You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

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Yesterday I received one of those phishing e-mails.  It was so fake and poorly written that if I were still teaching freshman English at the University of North Texas, it would have warranted a big, fat, red F!  It did give me a chuckle though as I had my morning coffee.

It was from Chase Bank.  Now obviously this not-so-bright person doesn’t realize that all I have to do is to click on the from to see his real email address.  It started out “Dear Costumer.”  Costumer?  Perhaps he thinks that I am a world-famous pole dancer and need to stock up on kinky costumes or that I run a Halloween costume shop?

“We determine that your card is not secured.”  Apparently this genius dozed off in class the day we talked about verb tenses!  “For your protection, we’ve suspended your credit card.  To lift the suspension, click here and follow the instructions indicate to update your credit card.”  Of course, I hastened to click here to be sure that he had all of my information and also to expose my computer to all kinds of malware.  Did you catch indicate?  There go those pesky verb forms again!

“Notice:  If you fail this procedure before 3 Days, we will be forced to suspend your card indefinitely, because of the risk which can contain.”  Is it me, or does that not quite read right?

I did at that point call the real Chase Bank using the real phone number on my real Chase Visa card to inquire whether or not the bank followed up on this kind of bogus email.  A very nice young lady assured me that the Fraud and Abuse Department did indeed follow-up on all of these types of fraudulent messages.  As requested, I forwarded the email to the bank for its investigation.  The Customer Service representative and I did have a good laugh, especially when I told her that I hoped that the Chase bankers used better English than this illiterate person.

The moral to this story is that if you want to be a successful con artist, please learn to spell and use proper English!  I have to wonder if the author of this message is a non-English speaker who is just trying to make an honest living scamming the public or if, even scarier thought, he is a product of the American public education system.

Forgive me for cutting this short today.  I have to hurry and send all of my information to the nice Nigerian princess who is going to deposit two million dollars for me as soon as I send her all of my bank account information!

©2016, The Eclectic Grandma

 

 

More Nursing Tales

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A couple of weeks ago I told you about getting to take care of THE real Colonel Sanders. That got me to thinking about other memorable patients over the years. These are the patients who touched your heart or, in some cases, your funny bone!

One of the funny bone patients was an old sailor many years ago. In those days we still gave a lot of IM Injections instead of giving almost everything by IV as we do today. Of course, from the patient’s perspective, today is much kinder and gentler! To give an injection in the hip (remember the old upper, outer quadrant, folks?) you had to have the patient drop his drawers, assuming of course, he had some on in the first place!

We had one old boy who refused to bare his buns to receive the necessary injection. After giving him lengthy explanations about the importance of getting his medication and so on, he finally and reluctantly agreed to bare the target area. Now, one of the unwritten laws of nursing is you have to cultivate the ability to keep a straight face, no matter what.

He displayed two tattoos on his little, bare butt. There was a propeller blade tattooed on each cheek with “Bombs” on the left and “Away” on the right inscribed tight beneath the blade.   Think about that one for a minute! With a big gulp, the nurse administering the injection carried out the medication administration and then rushed out of the room to share the details with the rest of us! It turns out that this old sailor, a WW II vet, ended up in a tattoo parlor after a night of heavy drinking, and some of his “helpful” friends encouraged him to get the afore-mentioned tattoos (and probably paid for them too if the truth be known!).

Then there are the patients that often remain too difficult to talk about, even years after the fact. One of these was a woman in her early forties, dying in our ICU of ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease ( or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, if you want the official name). This insidious disease slowly moves up through the body, paralyzing the vital organs and breathing. She knew her time was limited. Her only wish was to make it until her daughter’s graduation from middle school.

Sadly, she didn’t make it. A couple of months after her death one of my fellow nurses was at a local mall and saw her husband and daughter out shopping for a graduation dress. She “lost it,” as we like to say to describe highly emotional moments like this, and darted behind a clothing rack to hide her tears! When she shared this event with the rest of us the next day, we all wept a few tears for a life cut short.

Another patient who has stuck in my memory all these years was a young man with brittle, Type 1 diabetes. This one hit me especially hard because our older son, age 9 at the time, had just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as well. This patient had a lovely wife and two pre-teen children, both of whom also had Type 1 diabetes. Like my ALS patient, he also did not make it. In those days human gene derived insulin was not available, and treatment often was marginal at best. We even had one old doc who had his patients carry a couple of slices of bread with them at all times in case of an insulin reaction!

Today, doing any kind of CPR has become a much more limited and self-protecting kind of experience. Forty years ago, we did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions. AIDS and Hepatitis B and C had not yet made their nasty appearances. When we got a blood exposure, we quickly checked the patient’s chart to see what the VDRL titer was (an indicator of syphilis). That was also about the time that I learned that hydrogen peroxide was a great remover of blood from fabrics, a trick I use until this day!

I had a patient in ICU who cardiac arrested one night. I was able to bring him back with one-person CPR from a horrid episode of fulminating pulmonary edema. He made it that night and held on for another 3 or 4 weeks and then died. At times like that you have to wonder whether or not you did the right thing. His family was so thankful and appreciative; I hope that extra time helped all of them come to resolution and acceptance. Not too long thereafter, he was put on a ventilator to breathe for him. I was in the room on that fateful afternoon when we turned off the breathing apparatus for the last time. Were those few final weeks worth it? I don’t know, and it was not for me to say!

On a somewhat lighter note, those of us in healthcare know that a recently deceased body can often make strange exhalations and jerky motions as the body begins the inexorable process of decay, and rigor mortis sets in. If things were slow, we often consolidated patients between the ICU and the CCU. On one such night we had moved all the patients down to the CCU, leaving only one recently deceased patient in the ICU, waiting for the funeral home to pick up the body. That evening, the unit housekeeper, a sweet, elderly Afro-American lady, arrived to clean the unit.

Alas, right about that time, the body, which she didn’t even know was lying on one of the beds, gave a mighty gasp and appeared to sit upright in the bed. The poor woman ran hysterically from the unit, hid in a janitor’s closet for several hours, and supposedly never returned to work at the hospital again. I can’t totally verify whether or not she left the hospital for good, but I do know that we never saw her again in our unit!

©2016, The Eclectic Grandma

We Visit Istanbul

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In March 2015, Bill and I had occasion to visit Istanbul, that wonderful Turkish city that bridges Europe and Asia.  Although we were there primarily to attend and present at a business conference, we did squeeze in as much sight-seeing as possible.  Formerly the seat of the Ottoman Empire and before that the eastern Roman Empire, Istanbul is a strange, somewhat schizophrenic, mixture of the East and the West.  It has strong European traditions as well as a strong Islamic, Middle Eastern culture.IMG_1363

Interestingly, the temperature in Istanbul was just about the same as Denver the entire time we were there.  It was mostly rainy and drizzly, and one day there were even quite a few snowflakes flying around.  Most people tend to think of Turkey as being a warm climate, not realizing that Turkey actually has some ski areas!

 

To our surprise and my initial dismay, our hotel only served Turkish wines, which turned out to be surprisingly good.  I didn’t realize that Turkey was actually trying to become more of a wine producer.  The food was quite good, an interesting blend of fairly typical Mediterranean fare with Middle Eastern overtones.  The fresh produce was exceptional, and the pastries were amazing!  I especially liked simit, a Turkish pretzel/bagel sort of bread covered with sesame seeds.  With a little fresh cheese, olives, tomatoes, and tiny cucumbers, it is definitely yummy!Turkish Simit

The most impressive sight was the amazing Hagia Sophia. This huge basilica, almost as large as the Vatican,  was the locus of the Eastern Orthodox Church until Constantinople, as Istanbul was then called, was conquered by the invading Ottoman Turks.  The Sophia was then converted into a mosque for the next several centuries, until it fell into disrepair and was abandoned.  IMG_1353Today it is a museum and is slowly being restored to its former grandeur.  As we walked around the steps, worn down by the footsteps of thousands of monks and visitors over the years, and peered up at the immense dome of the structure, we couldn’t help but be impressed with the sheer size and grandeur of the Sophia.  A sense of history permeated the atmosphere.  I have to admire the skills of the Romans who were able to construct such a magnificent structure so many centuries ago.

Close to the Hagia Sophia is the famous Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque.  It was built in the early 17th century and is an excellent example of a combination of Byzantine and Islamic architecture.  Still in use today as an active mosque, the interior is beautiful with huge domes and the famous blue tiles.  IMG_1365We also visited the old Topkapi Palace, home of the Ottoman Sultans.  Bill sort of summed it all up succinctly, “Those sultans sure knew how to live!”  I guess it is always good to be the king and not the peon!

My personal favorite site, however, was the Basilica Cistern.  This was built by the Romans as an underground water storage reservoir with beautiful Ionic and Corinthian columns.  Water was brought in from over 12 miles away to be stored here.  If you are a fan of the novels of Dan Brown like I am, this underground site figures prominently in his latest novel, The Inferno, but I certainly won’t give away the plot.  I knew when we went to Istanbul, this was one of the sites I had to visit.  With underwater lighting and blind fish swimming around, it is at once both beautiful and somewhat eerie.IMG_1371

As near as I can tell, everybody in Istanbul has an uncle, cousin, or brother who sells carpets.  The people are attractive, talkative, helpful, and definitely good salesmen.   If we had bought a carpet from everyone who tried to sell us one, we would have had to charter a 747 to take them all home!  If you are in the mood to explore, Istanbul is definitely a great  city to visit!

On a more somber note, we are so sorry to learn of the recent terrorist activities and violence in Turkey, which has recently spread to Istanbul and many of the very sites we visited.  As much as we would like to return, it probably won’t happen.

We have been fortunate to visit many exciting locales over the years, quite a few of which we will not return to due to escalating violence and political instability.  About 13-14 years ago we visited Damascus.  What a beautiful city with old Roman ruins and beautiful mosques!  As Americans, we were welcomed graciously by everyone we met.  I have to wonder what it looks like today after years of war and destruction.    Damascus is  actually the only Middle Eastern city we have visited that actually had pork and bacon on the menu in the hotel.  That in itself is pretty amazing!  While visiting the Mosque of Fatima, the grand-daughter of Mohammad, with its beautiful mirrored ceilings, we were approached by a young lady in a burka.  When we left the mosque, she took off the burka, revealing Gap jeans and a cute t-shirt.  She was eager to talk to a Westerner and learn more about America.

I have also been fortunate to visit Egypt about six times.  We have seen all the ancient sites around Cairo and Alexandria–the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Egyptian Museum, the Roman baths in Alexandria, the dinner cruises on the Nile, and so much more.  We never made it to Luxor.  We kept thinking that on the next trip we would take a few extra days to visit the ruins there.  Now, with increasing risks and attacks on tourists, we probably won’t make it.  That really reinforces the carpe diem philosophy.  You need to take advantage of the moment because the opportunity make not present itself again.

That reminds me of one of my favorite Elizabethan poets, Robert Herrick, one of the proponents of the carpe diem school of thought:

“Gather ye rosebuds where ye may, old time is still a flying,  and this same flower that blooms   today, tomorrow will be a dying!”

©2016, The Eclectic Grandma

 

 

Colonel Sanders

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For all of my nursing friends (and my non-nursing friends as well), in honor of Infusion Nurses Day on January 25.  Yes, I’m a bit late!!Colonel Sanders

I am probably the only nurse you know who actually had Colonel Sanders as a patient. Yes, the real deal, the real McCoy, the real Colonel Harland Sanders! It was in the late ’70’s, and he was a patient in the hospital where I worked in Louisville, Kentucky. The now famous chain Kentucky Fried Chicken was tied completely to his image and hadn’t yet morphed to just “KFC.” He and his second wife, who incidentally was his former mistress, owned a restaurant in nearby Shelbyville, Kentucky, called The Colonel’s Lady. I wonder if it is still there?

In those days we still wore white shoes, crisp white uniforms, and white caps with black stripes attached designating our rank as Registered Nurses. Every nursing school had its own distinctive style of cap. You knew where your colleagues went to school just by looking at their caps. That moment when you finally got to add that black stripe to your cap was a special day indeed. We spent hours washing, starching, and ironing those caps and then applying that black velvet ribbon with a bit of KY jelly as an adhesive.  I probably still have one or two of those now yellowed caps in some old box in the attic somewhere!

I primarily worked in the ICU, but if things were slow, we were pulled out to work on the “floor” for a day or a two. It was on one of those days working on the floor that one of my patients was the Colonel himself, complete with the trim little goatee. Instead of his usual white suit and black string tie, he had the de rigueur hospital gown with the open, airy back, just like the rest of the patients on the unit. For those of you not familiar with Kentucky, a Kentucky Colonel is an honorary title bestowed by the Governor of Kentucky upon people deemed worthy of that great honor. Harland became a Kentucky Colonel in 1950 and apparently decided to live up to that image for the rest of his life, growing the goatee and adopting his familiar white suit and black tie..

Unlike many of the “fake” Colonel Sanders seen on the TV commercials today, he was a crusty old gent with a highly colorful vocabulary which he could unleash upon anyone unfortunate enough to incur his wrath, from KFC executives to family, friends, or hospital staff. As a patient though, he was quite amiable and easy to get along with. The drawer of his bedside stand was full of, you guessed it, Kentucky Fried Chicken coupons, which he bestowed upon everyone from housekeepers to physicians. Apparently he had his own rating system for the coupons as recipients received anywhere from one to three coupons good for a fried chicken dinner. This was the original secret recipe, none of that extra crispy stuff or other alternatives! One of his big fights with the KFC executives after he had sold his interest in the company apparently focused upon their daring to modify his gravy recipe! Luckily my family and I enjoyed quite a few chicken dinners for several days there.

He was in his late 80’s then and suffering from many of the ailments of the elderly. However, that didn’t slow him down in the slightest! He was a pincher and a patter as several of the other nurses warned me. If you leaned over the bed to fluff a pillow or straighten the covers, you would get a surreptitious pat on the boobs. If you turned your back to him, you generally got a quick pinch. Usually a firm admonition did the trick, “Stop that, Colonel!”   A sheepish grin was the response. If you needed to ambulate him (That is nursing talk for helping him to take a walk down the hall with gown a flapping.), you were apt to be the recipient of a full-blown butt grab while helping him out of bed.

I think all of us in nursing have certain patients who stick in our memories through the years, and he was definitely one of those! A few years later we moved from Kentucky to Colorado. I later learned that he died in 1980 of leukemia and pneumonia. To this day whenever I see a KFC in the US or on my various travels around the world, I am reminded of that friendly and humorous old man! I wonder if he knows that his image and his franchises now spread across the globe, from the US to China to Kuwait and all points in between?

©2016, The Eclectic Grandma

 

Back to School!

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I feel sorry for today’s kids;  everyone goes back to school in mid August!  When I was a kid, oh so long ago, we didn’t go back to school until after Labor Day.  Of course, in those days none of the schools had air conditioning, so waiting until a little later was just common sense, given the sweltering Texas heat in August and September.  Students and teachers alike had a hard time concentrating those first few weeks until the heat finally started to abate!

To me, fall has always seemed like the start of the new year, not January.  A new grade, a new school year, new friends, this was a time of beginnings, not the decline of the year!  There is something  about new notebooks waiting to be filled and new pens and pencils waiting to be used that filled me with a sense of anticipation.  Even in college all those brand new, empty notebooks gave me pleasure.  When the fall semester ended and the spring semester started, there was never that same sense of newness and anticipation that the fall semester engendered.  It was more of the same old routine.

The start of school, then as today, was heralded with the trip to the local drug or grocery store for school supplies.  We went to a local drugstore called Skillerns for all of our supplies.  Skillerns always ran a back to school special whereby for every so many dollars spent on school supplies you could buy a pint of ice cream for a ridiculously low price.  I recall it being about .19 a pint.  Now that was a pretty amazing price even in those days, especially when I go to the grocery today and pay $ 4.99 a pint for some fancy gelato! Every year we stocked up on as much ice cream as possible.  In the evening, sitting around and watching the old black and white television, we ate ice cream for months.  My Dad’s idea of having ice cream was that we each got our own pint and spoon, none of this dipping it out into bowls!  Fudge ripple, chocolate, strawberry, butter pecan, and even lowly vanilla–what could be better?  Now I look at the calories in a mere half cup of the frozen delicacy and shudder to think about consuming a full pint in a single sitting!

We didn’t have backpacks back then, those practical and ergonomic devices of today.  We had the lowly satchel to stuff full of notebooks, pencils, crayons, glue, and the like.  We carried our lunch in metal lunch boxes complete with a small thermos.  These lunch boxes, adorned with our favorite heroes pictures on the outside, carried our lunch and also served as useful weapons for our minor skirmishes on the playground.  Yes, we actually played on the playground with minimal adult supervision– non PC games like cowboys and Indians, king of the mountain, and kickball.  Sometimes you didn’t get chosen to be on a team, and you know what, we lived through it!

My Mother had an amazing rule; we were allowed one day a year when we could stay home from school for no reason at all other than just wanting to stay home that day.  I think she used some pretty wise child psychology  as we carefully hoarded that one day, not wanting to waste it too early in the year.  Other than our  “free” day, we were expected to go to school every day unless we were running a fever or actively vomiting.

The other time we could count on missing a day of school was on those rare occasions when it snowed in Dallas.  Even if school wasn’t officially closed, my Dad always declared it a snow day for us.  Of course, for a southern city like Dallas, a mere 2 or 3 inches of snow or ice is enough to bring the city to a grinding halt.  Living up here in the mountains and with previous sojourns in Bangor, Maine and Buffalo, New York, I always find it amusing how quickly a little snow and ice can shut down a major city. Of course, in all fairness we are much better prepared for snow up here!

Now there aren’t many hills in Dallas, but on those rare snow days, we found what little slopes we could and went sledding.  Most kids in Dallas didn’t have sleds so there was quite a makeshift assortment of cardboard boxes, old dishpans, and other creative objects that could be improvised  for speeding down the hill.  Being a “Yankee,” I had a real sled, a Flexible Flyer, with sturdy oak slats and bright red runners.  It had a steering board in front that could be used by hands or feet, depending on whether the rider was lying down or sitting upright.  That old sled still hangs in our garage, like me, rapidly becoming an antique!  Besides faithfully serving my sister and me, it carried our sons down many an icy slope in both Kentucky and Colorado as well as introducing our two little grandsons to the joy of whizzing down a hill with cold air blowing in your face.

On one memorable occasion years ago in Louisville, my Dad, who was always a kid at heart, took a rather nasty tumble from the old Flyer, resulting in a couple of broken ribs, and, as I recall, the end of his sledding career!  After a couple of hours in the cold, trudging slowly uphill for the momentary pleasure of speeding back down, everyone was ready for hot chocolate, laced with a little peppermint schnapps for the adult “kids.”  Today Target and Costco offer an array of plastic sleds in various shapes, sizes, and psychedelic colors, but I’m not sure these new and cheap devices offer quite the same sense of wonder and delight as a shiny, wooden sled with red trim and runners lying under the Christmas tree!

Remember Rosebud in “Citizen Kane”?

©2015, Black Dirt and Sunflowers

Saying Good-Bye

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A few weeks ago I told you about the first anniversary of my Mother’s death.  We all have to go through the painful process of having to say good-bye to a loved one.  In those final weeks, she had made her own internal decision that she was ready to depart this life.  She was placed in Hospice care at her request.  I can’t say enough positive things about Hospice and the entire death with dignity approach.  I was fortunate enough to work as a Hospice nurse for several years in the past and can only hope I was also able to give some comfort and support to the dying and their families.

My Mother was never an overly religious person, not nearly as much so as my Dad, but in those last weeks she made her peace with God.  The Hospice chaplain offered her spiritual support and solace.  He was actually an Ecumenical Catholic and had formerly been a Roman Catholic priest actually stationed in Rome.  I’m not sure the denomination or religion makes that much difference as we approach death.  She even wanted the Last Rites in those last couple of days.  That was quite a change for a woman raised a Baptist in Pennsylvania!

What do you talk about in those final days and hours with a loved one?  We reminisced about the past, both recent past and distant past, people, and events.   One afternoon as I sat by her bed, I asked her if she remembered a particular cocktail dress she had when I was about 10 or 11.  It was some sort of silky or taffeta material in a beige color with gold fleur-de-lis printed all over it.  The best part was that it was strapless with a band of real mink right across the top of the strapless bustline.  I thought it was the most glamorous thing I had ever seen in my life!  She told me she didn’t remember it.  Now, I knew I had not hallucinated that dress, but I was wondering if my memory was playing tricks on me.

When we moved my Mother out of her condo to her senior living apartment several years ago, among the things I kept were an old Bell and Howell movie projector and a box of old 8mm films.  My Dad was a gadget person and was probably one of the first people in Dallas to acquire a movie camera.  If he were alive today, I am sure he would have GPS in his car and the latest iPhone!  Our childhood was carefully recorded in those old films.  I recall watching them on that old noisy projector.   The old Bell and Howell was a bear to thread, the quality of the film wasn’t great, and of course, no sound or commentary was possible.

After her death, I thought I should really do something  with all of those old films.  I ended up mailing them to one of those services that will convert old films to a digital format, for a hefty fee I might add.  When I got all the films converted and started watching a couple of them, the very first one I happened to select was–you guessed it–my mother as a young woman of about 39 or 40 wearing that very dress!  At least I knew that I hadn’t just conjured it up.  I just wish I had converted them sooner so she could have relived some of those old memories  before she passed on, but I suspect she had a good  chuckle when she saw me watching those old videos.  I think she must have directed me to that very video just to see the dress.

I still haven’t watched all of those old home movies.  That may be a good thing to do on some snowy afternoon!

© 2015, Home Again–A Spiritual Journey

 

 

 

Summer daze

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Summer is rapidly drawing to an end.  Somehow this year it seemed to arrive late and to be planning on an early departure.  We had a lot of snow in April and on into May followed by non-stop rain in June, or so it appeared.  The rufus hummingbirds arrived in July, earlier than usual.  Once the rufus arrive, their mission is to drive off the other hummingbirds from the feeders or even humans if we venture too close.  To be the smallest species in the bird world, they are also among the feistiest and don’t seem to recognize  their minute size.  The male rufus  and the male broad tailed hummers constantly skirmish.  While the males are engaged in their aerial warfare, the females of both species just calmly drink with one another at the feeders.  I could comment on this fact, but will restrain myself!

Growing much of anything up here is also a challenge.  If I want tomatoes, I have to cheat and buy plants with little green tomatoes already on them.  I can’t begin to tell you how many pounds of wildflower seed and high altitude grass seed we have spread out back and in the meadow.  We do have some pretty nice grass now, but we get a lot of winter kill every year.  Ironically, the flowers that have done the best are the ones that have just appeared on their own. This year I (yet again) planted a number of Shasta daisies.  Sometimes they  come back, and sometimes they don’t.  It may correlate to how cold the winter is I suppose.  Anyway, as I was putting the girls out for the last call before bed a couple of weeks ago, there sits a large rabbit happily eating all the daisy blooms!  I guess my feeble little flower bed looks like a salad bar!

We do have a number of bird feeders which we faithfully bring in every night so as not attract the bears to a free meal.  This is the time of the feeding frenzy!  The birds are there in force; the coyotes are yipping and singing every night, and the occasional bear skulks by behind the house.  With two large dogs, we are often awakened during the night by their frenzied barking at the bedroom window.  Sometimes I’m not sure whether it is a coyote, a bear, or perhaps Bigfoot outside the bedroom window.  We have learned to discern among the girls’ various barks.  A high-pitched yippy bark is usually reserved for smaller creatures like chipmunks, squirrels, and rabbits, little trophies we would like to catch and proudly carry around the yard and on occasion, eat.

A loud vigorous barking while peering out the bedroom window in the middle of the night is the typical watchdog warning that something dangerous, like a  coyote or bear, is outside.  A low growl or woof means something serious is out there, but we don’t want to attract its attention.  This is reserved for bears actually on the deck and for really big animals!  One afternoon we had some moose strolling down the easement just outside our fence.  The girls did the low growly barking at a safe distance back from the fence–about 6 foot back to be exact.  Incidentally, moose are notoriously bad tempered with poor eyesight.  Their only natural predator is the wolf, and apparently they are too stupid to know the difference between a domestic dog and a wolf!

Several years ago I let the dogs out for a middle of the night nature call. As soon as they made it down the deck stairs, there was an instant outburst of barking and ominous rustling sounds.  Peering through the darkness, I could make out two black shapes scurrying up a tree.  Two bear cubs!  Now the cubs didn’t seem to be too much of a problem, but the big question was, where was Momma Bear?  Not wanting to be a part of the story about the three bears, I did the only thing a modern-day Goldilocks  could do and yelled,  “Bill, come get the dogs!”  Luck was with us.  The two red guards were forcibly dragged into the house, and Momma Bear apparently chose not to get actively involved.  Many of our trees also have scars from bears climbing up the trees to jump over the fence, either getting into or out of  the yard.

Have I told you about the fence?  We started out with a four-foot fence, just basic metal poles and rolls of green fencing.  When the girls were younger, they would constantly manage to squeeze out under the fence, so we ran an electric fence wire around the bottom of the fence.  That  cured the digging out.  Then came a hard winter and firm packed snow, and they learned they could just hop out over the top of the fence so we ran a second electric wire around the top of the fence.  More snow!  The fence disappeared on occasion so we added a three-foot extension around the top of the fence.  Now we have a seven-foot fence all around the yard.  More drifting snow on the west side of the yard!  For a while there we tried to shovel the west end of the yard.  I got shovel elbow, sort of like tennis elbow but not as much fun in the acquisition!

Our next step was to add another three-foot extension along the west end of the yard.  We now have a fence that is ten feet in spots and seven feet everywhere else.  This helped somewhat, but still called for some shoveling of the large drifts.  The following summer we added a four-foot snow fence just outside of the west fence.  It typically helps for the first part of the winter, until it too disappears beneath a blanket of snow!  We still have to shovel a bit, but it is not as bad as before.

Now, you see why I would like to savor summer for a while longer.  What does the Farmer’s Almanac say about this upcoming winter?  I think I am afraid to look!

©2015, The Eclectic Grandma 

 

 

My Scottish Muse

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Some of you have been nice enough to comment on my slackness lately in getting out a weekly blog.  I was doing great until Bill’s and my trip to Scotland.  In the frenzy of getting ready to go, I didn’t do a very good job of keeping up with my blog postings.  For a while back there, I couldn’t sleep at night because my Muse was so busy stomping through my brain. When we went to Scotland, I think she had such a wonderful time, she decided to stay on for a few extra weeks!  Now it is time to get back to some more discipline in my writing.  That was the whole idea in doing a blog; it was supposed to force me to write on a regular basis.

If you happened to read last week’s blog, I wanted to commemorate the first year anniversary of my Mom’s death; however, I accidentally published two blogs on the same day.  If you accidentally hit “publish” instead of “schedule,” it’s gone.  Word Press isn’t very forgiving!  Hopefully you had a minute to read both last week. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on my skinny dipping excursions. My muse and I are both back on duty and in writing mode now.

The Train Trestle at Glen Finnan from the Harry Potter movies!

The Train Trestle at Glen Finnan from the Harry Potter movies!

A bit more about Scotland–what a totally delightful country!  Some of you know that one of my hobbies is genealogy, and I have learned that both Bill and I have many Scottish ancestors.  Travelling around Scotland left us both with a sense of heritage and of companionship with the country and its people.

Now I do have to tell you that you definitely don’t go to Scotland for the fine wines.  Beer, yes.  Scotch whiskey, yes.  Wine, no.  We even tried the much maligned haggis!  I have to tell you, it was surprisingly tasty, especially with the whiskey cream sauce.  Now the blood pudding was another story.  It won’t hit my favorites list, but the little, flat potato scones for breakfast were totally delicious.

Clan MacDonald Castle Ruins

Clan MacDonald Castle Ruins

The Scottish Highlands were beautiful.  Unfortunately, the heather doesn’t bloom until August so we didn’t get to see those ancient, rugged mountains swathed in purple, but the gorse and the Scottish broom were in bloom, leaving the hillsides covered in bright yellows.  Goats munched everywhere, and  rock walls defined pastures and small farms.  Despite my best efforts or lack of skill, none of my photographs quite capture the beauty and majesty of those hillsides.

Of course, what trip to Scotland would be complete without lots of castles, some just ruins and some still inhabited.  We even saw Glamis Castle, — remember Shakespeare’s Macbeth — but it wasn’t even built until several hundred years after that infamous villain’s death!  Oh well, it still makes for a good story.

Highlands and Loch Lomond

Highlands and Loch Lomond

One of my favorite stops was in the little village of Pitlochry where we spent two nights at the Atholl Palace Hotel.  On Saturday night there was a big wedding and reception.  All of the men and little boys were in kilts and sporrans with their dirk in their socks and their kilt pins in place.  Can’t have one’s kilt blowing up at an inopportune moment.  We learned young men are typically given their kilt pin, usually sterling silver and quite elaborate, for their 18th or 21st birthday, sort of a rite of passage.

No, we didn’t ask the “big question” about the kilts!  Our guide, Anika, did tell us a funny story about a guest on a prior tour who asked one of the Black Watch guards at Edinburgh Palace “the question” on a cold, blustery day.  His reply was classic, “Not much today, M’am!”

The Culloden Battlefield

The Culloden Battlefield

One chilly, drizzly day we visited the battlefield at Culloden where on April 16, 1746 many of the Scottish clans were wiped out by the British in the final battle of the Jacobite uprising, destroying Bonnie Prince Charlie’s hopes of regaining the Scottish throne.  As we walked around the moors, we were left with a sense of sadness for the loss of so many lives.  The clouds and the rain seemed to fit the somber mood of the location.

One of the Clan Markers at the Culloden Battleground

One of the Clan Markers at the Culloden Battleground

Most of the dead clansmen were buried around the battlefield in mass graves with simple clan stones marking the site of the various clan burial sites.  The Battle of Culloden marked not only the end of Prince Charles’ aspirations but also the end of much of the Highlanders’ way of life.

From there we headed on to Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s summer home,

The Queen's summer place, but she didn't invite us for tea!

The Queen’s summer place, but she didn’t invite us for tea!

and St. Andrews.  Not being a golfer, I wasn’t overly impressed with the golf course, but enjoyed the little village immensely, especially the ruins of the old cathedral.  On to Edinburgh where we toured the famous castle.  Having traced a number of Stewarts and Douglases in my lineage,  I was struck by the possibility that some of my ancestors may have walked these same hallways.

At the other end of the Royal Mile lies Holyrood Palace and the ruins of the Holyrood Abby.  Unfortunately, due to a visit from the current Prince Charles, we were not able to tour Holyrood.  As our Scottish guide somewhat irreverently put it, “Charlie Boy is here so we can’t see the Palace.”

Entrance to Edinburgh Castle

Entrance to Edinburgh Castle

There is still a slight undercurrent of anti-English sentiment in Scotland that seems to crop up from time to time, usually in a humorous context, but with a slight edge to it.

One night we attended the de rigour Scottish dinner with the singing, the dancing, the jokes, and so on.  The emcee was a Lowland Scot. Incidentally, I found the Lowland Scottish accent much harder to understand than the Highlands accent.  He was going through the usual  questioning about where everyone was from.   There were, as you might expect, many Americans, quite a few Canadians, and a smattering from lots of other countries–Brazil, France, China, Japan, among others.  Then he asked if there were any English there.  Only two poor souls raised their hands.  To the delight of the crowd, he told them to make themselves right at home “as you’ve been doing for the past several hundred years.”

Definitely put Scotland on your bucket list!  We certainly hope to return some day.

©2015, The Eclectic Grandma

Summertime and the living is easy!

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Growing up in Texas was always a challenge in the summer months.  Heat, humidity, mosquitos, and chiggers–what more could you ever want?  Unlike those two years in University Park, there was no handy pool nearby for a young mermaid to walk to.  As I mentioned a while back, I did have our neighbor’s pool to visit from time to time, but my parents didn’t want to abuse that privilege.   Often my Mother would drop me and a friend or two off at a nearby pool for the day. One of our favorites was a park with a spring-filled pool called Sandy Lake.  With a brown bag of sandwiches and snacks, and occasionally enough money to buy a hot dog or hamburger, we were set for the day!

Sandy Lake had a sandy bottom with concrete walls around the sides, hence its name.  It was spring-filled, and even on steamy hot summer days, it remained deliciously cool.   It was around this time that I decided to try some competitive swimming.  My best friend, June, and I entered local swim meets and spent hours doing laps around the very large Sandy Lake Pool.  We also went to a summer Day Camp held at nearby Bachman Lake at the YMCA pool.  Neither of us, June and me, were overly interested in the crafts and singing kinds of stuff–how ridiculous–but we did love the pool time!  We worked on our strokes and raced up and down the lanes in the pool.  My Esther Williams persona again shined through at times like this.

Bachman Lake was a favorite haunt of ours, from swimming in the large pool, to hikes around the lake, to just hanging out beneath the large old trees, pecan and live oak as I remember.  One of our other favorite excursions was to slip out of June’s house (She lived really close to the lake.) in the middle of the night and head over to the pool at the YMCA camp.  To get there we had to cross a fairly busy highway, but that didn’t deter us.  Once under the shadowy security of the huge trees, we quickly scaled the fence and went skinny-dipping in the dark pool.  Don’t ask me why we didn’t take bathing suits; I guess it was more of an adventure just to go au natural!  Luckily for us there were not any security guards around the camp.  As I look back, I do wonder what both sets of our parents would have thought about these little adventures.

Often on weekends our family would head off to one of the many lakes in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area to go boating or fishing.  My Dad, as I alluded to before, had a knack for acquiring usual possessions in various kinds of trades.  One of those trades resulted in the acquisition of an old wooden boat with an outboard motor.  Daddy refurbished the wood and tinkered endlessly with the motor.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that old boat was a Lyman, from a long and  distinguished New England boat manufacturer.  The wood was soon restored to its gleaming original condition, but the motor remained a greater challenge.

You may recall that my Dad had built a small, above-ground pool in our backyard?  Pool may have been too grandiose a term.  It was more like a big horse trough!  On one memorable occasion, needing to see if his repairs on the outboard motor were successful, my Dad stuck the outboard motor into our “pool.”  For a few moments it purred nicely.   Things were looking good.  Then with a great spurt, it suddenly clonked out, spewing black oil and fuel everywhere!  Our beautiful pool with its pale azure paint was now splattered everywhere with black, sticky goo — to my Mother’s ire and my Dad’s chagrin.  After a vigorous scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint, the pool was restored to its former glory, but I don’t think my Dad ever again tested the motor in the pool!

Our little boat was not at all like the powerful speedboats zipping around the lakes; it was more the slow and plodding old mare.  Water skiing was clearly not an option given the size of our boat and motor, but we had some sort of old wooden surfboard that we happily towed behind the boat.  To this day I have a chip in a tooth from one of those wild rides.  Texas lakes are known for having lots of snakes, rattlesnakes around the brush in the shoreline and water moccasins  in the water, all of them just waiting to bite the careless swimmer or hiker!  I was pretty well petrified of the water moccasins, sneaky little devils lurking there in the water waiting for the unsuspecting.  I always felt safer out in the deep middle of the lakes away from the shoreline.  I assumed that the snakes wouldn’t venture out to the middle of the lake.  Every summer we heard tales of water skiers skiing into a nest of water moccasins.  I don’t know if these tales were true or just in the realm of urban legend, but I certainly never ventured into the water too close to the shore.

On more than one occasion, the little motor would decide not to run any longer.  This usually occurred out in the middle of the lake and was frequently due to a broken cotter pin.  Finally some kind soul would come along and give us a tow back to our campsite, or if we were really lucky, they would have a couple of spare  cotter pins to share.  That old boat is long gone, but it lives on in my memories!

©Copyright 2015, The Eclectic Grandma