Visit to the cemetery

Today, we did something we've never actually done before. We (Merlin, kids, and I) went up to the Dallas cemetery and put flowers at the grave of Merlin's parents and our aunt. I know Memorial Day is established to honor war dead, but we are Mennonites, as were the Brandt elders before us, and so have no war dead of our own. But I remembered that Mom and Dad used to go up to their parents' graves on Memorial Day, and it seemed for once like we ought to honor them the same way. I suddenly wanted anyone who passed by the section where they and their parents lie to know we hadn't forgotten them.

I was surprised how widely decorated the (huge, beautiful) cemetery was, including the section near the road that contains the bones of Dallasites buried over a century ago. Many other headstones of folks we knew already had been visited and remembrances left. One headstone had little glass beads and stars arranged around the flowers. Molly had suggested we leave a few chocolate covered cherries (which, I guess, sounds a little "Dia de los Muertes" to me, although kind of appropriate to her grandparents), but I forgot to get them.

Not sure when we'll do it again. Not sure I know why we do it. But I think however we go about it, it's good to recall with gratitude the great cloud of witnesses who are no longer running the race, but who enabled us to run it, and who I believe still care how we run it.

Because it is time to blog again....

I've been on vacation, and back, and the coming back was with a vengeance, as the saying goes, to an office under stress. Well, under more stress than usual. I've stared at the screen for some indeterminate amount of time, trying to think what to tell you. It would be a boring little kvetch, if I talk about work.

So I'll share the few poems that came out of the travels this time. The first two have an obvious connection to the trip, and the last just popped out after I came home. If history is any indicator, it could be a while before any more poems happen.


The Right Coast

I am home from Florida.
Only two margaritas in ten days,
but I got drunk on the ocean,
so different from my Pacific,
recalling which,
I felt the guilt of unfaithfulness.

So drunk on the ocean, I couldn’t drive.
I could only
stare and stare at the green and greens
of the bay, the ocean, the bight.
On the last day, that ocean turned nearly
blue for me.
So I could stand to come home.

May 2010


Old Folks

Wed seventy-three years, they were
Parted by death for only seven months,
and then reunited by it.
They were in love the whole time
(truly, though not always smoothly,
I learned near the end).

Coming past Mt. Hood on a Continental flight,
I wrap their third son’s arm in both of mine,
perfectly content, and aware of it,
to be watching Mt. Hood with this man after a paltry
36 years, knowing at some point, unfathomably,
death will us part.

That son, a man, married a child
who knew what she wanted,
has always known what she has,
and never questioned her choice.
Grateful, as other children-in-law,
to those old folks who lasted

longer than any of us will.

May 2010 (Pete and Sally Brandt’s 77th anniversary)


Aromata: Three Haiku from Runs

Fallen fir needles
smell like wild blackberry pie
baking in the sun.

*

Someone must have brought
Ariel laundry powder
home from Mexico.

*

Mimosa’s out there,
but where? Follow the nose out
over a high fence.


May 2010

A Few Thoughts on Aging

The drive to correct grammar and spelling does not diminish with age. You just learn to only do it on your own stuff.

A good pair of glasses that will not embarrass you in front of your 20- and 30-something friends, with progressive (read, "line-free") correction for reading and computer work, costs you $400. After the AARP discount.

We look younger than our parents at our age because they helped us keep our own teeth.

We should be enviable company to our youngers--we know a lot of interesting stuff (and yet know that we know nothing), can see the humor in anything, can add humor where we can't find it, and we are so humble.

They will be us before they know it.

When I was in my thirties, I thought those 40-something women who wore shorts over their swimsuits were just being silly. Around 15 years ago, when I was 40-something, I got it. I'm now buying "swimskirts". Never say never.

I repeat myself, but... Never say never.

A poem from two years ago:

Sleeveless dress

My arms, somewhat dimpled,
a little slack,
must offend some who see them.

But I already retired my thighs and my belly
from public life.
Everything from chin to cleavage is at risk.
And the toenails. Please.

I can’t retire my arms.
They will go beneath summer sleeves
When I take a veil over my face.
Not a day sooner.

Hey, Poppa Bird!

Today is my dad's 86th birthday, and although he left the mortal phase of his 11 years ago, I think of him and his mark on us often. "Poppa Bird" was one of his favorite nicknames for himself. Here are some of the things he did:

Balanced me standing on one hand at age 5 months. Must have driven Mom nuts. I have a picture of this blown up to blurry proportions in my stairwell, so I see him and me in 1952 every time I go downstairs.

Scared (or tried to scare) my few boyfriends. Mainly by use of his strange sense of humor. Couldn't scare Merlin.

Taught me to drive, and especially how to skid to a stop on gravel. He always said to keep my eyes far down the road, not at what was right in front of me. Good advice on all levels, especially for a girl who tends to fixate on all the obstacles within three feet of her instead of just mowing them down.

Taught me (albeit through the agency of mom after he died) to make the best homemade dill pickles anyone has ever eaten. Really. The Best.

Went frequently to Monty's Bar, and the Old Heidelburg Inn, and brought back the foods that are still my downfall, namely anything pungent and salty, especially pickled polish sausage and greasy fries.

Told me I didn't need to go to college since I was a girl and then sent me and bragged about me to his friends.

Got lung cancer at 45, survived, I assume miraculously, and kept on smoking. Yeah, I can't recommend that, but he was (all due respect) kind of a cuss that way. This retired him, so he spent lots of time gardening and ferrying his elderly friends around to appointments.

Loved to send flowers to all of us. (Maybe not to my brother. Casey?)

Went to the mall the day I delivered his first grandchild and had a T-shirt made that said "Call me Grampaw: Molly". Then every time another grandchild appeared, went down to the mall and added a name to it. Actually wore it a lot.

Could find a bargain on anything, and no matter what you bought, if you told him what you paid, assured you that he could have gotten it cheaper. I know, lots of you have that kind of dad. I think it's Y-chromosome-related.

Loved going to the doctor. Didn't live to see his "First-borned" (nickname for me) become something close to one.

Had very strange taste in clothes.

Had excellent taste in women. Happy Dad's Birthday, Mom!

Running Mercies, Traveling Plans, Poems

I awoke at 0645 and freaked out briefly thinking it was Tuesday (0600 is my rising time Tuesday, because that is my first day of the work week, and I face about two and a half to three feet of charts that want something from me before the pressure-cooker really starts rattling).

But it wasn't. I rejoiced that for the first time in a week I had fallen asleep and stayed all night in the same bed without the help of anything but God and Advil. Then I was spared having to face the dreaded treadmill by the unexpected appearance of the sun after an all-night rain. Well, it was probably an all-night rain; as I said, I slept uncharacteristically soundly. Here's what I observed on my run:

1. The longer the rain, the more earthworms on the sidewalk. I hate stepping on earthworms, simply because I don't know if they suffer or not. I sometimes rescue them if the rain is over and I think it is safe for them to climb back into the earth. But today I didn't, because it is supposed to keep raining and they might just have to find the sidewalk again, and there were far too many anyway. I wish them well; they are an honored part of the great chain of life.

2. Sun and rain can coexist for considerable stretches in this part of the world. I don't know that it ever stopped raining the whole time I ran. Lots of blue, lots of gray, and at the end, I was able to stop and find the rainbow that pretty much always has to be there in that kind of weather. I love sun and blue-black clouds in the same sky. I always have to stop and stare.

3. The creek is fast, deep and brown now. The creek is to Dallas what the Willamette is to Portland: Runs through the heart and gives it some of the best of its personality. I dreamed about the creek and the ways to get down to it that don't actually exist last night. I think I will miss it if we do move to the Portland area. I'm unlikely to live so close to natural water at play ever again.

4. I have a favorite song I like to listen to as I sit on the porch and cool down after a run: James Taylor and Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of "Here Comes The Sun". It was especially appropriate today. It's from YYM and friends' album "Songs of Joy and Peace" which I recommend with all my heart to all. It is a song I hope someone can find and play at my funeral. I wish I could be at my funeral with James and Yo-Yo and sing along; I love it that much.

So, speaking of sun and rain, we spent much of the rest of the morning working on vacation plans online. We need to warm up, and so decided on a trip to south Florida. Everglades, Keys, beach. It helped that the fare is $218 round-trip, and will add a LOT of air miles. I have called my brother to borrow a couple of his Jimmy Buffet novels and we are taking suggestions from friends who have been there. It will be the off-season there (we try to pick off-seasons, but not too off). We are taking suggestions from those who've been there, so feel free.

Here are two poems from the past couple of years, one sparked by a run near the creek, the other by loopy weather.


Crick

Rickreall, I married on your bank
A boy who grew up wading in your water,
Catching your crawdads,
Moving pipe on a farm that drank you.

I became a nurse so that boy
would not one day work both that farm
And a full-time job.
But we never made that move.

I don’t regret nursing or not farming.
Nowadays I sign little pieces of paper
So people can swallow little pills
That they hope will make them feel

The way they might naturally feel
If they had grown up beside you,
Raised by the people who raised him,
Or if they’d married that boy.

(2007)


Moment in Yellowstone

The fountain at our feet was nothing special
by Yellowstone standards—
a butterscotch hole bubbling
with hot, noxious water.
Not surprising if people once thought
this was where the vapors of hell
condensed and boiled to the surface.
But the pools just beyond it were liquid
opal and peridot, iridescing in the
sun pouring over our shoulders.
And the pines beyond them radiated back
that same sun’s green-gold rays.
But between us and all of that heat and light—
snow.
Not on the ground, no, but
falling, driving,
straight across the whole sunny scene.
Ridiculous, stunning.

(2009)

El Salvador Anniversary

The ides of March means different things to different people. Maybe it makes some of you think of junior-year English class, back when they used to make us read Julius Caesar because it was just about the only Shakespeare play with no sex in it. Maybe it is just another day in your countdown to St. Patrick's Day (I know I am always thinking ahead to be sure I have something clean and green ready to wear on my mom's birthday) or to the first day of a longed-for spring. For me, it's always going to be the anniversary of the day I spent patrolling the courtyards of a large school in Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador, as an election observer.

That'd be one year ago today. I had been sitting in church a few months earlier when our pastor mentioned that a local organization was recruiting people to be official election observers to help keep honest the first Salvadoran national election that had a good chance of changing the nation's ruling party. With persistent trepidation I just kept saying I'd think about it until I had drifted into saying "Yes". So glad I did. The whole thing was like a crash course in grass-roots democracy in action.

I didn't catch anyone stealing a vote, stuffing a ballot box, stopping a legitimate voter from voting (although there a lot more things that can keep you from voting in El Salvador than in the U.S.--for one thing, you have to register six months in advance), or exchanging money or weapons for votes. I didn't see anyone that seemed to have been brought in from across the Nicaraguan border to impersonate a Salvadoran voter. I just saw an enthusiastic body politic doing its job, and then getting its thumbs dyed purple to prove it had done it.

And then, just before we left, we were thanked, over and over, for doing nothing but being there to bear witness. Here is the poem I wrote a few days later:

March 15, 2009, Izalco, El Salvador

We rose in the dark and raced through the streets
to see the set-up: rivals settling into their chairs
side by side, hip to hip, cheek by jowl
to do the country’s business,
showing their loyalties gently if at all
(unlike their neighbors who would come from church
to vote with their children beautiful in party colors).
At those tables, I couldn’t tell
who was ARENA, who was FMLN
until I saw who brought them food and drink.

The word “VIGILANTE” rode the backs of
watchers who stood all day, two at each table,
dressed in red, or
dressed in blue, white, and red.
Smiling at me all day,
the middle-aged foreigner
in the white vest with the black letters,
they answered my questions,
and asked me theirs.
That word will never again sound like
The evil that it sounds like here.
They were vigilant, steadfast
on their feet all the long day, until

The doors were closed,
the boxes opened,
the ballots unfolded,
the votes read aloud,
counted by the rivals
before the vigilantes
so no one could question
that this was a real election,
a real election.
At last, a real election.

Training my Dragon

We were offered a $2000 bonus to switch from dictating our office visit notes onto a cassette tape which another human then transcribes, to dictating to voice-recognition software. The software is called Dragon Naturally Speaking 10. The advantage to the office is probably cost (and yes, I am worried about the ladies who've been doing our transcription, but also a little mad at them for deciding to eliminate all apostrophes a few months back; I dont like things that make ME look poorly schooled). The advantage to all of us is an instant record; no waiting days to weeks--usually weeks--for the chart note to come back, be checked (apostrophes added) and signed off by us, and then to be pasted into the paper chart. It's all part of our move to electronic medical records, hereafter referred to as EMR. I think EMR will eventually be good for all of us, but the switchover is a bit like a 50-week pregnancy followed by a difficult labor.

So, for those of you who don't use voice-recognition software, I will describe some of the adventures of "training" the Dragon to hear what I am really saying. For some reason, the version the office bought is not the medical version, and, this will not surprise you, I use a lot of medical terms in my dictation. Setting aside the fact that the world might be better off if we used normal English to describe the patients' symptoms and the findings in their exams (I once said I would never use the term "erythematous" when the term "red" was available, but I have reneged for purely cultural reasons), sometimes you just need to say "paralumbar" to denote those back muscles alongside the lower spine, which often hurt. Dragon insisted it heard "parallel bars". My job is to convince it that when I say "paralumbar" I mean "paralumbar". This was a hard sell. What you do is say "select paralumbar", then it highlights the words "parallel bars" and you say "spell that" and you spell the term out for it. Then you hope it recognizes it the next time. I think it didn't. Maybe you have to do it a couple of times for it to take you seriously. I picture it thinking, "No, honey, you didn't mean that; that makes no sense. Go with me, I know what I'm doing, and you clearly don't."

A sentence I dictated something like, "The patient couldn't get his Geodon" (Geodon is a common antipsychotic drug) comes out "The patient couldn't get his jihad on." Poor guy. Dragon just lost it on "otorhinolaryngology", which I admit I spoke just to mess with it. It did recognize "ENT", so I'm going with that in the future. It has drugs it knows and drugs it doesn't. I wonder if there are prescribers who've just decided to limit their personal formularies to drugs that Dragon recognizes to save themselves misery. There is actually some medical rationale for that approach if you subscribe to the theory that old drugs are often better and safer than newer "me-too" drugs.

After I got it installed and a little bit trained, I logged off the computer, and when I logged back on, I found it wouldn't even let me in as I'd installed it with an administrator's password. My Dragon refused to recognize me as someone it had to obey, or even deal with. So I got it put on again, by a real administrator, and now I have to start training it all over again. I just keep saying to myself, "$2000...$2000....$2000...."