Life of Wry

Peter picked up Jim’s guitar tonight. First song he played was Stairway to Heaven (recall, he’d recently learned to play it on the piano). He’d played the cello in 4th grade, so knows a little about strings, but this was the first time he’d played the guitar.  Not being a music person, I’m mystified by the whole thing. He said it’s not hard to figure out and just translated what he’d learned on the piano.  He made very quick work of picking out the melody. It was neat. I heard Jim a little while ago showing him how to add chords.

He’s got a growing repertoire on the piano, the majority of which is music from my era, so I’m enjoying it a lot. He’ll poke out a melody, then add chords, then little fancy trills and riffs (like my music speak?). He sounds really good to me, but I’m easily impressed. It’ll be fun to see if the guitar holds the same interest for him.

I know I wrote about this not too long ago… but I just love that he loves it. I don’t think a day goes by that he doesn’t sit at the piano. And/or his sax.  I’m a wee bit sad that he’s not playing in an organized school band, but the whole purpose of his participating in the school program at all was to introduce him to the world of music. Which it so did. It’s a fantastic bonus that he loves it as much as he does and learned enough over the six years to apply his knowledge to new instruments.  I’m thrilled about that.

A grunge filter seemed appropriate.

Having a bit of a wincy time this afternoon looking through a book of poetry from my first year of college. You should never do that. The poems are uniformly horrible. Seriously, embarrassingly horrible. They will never see the light of day, but I don’t have the heart to throw out the collection.

Recurring themes include nature and the environment (a regular John Denver, I was), music (huge for me in the 60s and 70s), family and friends.  At least the themes were okay.

I used my own pictures throughout as illustrations and prompts, and those, for the most part, were okay, too.

(And now that I think about it… that’s pretty much exactly what I’m doing with this blog, what, 40 years later? Good god. I’m consistent, I guess.)

Anyway, I decided to scan some of the friend photos.. and post them here.

Standing on our front porch, here are Penny Lambert, me, Betsy Osborne and Janet Stark. Penny is long gone, no idea where she settled, Janet is a violin maker up in Oregon, but I’m not in touch with her. Betsy, a friend from the crib, is still a good friend.  She had dinner with Mom and me just six days ago. She is the head nurse in the emergency department of Torrance Memorial Hospital and has been a nurse for something like 30 years. She’s amazing and someone I’ll stay close to for the duration.

Buncha imps.

(I was forever doing this with my dresses, by the way.)

Here’s a photo of some of my first grade buddies on the playground of Valmonte School.  I took this with my very own Brownie.

Wendy Cooper, Sarah Beukema, mystery boy with hand on heart, Bruce Jewett,  Missy Neal, Jeanie Larson, Loreta somebody, Donna Bennet, Lori Schrader, Caroll Spike (on tippy toes in back), Patty Keifer and Heather Lewis.

Wendy visited a couple years ago, and is a regular facebook buddy.

A few years later, here’s one of me and my fellow grill sprouts, and funny, some are from the same cast of characters as above:

Me on top of Julie Broen, Sally Alden on top of Patti Harrer, Lisa Sterman on top of Jeanie Larson, Robin Lee on top of Katy Schriener and Donna Bennet on top of Wendy Cooper. I think we are in Lisa’s kitchen, there for a girl scout meeting. Troop 262.  Junior High, probably about 6th grade.  All but Patti and Wendy lived in our neighborhood… it was just packed with kids.

I see Julie a fair amount on facebook, Robin, Lisa and Donna a bit, and Sally and I just did a road trip from Georgia to California last fall.

And finally, here’s one of my two closest neighbors and best friends, Julie Broen (two doors down) and Katy Schriener (next door).  This was taken, I think, circa our first year of college… we’d gone away and come back for some holiday. Standing in front of the giant jeffry pine in Julie’s front yard (a tree we spent a lot of time in).

Julie is married to a minister, does some ministry of her own in the same church, I believe, and lives up in Oregon. Our dear friend Katy has passed away.

The friendships live on, some only in my heart, but they live on.

It rained all day, so we stayed in and lounged around.  Can’t remember the last one of those kind of days.  So luxurious.. enjoyed every second.

If we’d gone to Farmer’s Market this morning, we’d have seen this:

Poor the Farmer’s Market oak tree deck! I think they’ve determined it was arson.

Got weather lucky today. Two things that were weather-dependent, both happened. Happy.

First thing: Had to move a pile of dirt from the street to the back yard.

Brief backstory: This was top soil delivered three days ago that was to be used to fill a trench created by plumbers hired to replace the a busted sewer line. (Recall: when the plumbers went to refill the trench they’d dug, they found that rain had so compacted the soil, they were short of dirt sufficient to fill the trench completely.  Way short.)  The night after the dirt was delivered, it rained like crazy, which soaked the pile (not to mention washed some of the dirt a half a block down the gutter). The trench-filling effort was aborted and rescheduled for today.

So, back to today: The pile wasn’t supposed to be wet and heavy, but because of all the rain, it was both.  So it was a grunt to load, haul, unload and spread.  Here’s the pile (and note those muddy gutters):

Frances is loading mud into a wheelbarrow here. The dirt is so heavy, it’s hard to maneuver the wheelbarrow.  Our other solution was to shovel smaller loads into buckets and then take the buckets in a cart. Marginally easier. This is what the mud looks like after dumping one of the buckets:

That’s solid, goey, wet mud. Looks like a couple of giant turds, no?   Then ya had to spread it out, lest it dry into a solid, hard lump. I mean really.

This was some back breaking work.  But we hired this guy to help:

He had no trouble filling and moving a wheelbarrow full of mud. That’s 20 (years old) for you.

When he finished moving all the dirt (he arrived about 45 minutes into the task and made pretty quick work of what remained), he started dismantling our three compost storage containers and spreading the contents in a strategic manner in “the pit,” the area of our yard that is to become a large raised bed for vegetables.  More on that project later.

Anyway, we accomplished all of this without the hassle of rain.  Very grateful for that!

Second thing: Managed to get the second of two baseball games in this week, both without rain.

The JV team won both games pretty decisively, which was great.  They were the first two conference games, so they’re off to a confident start.

Even nicer today was the dugout visit by the DHS principal, Will Brown.  Pretty classy move to attend an away game (Grant High in Sac) and spend time with the JV team.  He also made an appearance at the varsity game, being played on the next field over.  Turns out, he went to Grant as a kid, and worked as an administrator in that district for a long time. Still, to make the effort was greatly appreciated, and very cool.  Here he is, flanked by Daniel and Peter.  Photo courtesy of Dianna Henrickson.

He moved around a little, talking to all the players.

So, in the end, it was a lucky day.  May the rain now fall!

That big red thing? Peter’s slide. It attached to the two-story, redwood play structure Jim built in 2002, when Peter was 4. The play structure has been a central feature of our backyard for 14 years, especially with the bold, red slide.  But its time has come.

Actually, we are going to retain the structure itself–repurposing it into a garden shed with a nice, shaded deck on top!  But the slide’s going.

Freecycle, anyone?

Making the LAX scene this moment. Maybe I should say I am chil-LAX-ing at the airport.

The Southwest terminal feels like a busy downtown bus station; it’s teeming with people, the PA system is a non-stop, competing set of over-modulated announcements about canceled flights, changing gates, missing people. It’s SRO and the floors are covered with sprawling people and their junk. Best so far, sitting among the UCLA track team on its way to Texas for a spring break relay meet.  A buffer, studlier gaggle of kids you’ll never find. I actually had a couple rushes of adrenaline, as I guess my neuro-transmitters still remember the path to pre-race anxiety and fire at the mere sight of track uniform.  Heh.

Anyway, returning to Davis today. Yay. I do feel the trips to see my mom are important and enjoy the time with her, but am glad to be returning home.  Yesterday, we were driving back to PV, after having lunch with Aunt Ellie, Uncle Bud, John, and Alexis at Legends. We were on the Vincent Thomas Bridge, high above the gargantuan LA Harbor. The thought bubble over my head said, Oh boy, just one more day, then I am going home! My mom’s thought bubble, expressed through her sad, resigned eyes, was, Oh shit, only one more day, then Kari goes home.  I feel bad about this. No, I feel terrible and helpless about this.  I feel so, so sorry for my mom these days. It kills me. Her loneliness hurts. Her anxiety is overwhelming. Her immobility, innumerable losses, frustrations, fear, anger… it all just kills me.  I don’t know what to do about it. I wish she’d make some different choices, like moving into an assisted living complex or a senior housing community of some sort, but she is so stubborn. She says no before she really allows herself to calmly consider the pros and cons. Part of me gets it… she loves her house, loves the quiet, loves the ocean and trees…. but I also think she’s cutting herself off from life. I guess I’ll write more on that later.

In the meantime… some parting shots.

Here is the first house I babysat at when I was about 11 or 12. The Walters. I babysat twins Christa and Linda, who were five, on a regular schedule for an entire summer, and then occasionally thereafter.  I still just love this house… down at the end of the block:

Here is a house down on Paseo del Campo. To me, it looks like Candyland.  This is only a portion of the guy’s yard, but it was all like this.. just went on and on.  I guess he likes succulents, huh?

After living on Via La Selva my whole life, looking, as we did, at Skunk Hill from our driveway forever, I finally actually hiked up the darn thing yesterday. I remember once when I was a kid, standing on the driveway, half in awe and half scared out of my wits as a fire raged on Skunk Hill. My dad had one of my brothers up on the roof with a hose to keep our shake roof moist (most of our neighbors had the ubiquitous red tile roof, but our house was more ranch style than mediterranean… so wet down our roof we did.

So, I headed down the street, across both directions of PV Drive North and the bridle path, and across Paseo del Campo to a trail which leads down to a dry creek (that drains into Pee Water Springs, and eventually spills out on the rocks below Malaga Cove School) and up the hill.

First thing to note is how sandy the soil is around these parts.  Like walking on the beach, man.

In our area, all the soil’s like that. It’s funny to imagine anything growing in this. My mom’s flower beds–the same.

Here’s that creek bed:

Then up. Here’s what it looks like at the top.

On one end is the PV golf course, on the other end is the Malaga Cove Plaza. From one end to the other can’t be more than a half mile, if that. And maybe it’s a quarter mile wide. Will ask Jim to google earth it. The two residential streets that surround it are PdC and Via Campesina.

It’s not like it’s exquisite hiking or anything, but considering I lived about a quarter mile from Skunk Hill–as the crow flies–it’s kind of amazing I never explored it. So I was a little excited, like, Whoa, who knew!  Seriously, a creek?

As for flora and fauna.. not much. I imagine skunks and peacocks roam, lots of rodents probably.  I saw what I thought was poison oak, but not likely.  Just lots of eucalyptus, some sort of scrub and lots of beetles. People walk their dogs up there, but I didn’t see anyone. Worth a return for the view back to my old neighborhood!  I always forget what a hill we lived on… for living in “the flats.”

One more shot from the mom visit… I got a kick out of her clothing choice so snuck this pic while she was watching her current favorite women’s player (Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland) lose her match in the Sony Open.

Let’s see…. today… so much.  Well, it’s late and I need to wrap here, so how about this:

Wonderful nephew, his adorable and quirky wife, and Ina (mi mama, John’s grandma) in the middle, standing outside John & Alexis’ sweet little craftsman bungalow behind a white picket fence in Long Beach:

Around the corner (and, down Ocean Ave a bit), one of my favorite building in downtown Long Beach…

If I had more time to write, I’d comment on thought bubbles, Skunk Hill, gin (rummy), Legends, 90 year olds, an elusive Vincent Thomas Bridge, the shipyards, wounds.

Especially wounds.

As seen in the sky above Trader Joe’s today.

For about five years, I’ve committed to visiting my mom as close to every month as I can. The increase in frequency of my trips south corresponds to my mom’s open heart surgery (December 2009).  I would guess that this has averaged out to about 8-10 trips per year. Before that, visits were more like 2 times a year and happened around holidays or other special occasions.  

The visits are a mixed bag. I like to visit her–she really appreciates it–and I have to say it’s allowed us to get to a different place in our relationship, mostly for the better.  I’ve learned more of her story and have softened on a lot of my judgments. It’s more time than we’ve ever shared together as adults, so I’ve gotten to know her better and in a different way.

And I’ve also gotten a closer look at the dynamics of the relationship we had when I was growing up, and of her ways of parenting that shaped me…not all of it is good (certainly). It would be extremely useful if we could talk about it more, but Petersons are not so great at going too far below the surface, and direct and honest communication were not our way, then or now, so it’s not like these visits provide a lot of rich source material. Plus, I get a lot of the same stories over and over–rare do we cover new territory–so the takeaways are few and far between.

The visits are more about doing the things we enjoy together and far less about unraveling my childhood, or understanding my mom better.  Fun is good, especially if you’re a lonely 85 year old woman. This means playing lots of gin rummy, going to movies, taking walks at the beach, shopping, and lots of focus on meals–the planning, shopping and preparing thereof.  We have some taking-care-of-business time–like doctors or house stuff–but that’s low on the totem pole. My mom is very defensive of this daughter time, so we limit other family get togethers, too.  I usually see a brother or two, on occasion a nephew, and, rarer still, an aunt or uncle.

I sort of hold a grudge about certain aspects of my childhood, which spills out in the form of cynicism or sarcasm or anger toward my mom, and that used to manifest in some doozy battles, tantamount to bullying on my part because she’s pretty helpless when it comes to drawing those cause and effect lines, and really wanted to ignore those realities altogether. She never really honestly looked at the parenting issues, but she does get that shit happened and just feels bad. She really doesn’t want to look too closely. She’s quick to chalk it up to 1) nobody ever taught her how to parent, 2) she was effectively a single parent of four, while my dad was 99% focused on his work and galavanting all over the place on one business trip after another, and 3) parenting was different then. And all of that is true.  I do feel horribly sorry for the realities of her experience as a wife and a parent in the 60s and 70s married to a jet-setting, work-obsessed, absentee partner (I use the term partner ironically).  So I used to pick fights with her, but I don’t anymore.  So glad about that.  I think my negative thoughts, but keep them to myself, mostly. 

Still, as easy, routine, appreciated and even fun as the visits are, they are hard.  The hardest part is being gone from home.  More and more, I resent having to be gone. It sounds selfish, I know, but I don’t want to keep interrupting my life. I miss out on stuff at home that I don’t want to miss out on, I disrupt eating and exercise routines, and I just miss my family.  

Okay…. enough. It’s well after midnight, I don’t want to complain. 

One thing I do really, really enjoy (besides my mom, because I do love her and she is good to spend time with), is the time I spend on walks in the neighborhood and time spent at the beach. I’m always on nostalgia overload when I’m here.  It is insanely beautiful. It smells fantastic (eucalyptus, ocean), the air is cool and fresh, and it’s very quiet among the trees.  So, here are a couple shots along one of my favorite walking routes…. this one goes down Paseo del Campo which borders the PV Golf Course. If it weren’t so monochromatic this morning, you’d be able to see the ocean. Note: no curbs and gutters.. 

Every time I come down to Palos Verdes, I end up spending a lot of time on or near the beach, specifically the area my mom calls, “my little stretch of heaven,” a three-mile length of shoreline called the Esplanade in Redondo Beach.  It’s just down the hill from where she lives, and while not a PV beach, it’s got a smooth, even, broad sidewalk on which to walk up top, and a forever strand of smooth concrete to walk on at sand level.  And, while it’s not a PV beach, it has a stunning view of the peninsula which I can just never, never get enough of.

Whenever I come down here, I take copious numbers of pictures of said beach.  It is beautiful.

Today, however, I’m sharing a picture of another regular haunt, the Bluewater Grill, a very basic, very reliable fish house.  We go every time I’m down because it serves hot sourdough bread and butter the minute you sit down, it prepares a dozen or two kinds of fresh fish in a half a dozen ways with sides that are just perfect (you get two), wine and coffee, and it doesn’t get better.  Nice views of the King Harbor marina, too.

Your basic fish house:

Mom, using her magnifying glass to suss out the menu.

And, okay, the beach.  We took a long walk after dinner and watched the sunset.  Not bad.