Dining Out Summer 11

8-28-2011 here I sit soaking wet in the year Bin Laden was assassinated in the month that record heat scorched the corn crop in the week a hurricane stormed the eastern seaboard 520 days after we had dinner here together in the last hours of my father-in-laws life

Dining Out

Holy Cow!!

In a pasture near us there is a cow whose markings depict the complete nativity scene. I'm not kidding. Check it out and see if you don't agree. It's a miracle.

Click to enlarge image.

End of Summer

End of summer, the browns and yellows, the grasses and goldenrod, the fading queen anne's lace, the sumac and buddleja.

The days are noticeably shorter, the humidity drops and the light seems a different quality. The green looks older, faded, like it's been worn. Crickets and grasshoppers sing loudly a final chorale.

We can tomatoes and eat corn on the cob, and pesto, the last of what the garden offers. We take a sweater to sit on the porch to watch the sun go down. 

Old People's Words

Once a week I stop to visit my parents at a nearby continuing care facility. Doing conversation with them can be kind of a trip now days. At 96 Dad  is doing remarkably  well, a kind of light hearted banter seems to be our norm and the way he seems most comfortable. But Mom is no longer playing on the same field we are. She usually can not speak whatever is in her mind, the right words just will not come, and so generally she does not participate. But now and then she chimes in and it is a challenge to make sense of what she says.

A recent conversation between these two people who have been married 66 years made me smile.

Mom says to Dad - "I got the things you wanted in the mail". [this didn't happen]
Dad:  [playing along - if ever you need a good sport this is your man] Oh? And what might that have been?"
Mom: "Well if you don't remember I could have it sent again".
Dad: "OK. Great! Mail it twice."

We like to think we have a good grip, that we know what is real and what is not real. We trust our memories and think they are a truthful story of our lives.  But apparently this is not so. Research has shown that our memories change like everything else. They may be altered by the response we get in the retelling. What gets the best feedback becomes the new truth. It is possible that complete fabrications become absolute truth. Something that never happened becomes something we are sure we did. Of all the countless images and stories who knows in old age what pieces of our minds will remain for us to think about.

I certainly hope I remember the time I swapped some songs with Paul McCartney in the lobby of the Hilton in NYC in 1978.

C'mon Honey Let's Move to America

C'mon honey let's move to america.
Just look at this picture your cousin he sent us
The grass is so green and the sky is so blue.
Acres and acres of green just to play on
Look at the people just playing for fun
And everything's clean where's the trash where's the clutter
Where are the buildings that never get finished
And power they got it look at those poles, all those lights
All those lights, just to light up a field.
They say you can have TV 24/7 and showers as often as once every day
All the people have cell phones and money in pockets
And houses so full that they rent space for extra.
And food is just everywhere the people are fat
We would be funny looking like that.
And this is so hard and we can't get enough
Let's move to america where it would be easy
C'mon honey let's move to america

Sing for Your Supper

We sing for our supper when our mama is away
 
We sing wide open cause it won't be long
 
Mama feeds her little ones something good
 
That's what we get for our supper song