Veggies and all...

I was reading the ads for the local stores the other day and got to thinking about what really good fruits and vegetables we had when living on the farm! Mother was quite a gardener and had a good "Green thumb"! Seemed like anything she planted grew!! We, I say we, because when we got old enough, we did help plant our big vegetable gardens! Dad, of course plowed up the field and all and then we helped to plant the garden. We planted radishes and green onions which were the first "spring" vegetables. Dad planted three kinds of radishes. There were the little round red roly-poly ones, some red ones that were a little bit oval and white radishes. I think these were my favorite kind. Each kind seemed to have a taste all their own! Then the rest of the vegetables we planted were corn, peas, beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, tomatoes, (two or three different kinds, all with their individual flavors! But all red tomatoes!) , lettuce, (leaf lettuce) cabbage, cucumbers, big old Hubbard squashes, (no Zucchinis. Never heard of them or summer squash till we moved to California!) watermelons, cantaloupes,string beans,and I could go on and on!!!! It was so nice to just go out into the garden and pick or pull up what you wanted to fix for dinner or supper! To say nothing of the fruit that we had in our orchard. Cherries, apricots, peaches, and pears. If we wanted apples we had to buy them!!! But the town of Wenatchee in Central Washington grew all that one could want and some of my Aunts and Uncles used to go to Wenatchee after their/our crops were done and work in the apple orchards and would make sure we all had plenty of apples in our cellars!!! Mother told me when I was a small one, before we moved to Everett, etc. that she could find me in the garden in the Spring eating radishes and green onions, dirt and all!! Now I can't even eat things like onions, radishes, lettuce, and a few other things that I so dearly love!!! When the watermelons got ripe we would "plug" them, (make a small inch cube right down into the watermelon while it was still on the vine and then taste it to see if it was ripe enough!!!) One year Dad let us put up a "fruit stand" in front of the barn. There was a spring up in the canyon that brought down ice-cold water to the barn, not enough I guess for the house water but Dad put a big tub under a faucet just inside the gate of the barnyard and we would drop those watermelons in that and then when the visitors who came from town to get their fruit for canning (peaches, etc.) we were right there, usually with a watermelon cut open and on a plate and would ask the people if they would like to taste the melon and see how good they were!!!!What money we made and we did pretty good for the times, we got to keep but by the time we divided it three or four ways, we didn't get rich. But did we care? Noooo! We were in the shade of the barn and had that ice cold water out of the faucet over the big tub and were were very happy!!! The people got a big kick out of us and I'm sure we got more money than what we were asking for our fruit!! I can almost taste those watermelons! What happened? Now the farmers or whoever, are so anxious to make that "Big" money that everything is picked green and ripened in a warehouse of some sort. Nothing tastes as good as in the old days!!! The farmers in California, my Dad used to say, water everything so much that there is no flavor in the farm produce!!! Father really DID know best!!!!

Sad, sad news....

I got an E-Mail from Janie today regarding my birthday and she asked me who the person was that had sent a regret that they couldn't come. I read the note that she, Linda Entel had written the reason that her Mother couldn't come was because she had dementia very bad!!! Her Mother is my cousin June Crithfield, who is not only my older cousin, (we always joked about that! She was born in Dec. 1918 and I was born in Feb. 1919!) It was with regrets that Linda had written and said that she could not bring her Mother because she, Linda, had been undergoing all kinds of back trouble for three or four years! June and her sisters, Nadine and Betty, were the daughters of my Uncle Lance and Aunt Gladys. Uncle Lance and my Father were always close and so we, June and I, had the chance to spend most of our childhood years together! Mother and Aunt Gladys were really good friends too! Nadine died several years ago of cancer and Betty, after many years of being practically bed-ridden, developed Alzhiemers Disease and was put into a home in Clarkston near June. June was the one who practically took care of Betty till she passed away! Betty had two sons and they lived in Pullman and had families and so June was the ONE left to care for Betty. She visited her almost every day at the Care Center and literally watched her pass away. June had a great feeling about family history and went on several trips to find out all she could about the geneology of the family! This helped immensely to my Brother Joe's wife Jean, who has taken time ( and I do mean years!) to try and come up with the geneology of the Rabideau, (my Mother) and Batty, (my Father) families. She came down the other day with a huge album of birth certificats, Baptismal certificates, etc., etc., about the families. (Anyone wanting to find out about the Farnsworth, Rabideau, Batty family is welcome to come and have copies made of the family going back to the Civil War and beyond!!!) Getting back to June, I feel so sad that we are getting to "that" age when things are no longer remembered! My Mother passed away in her 99th year and Dad was 83 when he passed away! Mother was very mentally alert and knowing even at 99 but Dad was put into a Hospital and had dementia at 83! He did not last very long, thank God, in the Hospital!!!! I HOPE that I take after my Mother mentally and I think I do! I try to keep busy, that is, I try to keep my mind busy with things that keep me thinking that I'm younger than I am! June was a gardener too, and loved the outdoors! I don't have a "green thumb" and gardening is something that I feel I "have" to do if I want to have a few flowers around!!!! I'll pray for you June, and hope that you continue to be the happy person you always were! I love you!!!

It's that time of year again!

Since I am on housing, every year I go through this same thing of having to re-apply! It seems like it takes me forever to fill out a few forms but then when I am again accepted, it's worth it!!! It's rather a gloomy time of year too! Cold, foggy mornings, sunny afternoons, but still cold! With all that is going on in the world, I should be complaining? I do have a roof over my head,(such as it is ) and I have food for my stomach and a heater that works pretty good and an air conditioner in the summer! Got me to thinking how it was when we lived on the farm when I was a kid! We had no air conditioning and I have seen it get up to 109 degrees and stay that way for days! Of course there was the good old creek that we could wade in and if Mother didn't let us go there, ( the rattlesnakes liked the creek too when it got hot!) we turned on the sprinkler in the yard and ran through that! Trouble with that place, Wawawai, was that it didn't get too cool at night either! Mother used to put wet dish towel in the windows and if there was a breeze, it would blow through that and cool off the kitchen somewhat while she was canning fruits and vegetables. The kitchen stove was a wood burning one and then when she canned the fruit, she would put them in a big pot so that the water covered the jars and then when the water boiled it caused a vacuum in the jars and thus sealed the jars! It was like an oven in the house and she used to be in there at least 8 hours a day, if not longer, canning, cooking, heating water for baths, (no hot water heaters)and for water to wash the dishes in, (and rinse them)! It was not an 8 hour day she worked, more like 15 or 20! How did she do it? We, or should I say, she never even thought about it! It was something everybody who had a family did!!! Now, at 90 years old, I'm wondering how she did all she did! She had 10 children, (I'm the oldest) and kept them and the house always spotless! (Or as spotless as one could with six boys and four girls at the age we were when we lived on the farm!) And I'm complaining about a few things like the weather, etc. I remember Mother saying time and again, "Ice and snow, Bless the Lord, cold and chill, Bless the Lord!" She got those sayings from the Psalms out of the Liturgy of the Day, which I say every day but how much thought am I putting into it? God gives us things to try our patience, and how do we repay Him? By griping over the "little things"! If I could just trust God and not try to work things out by myself!!!! Things are rough all over now and it seems like it will get worse before it gets better, but hey, looking back, I've been there, done that, and I'm here yet at 90!!!So chin up world!!!

Time and tide....

I wasn't going to blog for awhile but after reading my son's blog I had to write and tell him that that was one of the first things I noticed about the local news media. Hey, you had it made with even a hint of a notice, (even if it was from the wrong side of the fence!!) There was nothing at all in the Lodi paper. Tomorrow a group of brave souls, (yes, you wouldn't get me near the place!) are having a march in San Francisco!!! One of my friends has been getting together a group from here to go down to S.F. Lydia is an ardent soul with a heart to match, and she is really a worker for the right causes! I saw somebody on T.V. yesterday, yes, EWTN, carrying a sign that said, (What if your Mamma decided to abort you, Mr. President? Would you be standing in the White House making all kinds of laws that are so against human life? And what about your Grandma that died recently, did she abort her baby or did she allow the baby inside her to grow and eventually bring you forth into this world! Just think of all the really GREAT men and women who have good families and bring children into this world who turn out to be maybe even greater than they? Murder is murder, no matter at what age life is taken illegaly and by what means! People seem to forget that the Great God who created us is doing a good job of it but when men and women decide they know better than Him, as a for instance Adam and Eve. God has given us a second chance here. Hey, let's show Him we appreciate it!!Are you really so selfish Mr. President, that you wouldn't like to have Grandchildren and Great-grandchildren to carry on your name! I think all you are thinking about is today and how much money YOU can make and spend and how many "toys" you can accumulate while the taxpayer suffers!!! I really don't think you have a "clue" as to what it is to run a country! But you WILL find out when all your "friends?" in Congress start treating you like the dirt you were made from! God, Please God, help us all! And I ask this sincerely.

Just a few....

Just a few memories that were brought to mind when I heard that my eighth grade teacher's daughter was coming to my 90th birthday party next month! Thelma Earl and her folks came into our lives when I was in the sixth or seventh grade! Mr. Earl was a retired barber and of course Mrs. Earl came as a teacher to the Wawawai school! What a relief after the first couple of teachers we had! Mrs. Fuque was not bad but Mrs. Shawn did nothing but assign the lessons and then sit at her desk eating chocolates or sleeping from what I remember. I do remember that some of the kids, (not me, I was afraid of heights!) crawled out of the window and played around before she realized what was going on! Then Mrs. Earl came! There was no place for them to live since there was the three of them so the schoolboard, where Grandma Batty was the head of that, etc. decided to fix up the basement of the school as living quarters for the Earls!!! If I remember, (Thelma might have other ideas!) it turned out to be quite comfortable. Mr. Earl, having been a barber, cut all the men's hair in the area of the school! That was not all he did! It got very cold there in the wintertime and Mr. Earl would make big pots of soup and bring it upstairs for the students to eat with their sandwiches!!! And if it was not that kind of weather he would help us warm up our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the big pot-bellied stove in the classroom. He did all the janitor work, etc. Mrs. Earl gave piano lessons to all who wanted them! They cost us nothing! My folks bought a second-hand piano and so my sister Genevieve and I took piano lessons! Teresa,our younger sister benefitted from them by learning to play by ear at home after we would practice and go to school!!! So when she and our cousin June's sister Betty went to school, they both took the lessons! Mrs. Earl was a very diligent teacher and we really were taught spelling, (she would have spelling bees!) reading writing and arithmatic! Thelma has kept in touch, along with her Mother and her Father till their deaths, all these years. She called me last summer and told me that her best childhood remembrances of school and growing up were the years that her folks spent in Wawawai and the friendships that they made with the Clarence Batty family! We were the closest farm to the school and so I remember many evenings when the Earl's would walk up the road and spend the evening! Mr. Earl played the violin and so did my father so it was a very musical , what else can I say to describe it, happy memorable time of my life too! God Bless you Mr. and Mrs. Earl, (both gone now!) and Thelma too. I'll be very happy to see you again!!!

Thinking...

I am going home this weekend, after which has been a really enjoyable three weeks or so, visiting with family and friends. Weather has not been all that great but after all this is winter! Went to Bible Study at Cathy and Pat Sullivan's (my niece and husband) last night. There I met a woman who has relatives in Mokelume Hill where I lived at one time! What a small world and it keeps getting smaller! I recognize the woman's last name and am pretty sure my sister Barbara would have known the family since she lived in the area almost all her life! ( And incidently why I moved there at the time I did!) I am now looking forward to my 90th birthday in February! My children are giving me a birthday party up in Lodi where I now live and have lived for over 35 years and have many relatives and friends! One son, Steve, (my youngest living son) lives in Stockton which is only about 14 miles from where I live. The others are scattered from Arizona to Texas to Ohio to Georgia to California! (One reason that the above location was decided on for my party!) I can hardly wait!!! Time flies by so fast! I was at my son Bill and wife,Wendy's house for lunch on Sunday. I see them all when I come down here as I have for the past several years but their "children" now have children and my oldest Grandaughter"s oldest child, my great-grandaughter is almost ready for High School! She will be going to Bishop Alimany High School where her father went, and where three of my boys and two of my daughter-in-laws graduated from!! And speaking of small worlds, our present Bishop of the Stockton Diocese taught school in Alemany but after my boys and their wives graduated but about the same time my Grandson-in-law went to school there!! Ho-hum! Makes me tired just thinking about it! So I probably won"t write any more till after I'm home on Saturday and see, hopefully, see my newest Great-Grandaughter, Liliana Noelle!!

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!!!

What do you do when there are no wagons to circle?

When visiting Mexico back in 1947 or so, Cappy and I were driving along a "road", when the springs broke on the axle of our car. Cappy decided we would make camp that night right where we were! He gathered wood for a bonfire and made a pit out of rocks to radiate the heat and cook our meal. He layed the meat directly on the rocks to cook it and was in the process of putting up a tent with our bedding when lo and behold! what should appear but a strangely dressed and ominous looking bunch of people! They just stood around and stared at us for a while, until Cappy asked them what they wanted in Spanish. They told him something or other and then moved on. I asked Cappy who they were, after calming down a bit, and he told me they were Tarahumara Indians. I had never seen any before. They wore breechcloths and not much else except a headband with feathers. Quite startling for my first encounter with this people. They moved on, then Cappy told me about them. They are a nomadic people and just wandered about in the Northern Mexican Sierra Madre mountains. Needless to say, I got no sleep that night, and slept in the car with little Bob. The next morning, finally, a horseman came along and asked Cappy what was wrong. Cappy told the Samaritan that our car had broken down on our way to town. Our new friend suggested to look around for some haywire to try and attach the spring back to the axle and that his father owned a garage in the next little town about 3 miles down the road. He had a face you could trust, and did not let us down. He attached the car to his horse and towed the car to town with it! What a sight! His father fixed the car and we went on to our destination. We were happy to have found a new friend and also to find out the Indians were peaceful and were not going to attack. It would have been hard to circle the wagons with just a car--and a broken down car at that! Happy Thanksgiving to all and I hope this story has made us all realize that no matter how much trouble we think we have, God is always there to help us out.

Weather!

When one listens to T.V. or Radio as to what the weather is going to be like, seems like it never happens! Either these "experts" don't have a clue about weather or are just guessing! Goes to show who really takes care of the weather and everything else in the world! Whether WE like it or not!!! I was surprised when it turned so cold in the night last night! It was supposed to be a "beautiful weekend, temps. possibly in the low 80's." Imagine my surprise when I got up this morning at 8:30 and was freezing! In fact, that is what probably woke me up! My feet felt like icicles! I did my few morning chores, like bathroom and morning prayers and got my breakfast, Bob called and I told him about being so cold. He said it was nice and warm in So. Cal. I looked at my little thermometer and at that time, about 9:30, it was 69 degrees here! I went to my front door and looked out and it had been "showering" I guess. The ground was wet and it was cloudy all over. I just looked up our weather on the computer and it is still pretty cool, in the low 70's. I'm not complaining because I think that I am getting an answer to the prayer I have been saying that we would get rain and lots of it to get this part of the state out of the drought it has been in! I hope this is just one of many showery days we have. Rain doesn't bother me at all. I love it! When it rains my arthritis slows down, and I begin to feel vigorated. When I was younger, I used to love to walk in the rain. Not in a cloudburst, mind you, but a gentle rain. Everything smells so fresh and new. I remember when I went to Hawaii several years ago and we had a sudden downpour. The rain felt like you were in a warm bathroom shower! I just let it pour on me and in about 10 minutes after it had stopped, a warm wind came up and I was dry again in a just a few minutes! I don't like dark dreary days, when we have what they call a high fog! I feel as though I am all alone in the world! And fog itself is very bad for my "Arthur"! Wind, now that's something I really don't like! I get so nervous and cross when it gets windy! I don't realize it until I start to think "What's the matter with me?" When I was young and we lived in the big 10 room house that I told you about before, the wind would come up and that old house would actually weave in the wind!! Maybe that's when I first got this "hate" thing. One night it blew so hard that it broke the window in the room where my brothers were sleeping! Our bedrooms were upstairs and I remember Mother and Dad telling us to stay in bed and not to try to go into the boy's room because there was broken glass all over! Then sometimes when we had heavy winds we had dust storms! One could hardly breathe and the dust settled on everything! Well, we take what we get and God has his reasons for making the weather "sometimes good and sometimes bad!" At least so far we haven't been struck with very many tornadoes! Or hurricanes! See ya later!

Barb 'n me

I have felt so blue today! Don't know why. I have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, and family on the internet!!! But it's just not the same without Barbara! I can't explain it. I am not sorry that God chose to take her at this time because she was really bad off!!! In pain and not able to do anything for herself, etc. This was just not Barbara! Was thinking about the last time we took a trip together! We went to St. Joseph, Missouri for a family reunion of my Mother's people, the Rabideaus. We had recieved notice of it and started planning to go! I went to So. Cal. for something or other and Dick and Janie were there. I was telling him about the trip and he says, "we'd love to have you guys come and see us in Cleveland before you go home" Anyway, to make a long story short, he called me when I got back to Lodi and said that he and Janie had been talking it over and that they were going to pay for our trip to St. Joe if afterwards we would come back to Cleveland and see them before we went home. I told Barbara and she was estatic!!!! So we finished making out plans. Dick sent us the tickets and we went to the Reunion! We had to go via Dallas and then up to Kansas City. We had planned on getting a rental car so we could do a little sight seeing, etc., which we did and then set off for St. Joe. We found the Hotel where we were registered and where the reunion would be held. Never saw so many family members in my life!!! I forget how many had come from all over the U.S. and Canada! The first people we talked to, was a couple sitting on the veranda of the Hotel and they were from a place up near Quincy, Cal. They kind of hung out with us while signed in and then we had, that afternoon, a cocktail party, where everyone tried to get acquainted!!!! In looking around I thought, " I would have known this crowd any where!" While talking their hands were flying as fast as their mouths were! You just felt, well, at home! This one would introduce you to that one and so on. Many of them had been meeting someplace every four years for years! We were sitting at a table with this lady and a couple of guys from Canada walked in and sat down with us because they had known this lady at the table for years!!! They were so interesting. Their wives were there and finally wound up with us. Pretty soon they brought in, I don't know how many kinds of pizza and someone called out to come and get whatever kind you wanted and as much as you wanted!!!! After a certain length of time we had to get in line and they, the committee running the thing gave us envelopes with all the instructions as to what was going on the next few days and how to get there, etc. Everyone had been instructed by mail to bring family albums, etc. and these were set up in another room where there was books that one could buy ( about geneology of the fam., etc.)We were getting pretty tired by this time so we and everyone else kept drifting off to their rooms, or wherever they were staying. Barbara and I overslept the next morning (probably not the only ones) so we had to find a restaurant to get breakfast. Found one pretty close so ate quite a few meals there while in St. Joe. Tried to have our Continental breakfast at the Hotel though because it was free! They had scheduled a trip on the second day and our new-found friend told us that we wouldn't want to go on that! Alot of walking, climbing, etc. so we decided that we would go down to "Old Town" and see a few of the famous places. The house where Jessie James was shot, the first pony express station; this is where the first mail by pony express started out! and there were a few other Museums, etc. Then, since there was to be a dinner at one of the Old museums that night, we decided to go and visit a place that I had visited a long time ago. Well, I got her up to the next town and from there they had changed the highway that I wanted get on and yes, you guessed it! We got lost. We found ourselves going down an old gravelled road and way out in the country. Barbara decides that this is probably not the right way and so here we were!We stopped the car to try and get our bearings. Some guy comes along in a pickup. I yelled "hey" out the window and Barbara told me later she was scared to death! The guy stopped and when we told him where we wanted to go he had us turn aroung and go back into town and so we did find the way. We wanted to go to a Monastery that I had been to with Teresa and Hank and Bob years before! We found it but it was getting so late that we weren't able to stay very long and headed back to St. Joe. The nuns told us how to get to where we were going without going back to the little town we got lost in. We made it back in time for the dinner at the old Museum and a beautiful dinner and after dinner the Host told us the history of the Museum, Seems like there was a ghost living there with his wife and him! He finished the story and after looking at the million and one things there, all went back to the Hotel.The next morning after breakfast Barbara and I decided to try out the Casino at the edge of town. No, we didn't win anything but did find half the reunion members out there!!! That evening was the Grand "Ball" so to speak, a catered dinner at the Hotel! The next morning after that, one of the "relatives" a priest from Kansas City came to the Hotel and said Mass in one of the Conference rooms We packed up and left the Hotel to go to Kansas City to leave the rental car and catch our plane to Cleveland. After driving around and not being able to find the rental place and we had passed the airport several times and so Barbara says "Why don't I let you out and you can get our bags checked and I'll see if I can get this car back". I did as she instructed and found a place to sit with out carry-ons and then I started to wait for her. They announced loading and still no Barbara! Finally some one asked if I was waiting for someone and I told her the story. She went up and talked to the lady who was putting people on the plane and they called out for Barbara over the loud speaker, etc. I really started to worry. The loading lady came over to me and told me not to worry that they would do something else about our tickets, etc. So, when I had given up in walks Barbara! You guess it she finally had to stop and ask someone to guide her to the rental place! You see when we got off in Kansas City they were there with a shuttle to take us to the rental place!!! Well, I promise I will finish our trip sometime!!! I am getting very tired of typing!!!!!

Whew! Halloween gone....

Not that I was worried. For three years I haven't had anyone come to the door! And there was not that much activity in the neighborhood. Guess people are waking up to the fact that it is really a dangerous activity in this day and age!!!! Now good old elections, (which are REALLY scary anymore!) And then too soon Thanksgiving! Course if we really think about it, it really is what it means! Giving thanks to God for what we have or don't have, (in the case of a unexpected illness!) I have so much to be Thankful for this year! I know that sounds funny with all that has happened in my life but to just name a few! I first of all, thank God for my family who have been so helpful to me during all the years of my "widowhood"!And then I thank God that they have come through the "trials" of illness. Then I thank God for giving me the strength of Faith to weather all the "storms" that I have gone through for the past couple of years! Loss of two sisters, two sisters-inlaw, illness of so many of my brothers and their wives, my own family illnesses! Now for some of the better things to think about on Thanksgiving. I'm remembering a few years ago, or it seems like a few years ago, when my Mother and Father and their family would all get together and rent the Y.M.C.A. Hall in Torrance and everyone would cook what they thought was their "best" dish for a Thanksgiving dinner! Of course, we would let the others know what others were bringing, so we didn't wind up with 8 or 9 turkeys! Made it much simpler! The hall was large and had tables already set up for us and there was a fireplace, a piano, and a nice big yard for the kids, if the weather allowed, to go out and play.Sometimes the older boys/men would have a lively game of touch football before dinner. The women would get the tables set, finish cooking the dinner, etc. After dinner there was always pumpkin pie, and a couple of other kinds of pies! Then while the women and the young folk put the dishes into a dishwasher (I seem to remember a dishwasher! Maybe it was a human dishwasher or two!) and cleaned up the kitchen, the men sat around and talked or whatever. It was a really good time! Afterwards, someone would be asked to play the piano,(most of the time it was me!)And someone would suggest that we dance to some records that someone was thoughtful enough to bring!I always loved to dance! We had almost the whole day there at the hall and would go home really happy and content that were able to see the "family" We took pictures and I'm sure some of the pictures are still in many albums. But things change and even though it is even now a "family" day, there are fewer and fewer families getting together. It is much easier it seems to go "out" to dinner. I wonder if, with the economy as bad as it is, someday it may get back to the old things we used to do as a family! Ho, hum!!! Enough of being old!

Back again....

I was remembering another Halloween when we lived in East Oakland. We lived upstairs in an 8 apt. building. There were lots of families there with lots of children. My kids were out with some of the neighbors kids and adults and then came home. I heard another bunch coming upstairs and a knock on the door. I opened it and here stood the biggest clown I ever saw saying "trick or Treat"! And then she laughed. It was one of my neighbors on the other end of the building ! She was always a lot of fun!!!!How she ever had the time to fix herself up like that I'll never know!!There was another time in later years but I'm trying to figure it out in my mind, when Tim and Brian were little. Marilyn and Bob had fixed them up in costumes and took them out in the neighborhood. I can't remember now if Brian had gone up to the door for candy or not but all of a sudden some big person in a horrible mask scared him and he ran right up to the house where a lady was passing candy and ran right in the door!!!! I do remember Marilyn and Bob coming home laughing their heads off!!!!Time passes and things are not safe as they were then. Linda, my niece, was out with a bunch of little ones and as they passed this one house there was something fixed up like a man sitting in a chair and as she passed by she heard the "guy" speak. She said as loud as could be "Oh s---t!" then she heard the guy who lived in the place laughing! He had hooked up a speaker to this figure in a chair!! If you want to know about Halloweens, just talk to my oldest grandson, Tim! He's like a kid and fixes (or used to) fix up his house like a haunted house or whatever every year his Father tells me! Every year he has to outdo "last year's" decoration!Do you still do that Tim???? Love you!

Halloweens...Boo!

I thought since tomorrow night is Halloween I'd write a few Halloween "pasts". Since we lived on a farm quite a few years of my "growing up" I had to wait until I was in the 2nd grade of High School before I did any Halloween "tricks"! There wasn't any "Trick or Treat" in those days, it was mainly tricks. Usually some nice person would come to the door and give you an apple or a piece of homemade candy but it finally got out of hand. I don't ever remember getting into any kind of "costume"! We would wear an eye mask or big parafin lips or maybe throw a towel like a cape over our shoulders but that was rare!We "soaped" windows, knocked on doors and then ran, etc. but some of the kids did some pretty weird things like "waxing" the windows, (Mother caught us doing that one Halloween and that was the last time! We had to wash it off and you're right! It didn't wash off! It had to be scraped off!) We didn't write anything weird or anything, usually just scribble! I don't want to put down a few of the things we did, what we thought was innocent fun because somebody might read this blog and get a lot of "strange" ideas!I never really "liked" the Holiday!One Halloween, my Father was listening to the Radio and this "Newscast" broke in and said that aliens from another planet was attacking the U.S. and we all sat glued to the radio, afraid to go anyplace and really frightened!!! After so many minutes, somebody broke into the broadcast to tell us that we had been listening to Orson Welles, "War of the Worlds"! People all over the U.S. who were listening to the radio that night were affected! Some heart attacks, suicides, etc. Needless to say, the Radio sponsor who put this horrible show on was sued!!! They tried to say that people were warned before the show started that it was just a show, but everyone, including my Father, said THAT was not true, that he had been listening for over an hour to the radio and nothing was mentioned that it was fiction! Reports over the news later said that it had not been announced that it was only a show! We, my brothers and sister and I were afraid to go outside at all! And for days or even months later, one looked up at the sky to see if there was any "Alien Space Ships" out there!!! I'm sure that after so many years and so-called "sightings" of alien craft that people got used to the idea! And then there is today! With so many really, really "weird" movies, Broadway shows, books, and all! It's a wonder we don't have a bunch of "raving maniacs" out there! It's O.K. God's still in His Heaven and with age comes a sense of calmness! How long will it last??????