What a holiday!

Despite the weather coming down here to Simi Valley, We, or at least I, had a really wonderful Christmas and I'm not just talking about what I got or what we ate but the wonderful fellowship, friendship, etc. It was truly a wonderful experience! The weather, although cold, was clear and Wintery. The kind of weather that makes one want to stay inside with friends and family and share Memories! We Bob, Marilyn, Mark, Bev. and Maddie went to Mass on Christmas morning at 10:30 A.M. Mark and family got here fairly late from Arizona on Christmas Eve. Everyone was ready then to open their gifts because going to Mass at the time we did and then the dinner that had to be prepared, made opening gifts in the morning sort of bad! I had not seen Mark, Bev. and Maddie since last Christmas and I was not really feeling too hot last year!! The rest of Marilyn's family arrived later in the afternoon for dinner. That included her two cousins, John and his new wife and boys, and Ann and her husband Ken who were the first to arrive. Soon Linda, Marilyn's sister her husband Ted and their daughter Tracy arrived. We had a wonderful turkey and ham dinner with all the trimmings and of coursse the usual pies, etc. Then another exchange of gifts! Mainly then, after we all tried to get Marilyn to rest after her grueling week or two with a bad cold, and fixing up the house so beautifully and really doing more than her share of the cooking,. So all the other women were in the kitchen doing the cleaning up. (I was doing the heavy looking on!) I decided that about 10:30 I was going to go to bed. Ann and Ken, Michele,John and the boys left just before I decided to retire. I don't know what time Linda, Ted, and Tracy left because I was tucked away into dreamland after having thanked God and His Holy Mother that I was well enough this year to enjoy the day. Last year for Christmas Eve I went to my Grandaughter Angela's house because two of my Great-Grandchildren were singing in the Children's Mass! It was beautiful and the fact that I used to belong to that Parish made it really something special. We came back to Angela and Mike's for a Prime Rib dinner that Angela had cooking while we were at Mass. When we came out of Mass the wind had started blowing something terrific and all the lights went out in quite a large area of Northridge, where Angela and Mike live! Thia started a hunt for candles, kerosene lamps or anything for light! After dinner, by candlelight, Angela says "Well we had better open our gifts!" Of course all the lights were out on the Christmas tree and Mike went out and got a big lantern that he used in their camper and put it on the mantle!!! They didn't realize that I felt like I was a child again, remember, we had no electricity at all on the farm where I grew up! It was fun though, and the gift giving went beautifully! Bill and Wendy, Angela's folks took me home and when we started out we had no lights but the repair trucks were everywhere and I understand that a lot of the areas in that part of the San Fernando Valley were without lights most of the night!!!! But that was fun too but after Christmas I got a flu bug that was going around along with son Bob and wife and didn't get back to good old Lodi till the week before Easter!!! I hope my health holds up better this year because I want to be getting home in a week or so!!!! Goodnight and God Bless!!!!

No crib for His bed.....

Well Christmas has come and gone and so I was in my room saying my Rosary and came to the Nativity Mystery. Then got to thinking here the God of Gods, Lord of Lords was born in a cave because there was no room for Mary and Joseph at the Inn! And then I was thinking how I never really had a "grand" house but I never had to live in a cave, yet my Lord came to earth as an infant in a cave, or barn where animals were kept! When I had my first "knowledge" of a house was in Wawawai, Washington and I must have been two or three. This house, even though it was a farmhouse, had ten rooms. It was a two story building and was really, it seemed to me to be spread out! On the ground floor were two bedrooms. a large living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. The bathroom was outside in a small buiding with a crescent moon on the door! The top story had three big bedrooms which were off a hall and then over the dining room and kitchen was quite a large room that was used for storage of things like our winter supply of flour, sugar, dried beans, rice, etc. There was no plumbing, or electricity, and the stoves for cooking and heating were wood-burning. An Aunt and Uncle lived there too. They had one boy at the time and my Father and Uncle had purchased the house together. My Uncle passed away and somehow or another Dad lost his "half" of the house. I then remember living in Everett. Washington in a two story but smaller house. My Mother's Father and Mother lived with us and a cousin of mine who was older and working at the time shared one bedroom with a co-worker and they paid rent for the room. We had couch that folded down and made a bed in the dining for some of us. Of course there we did have electricity and indoor plumbing! One night a young 17 year old boy in our area was setting fires and everyone was evacuated at that time for several hours. Now whether that was the reason or not we moved out into the country again to Beverly Park, Washington. Again we were pretty well crowded in a small house and again my Grandparents were us! By this time there were five children in the family and my brother Gerald was born there! We heard from Aunt in Wawawai that Dad could have the big house and she was deeply in debt and could not pay the bank payments on the house! We returned and this was really at the start of the Depression. Mom and Dad had one more child while living there, and then the bank took over the house! Another Aunt of mine had a small house adjourning this property and so she let us move into that! It had one bedroom, a living room, and of course the usual outdoor toilet! My Father built a large room at the back of the house and most of us children slept there, the boys on one side of the room a curtain down the middle and since there was three of us girls and four boys, the boys got the bigger half! I was in the eighth grade while we still lived there and Barbara, the last of the girls was born while we lived there. I went away to Spokane and boarded my first year of High School and then my Aunt had to get someone in her house to pay rent or lose it! So by this time my Maternal Grandmother had died and my Grandfather was living in the family "homestead" with my Aunt Josie. They told us to come to Couer d' Alene, Idaho and move in with them. This was O.K. with me because there was a Catholic High school there and a Catholic Grammer school which delighted Mother and Dad! This house was another small place. Two bedrooms, living room, dining room and kitchen! So Dad built a bedroom on the front porch for he and Mother andwalled it off from the dining room. Then he built a murphy bed in the living room, for us older two girls. My Aunt Jo took one of the children with her in her bed and my Grandfather had one of the boys with him in his bed. Now this still had a few children to have beds, so with a small bed in their (porch) room they took the youngest and then in the back yard we had a big woodshed and Dad finished off a nice room for the bigger boys. They had a kerosene heater for heat and he put a window in the room for light and also that could be opened for air in the summer. They had electricity out there for light, etc. And actually, if I remember right, it looked quite comfy!!!! We lived there until after Genevieve and I graduated from High School and Mother had two more boys. Then Dad got a job in California! It was there that we lived in the tent houses and then a rough lumber house from which I was married. I have told you about these places before! Some of these places were palaces compared to some of the places I lived after I was married!!! More later! Even so, all of these places were roofs over our heads and we were warm and well-fed! AND NOT A STABLE WITH THE WARM BREATH OF ANIMALS FOR HEAT!!!!

wintertime!

When will I ever remember not to come to thw Los Angeles area in the winter time! I have come down in rain, fog, and then yesterday, a combination of rain and snow and heavy winds!!! Yes, Steve and I atarted out from Lodi about 9:30 and we saw a few signs saying that the grapevine might be closed due to snow! Lodi was clear but very, very cold! We decided that we would drive for awhile down I5 and see whether the signs changed any and if so we would switch over to Highway 101. The weather stayed clear and the signs changed somewhat and we decided that unless the weather changed dramatically, we would be O.K. I forgot to tell you that Steve was kind of edgy because Alicia, his oldest daughter was pretty close to makimg him a Grandfather! Her due date was yesterday! Our plans were to get to Bob's about 3:30 or 4:00 rest for about an hour then we were going to go to Church and then grab a quick bite to eat and Steve was going to head home! Well, that is not the way it worked! After what we thought was going to be safe enough to continue down I5, Marilyn called and said that Alicia was in the Hospital! He then said that he was going to get me to Bob's and then turn right around and get back so he could hopefully, get to the Hospital in Stockton before the baby showed up! I don't know how far we went before it started pouring rain and we started praying because it was so cold that we just knew that there would be snow on the Grapevine, but so far no warning signs about chains or anything! When I5 met up with Highway 99, it started snowing! And I mean it started snowing but good! Trucks, some of them pulled off the road but the Highway Patrol didn't stop anyone! There was a few fender benders along the way, where the Patrol was taking care of things. We drove at what I thought was a safe speed and praying constantly, we sailed along. Steve said at one point, "Isn't this beautiful though!" I told him I had been thinking the same thing! And all of a sudden the snow turned to rain and though it was coming down hard, we made it O.K. When we got closer to the Palmdale turnoff, it was snowing again but was not sticking to the road! We got here to Bob's at 3:30 like we had planned but we got word that the Grapevine was closed to all traffic! Steve still had made up his mind to drive up 101 home! He rested about a half hour and headed out for home. We called him and checked a few times to see how he was making it! He had got back to I5 but the traffic was terrible with trucks so he didn't get back to the Hospital at 11'30! However he made it to the Hoapital in plenty of time for the arrival of Liliana Noelle who was born at 5:30 A.M.! He just E-mailed us the pictures of her and the parents and grandparents after she was born. We called him a few minutes ago and he said he had been resting most of the day! Another wintery day in the beautiful SUNNY State of California! Bye now. P.S. I crept out of bed at 10:30 thia morning! Grateful to God that we had made the trip safely!

More about Christmas!!

I was thinking about a few other Christmases. One time when we lived in a project house in Oakland, Calif. Lester Bert, Cappy's oldest boy, came home from Germany where he had been in the Air Force and Cappy decided that he should get some "Churching" and so took him to a Morman Church that Grandpa had taken him to a few times when he was visiting. (The only time Cappy ever went to his Church was when his Father came to visit!) Anyway, he, Cappy, thought it was his "duty" I guess to take L.B. to Church. Lester Bert went to one of the Youth Group meetings and there met a girl who he married within a few weeks. I really liked Joanne and she seemed to like me! We, Cappy and I had bought a Christmas tree and decorated it, not thinking how old the thing was when we bought it!!! Anyway, L.B. and his new wife were living with her Mother who was a widow, and came over for dinner on Christmas Eve. Joanne said to me, "Is that tree dying or is it my eyesight? It seems like all the branches are hanging down." I looked at it and it was really a sorry sight! I asked Cappy and L.B. to go and see if they could find a tree that had some "life" in it. In the meantime, Joanne and I started to strip the tree. The kids, Bob, Dick and Bill were all in bed waiting for Santa Claus. The men got back and had a "fairly" green tree which we proceeded to redecorate!!! I asked them how much they had to pay for the tree and they said the guy was shutting down the lot and had told them to pick out any one they wanted and it wouldn't cost them anything!!! So when morning came and Santa had been there, I wasn't too ashamed of my tree!!! And not so much for Santa but my in-laws were coming for dinner!!!! We sure had a good laugh over that poor "dead" tree! and of course all it's needles were all over the floor!!! Which meant running the vacuum cleaner before we went to Church Christmas morning.
.B

Christmases Past!

At this time of year, one starts to think about Christmas and some of those that have happened in the past!!!! To think how the kids of today are about Santa and how old I was before I knew about who was Santa Claus. Dumb little country girl! I think I found out about the Easter Bunny before I found out about the Jolly old fellow known as Santa Claus! But when we lived in Wawawai in the big old house with the ten rooms and the outdoor bathroom, I went to bed with my siblings after we had helped put up the 8 or 9 foot Christmas tree and decorated it, and for lights had small candles which were lit, first after the tree was put up and then in the morning before we were called to "come and see what Santa had brought"! This happened for some years, I can't remember how old I was, but had to be somewhere in the 7th or 8th grade! I had gone to bed and for some reason couldn't get to sleep! I "snuck" down a few steps on the stairs where I could see through the transom window over the door to the stairway! I heard "noises" Somebody pounding at something, gently, but still pounding! And lo and behold! There was my Father on his hands and knees by the tree putting together a "choo-choo" train for one of the boys! And Mother was helping him by putting dolls under the tree and other toys! Well, I started crying softly, because I didn't want them to hear me but Mother did and came and opened the door! She came up to me and motioned for me to come downstairs with her. I was still crying and asked her what she and Dad had been doing and so she told me the sad story that there was no Santa Claus and that I was not to tell the others but that I could stay and help them! That satisfied me but even though I knew about it and no one else did, or so I thought, Christmas as a child was gone forever for me! I remember when my youngest boy's daughter(Tom's)Natalie flat out announced that there was no Santa, Tom and Dottie and I decided we would fix her!!! I was up at their house for Christmas and they usually celebrated on Christmas Eve. That is, a big dinner, the real "Christmas Story" about Christ's birth read by one of tha adults, Carol were sung around the piano and presents were passed out and opened but then when the children went to bed then Santa came and the next morning, the kids woke up to their Santa's gifts. Well, everything went off as planned and the kids went to bed. I was sleeping in the den on the couch and watching the Midnight Mass from Rome on the T.V. Dottie and Tom played Santa Claus and then they went to bed. I fell asleep and sometime in the night Dottie came and turned off the T.V. Well, the next morning Natalie came out and looked at all her things and I said, "Hey kids! I saw Santa come last night. I didn't let him know I was awake but he turned off the T.V. and then he put all these thing out here for you guys! And then he opened the door to the garage and went away! I was so excited, I couldn'nt get back to sleep for a long time!" Natalie's eyes got as big as dollars and she says, "Really Grandma?" And I told her that was just the way it happened!!!! I don't know if she believed me or not but if she didn't she sure put on a good show of believing!!!! But by the next year she was wise! Tommy for along time, I think knew, but he acted like, "If I say there isn't any Santa Claus, what if he doesn't bring me anything?" It was too funny to watch! There was another story with those kids when Santa came to visit before Christmas and when he asked Natalie, who was not that old at the time, what she wanted for Christmas she said, "Didn't you get my letter?" Goodnight one and all I have to get my dinner!!!

Sunday and...

Well today was Sunday and I didn't get up to go to Mass. I had a really bad leg yesterday and woke up not even able to put my foot down. I laid there awhile and when Nature calls you manage somehow to get up and at it! So I slept, not "too" good last night and woke at 5:00 with a sore leg and so went back to sleep! I go to the Dr. tomorrow and will "hope" that she doesn't feel that I am too bad off! And that it's no more than Arthritis!!! Stephen called and said he would be over about 12:00 or 1:00 but I was able to say a Rosary and Chaplet before he came at 1:00! For which I thank God. I have felt pretty bad off and on all afternoon but my leg seems better tonight but my feet are really aching!! I am, and I'm not trying to say why I didn't go to Church today. I feel really guilty about it especially since when Steve came, he didn't feel too good! Yet he had gone to Church this morning!!! He and I both have Dr. appts. tomorrow and if I possibly can after them I am going to try my darndest to go to Mass tomorrow!!! My appt. was for the 17th of Dec. but I called the Dr. and asked if she would move me up if she got a cancellation and lo and behold Somebody backed out of their appt. and so I have her place tomorrow!!! One has to learn to put things in God's hands and not try to "run things" yourself! My friend Rose will take me tomorrow too. If I had to wait until the 17th I would have had to take Dial-a-Ride. This foggy dark gloomy weather does me no good! (Mentally or phisically!) I have been waiting for so many days to get addresses for an upcoming party and Steve came and I think we did pretty good! I've got to get busy on the phone and ask people what their addresses are!!! I wonder if everybody is as dumb as I am! I know their phone no. and can drive to their front door but either can't remember or forget what the actual number is. Goes to show how so many things are really not that important as we tend to make them! Steve just called. He helped me make out that "list" to send to Janie and then we couldn't send it! So I told him, my computer does that all the time!!And so, when I turned it on a note came up saying that my mail waiting to be sent was sent! And then I thought, when the phone rang, that's Steve, telling me he got it! And voila', or something! Now I feel better knowing we won't have to do that again! Took us, looking up the names and the "right" addresses about two hours or more! Thanks again Steve, and for putting up my shelf by the computer!! It looks really good! Thank you Marilyn for having a "good eye" for a nice shelf that was really what I wanted! Ho hum! Am I boring you as much as I am boring myself! Ta, ta!!!!!

Christmas and how "not" to feel!

So today was a beautiful day and so I got over the "grumps" and the pain in my left leg didn't just keep shooting up my leg. I got to thinking about Christmas and how close it is! It seems like this whole year has gone by in a wink! I remember thinking a year ago, almost to the day that I was going to be in that Convalescent home the rest of my life and I didn't feel too kindly towards anyone, especially the people there that really annoyed me like "Lila".Would I have to put up with her whining and crying day and half the night for just a moment of attention, for another month or so? Or could I get "sprung" (my word!) I didn't think I should have been there in the first place! But thanks to a certain "doctor" I had to undergo therapy for about a month and then could get out! The one month turned into two because I had another relapse with the Virtigo. No fun but I began to feel like there was no tomorrow. I sat in my room or watched T.V. (what I could get at that Hospital!) and of course there was the cold breakfasts, the rubbery eggs, or the huge bowl of oatmeal, or the piece of cold toast with nothing on it, the extra strong cold coffee, and I could go on and on!!! But as the people who were running the place started to talk about maybe I would be able to leave, or, on the other hand, how they could talk me into staying in one of their "assisted living" apts.I thought, I'm going to get out of here, if I have to pretend that I'm crazy or some other thing. And then I started to talk to some of the other "guests"! Some of them were alright mind-wise but couldn't walk, or eat, (without being fed) and all the other things that to me were so much worse off than me! One fellow, (pretty young) was across the hall from me and had been there twenty years! He was in a chair that he had to propel with his mouth! He couldn't walk or use his arms and here I was an 89 year old woman and griping! Mark was his name and he had more people in the establishment "visiting" him than anyone else in the building! I had to find out why!!! He had to be changed, fed, someone had to brush his teeth, wash him, dress him and all the "little " million and one things that one has to do in a day! But, and I say "BUT" he was always cheerful and outgoing and would drive himself all over the hospital, stopping to talk to this one or that one!!! I don't know what happened to him that he was in the position he was in but he had accepted it!!! I started to talk to him and he asked me if I played Bingo, I told him that I didn't do anything but watch T.V. so he said you ought to come down and play Bingo. You'd have fun! So I was sitting in the lobby one day and heard them playing Bingo in the recreation room and so I wandered in and someone asked me if I wanted to play Bingo. I thought, "why not?" So I was asked to sit in a chair at one of the tables and that was the start of my second month in the Hospital. I really had a ball! And Mark, even if he couldn't do the playing himself, always had some one to put the checkers on the cards for him! When he would win he would laugh so hearty!!! So I also got acquainted with the other two players at "my" table and started to enjoy myself! I won two or three games every time I played. Just the way the dice rolled! My two new friends were a woman in a wheel chair who had had bad knees and couldn't walk and the guy was in dialysis! He would go two or three times a week to the Dr. Really nice guy and so helpful to point out a play or two for me! The woman I found out was the sister to one of the people at St. Anne"s who had worked there for years and I knew her but not her sister!There were two or three other people there too that I found out had some relative or friend that I knew. So, I got out of my "dungeon" and started to take walks all around the Hospital! Of course, there was the poor souls who didn't talk or even wake up when I walked around! I got the exercise I needed and also could have someone to talk to and visit with, even if we were both walking with a cane or a walker. And I found that some of the people there who "weren't with it" as the story goes had some amazing talents!!! One lady from the Philipines played the piano so beautifully. She told me her sister had taught her and that her sister was a music teacher in the Philipines.The next day when I met her she just stared at me when I tried to talk to her.Another old guy was walking around and around all the time. So one day in the recreation room they had singing, music,etc. (and some of the help who thought they could sing and dance) anyway, while this old guy was walking through the rec room some piece of music stirred his brain and he went over to one of the girls (the help) and could he dance!!!! Everyone in the room who was just sitting there watching, started clapping and when the music ended, he, the old guy, went back to his cane and out the door without saying anything!!! Another guy picked up a guitar in the rec room and really began to play music that was modern, etc. but when he had his "moment of glory" he walked out and probably at that moment forgot that he could ever play a guitar!!!I never "want" to go to a Convalescent home but if the day comes when I "have" to, I hope that I could make it as pleasant as some of them (unknowingly)did!!!! Goodnight, and good grief! I haven't had my dinner yet!

Some more "funny? memories...

When we were at the sawmill that we had gone to Mexico for in the first place, we were living in a one room place until we could build ourselves a house. We had a Mexican woman, or, even maybe she was one of the Tahuamara Indians,who had finally settled down. She lived in a "crude" house behind us. Anyway, she was very clean and would get on her hands and knees to scrub the room so it was snowy white! She did all the washing, (down at the side of a creek and pounded it on the rocks!) and she ironed everything with some kind of iron and did a beautiful job. The people we met there were so kind and very friendly!!! When Bob got sick one time everyone would wait for a chicken to cackle to tell us she had laid an egg and they would run and get it for Bob!!! They dug in the frozen ground for potatoes, etc. Anyway one would have to have been there to really appreciate them.But to get back to my story. Cappy came in with some dried corn and I asked him what he was going to do with it and he told me he was going to make something, (it sounded like he said "tesweeno") He put the corn into a crock and put some other things in it and said it now had to ripen or something! He covered it with an enamelware tin plate and put it behing the little stove we had. In the middle of the night a week or so later, we heard a clatter and Cappy said, "The tesweeno is ready!" We were going to town the next day and the only way we could go without our car was on a small railroad that tooted about five miles away and if you wanted to ride on it, you had better be down by the tracks and with a red flag out!!! More about this railroad later. We got ready the next day and waited for the train and Cappy took some of his concoction with him! Everybody on the train beginning with the conductor had to sample it and of course they were pretty well drunk by the time we got to the town! The other day when we were looking up the Tarahumara Indians here was what they had as a "likker?" I laughed with Steve and told him the story! Cappy told me at one time that his Father had helped put that railroad in!!! It was a train that ran from the Texas border to the town of Chuatemoc. We made several trips on this train when we were in that area and it was challenging to say the least! Sometimes there would be that toot and then no train and we would run down to the station only to be told that the train had run off the tracks! So we would have to wait till it was back on track and sometimes it would be a day or two! One time we got on it and were about halfway to town when it ran off the tracks! We all had to get off and then were told that they didn't know when it would be ready but they would let us know in plenty of time. It seemed like people came out of the woodwork up to the train from the small group of houses that were along the track. They sold all kinds of different foods, "snacks", I guess. Anyway this time when it happened with us, Cappy went over to one of the houses and asked them to make us a meal. They went out and killed a chicken and then began fixing dinner for us! The train gave a toot and we had to run like anything to get back on it, leaving them a pretty nice dinner, I guess! We paid them for it any way and were mighty glad to get to town and to the Hotel where they had a restaurant! The meal probably would have been very good! The house was clean and the people were clean, etc. Cappy would have probably eaten it but me, well, I had never lived in Mexico before and I must admit I did have "qualms" about eating that food and furthermore feeding to my child of two. I soon got over my qualms and was able to find that sometimes the simplest of meals is the best and especially if there is a willingness to prepare it for you! Oh about the Tesweeno. The noise we heard was the tin plate hitting the ceiling!!!