Why I Don't Make Fun of Basket Weavers

Why I Don't Make Fun of Basket Weavers

Escape to HubPages

I've been writing for HubPages and have been putting most of my efforts into learning more about online writing. On September 1, 2011, I set a goal to write 30 Hubs in 30 Days.  I completed this challenge on September 15, 2011, but continue to write.  On the average, I've been writing about 2,000+ words a day, so I have no excuse but to start my novel.  I can do it.

There is it there!  It's in writing, so I can't back down!

Hubpages: Deadlines, Distractions and Hub #101

Hubpages: Deadlines, Distractions and Hub #101

Whatcha Doing Right Now? Vote for SheRetired!

Whoop, whoop, whoop!!!  WooHoo!!!

My blog, SheRetired.blogspot.com, been nominated as a finalist for this year's CBS Sacramento Most Valuable Blogger Award.

So what are you doing every day until the September 9, 2011 deadline?  Voting for SheRetired, of course! 

Here's where you can vote:

http://sacramento.blogger.cbslocal.com/most-valuable-blogger/vote/misc 

SheRetired is listed under the Miscellaneous Blog Section.

Many, many thanks!

Arlene

Vote for SheRetired!

Sacramento Historic Rose Garden: Deadheading at Dusk

As a retiree, the Historic Rose Garden is my most favorite place in Sacramento.  This piece of unlikely Sacramento paradise is a rewarding way to put in some volunteer hours.

   

Why should one volunteer for this place?  Well, it’s not just your average cemetery.  As part of the Sacramento Historic Cemetery, the Historic Rose Garden serves as a museum, a park and a place to socialize.  I’ve seen people meet for a date, eat bagged lunches, look for long lost relatives, and tend to gravesites.  Birders, tourists, bicyclists, and walkers also find a way to enjoy this popular location. 

The Historic Rose Garden dates back to the California Gold Rush and attracts visitors from all over the world.  A recent cover story, “Sacramento’s Bucket List, 99 Ways to Embrace the City’s Retro Roots,” appears in the Sacramento News & Review and lists the cemetery and rose garden as the #18 must see place in Sacramento to visit.  In the years I have volunteered here, I’ve been attracted to the roses, headstones, architecture, its history, and the Sacramento movers and shakers (well, they no longer moving and shaking if you ask me) who are buried here.  As a Farm Girl, I appreciate the rich soil, and since I like playing in the good, fertile dirt, I will volunteer to plant roses whenever they are available.

The all-volunteer Historic Rose Garden crew is led by manager and Master Gardener Anita Clevenger and rosarian Barbara Oliva.  The two women are a wealth of information when it comes to the Historic Rose Garden and the subject of gardening.   

Anita and Barbara can also tell you stories about the roses, rose rustling and how these particular roses ended up at the cemetery.  There’s the Broadway bed, other beds and acres of antique roses.    Anita and Barbara can give you the common and scientific names of each rose.  Ask Anita where a specific rose is, and she can tell you.  Barbara can point you to the plots.  Barbara tells you that if you can figure out which direction North faces, you won’t have any problems navigating the cemetery.

Even with a map, verbal directions and sunlight or a flashlight to guide me, I still get lost.

The mild summer weather has allowed volunteers to meet over the summer in the form of an event called “Deadheading at Dusk”.  Anyone is welcome to help out with deadheading roses, weeding and other tasks.  No skills are required.  If you have basic gardening tools like clippers, gloves and a common 5-gallon plastic bucket, bring them.  Wear comfortable shoes and clothing that you would wear for gardening.  Anita trains volunteers on the art of deadheading roses and provides gardening tools as needed.

If you are new to gardening or want to know more about roses, the Historic Rose Garden is a wonderful place for socializing with people who share the same interests.  As a group, the volunteers freely share their knowledge and love for roses.

The next and last “Deadheading at Dusk” event is scheduled for August 8 and begins at 6 p.m.  Volunteers are encouraged to slide into other events and fundraisers (www.oldcitycemetery.com or www.cemeteryrose.org) for the remainder of the year.

The popular “Lantern Tours” is the cemetery’s major annual fundraiser and will be held October 21, 22, 28, and 29.         

Spinning into Retirement

My article, "Spinning into Retirement," appears in the Fall 2011 issue of the Conference of Northern California Handweavers (www.cnch.org) online newsletter known as CNCH.net.  The piece is about my retirement and the art of spinning.  CNCH represents the guilds of Northern California, and I am a member of the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild.  

The Sacramento News and Review Newsstand Art Project

I am your classic Red Personality and find beauty in almost anything.  I love the bright, tropical colors found in Hawaii, the scenery, Hawaiian shirts, pineapples, and that all-around happy feeling you get when visiting Hawaii.  The natives are friendly, and I'm usually called "Island Girl" or "Princess" whenever I'm there.  Paradise!

It all began with crushing aluminum cans and attending a recycling seminar when I was in junior high.  I have been recycling items for 35 years.

So, fast forward to 2011.  For months, the Sacramento News & Review  (SN&R) has been putting ads in their publication picturing their Newsstand Art Project.  Their goal is “Making News Beautiful”.   They have 600 newsstands available for local artists to design.  After completion, the newsstands will be put to work somewhere in the Sacramento area.

More than anything else, I consider myself a writer.  After decades of Writer’s Block, I’ve returned to writing as my #1 passion in life.  I have always been a highly creative person, but in order to create, I need to pursue activities other than writing.  I love to draw and paint.  As a photographer, I’ve been told that I have “the eye”.  These days, I’m trying spinning and weaving, but failed miserably at basket weaving.  I’ve been creating my own greeting cards using different mediums.  So far, I like picking up a different kind of gun—a heat gun to put permanent designs on paper.

The SN&R has been a free, alternative newspaper for Sacramento and has other similar newspapers published in Chico and Reno.  The newspaper comes out every Thursday and provides interesting reading which includes local politics, entertainment, reviews, interviews, etc.

It took me a little over a month to design and paint my newsstand.  At the time, I had Hawaii on my mind and set a goal to save for airline, cruise tickets and expenses for me and Jack.  I have no patience with people who cry and whine that they don’t have any money to go places.  Since I am retired and don’t have any money coming in as someone who works for a living, it will take almost a year to save for our travel expenses.  But if you stick to a schedule,  stagger your savings and stretch them out over a year’s time,  travel goals become reachable.

Some people write down their goals and tape the piece of paper it’s written on to a place where they’ll see it every day.  I only know that by painting big red flowers and turtles on my newsstand, it’s a vow for me to get the two of us to Hawaii next year for a cruise of the islands.  We’ve cruised the Hawaiian Islands before, and we’ll do it again.  I have finally found someone I can travel with.

I have nothing against recycling things and giving them a new life.  But I am thankful to SN&R for allowing me to participate in their Newsstand Art Project.  I don’t know where my newsstand will be located, but somewhere in Sacramento, it will be holding issues of the SN&R and will be considered a work of public art.  At the same time, it will be a reminder and a promise for one of my travel goals which will most likely take place next fall.

My newsstand is #248.  I signed my work and have shamelessly plugged SheRetired.blogspot.com and ArleneVPoma.hubpages.com.

 

Soap, Travel and Maybe You

My mom ran a lid sorting machine at Campbell Soup in Sacramento for about 13 years, and she worked a lot of overtime during the tomato season.  Everyone at the cannery worked overtime when tomatoes were harvested full force, and I could imagine all of these people walking around like zombies from lack of sleep. 

There were also periods of unemployment, and that was the nature of the beast.  During the slow months, when my mom was home, the TV was on, playing back-to-back soap operas.  But in my family, we watched the soap operas in big blocks.  We didn’t stick to watching just one show.  I grew up watching soap operas, and they came and went.

No one will really admit to watching soap operas.  I’ve had women at work calling them, “my stories”.  But to me, that’s what they were—televised stories in a serial form.  Depending on the soap and its writers, you usually got a story which kept your attention anywhere from half an hour to an hour.  To me, if the writing was good, the soap would carry your interest from day to day, week to week and year to year.

When it comes to retirement, the television can become your worst enemy.  If you don’t have anything planned to do when you retire, you can easily grow old in front of the television.  The television programs provide the American public with a great distraction.  At the same time, we all know what a great baby-sitting service it can provide for kids and people of all ages.  In retirement, it can turn into an addiction or an obsession.

“Gotta run home and catch my soap.”

Not anymore.  You can tape it and watch your favorite television show anytime you like.  To me, I like watching my favorite soap around midnight, when the house is quiet and everyone is asleep.  All is well in the world while I watch my soap and rip my newest knitting project.

Soap operas are packed with stereotypes and all kinds episodes based on modern day problems.  Soap opera characters would be a gold mine for therapists, psychologists and shrinks.  All of these soap opera characters are co-dependents, enablers, passive-aggressive personalities, and much, much more.  They tend to get into other peoples’ business.  They “fix” and “rescue”.  And, they never learn from their mistakes.  If they do learn from their mistakes, then other characters pick up the ball and repeat the same mistakes.  How many times has a character suffered from amnesia or ran away to another town?  How many times the same couple has broke up, had multiple spouses, but got back together because they were really meant for each other?

Problems?  Yes, people on soap operas have all kinds of problems.  In fact, you feel so much better when you watch them struggling.  Sometimes, it takes plenty of episodes for them to figure what they’re going to do in order to solve their problems.  But the audience has all the answers and will coach the characters from the privacy of our own homes.

 “Dump him!”

“She’s a cheat, so let her go!”

“Divorce him!  He was never good enough for you.”

My husband used to watch soap operas when he was a kid.  While staying at his grandma’s, she had her favorite soaps.  Although more and more soaps are being taken off the air, he understands why I still watch soaps.  He claims you don’t have to be an avid viewer to understand what’s going on.

Once a month, he’ll say something like, “Wasn’t she going to prison for killing her husband’s ex-wife by letting her fall into the volcano in Maui?”

“No, Silly.  She has now going to prison for killing his ex-wife, but we all know she didn’t do it because her husband threw the evidence into the same running water where her first ex-husband and their son just threw the ashes of the woman who hi-jacked her car from her when she had run away to New Mexico.  Those ashes weren’t hers.  The woman who stole her car crashed it and burned to death.  She was wearing her stolen engagement ring at the time, so everyone back home in Wisconsin thought that the woman who didn’t kill the woman in Maui was dead from the crash.” 

“Oooooookay.”  This is his cue to zone out, turn on his laptop and get with His People on the Internet.  When I say, His People, I mean his group of Internet people on his Facebook game who build cities, then rob and pillage other alliances within the game.  When Jack is with His People, I leave him alone.

Since I am in my 50s and don’t plan on doing anything other than staying married, I do like to watch attractive people on television and the movies.  On HD, everyone has perfect skin or immaculate makeup.  On soaps, everyone is fashionably dressed.  I like to see what the women are wearing.  I like to see the jewelry around their wrists and necks.  I like to see someone else walking around in high heels while I comfortably walk around in flats. 

In June, I started writing my own version of a soap opera for Hubpages.com called Two Rivers Rising, and I’m having a lot of fun with it.  I like writing about travel, so I throw in photographs of places in and around Sacramento.  This gives me an excuse to visit the tourist attractions.  You know how it is.  You can live in the same place for years and don’t explore.  It is sad to learn that tourists from as far away as Europe or Japan know more about California and the rest of the United States than you do.

  

Years ago, I was a plaintiff in a lawsuit.  About a year later, I hired another attorney to represent me in my divorce.

I am allergic to attorneys and lawsuits.  Can you blame me?  I know what it’s like to hand over a chunk of money each month to pay an attorney until the case is settled.

So, with this soap, I am practicing the twists and turns of writing about me and my experiences with retirement.  At the same time, I am doling out pseudonyms and switching things around so that you may not recognize yourself in my writing.  Whether you like it or not, the people I have kept around me inspire me.  Whether it’s their actions, their stories or their words, I get ideas all of the time.  Some of them slip away because I don’t have my writer’s journal handy.  

Anyway, if you see anything familiar in my soap, don’t take it personal.  I am having a lot of fun writing my version of a soap, and if you wish, I welcome you to write about me if you feel like getting even.  But in the process of writing this way, I sometimes blend fact with fiction.  But when it comes down to it, my soap is based on real people and true situations, and it’s a game to hide real names and hardcore facts.

Also, I’m afraid of getting sued.

ArleneVPoma.hubpages.com    

 

   

Two Rivers Rising: The River City Writers' Club, Chapter 11

Two Rivers Rising: The River City Writers' Club, Chapter 11

Writing During Retirement

After struggling with an unexpected, early retirement for years, I am finally looking forward to each day. 

Each day, I’m calling mine.

“I couldn’t possibly write during retirement,” said one “expert” who is a self-published author, college professor and writing coach.

Oh yeah?  When I heard this woman say this at a writing seminar, I shut down and could no longer take her seriously.  As usual, I don’t fit the norm.  In my opinion, writing during retirement is the best time to write.

When it comes to writing for money, I didn’t enjoy it.  I worked odd jobs while I attended Sac State.  I worked as a reporter, photographer and a magazine writer.  As a graphic artist without any art training, I winged it.  I remember making signs for a conference and was given a week to do it.  I finished the project over the weekend and had my hand out for payment early Monday morning.

My brother and I tried our hand at submitting magazine articles long before we were teenagers.  We didn’t know anything about queries and pitching ideas.  We wrote the articles and submitted them.  I remember getting stacks of rejection letters.  Some of them were polite and wished us luck.  Some of them were the industry standard--form letters stuffed into our self-addressed, stamped envelopes along with our manuscripts.

If you’re established as a writer, you can write your ticket as a magazine writer.  I didn’t enjoy magazine work back then, and I certainly don’t enjoy it now.  Magazine writing means pitching your ideas and it’s the editor who calls the shots.  I don’t like waiting on anyone.  Magazine editors take their sweet time and can take months to get back to you.

Deadlines never bothered me.  I remember being the intern at a city newspaper.  No one took me seriously until I wrote 300 wedding announcements in less than a week.  In the features department, it was a longtime joke among the editors and reporters when I completed the wedding announcements and kept up with them because writing wedding announcements was beneath them.  But once I completed those wedding announcements, the features editor let me choose my assignments.  I found out that a lot of business owners wrote the editor and invited her to visit, and she only picked the stories which interested her.  She sent me, instead.  I was given the option of taking photos or brought along the disgruntled staff photographer who didn't want to be seen with the rookie reporter.

I remember working for an editor whose favorite line was, “You write the way I want you to write because I’m the editor.”  To me, it sounded like, "Because I'm the Mommy, that's why!"  He had invested his life savings in the publication, but it folded in three months.  I was glad to jump that sinking ship.

I worked for a magazine editor who kept three Wham-O Superballs on her desk.  Whenever her boss left the room and closed the door behind him, she threw the Superballs at the door and let them bounce all over her office.  Superballs were hard enough to kill you.  I learned to stay away from her office whenever the Big Boss was around.    

Unlike a lot of people these days, my 23 years of mostly working jobs I hated or being around people I couldn’t stand has finally paid off.  I do have a pension, which helps with the bills.  I'm not struggling to make ends meet or living off a steady diet of Top Ramen and peanut butter sandwiches.  If I make an effort, I can put some money aside and invest in my hobbies.  I’m not like a lot of retirees I know.  I don’t stick to one interest.  I am always willing to try something new, and if it doesn’t work out, I move on. 

These days, I’m back to my writing.  It is my passion.  Sure, I pursue other things, but when you work for a living, a lot of things which bring you joy get pushed aside.  My case of Writer’s Block was simply letting my day jobs consume me.   

I don’t know a lot of people who love their jobs for years.  I only know that when you start a job, there’s so much promise.  But as the years go by, there’s a good chance you’ll slip into a routine and become bored and bitter. 

After a few false starts, I write every day.  If I’m not writing, I’m jotting things down in my writer’s journal.  I usually keep the journal with me.  In my waking hours and in my dreams, I am always getting ideas.

This past year, I’ve tried my hand at freelancing.  I also tried online writing for money.  For 7 months, I had a writing project assigned to me.   I slipped into my workaholic ways and did nothing but write from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.  I didn’t move from my laptop, and my left leg became swollen from inactivity. 

I told my husband I was suffering from the Little Lotta syndrome.  Do you remember Little Lotta?  She was a cartoon character whose best friends were Dot Polka and Richie Rich.

Jack is 11 years younger than me, so when I mentioned Little Lotta—well, it showed the difference in our ages.  He never heard of Little Lotta and her friends.    For months, I had a swollen left leg which was triple the size of my right leg.

“This could be an indication of a stroke down the road,” said my doctor.  He sent me in for blood tests, but the results were negative. 

When I quit the online work and stopped living my days in front of my laptop, the swelling disappeared.

I know plenty of writers who are willing to support themselves doing online work.  I don’t know how they do it because online work does not pay the living expenses.  For the time you put it, online work pays pennies.  I don't know where these people get the idea that writers make tons of money with online work.  On the Internet, everyone can be an expert.  

Usually, you aren’t given a byline.  I’ve been out of the writing loop for years, and I could not understand why all these writers and editors with years of training and experience settle for way less than scale. 

Being retired has given me the luxury of writing for the pure joy of it.  My retirement was not planned, but I live with it.  I still have a mortgage and bills, but the freedom of writing for me is mine.  I write what I feel like writing, and I make my own deadlines.  I’ve worked with editors who feel a need to change my work.  Writers write and editors edit.   

Now, if I don’t like what an editor is doing with my work and decides to change most of it, I walk.  I never respected anyone who insists “My way or the highway”.  I don’t care for perfectionists, control freaks or anyone who must follow a rigid path.  This does not work with me. When it comes down to it, I am the boss.  In retirement, I am the boss of my writing and my life.

As a writer and as Arlene, I certainly am not a people pleaser.  No one is going to get out their little red pen and tell me how to write.  I don't worship money or material things, and I'm not desperate to put food in my mouth or pay a utility bill.  I know an experienced editor who is willing to accept $2 for each 300-word article she edits.  With that kind of pay, you might as well volunteer your work or do it for free.  

So, in retirement, I am the boss of my life.  When it comes to my writing, I write for me.  I don’t worry about getting paid for my work, getting millions for a best seller or a big fat contract for my next book.  After all those years of answering to editors in the name of money, I feel truly blessed and grateful that I am now working for my favorite boss.

I find it a pleasure to work for me.

       

     

The Cowboy at Denny's

The Fourth of July and Christmas are Jack's favorite holidays.

It was March 28, 2001 at the Denny’s along I-80.  For the dinner hour, the place was deserted.

The waitress was a skinny thing with pale skin and a bright yellow, cotton candy textured bob in a shade that was probably invented by her hairdresser.  As a woman who spent time shopping for boxed blue black or soft black hair dye, I already know you could not possibly find that shade of blond anywhere in nature.

   

She brought me a plate of fried chicken wings and other samples of grease, refilled my extra-large glass of Mountain Dew and left me with a glass of ice before sliding across the room to the trucker who took a seat in a booth by the window.  The afternoon light is harsh on anyone over the age of 20, but this man was good looking in a haggard sort of way.  He stretched his long legs into the aisle to reveal tight black jeans over brand new steel-toed boots.  I think black jeans went out of style about ten years ago, but he had short hair under his ball cap and sported two days’ worth of beard.

 

If you were about to be newly single past the age of 40, sometimes any man in tight jeans can look like a fashion model.  Sometimes, a man can be like a mirage and actually look attractive from across the room.

  

I had just started my new job a month ago, and I had already put in for a month’s vacation.  I didn’t want to admit it so early in the game, but I hated my job.  Although I had attended the academy for six weeks, I was not prepared for the job.  To my surprise, my new employer went along with my vacation wishes and arranged people to fill in while I was gone.  I couldn’t lie to myself.  I had taken the vacation because I thought I would like the new job when I returned.  I was hoping my vacation would give me an attitude adjustment.

I was all wrong for the job.  I was still married, but was determined to get a divorce.  My soon-to-be ex did me a favor and moved to another state.  In his pea brain, he expected me to drop everything and work a joint in Florida.  I found a lawyer in a small town to represent me and shouldn’t be paying more than a grand for my divorce.   He was a short man as tall as me, and with his legal assistant, they worked hard at getting my divorce in less than a year’s time.

I had a caseload of youthful offenders that I didn’t really know what to do with.  I never had children, so learning how to deal with their lies and manipulation tactics was a learning experience.  I was new, and I gave them all of my attention.  In my eyes, they were a needy group of children who had committed the worst of crimes as sexual offenders.  They were going to remain in the system.  From my experience, I already knew that.  They knew that.  But in my heart, I was frustrated.  There was nothing I could do to change this.  My boys were going to prison, no matter what I did.

I found myself crying on the way to work and crying all the way home at the end of the shift.  When I reached the workplace, I wanted to floor it.  The thought of ending up in Tulare, Turlock or Merced wouldn’t bother me at all.

So as I sat at the counter with a plate of grease and a drink with enough sugar and caffeine to bring on the pounds and other ailments, I worked on a lesson plan.  I thought the boys would enjoy a fairy tale.  I would read them a fairy tale, but something with a modern twist.  At the counter, I was making notes as I skimmed through Bruno Bettelheim’s book on fairy tales.

What was I thinking back then?  None of them had a childhood, so how could they understand fairy tales?  None of them had mothers who sang to them or read to them like I did.  I had to deal with their parents, too.  Most of them were barely existing on an Oregon mountaintop on meth or were already incarcerated in a California prison.  They weren’t mothers who put on aprons and baked cookies or fathers who took their boys fishing.  Anytime you leave your child in an institution, for whatever reason, you are basically throwing them away.

“Will you please give Arthur and extra blanket tonight?” one mother asked me.  “I read it’s going to be cold in Stockton.”

Sometimes, it took all I could not to tell these parents to shove it.  I couldn’t see past the fact that if you had kids and brought them into this world, weren’t you the one responsible for them?  As it turns out, Arthur is a great kid.  His is a little slow, but should benefit from years of therapy and education.  They all could.

But what would I know?  I was only on the job for a month and already hated it.  I was making the most money I had made in my life.

A spectacular view of Lake Tahoe and the casinos from the Heavenly Valley Gondola.

From across the room, I could hear the waitress laughing this horsey type of laugh.  She stood near the trucker and was twirling a short strand of her hair.  Her pen and pad were in the front pocket of her apron.

At the entrance of the restaurant, I saw this tall man in a black cowboy hat.  He took off his hat and had to duck.  He probably had to spend his days ducking through doorways.  He was that tall.

He nodded at the waitress and sat next to me.

Just Heavenly in July 2011.

“Hiyadoin,” he said softly.  “Hiyadoin.”  His voice was low, his eyes a soft shade of brown.  When the waitress strolled over, he ordered a salad with ranch dressing on the side.  She returned with water and iced tea.  Most likely, he was a regular.

“Are you a student?” he asked.

I wasn’t expecting company and felt I needed to entertain him.  I was forty, and you could say I was a student.  I was married so long, and now I was now forced to catch up on life.  About six months ago, I had looked into the eyes of my ex and told him that I didn’t want him in my life.  I was pleased that the fight to make me miserable was no longer his priority.  To my surprised, he backed up, didn't fight me and shortly after, he left the state.

I found myself talking about Bruno Bettelheim and incarcerated California inmates and wards.  This had been my life for 14 years.  I remained in California, but was away from my hometown of Sacramento for over a decade.  He was born in Sacramento like me, but never ventured out. 

     

“I’m leaving for a Caribbean cruise tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah?”  He seemed amused that I was going alone.  “When are you coming back?”

“Late next Saturday night.  Maybe around midnight.”

“Give me your email, and I’ll write you,” he said with confidence.

“Really?”  I scribbled my email address on a piece of paper and pushed it towards him.

If he pays for my plate of grease, I’m that’s a very good sign, I thought.  Lots of cheap guys out there.

He pulled out some bills from his wallet and left them under his water glass to pay for our snacks.

When I got home from the cruise, I turned on the computer and saw his message.  I wasn't expecting to hear from him again, and I was pleasantly surprised.

“Hello,” the IM from The Cowboy immediately appeared onscreen. 

I dropped all my bags and sat down at my computer.

“Well, hello.”  My hands were shaking as I typed, but we’ve been together since.

Our first date?  Tahoe the following week.  We constructed a snow bunny because we didn’t have enough snow for a snow man.

It is understood.  We will always have some memorable times in Tahoe.

And we celebrate two wedding anniversaries:  March 28 and June 28.  Only because I wanted to know what it was like to be a June bride.

A Stick Tree and a Second Try

It was the time of year when the stores in Sacramento brought in trees and plants, and you could not go anywhere  without seeing rows of greenery, bags of bulbs, bare root trees, and lawn seed.  I know a lot of these items look good in the store and are purchased by people who know nothing about gardening.  But, their intentions as gardeners are good, so you have to give them credit for that.  Due to most of the stores’ return policies, I’ve seen plenty of dead and dying plants sitting in carts parked near Customer Service and waiting for a final trip to the dumpster.  I also know there are plenty of disappointed gardeners out there who wanted landscaping right out of Sunset and Home and Garden.

As I shopped for what I had written on my shopping list, my then boyfriend caught up with me and placed a plastic bag with dirt and twigs into the cart.  I began to laugh.  It was a loud, snorting laugh which had other shoppers pausing to stare at me. 

   

“Are you serious?  Those are twigs, and they’ll never grow.  You get that in the ground, and it’s gonna die.”  I added cruelly, “What a waste of money,” I didn’t see any buds or signs of new growth.  The stick tree didn’t stand a chance because to me, it was dead.

He shrugged, and we continued shopping.  I knew that shrug.  It meant he had made up his mind and was keeping the tree.  He wasn’t going to be talked out of it.

Once we were home, I watched him pick a place in the front yard as a new home to the stick tree.  As he dug a hole in the front yard and planted the stick tree, I could have picked up a shovel and help him dig, but I didn’t offer to help because I wasn’t going to invest my time in something dead.  As the year went by, he faithfully watered the stick tree, and by the following summer, there were three plums on the tree.

I admit I am not a Master Gardener, but I thought I could pick out a dead tree when I saw one.  I guess bare root can fool you.  I didn’t expect the tree to live, but it did.  It seemed to thrive in the Sacramento weather.  Before long, its branches stretched over the corner of the house and towards the fence separating our front yard from the neighbor’s. 

“Fooled you, Farm Girl,” it seemed to say as its branches pushed towards the sky.

For the next two years, the tree put out enough fruit to give away.  Each year, before the Fourth of July, our guests brought home paper sacks filled with plums.  The birds got their share.  I remember picking plums off the ground so the snails wouldn’t get them.  I still do.  As I counted, there were as much plums on the ground as the ones harvested.

 

I didn’t care for the taste of the fruit until last year, but we recruited my mom, and she came over every Fourth of July and made plum jam.  I liked to use the jam in a mixture of orange juice and mango chutney, and then poured it over the Easter ham when I baked it.  Sometimes, I poured the same mixture over roast chicken.  It was too good for toast.

So the tree continues to grow, and the branches tower over me.  Sometimes, I’ll prune it, but this year, I went with his wishes and let it grow. 

No matter what season it is, I look at that tree and see nothing but growth.  And I think of the guy I finally married 4 years ago after 7 years of indecision.  He had put a lot of faith in a stick tree and stuck to what he believed in.  But there was something more than that.  I noticed he was the one who takes the time to look at the sky, the clouds and the mountains in the distance.  He appreciates a lot of things people take for granted.

I finally decided to get over myself and this insecurity about giving marriage a second try.  Who wants to admit the growth of a stick tree was one of reasons?

   

Happy Anniversary, Jack.  And Happy Fourth of July.    

Dude, Where's My Cherry Pitter?

“I know what you’re doing.  You’re going to can fruit,” chirped the clerk at the hardware store.

“Reluctantly,” I replied.

“My lady friend has a sister who cans fruit,” he said, a wide grin splitting his face.  “We get jam for Christmas.  In the summertime, she cans dill pickles.  Delicious.  It’s a lot of hard work.”

What would he know?  Out of all the clerks available in the hardware store, I get stuck with Chatty Cathy.  I dug into my front pocket for my wallet and pictured this man spooning hot fruit goop into sterilized Ball jars.

What did I know about cherries?  I like eating them, but since I’m only familiar with the life span of Bartlett pears, I don’t know when cherry season begins or ends.  It’s never long enough for me, so I get the Bing cherries and eat as many as I can until no one sells them anymore.  Strawberries are easier to find.

“I don’t know how she does it,” he said.

I handed over a $20 bill and saw the light come to his eyes.  He was having one of those Oprah “Aha” moments and was going to tell me something brilliant.

“Oh, she doesn’t work.  She stays home with her kids.”

Wrong this to say around me, Sucka.  I have this crazy left eye which comes in handy when I hear something I don’t care to hear.  He paused when he saw my left eye go into action.  It goes from a light, almost tranquil type of earthy brown to pitch black.

When my left eye goes black, my husband doesn’t come home unless he has a dozen roses for me.  But only if my anger is aimed at him.  Otherwise, I welcome any roses at our home for any reason.

 

One of the reasons why I don’t have kids is because the attitude hasn’t changed in decades.  People think you don’t work when you are home with the kids and running a household.  If you are also working, then it’s called “juggling”.   

What a raw deal.  As the firstborn child, I am grateful to my parents and anyone who has dumped their kids on me.  My experience with children taught me that I didn’t want any of my own.  

 

The clerk looked at me uncomfortably and started backing up from the counter until he felt safe from the stare of my crazy eye.  “Uh.  She has two kids.  I still don’t know how she does it.”

Good enough, I thought.  Just don’t say that again in my presence, Bub.  Or I may stick your head in my cherry pitter and lean all of my weight on it. 

This year, my husband could not stop buying fruit.  Each time he left the house, he came back with a bag of strawberries or cherries.  Last week, I made him take a bag of cherries to work.  They disappeared long before noon, but now, everyone at the workplace thinks he’s a great guy who is kind and generous.

“So, Dude, when are you going to bring more cherries in?”

 I’m sure everyone at his workplace wants to ask him this whenever he shows up.  These days, people love to hear the words discount, but not as much as free.

My former mother-in-law canned fruit all the time, and my mother could do it in her sleep.  Back then, looking at canning jars lined up on a shelf all year round with the colors of different fruits and vegetables provided all kinds of entertainment.  I had to agree with my former mother-in-law.  All that color made those otherwise plain canning jars look attractive.  When you got bored looking at the jars, you could always eat what was in them.  I spent many afternoons with jars of cling peaches suspended in heavy syrup.  I ate jars of dill pickles in the summertime until all of them were gone.

Sometimes, I have this fear of killing people with botulism from my homemade canning.  After you eat my canning products, simply count the hours after that.  Say, if you make it past about 15 hours without calling an ambulance or having someone rush you to the emergency room, you’ll live.

 

Usually, once I hear that metallic “ping!” I can relax and enjoy my canned creations.  I know the satisfaction of canning your own food, but once you get started, you can’t leave everything to do something else.  And I do enjoy my distractions.

I wanted to buy a cherry pitter which would pit one cherry at a time and give me ergonomic relief at the same time.  The only thing I saw while shopping was a cherry pitter which is supposed to pit four cherries at a time.  While searching for the cherry pitter, I could not resist buying a strawberry slicer.  All this time I’ve grown up and lived in California, I never owned these two kitchen items.  Is it because my family thought these were for sissies?  Aren’t you supposed to get pleasure when you pit and slice fruit by hand? 

 

Anyway, I’m going to try using these kitchen gadgets.   If I don’t have the time or the motivation to can, all the fruit will be going into freezer bags until I do.  That’s my way out of the good ole days and good intentions.  With Ziplock bags, you can rule your kitchen and fake it.  Freezers are good for hiding things, and no one but me will ever see that fruit again.