35th Anniversary plans - cancelled

Northern California is on fire.

The Bay Area has been suffering from the smoke and ash from the wildfires in the Sacramento area.

This has been going on for days, but we cannot be suffering as much as those who live in the wildfire area.

Wildfires are attacking Big Sur. We planned to spend Monday there.

Staying indoors with the windows closed is advised.

35 years ago, we would be doing that already!

Floods, Fires and Pestilence!

Heat, Drought, Price of Petrol and ‘Going for the Rations.’ 2

We didn’t have a car. We walked to the local shops. On Fridays, the grocery boy delivered groceries on his bike. Milk was delivered daily by Jimmy the milkman and his horse, Peggy.

I said my first swear word when I repeated I heard what Jimmy called Peggy. She didn’t deserve it, but it was just the way he spoke!

Now with the price of petrol, I can say it again! “@$##%”

Richard and I take pleasure in saying we were ‘Immediate Post War Babies.’

We remember some food rationing that continued till 1954 when bananas were no longer rationed.

Mam always called grocery shopping, ‘going for the rations.’

Richard still has his ration coupon book. ‘Per ration per person per man, woman or child.’

We’re not THAT old, but how is it that our lives are quickly reverting to our childhood memories?

I think we’ll have a Victory Garden and keep chickens and a pig!

Do you dig it, Man?

Heat, Drought, Price of Petrol and ‘Going for the Rations.’ 1

Finally, after days of record temperatures, the air is cooling and we are more comfortable. The garden suffered a bit, and since we are under water restrictions, because of the drought, we didn’t water as often as we’d like.

We’re doing all we can to save water and we’re glad we installed low flow toilets and showers. But, we are diligent in cutting down our water use.

Should I start to live the way I did in Buckie, in a house with no bathroom, dishwasher, or washing machine?

We were a household of 4 adults, Mam, Dad, Granny, Granda and myself, the quinie.

The lavy (toilet) was in a wee cupboard in the shed where we cooked, kept the coal and did the laundry, by hand, in the 2 sinks, with the mangle between them.

I stripped washed daily, at the laundry sink, washed my hair once a week and had a full bath in a tub by the fire on Friday evenings.

Food was prepared simply, without the aid of food processors, chopping devices, or blenders. When I had to dispose of the contents of the house for sale, after Dad died, I had to toss the blunt knife that Mam had used to peel and chops all the vegetables she used in the Sunday broth. I am really sorry I never bought her decent chopping knives, but I left home before I knew anything about knives and I forgot about the blunt knife with the broken handle.

Where Do We Spend Our 35th Wedding Anniversary

We hadn’t given this much thought till last week. Richard travels a lot and I am very content to stay in my ain wee hoose.

We thought we’d walk at the Berkeley Marina, then come home and drink champagne, but OCH! We walk at the Berkeley Marina regularly. We love that walk, but a 35th Wedding Anniversary deserves something a wee bit extra.

We’d go away, but to whence?

I get stiff if I sit for too long so that ruled out a plane journey or long car trip.

I live very well in my ain wee hoose, where everything is set up to help me function at a high level. But leaving it might be a leap into the dangerous unknown.

After much positive argument, which to most others would be a shouting discussion, we remembered that, last year, on our way home from San Louis Obispo, we drove along Big Sur, past the Henry Miller Library and said, “We’ll come here next year!”

I Googled the accommodation at Big Sur.

There are campgrounds, one offering yurts. That wouldn’t suit, since I can’t get down on the ground.

There are also small hotels and motels, so I called a couple of them. I carefully explained my need for an accessible shower, with handrails and a seat. The receptionist at the first place had no idea if the showers were accessible, but she put me on hold while she asked.

The answer was that the shower is wheelchair accessible. There is a ramp into the shower, but no chair/stool or grab bars in the shower. I don’t know of anyone who uses a wheelchair who actually takes his or her wheelchair INTO the shower. I’m sure there are wheelchairs that are designed to be used in a shower, but they would not be a primary means of transportation. But this was no help to me at all and I called another motel. This time, I didn’t ask if the showers were accessible, but explained what I need. The answer was that they “In good faith, couldn’t help me.” There were no grab bars or seats in the showers.

Perhaps there are other accommodations at Big Sur that would suit, but, by this time, we had decided we’d stay at a hotel in Monterey. In the hotel we have chosen, all rooms have showers with grab bars and seats. We’ll have an ocean view, with balcony.

Making such accommodation for those of us, who need grab bars and seats in the shower, surely isn’t so difficult or expensive.

Someone said, ‘THE disabled don’t go on vacation anyway.’

Why don’t we? Not that I’m a “THE!”

Surely everyone would enjoy showering in the comfort of a shower with a seat and grab bars.

Buckie Paper Restored

Earlier this year, I said I’d not be renewing my subscription to the Buckie Paper, (Banffshire Advertiser) because of postage costs.

I’ve changed my mind and will be receiving my paper, soon.

But if postage costs increase much more, it might be cheaper for me to go Buckie and pick it up myself!

Thoughts on “The English American”, a novel by Alison Larkin

Alison expresses many wise thoughts on adoption in this book. I wanted to use a highlighter pen on all the points she made. But I dare not! Alison signed my book and I cannot scribble in it. Alison ends Chapter 14 with:

“There are a lot of people who don’t want me to tell the truth about any of this. There’s a lot at stake. But you can’t keep the truth from coming out, anymore than you can stop kin from finding kin.

There’s a natural law with secrets. It’s the same law that applies to kettles. If you block the ventilation hole, there will eventually an explosion.”

It sounded like a warning!

Who keeps the adoption secrets and why? In some adoption situations, it’s the adoption agency or the person who facilitated the adoption. Adoptive parents often withhold information because they are scared of losing their children to the biological family. Birth mothers often refuse to identify the birth father and we adoptees know very well that we are not the products of virgin births.

On my quest to find my biological family, I wrote to the doctor who had arranged my adoption, asking for information about my biological family. His response was wishy-washy and all I learned was that he thought I should be grateful to my adoptive parents. He did say my birth parents came from ‘decent’ backgrounds, but he said nothing about my cerebral palsy or the circumstances of my birth. Being grateful for being adopted certainly did not provide me with information about my medical inheritance.

When I did make contact with my birth mother she refused to tell me who my birth father was. She practically told me it was none of my business and that by asking, I was interfering with her private life! I am not really sure if she understood that, unfortunately, MY private life was connected to hers.

Eventually, she did tell me his name, but by that time, I’d already found out for myself.

Alison illustrates another aspect of the adoption secrecy in a situation to which I strongly relate. Walt, Pippa’s biological father, had been promising he’d tell his other 2 children, Edwin and Ashley about her, but he never does.

When Pippa is spending a weekend with Walt at his beach house, Edwin turns up unexpectedly.

“It’s your brother,” Walt says, “ Quick! Get down!”

“I’m sorry?” I looked at Walt to see if he’s joking. He isn’t.

“Get DOWN!”

Pippa kneels on the floor of Walt’s car until Edwin leaves. This is her reaction to the incident.

“I feel dirty. Insignificant. Unwanted. Second class. A secret that needs to be shut away. A problem that needs to be managed. For the first time since I arrived in America, I feel like an old-fashioned, bona fide bastard.”

I know all too well the feeling of being a skeleton in someone’s closet. It has evolved into my making my own closet to placate other people.

I’m done with closets. I’ve broken out of my one and I’m never going back!

“Age Disna Come Its Lane…” My Granny used to say.

Last week, as I was walking home from the shops, a neighbour called out to me. “Call the police if you see somebody at my door!”

“Has someone been trying to break into your house?” I asked. I would not have been surprised if this was the case. There have been a few burglaries in the area and someone even tried to break into my house a few years ago. I was at home at the time and I know how unsettling that can be.

But I was very unsettled when my neighbour told me that is was her daughter who had been breaking into her house and had stolen checks, compromising her back account.

I asked her if she’d changed her locks. “Yes! But my daughter STILL gets in!”

I asked her what the police had done about it. She waved her hands vaguely and looked confused.

I suddenly realised that my neighbour was completely changed. For the 20 years we have been neighbours, she had always been impeccably dressed in subdued colours and understated jewelry. She had been full of energy, living happily independent in her small house and was always delighted to chat when we met.

Now I was talking to a dishevelled stranger. The neighbour I had known had gone away. I’d seen her as recently as three weeks before.

I started to feel skeptical about what she had told me about her daughter stealing from her. I did not know her daughter and the fact that my neighbour believed that she was still able to get into the house after she’d had the locks changed alarmed me.

I noticed that my neighbour had a sign indicating she had a home alarm system installed and asked if she activated it at night. “Oh No! It makes too much noise!”

My neighbour was anxious and my questions had added to her confusion.

I visited her the next day and offered to help her in anyway she needed. She’d told me she was going away and needed to prepare to leave her house. But, on that visit, she’d forgotten my name and that we’d talked the day before.

Now, it occurred to me that she might think I’d come to steal from her! Oh dear! I was a stranger in her house and any attempt to help her pack might confuse her further, so I did nothing.

I’ve heard a relative is coming to take her to live with her in another state and will deal with all the logistics of the move.

I’ll say goodbye to her, but I’ve already said goodbye to the neighbour I used to know.

No Jury

I was not required to attend jury duty at Oakland Superior Court on March 13, after all.

I called the court, as instructed, the evening before and the message was that I was not needed for the next morning, but to call again between 11 am and noon on the 13th for further instructions.

Again, I was not required and that is my jury duty completed for a year.

Relief, yes! But annoyance that I’d been fretting over the process and getting there by myself.

I don’t think I’m as independent as I used to think I am. I’ll have to work on this.

Mam

Mam kept a wee diary, in which she recorded a few sentences about what she had done that day.

I saw her writing, every evening, but I never looked at the diary, although she never hid it.

The ‘Collins’ diaries were still there, when I went to Buckie to prepare the house for sale, in 2002. I was tempted to bring them back with me, but in the end, chose to take only one. It’s the diary she wrote in 1965. I was 15 in 1965.

I was miserable in 1965 and I wanted to see myself from her point of view. But I couldn’t bear to read it, when I brought it home to California, and it’s only, in March, 2008, that I’ve looked at it.

So far, from her brief entries, I’ve confirmed what I already suspected about her life. She was as unhappy as I was. She’d lived the whole of her married life in the same house as her mother-in-law.

In the diary, she referred to her mother-in-law as ‘Ma C.’ Mam was always gentle, polite and her describing her mother-in-law as ‘Ma C.’ tells everything about how she felt about her.

Mam was often ill and spent many days in bed that year. She had severe migraine headaches and bilious attacks, which I am sure were stress-induced.

I read only the entry for the corresponding current date and from the beginning of March, she had spent most days in bed.

Even so, she made breakfast for her parents-in-law and lunch for me when I had a break at school. Dad was at sea during the week and oblivious to all this. He did not ever understand the urgency to get his wife a home and kitchen of her own.

I did understand, but I was 15. What could I have done?

Shoes

I wanted/needed summer shoes and sandals, but my search for them was getting akin to finding the Holy Grail.

I was close to getting coconut shells and clopping my way through woods and fields to help in my quest, and I thought I had a better chance of finding a nice shrubbery than footwear.

Stiletto heels are back in fashion as are the contrasting flat shoes and all are designed for young women with narrow feet and who have no concern for their feet or their backs.

Yet, I had a good experience in the Berkeley ‘Walk Shop’, the other day. I asked to have my feet measured, described my shorter right leg, with no ankle bending problem, and the salesman and I worked together to get me shod. This is what I chose; the style is R1702-51. They fitted and I think I’ll limp comfortably in them. They’re pretty!

As we say in Buckie, ‘Better tae be oot the qweets, than oot the fashion!’ (‘Better to twist your ankle than be out of fashion!’)

Bit it’s nae me that ye’ll see on thon stilettos!