Still a typewriter, after all these years.

OK, OK, I've thrown myself into the techno whirled and I try to keep up as possible. But despite an incredibly red cardinal outside urging me to "cheer, cheer" I admit to being a bit churlish at the moment. It appears the two photo albums I posted at the link below have ... well, vanished. I mean, first the page said I had to ask myself permission to get it. I did (thankfully I was in a good mood and granted me permission) but that went downhill when I got there to find ... nothing.

Nada.

Rien.

Aaarrrrrggghhh!

Plus the desktop downstairs (the girls') needed new antivirus software, so I spent $100 to reload Norton, which promptly screwed up everything. Everything on the desktop and page is HUGE and I can't get it back to size no matter what I tinker with under Control Panel. Even after replacing Norton with another program. And forget Restore -- it's forgotten everything, apparently, prior to this event.

And the new plug-in modem for my laptop blazes away, but the computer still can't find the network that's right next to it.

Long lament -- sorry, reader -- to let you know I'll try to find the pix and upon my (dubious) success, will post the new link. Or gee, maybe I could post 'em all here. Wow, what a concept!

Where's my typewriter??

Xmas pix ... more to come ... New Year's

Some of our pix (taken by Marie J) of our NJ/NYC adventures are posted now at http://johansonmurray.spaces.live.com/. Hopefully we'll get some from Unkie (aka Santa Larry) to add. Now, if I could just figure out how to get all the ones off my phone ....

Happy New Year, everybody! We spent it at home, quietly, with friend Glenda taking a break from nursing duties at her virally-challenged-but-recovering home. Spent hours warmed by the fire (not that it was that cold) taking a fun trip down 30 years of memory lane, then went outside to holler my greetings to the world and lucked out on some neighbors' really terrific fireworks.

Previously, driving to the store to get a baguette to go with our crab cake salad dinner (with one at home unbeknownst to vertically-challenged me, of course, on top of the fridge -- where I'd put it the day before), I spotted another friend on the road, absorbed in her own thoughts. Made me wonder how many times people glanced over at me behind the wheel and wondered at my own cranky middle aged face?

Interesting to think of how other people see me in my unguarded moments. Shucks, I'm still getting used to my face, too, still expecting a 30- or 40-year old babe to gaze back from the mirror!

But I really do need to project a little less cantankerousness, eh? Perhaps I'll just practice my new meditation OM behind the wheel: O[ba]MMMMMMMMM[aaaaaa]. Ah, that's the ticket. Who'd'a thunk politics could be peaceful?

As Tiny Tim said, "God bless us all, every one." All the best for 2009. It promises to be a rough ride, but we can do it. Yes, we can!

An Extra Special Christmas

So, here it is, Christmas Eve, the night before what's supposed to be la piece de resistance, the Big Day. But we've already had a succession of Big Days!

It began 12/12, when we flew to NJ to attend sister-in-law Eleanor's (Sister Eleanor Francis) ordination as an Episcopalian priest. The ordination in the convent chapel, attended by >100 friends, family, sisters and fellow prelates, was simply wonderful -- warm, affirming (how my eyebrows did raise when the Bishop invoked the matriarchs and patriarchs), with beautiful music, vocal and instrumental. The exquisite Kyrie simply made me cry.

Second to that was the opportunity to spend some time in the convent with the sisters, getting to know a whole passel of new sisters! What an interesting, engaging lot they are, and they made us all feel so welcome. (I should explain "we" -- us'n's, plus Mom Martha and sister Bonnie from California.)

Next, we trained down to NYC for a family sojourn in Manhattan. We (this time, the nuclear "we") rented an apartment in the upper 90's, just off Park Avenue. It was warm, cozy, and quiet, being off the busy streets, with the wonderful copper cupolas of a Russian Orthodox cathedral as its view (along with a few penthouse gardens). Wonder of wonders, the weather -- sweater fine the first day -- blessed us with a snow flurry the next, and then two days later, enough for snowball fights and a winter wonderland walk in Central Park.

What a wonderful time! With my brother Larry (aka "Santa") in full host-mode, we saw Radio City's holiday show, complete with high-kicking Rockettes (and a Santa, whose bad joke sophisticated 13 year-old Remy just had to comment on a bit too loudly; i.e., "You suck!" -- Let me just die and ooze away under the rows of seats, please .... ). Sadly, Mommy Marie was felled by the flu that very day, missing the show -- but there was the DVD to compensate.

The next day, we visited the United Nations -- wonderful! -- and that night, Santa Larry scored four fabulous tickets to "Wicked." Poor Marie - again, too low to go after a day out, so he saw it (for the third time) with us. I went back the following day and got two more primo seats, and Marie and I went together that night (while Santa and girls saw "Bolt").

Of course, we had to visit Chinatown (twice) and venture just far enough into little Italy for a cannoli. Chinatown's fish market lured me with beautiful, perfectly fresh sea scallops for only $7/lb -- half of Atlanta's price -- so we feasted on that our last night in NYC with Santa Larry, celebrating his 37th wedding anniversary at the same time. Sadly, his bride was still in the Philippines, reclaiming her family's lands. We were a poor substitute, but hey! A party is a party! I will post some of the pix we took in NY on johansonmurray.spaces.live.com.

Back home to warm temperatures and our most majestic tree ever, looking forward to celebrating the season with our friends.

May you and yours be as blessed as we are in this season.

Our Greece pictures link

.. and maybe other pix in future? Who knows -- I just finally figured out that I had to assign a Web address in order to make them accessible so, given my clearly advanced degree of technocratic talent ....

Anyway, enjoy! You'll want to go too!

http://johansonmurray.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

How time do fly.

Good lord, hard to believe it's been almost a year. Maybe I'll eventually get into this blogging thing -- especially if I can ever get photos downloaded from my digital camera. (Pathetic, I know.)

And whadda year.

The last year, praise the lord, of the proof of HL Mencken's 1920 prediction: "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

The year my impeccably badly-timed decision to flip investment houses in '06-'07 came home to roost financially. But also the year my wise and accomplished darling accepted an invitation to speak at a conference in Athens, Greece and took me along (pix at MSN PhotoShare but my links aren't working -- will insert later).

The year of our girls blossoming into adolescence while retaining such girlhood habits as, as Leonard Pitts put it so aptly,"that landfill down the hall you call a bedroom." Wow, what a trip to see their adult-ish selves peeking out now and then. Can't imagine life without the fun and fatigue of their outrageous presence.

The year of Obama. Yes, I did support Hillary. I thought Obama should take a term or two as VP learning on the job exactly what he would face to "change" the system. Then I thought Hillary should be VP because she'd be a good Prez and because I fear so desperately for his safety. (I want him in the White House or in a Prezmobile, permanently, for the next 8 years.)

But I am absolutely awed at the immense tide of populism (its grass-roots meaning) that swept him into office. I was stunned at the world-wide outpouring of joy at his election. Never seen anything like it; don't think anything like it ever happened. It makes me happy to have a leader in place with such intelligence, let alone such trans-national appeal. He literally is the physical embodiment of the American ideal, a biracial Horatio Alger (boy, doesn't that reference date me).

And that's what worries me, aside from his safety from crazies. So much is riding on his success, so many people world-wide have a stake in it. As Barbara Crofton wisely said one of her "Almost Daily eMo" emails(http://www.geraniumfarm.org/):

"Calm down. The New Testament figure of the bridegroom is Christ. It's not our president-elect.

"Still, even those who did not support Barack Obama recognize what this week's election says about how far our society has come, and the people who supported him are giddy with happiness. Everything is possible now, it seems. Change has come.

"But change doesn't really come overnight. The first-century world was not visibly different the day after the resurrection from what it had been the day before. It was the same hard place it had always been. The Way opened gradually, as way always opens: one person at a time. One heart at a time. A series of small decisions for the good, made by many people many times over. They add up."

The difference now is, having a leader to actually encourage that kind of transformation.

So, we live in hope -- hope that landfills will become neat rooms; hope that our daughters' good hearts and good minds will support them through a life full of challenges; hope that, one step at a time (and please God, a quantum leap or two) the world really will become a better place ... just in the nick of time.

A happy holiday season and wonderful New Year to you all.

Our Nirvanas

12/18/07

Home in Candler Park

Mid-December, and I am sitting in my loft office, looking out at the bare wysteria vines draping the scavenged bamboo "beams" over our back deck. (That's it in spring bloom up there.)

Miracle of miracles, it's raining! Hallelujah! Our state is in a terrible drought, and rain is pure pleasure to see. Even moreso is looking out at a pair of thrashers (the state bird), flashing vivid black and white wings as they fluff and bathe in this unaccustomed shower. A cardinal hen preceded them, possibly the one who's been fighting with herself in the old cracked mirror, painted "Welcome" by the girls, hanging on the back fence. And what a holiday tableau, two vividly crimson males, similarly washing against the green backdrop of the 15' tall anise bush in the side yard! Smart birds they are, joined by the thrashers, rustling the leaves to get yet more water on their feathers.

I recall my parents' delight in birds as they aged, particularly one's little call that sounded like someone's shy whistle: tweeeet, tweet-tweet-tweet, tweet-tweet-tweet. I don't know what bird it is, but I hear it also now, and am similarly charmed by its small, sweet refrain. I've come to appreciate the rough cawing of crows, since learning that they were the first brought low by the avian virus in the U.S. I missed hearing them, and welcome it now. The evening chirp of the robin, the strident call of the bluejay, the sunset flight of flocks of birds, the aerial acrobatics of chimney swifts and those lovely bats eating those mosquitoes -- all these link my present life to my past. I like it. I wish we as a species were more tied into the natural cycle of life and less into our own navel-gazing. Just seems like that would greatly clarify what is real, important, in life.

I also recall my mother growing ever more quiet with age, and notice the same happening with me. The restless young love action and noise; the elders, peace. Good God, I'm an elder now.

I remember particularly wishing to know, as Mom was dieing, what was going through her mind. I never asked, a missed opportunity; but I guess we all find that out eventually for ourselves.

In a way, I can't wait to see what's beyond. I imagine it will be a merging of me, one little radio wave, into an incomprehensible stream of energy, which is reflected in microcosm on this earth and this life. Wow! On the other hand, I recall visiting a dying friend who was on a ventilator, and being shocked at my first consciousness of breath. Of course we breathe, the heart beats, the whole autonomic system does its thing with us totally unaware. I can also imagine that feeling this slow down to stopping will make me feel pretty panicky. It's hard to let go of the only thing you know, even if you're pretty sure there's something better beyond.

Rumination. Maybe all of this comes with age. Knew there had to be something good about it, to balance the aches and pains!

And --- uh, would this ramble qualify as navel-gazing?? ;<)

Home at the Lake

Yep, that's the view from the dock above. Definition of our nirvanas is incomplete without mentioning our teeny-tiny 700 S.F. cabin on Lake Burton. It sits on a steep, largely unusable lot bordered by a (small, TG) power line, but it has a big mama deck, vaulted ceilings and a ceiling-to-floor stone fireplace you could roast a pig in. And most important, it as ~21' of waterfront and a swim dock, more valuable by far than the cabin and its lot.

It's got a great story, too. We bought the cabin from a widow, Mrs. T, whose husband was friends with a neighbor with a considerable lake frontage. One day, Mr. H declared to Mr. T, "I sure do wish I had a swing down by the water there," upon which Mr. T offered not only to build it, but to maintain it and care for the waterfront area in perpetuity ... in exchange for a small piece for a dock. The deal was struck and the land conveyed in fee-simple ownership, for $1, and he did keep it up until he died. You wouldn't believe what that ~20' rectangle is worth today.

But turns out, that wasn't the end of it; that deal led to the Hex.

Mr. W, Mr. T's neighbor, had proposed jointly building a boat house at the end of the cove on what was (at the time) common waterfront access for the planned but never-built subdivision. "Next thing I know," he said to me in fresh outrage a couple of years before his own death, "W's building a dock on his own that he got from H!" Mr. W never gave up hope for access, without which his cabin was worth far less... and he had an ace in the hole. T's driveway was on W's lot, but the cabin occupants were always allowed to use it. When we bought it from Mrs. T, Mr. W offered to sell the driveway to us ... but when his (wicked) children heard about it, they prevailed on him to hold out for a trade of partial dock title for the drive. We wouldn't budge; neither did he. Someone else bought his old place ... someone I had told the story to, blabbermouth that I am, bewailing that I could no longer find Mr. W to re-negotiate a sale. Hence, the Hex. Guess who's holding out for a dock share now?

Ah, live and learn. We're just not meant to have perfection in this life!

9/11 Remembrance - for us all and one in particular

Today, a national day of remembrance, is also of particular meaning to me. Today I also mourn the death of a significant friend, Joan Morrissey, last night to inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). I feel the same physical sensation of numbing sadness as I did after the attacks of 9/11, even without the shock. Knowing someone I care about is going to pass on, transition to whatever the next stage is, does not seem to lessen the impact of that loss for me. But I have felt it to this depth only a few times in my life, and knowing that I will feel it more frequently as I look ahead is not comforting.


Being a person disbelieving in coincidence and often vaguely aware of the web of life in which I am, I find myself pondering the juxtaposition of our national tragedy and this small, personal tragedy to one family in Amherst, NY. The loss of thousands of lives on a glorious early fall morning; the loss of a nation's complacent innocence. The terrible loss to a husband of his life companion; that to two small girls, of a mother; and to an astonishly many others, the loss of a friend. Ineffable sadness, in all cases.


I didn't know Joan as well as some others. We worked briefly together, but in that short time we shared an amazing car ride through a driving rainstorm from Savannah to Atlanta. As she drove, white-knuckled on the steering wheel, Joan and I were suspended in time and place, sharing our experiences and ourselves. It was the kind of intense attention and communication that seems to happen so rarely in a life, and I never forgot it -- or her. So, when the notice came from caringbridge.org that Joan had a blog, I followed up on every announcement that she had posted, and posted back. Caringbridge is a website on which ill patients, their families and friends can post to allow 24/7 communication back and forth. It's a great organization.


It was typical of Joan, amazing woman that she was, that she posted it all, including pictures. I've had friends who died in hospital who stopped receiving visitors because they no longer looked healthy. Not Joan! She not only allowed her army of friends to learn about the realities of IBC and cancer on a very individual level, she posted it on the Web!, no matter how unflatteringly it was reflected on her self. She let us support her, even from a distance. The lessons we all learned from her about courage against all odds, and her persistence in staying for her family until they told her she could go, are indelible. From my mother's death, the first to sucker-punch me with grief, I learned how to die with sheer dignity. From Joan, I learned how to fight it both voraciously and with humor.

In the web of life, Joan made an indelible impression. She was a woman of power, actually, cloaked in a quiet intelligence, passion, and wonderful wit. I hope I am remembered and mourned by even a fraction of those now mourning Joan's passage. She was one of a kind.