the exact spot where my parents stood on their wedding day nearly 50 years ago (see photo above this one).

Although the marriage ended in heartbreak after 10 difficult years, my mother was still happy to stand in this spot and refect on all the good that has come into her life in the 48 years since she last stood there.

The girls and I wanted to explore the 9 different gardens surrounding the 9 sided structure, but Grammy's legs were hurting so she elected to remain inside.  The bottom floor held a welcome center, bookstore, and meeting rooms, and the top floor looked more like a traditional cathedral but was strictly devoted to silent prayer.  We left her in a chair upstairs where she found joy in watching people come in to pray.  It wasn't long before the volunteer guide who was stationed near the door wanted to take a break and affixed her badge to Grammy, leaving her in charge or maintaining the silence, and directing those with questions downstairs to the visitor center.  Grammy was delighted to take on this task.

Unfortunately it was a rainy day.  How striking this white building would have been against a deep blue sky.

The ornamentation, architecture, and history of the building is amazing.  You can read more about it here.

I hated to leave, but we had a lot of "history ahead of us," and had to get on the road.  Just before the Illinois-Wisconsin border the sun came out and I pulled into a park where we had a typical tail-gate picnic.  You can see the girls in the background, swining on the swingset.

As we entered Wisconsin a fog rolled in off Lake Michigan.

By the time we reached Milwaukee it was like going back in the mists of time.  The fog became so thick we could barely see ahead of us.  As we drove along the waterfront at a snail's pace we noticed crowds of people gathering.  It was July 3rd, and the public firework display was to be that evening, so folks could sleep in on the actual holiday, July 4th.

I wish we'd been able to stop and examine this sculpture along the waterfront more carefully, but there was no parking nearby.

Just north of downtown Milwaukee, in a leafy suburb, sat my mother's childhood home.  In my hand I am holding a photo of my aunt at age 2 in 1940 on the lot where the house would be built.

Amazingly the house still stands, relatively unchanged in 73 years.

We knocked on the door, but no one was home.  The entire neighborhood was deserted -- everyone must be down at the waterfront awaiting the fireworks.  We walked up the driveway and peered around the back.  Most of the side and back had been paved, and a sunroom was added on to the back of the house where there once was a screen porch with a deck overhead.

Next door was the log cabin my grandparents built to have for rental income.  It too, was lovingly maintained and nearly the same, except that it had a circular drive paved across the front, and the lawn replaced with a garden bursting with colorful perennials.

A few blocks away we found my mother's high school.  We also found the Junior High and elementary, but they'd been remodeled/rebuilt and looked nothing like they once did.  from the moment we pulled into the neighborhood my mom was overwhelmed by memories, and stories of her youthful exploits came spilling forth in rapid-fire succession.  K and A, at just 11 and 13 years old, struggled to picture their hobbling grandmother as a girl their age, skipping on these sidewalks, attending classes at these schools, sleeping in that dormer bedroom with her sister.

I drove very slowly through the neighborhood.  Nearly every house held a memory for my mother, and as we passed she'd exclaim: "That's where I used to babysit... that's where my best friend lived... Oh, I wonder what happened to the boy who used to live there...."

All my life I have heard my mother's tales of her growing-up years in Milwaukee, but I had to imagine the scenery in my head.  Her stories mean so much more to me now that I know the layout of the neighborhood, can picture the houses, and can even fill in the appropriate flora and fauna.

It felt good to find the old neighborhood so well tended and the old houses true to the era in which they were built.  The same cannot be said for the Seattle neighborhood I grew up in, and I doubt my childhood home will stand very long after my mother leaves it.

The area where my mom grew up still has a small-town feel.  She was ecstatic to find the old neighborhood movie theater still in business.  

We ran out of daylight before our tour of Grammy's past was complete, so the next day we continued on.  Driving through the city, and then back out to the suburbs, her hand was pointing here and there, and a constant stream of memories tumbled out.  It was impossible for me to photograph everything and drive at the same time.  A couple of times I pulled over and recorded my mother describing something, but not as often as I would have liked.  We passed the hospital where she was born, the shops she used to frequent as a teen, the swimming pool where she splashed as a child and then sized up the boys when she was older. 

We found the college where my mom earned her degree in Occupational Therapy.

She graduated just before the campus was bought by University of Wisconsin.  A number of the old buildings remain, but they were under renovation when we stopped by.  Again, my mom had numerous tales to tell about her youthful adventures there.

We also found the house my grandparents had built in the late 1950's, a one-level ranch house to grow old in.  My mother lived here the last year of high school, and for a time in college when she wasn't in the dorms.  It was in the living room of this house that her father suffered a heart attack, calling out to his wife, "Jean...," before falling silent forever.

As we sat in the car looking at this house, with my mom recalling memories and me holding up a photo of what the house looked like as it was under construction, the current owner approached us.  We introduced ourselves.  She was a young Eastern European mother and she and her husband had just purchased the house a year before.  They had begun extensive renovation, removing the wood paneling and wrought iron railings my grandparents had installed half a century before. 

We ate a picnic lunch in a nearby riverside park, a place that had been popular for college kids to come on dates, stroll hand in hand, and steal kisses under the trees.  I tried to imagine my mother young and in love, walking these pathways in the late 1950's and early 1960's.

The day was passing quicker than I wanted it to, and we still had to drive back to Chicago and catch our flight home to Seattle.  

On our way to the airport my mom talked excitedly about coming back to Milwaukee again someday, bringing her sister, and spending several days reminiscing and trying to track down people she used to know.  I'd love to make that happen, but sadly I doubt it will.  My mother's cancer is progressing, her ability to walk is fading, and her sister is not free to travel because she must tend to her ailing husband.  We'll see what the future holds, but for now I am deeply grateful for having the opportunity to be with my mother as she revisited her past.


 

 

 

 

The Last Farm

For years I've admired the last 5 acre farm in our area.  Just 20 years ago there were still a dozen or so parcels of acreage sandwiched between subdivisions.  Each new development that went in grew denser and denser, from 4 houses per acre, to 6 houses per acre (including infrastructure and roads), and then came the apartments and townhouses, followed by a shopping center, gas station, car wash, and fast food joints.  Our once rural area is swallowed up by cul-de-sacs and drive-thrus.

The farm is next door to the local elementary school, so I looked longingly at it each day that I walked the kids to school during the past 8 years.  I dreamed of buying the farm myself one day, and planting an orchard, having a farm stand, pea-patch plots for the apartment dwellers down the road, and a giant pumpkin patch which the school children could visit in October. 

The area was logged and cleared in the early 1900's, and then became farmland.  Above is the barn on this property in 1938.

Here's the original farm house, built in 1934, ad photographed in 1938.  There are a lot of natural springs and wetlands in our area, so that is probably why the house is up on stilts.  That might be the outhouse out back to the left.

By 1948 the house had a proper foundation and basement.  

An addition and metal-clad windows made the house more modern by 1963.

By 1986 a new house was constructed increasing the size to 4170 square feet.

The new house was built to stand for hundreds of years, incorporatating massive old growth timber in a post-and-beam construction, and thickly insulated walls.  The owner built the house himself, as he was a master woodworker and structural engineer.

I'd said a few friendly 'hellos" to the old couple through the years, but last spring when I saw the "Proposed Land Use Action" sign go up, I finally got up the nerve to knock on their door.  The old woman invited us in, and the girls and I sat on the couch facing a beautiful stone fireplace while their cats circled us and we made small talk.  The property was for sale, and they were actively courting developers.  They'd gone through the process to get the 4.85 acre property rezoned to accommodate 29 houses.  

Eventually I cut to the chase and expressed my interest in the property, said I knew a few other families who might be interested in coming together to keep the property as farmland, and I raved about the magnificently crafted house, hoping it could be preserved.   The house would probably be torn down to maximize the potential for development.  

Her husband arrived home and introduced himself, and shortly after the girls and I left.  The visit hadn't gone as I had hoped.  The couple didn't seem to have any interest in selling to a non-developer, and I think I made them both feel sad about the reality of their decision -- that their beautiful home that they had designed and built, and lived in for decades, was going to be torn down.

A few weeks later when I was walking K home from school I saw the old man and some people on the back property line near the trail to the school.  I said hello, and a woman came forward and extended her hand.  She was the daughter of the older couple, and was a realtor.  The other people in the group were developers, and she was in the middle of a sales pitch.  Her dad was busy chatting with the developers, so I told her I was interested in the property, not for intensive development, but as a 4 to 6 family co-housing farming operation, and she handed me her card.  It was awkward, but I couldn't let my dream die without one last try.

Later I went to her realtor website and discovered that the property was listed for several million dollars.  My heart sank.  I might have been able to get a few friends together and offer a little over a million, but several million was out of the question. 

The property tax the old couple had to pay in 2012 was nearly $17,000.  Like many old timers, their property taxes had become unbearable due to the rezoning and encroaching subdivisions surrounding them.  They didn't like how their community had become infested with "garage-mahal" megahouses, how SUVs sped constantly by on what had once been a quiet country road, but most of all how they had to pay so much tax when nothing had changed on their property.  They were trapped.  Go into debt paying increasing taxes, or sell out to developers, that was what most of the old property owners had to do. 

 Thirty years ago their property (including house and barn) was valued at $122,00., and their tax bill just a few hundred dollars.  In 2012 the tax assessor valued the property and buildings (barn, garage, house) at $1,241,000.  They ended up selling it to a developer for $3,789,000.

They bought a new property further out toward the country for about 1/4 of the price they sold this property for.  They moved over the winter, and then in March I noticed the windows disappearing from the house and the barn.  For a couple of weeks I watched as the structures were stripped, and finally I stopped by to ask if I might dig some of the flowers and shrubs before the bulldozers arrived.  

I thought I would find the developer's wrecking crew, but instead I came upon a different elderly couple scooping up paving stones and tossing them into the back of their Subaru.  They were friends of the old couple, and said they'd helped build the house years ago, and were very sad that it was going to be torn down.  They said they had a smaller property further down the road, totally locked in by subdivisions, and that their home would likely suffer the same fate.  They seemed bitter, and I felt bad for them.

Soon the old man pulled up in his truck.  I asked if I could dig a few plants, and he said, "yes, help yourself."  

I dug some snowdrops and daffodils, took them home, and when I came back for some more, the old man's tone had changed.  He said this whole moving process was very difficult for him and he needed privacy, so he asked that I leave and not come back.  He looked as though he'd been crying.  I wished him well and left quickly.  

The next few weeks as I'd pass by on evening walks I'd see him laboring away well after dark, pulling up the flooring from the house, removing copper pipes, loading his truck with anything he could carry.

In the photo above you can see him carrying cabinet doors from the house.  It was sad to witness his struggle to leave, and yet he and his wife are now millionaires and their new property and home is even nicer than this one.  They'll be fine.  

I'm heartbroken over the loss of this "last farm."  K only has a few more months of school left, and then next year she'll ride the bus to middle school, so I won't have to walk the path to school past this property anymore.  It's the end of an era, the end of a dream.  

 

Farewell Charlotte 1921-2012

Our good family friend Charlotte passed away recently, a few weeks short of her 91st birthday.

Born in 1921, Char's was not an easy life, but she had an amazingly positive attitude and always looked on the bright side.  

I never knew Char as a child or a young woman, or even a middle aged woman.  It was the late 1970's when I met Char, who had seperated from her unstable husband, sent her only child off to college, and needed a place to live.  My mom let her stay in a room in our house, and later she moved into the basement apartment where she lived for nearly 20 years, before moving to a retirement community.

Almost immediately, Char was family to us.  Here we are in 1986 at the Space Needle in Seattle, my brother and I in our teens, my mom and Char still working full time as Occupational Therapists.

This photo is in our front yard in 1984.  Char and my mother's mom "Grams" are flanking an Ugandan medical student who was renting a room in our house while attending the University of Washington.   Char loved all people, and wanted to hear all about the lives and experiences of the foreign exchange students who came to live with us.  

Char has a daughter 10 years older than I am.  Char loved children but was only able to have one.  Instead of being bitter about this, she viewed all the world's children as her own, equally deserving of nurturing and care.  Char was very involved in organizations that helped the welfare of children, the disabled, animals, and those who were most vulnerable in the world.

Her sunny disposition and cheerful nature was not because she was naive or simple minded.  She was educated, a deep thinker, and also an accomplished writer.  She had strong opinions, but you wouldn't know it for awhile because she was so busy asking everyone else for their thoughts and views.

Char's daughter moved to Peru, was a university professor, married a Peruvian man, and had two children close in age to mine.  Char was able to travel to Peru when the babies were born, but more recently Char's daughter would come to Seattle with the grandkids for a few days once or twice a year.  It was never enough for Char -- she loved her grandchildren dearly -- so she became an honorary grandma to my daughters. 

 Char spent nearly all holidays with us (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Birthdays) and fit right in, just as she always had.

We'd also pick her up and take her with us on day trips and outings.  When her daughter and grandkids came to town I'd often be their chauffeur, and all together we'd hit the thrift stores and the tourist sights, stopping for ice cream along the way, or the exotic ethnic food that Char craved but couldn't get at the retirement home.  

Char was up for any kind of outing.  She sat through hundreds of performances, from my teenage orchestra concerts, to broadway musicals downtown, to my own children's recitals.  

When she moved to the retirement community, she was almost never to be found there -- she was always out for the day on group excursions, or even just walking around the lake nearby.  She was one of those very active people who didn't waste any opportunities to get out and have fun.

In the last couple of years Char's body remained strong, but her brain, which she had invested so much in (taking college classes into her 80's, learning Chinese and Spanish after retirement), started to betray her.  Char lost memories, but she never lost her smile or interest in others.  

Despite increasing fear of being lost, not knowing who people were, and the confusion of having no control over her daily life, she remained engaged and upbeat.  A series of strokes and falls consumed her last year.  Last October her daughter took her to Peru to live her last days, in their home with 24 hour nursing care.  They took her to their beach house for the weekend, and she loved sitting on the balcony enjoying the ocean breeze, something she'd always savored in life. "Last days" turned into weeks, and then months, giving her one last Christmas and New Year's with her family.

Char was an important part of our family, and woven into my daughter's fondest childhood memories.  They loved Charlotte, and she loved them.  Our holidays will never be the same, and we will all miss her.  Farewell, Charlotte.

Flashback Friday -- Sweaters

I like a good wool sweater, especially the hand-knit variety.  When my grandmother died in 1992 I received her sweaters, and by brother got her newly purchased car.  Didn't appear fair, but it made sense to me. I still wear those sweaters, but that car long ago went to the wrecking yard.

My grandmother, "Grams" in this sweater in 1981.  

Me in the same sweater in 1996.  I still wear it.  I suspect the sweater is older than I am.

Recently our family friend Charlotte, who was an honorary additional grandma for my daughters, was taken out of the nursing home by her only child and flown to Peru to spend her last days with family.  Charlotte now lives with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, but is cared for around the clock by servants.  She had a stroke last year, and has severe dementia now.  For the last few years when she would come to our house for Christmas, Easter, and other occasions, we'd have to reintroduce ourselves, and she was always so delighted to "meet" us.  I've known her since I was 8, and I'll miss her.  

As her daughter was tossing out most of Charlotte's belongings to prepare for the move to Peru, my mom stopped by and spied an alpaca sweater of Charlotte's that she thought I'd like.  My mom gave it to me, I washed it, stretched it a bit as it was block drying, and now I have a new (old) sweater to wear and remember someone by.  I love that something that keeps you warm on the outside can also make you feel warm on the inside, reminiscing about someone you loved and who loved you.

Santa Lucia Celebration 2011

We had our annual family Lucia celebration last week.  Here are scenes from the day:

The dresses, ribbons, and crowns are laid out on a bed, awaiting the girls.  Some of the gowns are handsewn, more than 50 years old, and were worn by me when I was young.  Somewhere along the way, as things were passed down through the generations, the original crowns from Sweden, which held real candles, were lost.  Now there is just a cheap battery operated crown (made in China), and tinsel garland crowns.  Usually I have my girls make crowns with cedar branches, but that didn't happen this year.

The girls get dressed and try to decipher great aunt Ruth's handwriting.  A is chosen to read the story of Lucia this year, and she is stumbling over the words.

We all go over the lyrics for the Santa Lucia song.

Two moms direct, while I photograph.

"She'll go down first and read, then you lead the others down the stairs..."

A enters the room where the extended family is gathered, and begins reading.  The other girls are up the stairs around the corner, giggling.

A reads as best she can, while my cousin's wives assist her with deciphering the handwriting.

The recitation complete, the singing begins, and the rest of the girls sweep down the stairs with plates full of cookies.

Little K offers you a cookie!  I recommend the dark chocolate shortbread stars from Trader Joe's!  I know, I should have baked cookies, but Trader Joe's made it too easy for me to cheat.

Our 6 Lucia girls for 2011, ages 9 to 15.

My cousin, who is a year older than I am, reminisces about the Lucia celebrations past, when the boys had to wear gowns and participate as well.  They were called "Star Boys" and carried wands with a star on the tip, and wore red cone hats.  They boys dreaded it, but were threatened with not getting anything from Santa if they didn't cooperate.

After the sugar from the cookies took effect, and the girls had changed back into their party dresses, the kids began a spirited game of "find the leader," where one person leaves the room while a leader is selected, and then returns to the room to find all the kids in a circle making the same movements.  Suddenly the gestures would change, and the "it" person had to determine who was leading the changes.  Hilarious to watch!

The dog complains that with the kids so much older now, there isn't as much dropped food for him to score.  Only one slice of ham made it to the carpet and quickly into the dog's stomach.  Like all families, there is an ebb and flow of reproduction.  Right now all the adults are finished having babies, and the oldest kids are still a decade away from starting their own families, so things will be more sedate each year for awhile.  I remember when I was a teen, and how boring the family parties became without little ones scampering about.  Then, my cousins started having kids, and I had mine, and suddenly there were babies and toddlers everywhere again.

A learns yo-yo tricks.

Although we all live within 45 minutes of each other, we never seem to get together except in December.  It's fun to see how the kids have grown and changed in a year's time.  I'm grateful that we carry on these traditions and are still in touch.

Ironically, this branch of the family is on my dad's side, but he is never invited.  At the party are my mother (his ex-wife), and the widows of his two deceased brothers, and their children with their spouses, the grandchildren, a new husband for one of the widows, and some in-laws, extended family, and friends.  This tradition of celebrating Santa Lucia with my dad's side of the family was started in the 50's by my dad's sister's husband's mother.  She hosted for nearly 40 years, then there were about 10 years when nothing happened because no one dared to try throwing the big party she was famous for, and we didn't have any young girls in the family to be Lucias anyway.  Eventually sentimentality crept in, little girls were born, and my aunt and cousin's wife and I revived the tradition.  It will never be as grand as Aunt Bardy's Lucia, but we carry it on in her honor.

There I am at age 4, at the far right, in 1973.  Fond memories.

Some of my cousins, celebrating Lucia in the 1960's.

Flashback Friday - 18 months old

I was at the table feeding myself, but really what is ringing my mouth is a nasty rash, not food.  I had a bad habit of sucking my lips, fingers, blankets, etc, so the skin got chapped and was made even worse by the winter weather.

Right now my daughter, Little K, is going through the same thing at age 10.  She chews and sucks on her lips and has had an ugly upper lip, all cracked, bleeding, and crusty.  I tell her to put on lip balm and she refuses.  I catch her chewing her lip and remind her to stop, and she glares at me.  When I'm able to convince her to put on balm, she wipes it off on her sleeve almost immediately.  The only way I can help her is how my mom helped me: by sneaking in at night and slathering on the vaseline while she's asleep.

Despite my rash, I think I was still pretty cute.  And Little K says that she doesn't care what she looks like, so I guess she knows she's cute, too, no matter what.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's a flashback photo from the 70's (can you tell by the wallpaper and my plaid pants?).  I'm six, and that pine cone and pipe cleaner turkey is something I proudly crafted in school.  My brother is 3, and making a silly face.  Back in 1975 we headed into the holiday season with a little less joy.  My parents had split up over the summer and the ongoing negotiations were ugly.  I didn't know when or if I'd see my Daddy again, my Mommy was crying much of the time, and there was talk that we might lose the house and end up homeless.  My dad had racked up huge debt and drained our bank accounts when he left, and our future was very uncertain.  It was a scary time.  I still believed that Santa could make things better, though, that perhaps he could bring my Daddy home for Christmas and make everyone happy, but it was not to be.

Today I am very grateful for the family that I have, most of all my long-suffering husband.  He is a devoted dad and a loving partner.  He has given me something my poor mother never knew: unconditional love and commitment.  I am so thankful.

Flashback Friday -- 1958 -- My Grandmother the Artist

My paternal grandmother was an artist.  She did it as a hobby, not professionally, and she loved to share her crafting time with others.  Above, while living in military housing at Curtis Bay, she gathered other Coast Guard wives (and her sister, 2nd from left) for an evening of crafting.  She was comfortable with all mediums, and created a wide range of things, from earrings to sculpture to paintings.  With my grandfather a career Coast Guard captain, they moved house often, but wherever they lived, she always had a place in the home devoted to crafting.  My grandfather would set up a darkroom for himself, and a woodworking shop, and my grandmother had her crafting space.  She needed something to do in the evenings after the 4 kids were in bed and her husband was out at sea, and this was something she enjoyed and excelled at.

Unfortunately I have no photos, just the memories in my mind, of visiting my grandparents in the house they retired to, and spending hours with my grandmother at her craft table.  By this stage in her life she had not only a whole room set up behind the kitchen, but half a basement devoted to craft as well.  She had a little kilns for making cloisone, hundreds of tubes of oil paint, brushes and pencils galore, tens of thousands of beads, little bags full of feathers and polished gems, wood bits and clay, fabric and wire, reams of paper, and so much more.  Just about anything could be created there, except maybe blown glass -- but if she really wanted to, I'm sure my grandfather would have built her a fire pit for that, too, out in the garden.

After she died most all of it was thrown away.  I wish I had had the gumption (and transportation, since I wasn't yet driving) to go to the house and gather a few things before the purging began.  But I was 17, busy with school and after-school jobs, and at that age in life where you just don't think that things could change.  Wouldn't her craft room always be there for me, even if she wasn't?  How could anyone who knew how much she loved her crafts throw any of it away?

Sometimes when the creative urge strikes me, I wonder how long the thing I make is going to survive.  Who will have to make the decision about throwing it away someday?  I admit that there are a lot of things I haven't made, though I would have enjoyed the process, because I've thought too much about the eventual disposal of it.  I'm very sentimental, and as it is, I'm keeping way too much stuff that I don't need, use, or even enjoy.  So maybe it's good that I didn't inherit two rooms chock full of craft supplies when I was 17.  Where would I have kept it all?