My car problems

Our driveway and garage floor look like this. Yesterday most of the oil drained out of my car, so the car had to be towed to the mechanic's shop.

However, I did not know that was the problem when I first encountered difficulties with my car. Yesterday when I was driving somewhere, there were a few whining noises and then the air conditioner was radically fluctuating. (And since we have been having record high temperatures almost every day, I want a working car--and house--air conditioner!) I called and asked CB what to do and he said not to worry and come home when I was finished with the task.

I did that and when I returned home, CB discovered that 3/4 of the oil had leaked out of the car! I could have fried the engine driving the car. . . .thankfully, I came home.

So the car was towed to the garage, and we picked it up this afternoon. They charged $136 for labor, because it took the mechanic so long to find the problem. There was a pin-sized hole in the oil return hose. That was all. He only had to replace it with a $10 rubber hose.

CB says that it seems ridiculous to recycle hot oil in a rubber hose; he says that these used to be made of steel. The mechanic said many cars now have these rubber hoses. Your car may, also.

I am very glad my car is fixed and that it seems as if this is unlikely to happen again soon.

Come Dance

Every
Child
Has known God,
Not the God of names,
not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does anything weird.

But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come dance with Me."

Come
Dance.

~~Hafiz

Sunday night

Steve Brodner illustration of Harry Potter

I just finished the fifth Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). This means that in the past month I have re-read all seven of the Harry Potter books. I enjoyed each one immensely and was inhabiting the world of Hogwarts et al, which may seem odd for a 58 year old woman, though not to my four children! I like these books so much that I am sure that I will re-read them all again in a few more years.

The dinner party on Friday night was fun, especially when everyone shared how they had met their spouses. This was especially interesting as three of the six couples were originally from foreign countries--England, India and Japan. The latter two had arranged marriages. The English couple met at what she called "the cellar" in Liverpool where the Beatles were just starting to play. (Her brother had told her about a new group that he thought was good.)

The wedding shower was better than expected, though I was the only one wearing a long linen skirt with a linen blouse and flat sandals. The standard uniform for women was a sundress with high heel sandals. Oh, well; I was comfortable and looked "like myself." I am not a good chit-chatter, but managed to keep other people talking when I was with them.

Maybe my perceived oddity was that CB and I left the church that most of the people in attendance at the shower belong to. In fact, we used to attend the Methodist Sunday School class they are still part of. We are very happy at our Episcopal Church, though that seems quite alien from a southern Methodist Church (even though I like to recall that John Wesley remained an Anglican priest until he died).

To celebrate the end of socializing as a hostess, I spent the rest of today reading the Harry Potter book. It was a lovely way to end the weekend.

Stressful socializing

That's how I sometimes feel in social settings. And this weekend is much more busy in that sense than usual, which stresses me out.

Tonight we are having a dinner party for CB's retiree friends, which is a monthly gathering. We rotate among the six couples. The one who hosts the "casserole club" provides the main meal, the drinks, and pleasant place to eat and meet. Others bring salads, vegetables, dessert. After all these years, I feel much more comfortable with these people.

CB is barbecuing salmon. I made a curried chick pea and rice salad, a vegetarian option for the one vegetarian coming tonight. At least there will be more salads for her, too.

Tomorrow night is a huge wedding shower for the daughter of a friend. I am one of 12 hostesses, if you can believe that. There will be about 100 people there, and it is much foufy-er than I am comfortable with. I am hoping that I will forget myself, since I am not cute and thin (or rich). It will probably be more fun than I expect, though CB may not agree. We'll see.

Anyway, this is being much more social than two introverts want to be!

Friday Five: Food or Trader Joe's

Sophia at RevGalBlogPals brings up the wonderful store Trader Joe's for this week's Friday Five about food:

So in honor of the new Trader Joe's, this week's Friday Five is all about food shopping.

1. Grocery shopping--love it or hate it?

I usually like to go grocery shopping at the only supermarket here in Corpus Christi is HEB. I love to go to Whole Foods Market in San Antonio and other cities, but not here. I learned about Trader Joe's from daughters AE and KA in Seattle.

2. Who is the primary food shopper in your household?

Me

3. Do you have a beloved store like TJ's which is unique to your location or family?

Nope

4. How about a farmer's market, or CSA share, as we move into summer? Or do you grow your own fruits/veggies/herbs?
No; it's too hot.

5. What's the favorite thing you buy at the grocery store?

If it was Whole Foods Market, it would be their little individual servings of creme brulee!

Our LOW temperature this morning?!

And it reached a record all time high temperature for this date today at 96 degrees F.

Sleep Apnea, phase 2

Way back on May 6, husband CB was tested for sleep apnea. Time drug on with no results until finally last week he visited with our family doctor, who told him that he had recently received "the" report. This showed that CB had sleep apnea with reduced levels of oxygen in his blood.
Last night he spent his second night at the sleep clinic, this time with one of those machines on, along with all the wires monitoring his body functions. He was told that he reached a point of NOT snoring and reaching deeper REM sleep. WOW!

This is very encouraging, except for the recent history of s-l-o-w progress in reporting. Once the report is submitted, someone will contact CB about purchasing a CPAP* machine. I am wondering if this will be sooner than the first time, since a lot of money is involved.

*(Continuous positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP) uses a machine to help a person who has obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) breathe more easily during sleep. A CPAP machine increases air pressure in your throat so that your airway does not collapse when you breathe in. When you use CPAP, your bed partner may sleep better, too. )

Nada

"Gran Torino" movie

Here is Clint Eastwood in his latest movie "Gran Torino," which is excellent. My oldest son DC told me months ago that this character reminded him of my dad, who had been a career Marine officer (mustang--who rose from the enlisted ranks to being an officer without a college degree). My dad stood ramrod straight, wore shabby clothes, and was often grumpy. He also could look this disapproving and dissatisfied.

CB and I really enjoyed this movie tonight. It is especially poignant for baby boomers with dads who fought in WWII or in the Korean War. Others will enjoy it, as my 29 year old son liked it.

Grover Discusses Marriage on "Sesame Street"

Thanks to Choralgirl!

About Prayer

I keep starting anew in a discipline of prayer. It is so easy for me to be distracted. So these quotes are more for me than anyone else. I believe what these famous authors say here. Live it!

"Prayer itself is God. It's not an activity to get God to like me, or to talk to God. It's not something that I do for God; prayer is God in me loving God outside of me, and God outside of me loving God in me."
~~Richard Rohr

"The wish to pray is prayer in itself."
~~Georges Bernanos

"Prayer is not for the sake of something else. We pray in order to pray."
~~Abraham Joshua Heschel

Maggio, Rosalie. The Journey Inward: Quotations for the Soul. NY: Barnes and Noble Books, 2001.

Nothing

Stayed up till 2 am to finish off the Harry Potter book. MJ went to church with CB and me and left this afternoon. I am sleepy, but it's too late for a nap.

Still Harry Potter

While MJ slept late and tonight made creme brulee with the kit she gave me for Christmas, I continued to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7). I had forgotten so much, because I'd read it so quickly when it first came out. It is wonderful to read it again!

Surprise visitor!

Tonight CB and I heard a key being inserted in the front door, unlocking the lock--WHO could that be? And there was MJ! In the poorly taken picture above, CB is teasing me with that look while MJ was showing him her chem lab notes.

AND she brought me the seventh and last Harry Potter book (HP and the Deathly Hallows) since I wanted it so badly!

Right before I started this post I finished the shortest book of all, the first one. Now do I go to #2 or #7?? Perhaps if I read the final Harry Potter book, I will stop this progression of reading them all over again.

Harry Potter revisited

Last week I read the sixth Harry Potter book (HP and the Half-Blood Prince), because I wanted to be ready for the forthcoming movie, which will be released in July.

I was hooked again. Wanting to read the final book only caused frustration, because MJ has it in her dorm room in San Antonio, where she is doing chemistry research for the summer.

I thought that was that. . . . but last night I began to read the first one (HP and the Sorcerer's Stone). I am surprised at how much I am enjoying it and how new it seems to me. This must be at least the fifth time I've read Rowling's first book, which was published in 1997.

And here I thought my first summer book would be Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of FDR by H. W. Brands, which BJ gave me for Mother's Day. . . .eventually that will be read this summer.

What will be next? Harry Potter 2 (HP and the Chamber of Secrets)? Or history?

Friday Five: Moving and Changing

Sally at RevGalBlogPals writes:


ALL IS CHANGE.... and although I am looking forward to it, it is not without a sense of trepidation, as change always brings challenges.

Changing location also means packing, so next month will be a month of clearing and sorting, deciding what comes and what gets left behind...

So with change in mind I offer you this Friday five; ( if you've never moved here's a chance to use your imagination)

1. A big move is looming, name one thing that you could not possibly part with, it must be packed ?
Now that we have no children living with us, I'd have to bring along our pets: Baillie, our old cocker spaniel; Cisco, CB's mixed shepherd; and Gracie, the furry queen cat.

2. Name one thing that you would gladly leave behind...
The HEAT/humidity of south TX.

3. How do you prepare for a move
a. practically?
Clean out and get rid of.

Having lived in the same house for the past 15 years has us packed to the gills. Moving motivates me to sort and clean out.

b. spiritually/ emotionally?
I'd check with Shalem for spiritual directors in the new area, so maybe I'd have possibilities for friends there. I have met wonderful people here, who were directed through Shalem.

Keep addresses in my address book. Try to see friends as much as possible before leaving.
I have lived here in Corpus Christi longer than I have in any other place in my life (since I grew up with a dad in the Marine Corps), and so it would be difficult to part from this "home," even though it's always too hot.

4. What is the first thing you look for in a new place?

This is what our moves usually looked like:

When we moved so much when we had children, I would always seek out the La Leche League leaders and groups, plus the local library.

Now I would seek out spiritual friends, probably first through Shalem's directory.

5. Do you settle in easily, or does it take time for you to find your feet in a new location?
One would think that moving so frequently both as a child and as a young mother, I would have gotten used to relocating. However, it has always been difficult for me to move, probably because I am an introvert.

The hardest move of all was from RI to NJ when my mother had just died. When we moved, the children (except for 2 year old MJ) were in school and CB was immediately at work, and I was alone with MJ. Thankfully, I had her.

The bonus for today; a new opportunity has come up for you to spend 5 years in a new area, where would you go and why?
This is a revelation to me.

I have been worrying about whether we should move to Bellingham, WA, where I still own (and rent out) my parents' home, but friends and three of our children living in TX hold me here. A move doesn't have to be permanent, except it seems that way with all our junk. So getting rid of stuff would bring freedom of movement, also.This is a map of Bellingham. Find Lakeway Drive and then see Puget Street--my parents' old home is about the middle of the word "Puget." CB's parents live past Yew Street on Lakeway Drive.This is a good view of Western Washington University (formerly WWSC, from which CB and I graduated) and Sehome Hill. The hill behind Sehome Hill is where my parents' house is.

E-mail Clean-up Starts!

Embarrassing though it is, I am pleased to announce that I have deleted about 6,000 messages in my inbox and "sent items" box. Combined, there were about 10,000 messages, so you can see I have more to delete tomorrow. And I am grateful to my daughter for posting about this, so I was brave enough to admit my hoarding, even on the internet--but she had less than 10% of what I had (and still have).

CB installed a new security system on our computers and made some sarcastic remarks about all my stored messages, which I've been avoiding. This goes along with an article I received yesterday from Zen Habits, "8 Liberating Strategies for Clearing the Queues in Your Life."

The point in that article that applies to me is this one:

"6. Clear the rest. Once you’ve picked out the most important, see if you can clear the rest, or at least shovel them somewhere else to deal with at a later time. I’ve already mentioned how you can do this with your email inbox. With a to-do list, you can put them in an @someday folder/label to deal with later. Delete things you will probably never get to, that you’ve been dreading doing and don’t absolutely need to do, or that are unnecessary. Sometimes a big mass delete can be liberating."

Mass deleting of Joe Riley's poems and Inward/Outward daily email quotes (and other items such as Amazon orders) was quite liberating!

HOT!

Record high temperature of
99 degrees F. today!

There was also a record high yesterday (Tuesday) of 96 degrees F.

(Though I must admit that our dog Cisco was still jumping at the fence and barking at the cat and/or kittens next door.)

Jesus called

San Francisco Photos

View of Union Square from our hotel room

Our only San Francisco picture of both of us.
This was taken behind the Ferry Terminal
with the Oakland Bay Bridge in the background

The following pictures are from our long walk along Broadway from Van Ness and eventually to Clement Street

Jan in front of Thidwick Books, which has wonderful cards.

Green Apple Books