Cuke-a-Melons

The fact that the local cucumber crop is coming in has reminded me of one of my misbegotten gardening attempts.  I always started the squash, cucumbers and pumpkins in pots inside around mid-April.  Our growing season isn’t really long enough for watermelon, but one year I hoped that by starting watermelon inside too, I might get a few.

I transplanted the small vines outside around Memorial Day and was delighted to see the watermelon progressing much faster than I had even hoped.  Sometime in early August, one of the watermelon looked ripe.  I picked it and took it into the kitchen.  When I cut into it, I was surprised to find that it was not at all pink.  Inside, it was white and tasted like a cucumber.  A week or so later, I picked another watermelon.  This time I discovered that there were circular areas of pink surrounding the seeds.  It looked like a pink polka-dotted cucumber inside.  A few days later, I picked a third watermelon.  This one had wedges of pink.  Thereafter, everything I picked was totally pink, although a bit pale, but did actually taste like watermelon.

I concluded that I had planted the watermelon and cucumbers too close together, and they must have cross-pollinated.  Those that were genetically more cucumber must have ripened first, while the more “watermelony” ones ripened later.  At least that is my theory…unproven scientifically….but I like it.

And the cucumbers that year were especially sweet!

Saying a Whole Lot of Nothing

This morning I followed a link under the category of science and read an article written by an atheist about where to find God.  The writer threw around a whole lot of scientific terminology, but basically said nothing of substance.  It was not science.

I am, therefore, pondering obfuscation, which is the practice of using “big” words like obfuscation to make something difficult to understand.  This technique can be used to impress others or confuse them.  I find this quite annoying.

I know of a brilliant young man who enjoys the challenge of discussing highly complicated and technical matters in such a way that most average folks can have at least some understanding of them.  I have also encountered a young man in a graduate class I took some years ago, whose purpose was quite the opposite.  He would expound at length on some topic under discussion using big (i.e. multisyllabic) words, technical terms and currently in buzz words.  When he finished, most of the class seemed to be in awe of him.  I would be sitting there wondering, “Am I the only person here who realizes he just said absolutely nothing!”

During my working years, I attended a state-wide meeting on universal health care.  After a presentation from “an expert,” I posed a question.  She talked around in circles using all the “right” words.  When she finished, I said quietly to those sitting at my table, “Did she ever answer my question?”  All of the heads shook “no.”  A few minutes later, a rabbi from New York City got up and asked the same question.  She again talked and talked and said nothing of substance.  I wondered how many people in the room actually fell for this.

When you don’t understand what someone is talking about, it is, of course, possible that they are smarter than you, or that you are not familiar with the terminology they are using.  BUT, it is also possible that they don’t know what they are talking about and have just learned the right words to throw out there, or that they are purposely attempting to confuse you because they have an agenda.  A really intelligent person, who cares about his topic, will want you to understand and will make every attempt to communicate on the level of the audience.

Of course, one must have some sympathy for the person who really doesn’t know how to communicate and doesn’t even know he is not connecting with his audience.  I am talking about the brilliant person who lives in his own world.  I had a college professor whose initials were FOG and that is what most of his lectures were…fog.  He didn’t mean to leave us wandering in a cloud of confusion.  I can feel kindly toward him.

But in general, be suspicious of the person who obfuscates!

When I don't know how to pray....

Praying is something I do regularly and frequently.  I am not talking about a formal time when I sit down with prayer requests and check them off like items on a list.  I am talking about the way I live life.  As the day goes along, and I am faced with decisions, I silently ask for God’s guidance.  As people with needs come to my mind, I try to discipline myself to turn my thoughts of them into prayer for them.  All of that comes easily to me since I have been practicing it for decades.

But there are prayers that do not come easily.  Agonizing thoughts that come from the depths of my soul.  Friends or family may be in the throes of disease or difficulty…especially when the difficulty is of their own making, resulting from their own bad choices.  Then I simply don’t know what to say to God.  I don’t know what to ask for.  I may plead a generic, “Oh, help them!” but that doesn’t seem adequate.  I recognize that I do not possess the wisdom to ask for something specific.  I don’t have His mind.  Don’t know His plan.  Certainly, I can pray “thy will be done.”  But, that may not ease the painful struggle in my mind and heart.

When I find myself in that state, I have learned to repeat over and over, “Thank you for the Holy Spirit.”

Romans 8:26 The Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

I have found that by repeating my gratefulness for the Holy Spirit, the turmoil within me subsides.  I rest in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit knows God’s will, because he is one with God, and yet knows my intents and can express them when all I can do is cry out.

I am sharing this, because I have recently talked to other believers who find themselves having no idea how to pray for someone they love.  If you find yourself in that situation, I encourage you to just start expressing thankfulness that we have been given the Holy Spirit as a comforter and intercessor.

50 Years

50 years

18250 days…plus a few extra for leap years.

A forever, but also an instant,

An eternity, but the blink of an eye.

We were young and optimistic,

Bravely stepping off the edge.

We promised to grow old together,

Confronting the unknown,

Full of faith, but still a bit scared.

And those days passed

One by one they crept or sped.

The clock ticked.

The pages turned.

Chapters were completed.

Children born, raised, launched.

Returned and relaunched.

Grandchildren sprang up.

But, we have slowed down,

As the years have accelerated.

We won’t get another fifty.

We don’t have the energy for them.

Each day we wake up together,

We are thankful for one more.

Each night we snuggle into each other,

Grateful we have kept our promises.

And when we step off the final edge,

A bit scared, into eternity,

We will be old and optimistic,

And still full of faith.

This Morning at Dunkin'

After dropping my granddaughter off at her job at 9 AM, I had 30 minutes to kill before my physical therapy appointment.  I made a quick stop at Staples, and then decided to go to Dunkin Donuts as I had left the house quickly and had not had time for coffee.

I usually go inside but decided to go to the drive-up.  I opened my window and spoke clearly toward the intercom.

“I would like a medium decaf coffee with cream and a headlight.”  Headlight donuts are my favorite.

The voice in the box replied, “I didn’t understand you.”

Me:  (voice raised slightly)  “A medium decaf with cream and a headlight.”

The voice:  “I still can’t hear you.”

Me:  (somewhat louder)  “Medium decaf with cream and a headlight.”

Voice:  “What size was that?”

Me:  (loudly)  “Medium”

Voice:  “I am having trouble understanding you.”

Me:  “OK…now I am going to shout.  A medium decaf with cream and a headlight.”  (As loud as possible)

Voice:  “Does that complete your order?”

Me:  “Yes”

Voice:  “Pull up to the window for your total.”

At this point, I am pretty sure she still hasn’t got it.  She did not repeat the order back to me, and she didn’t give me the amount, which they always seem to do.

I pulled up to the window.  Two employees were wearing headsets, so I didn’t know which one I had spoken with.  They were talking to each other and looking at a coffee cup which seemed to be the object of the discussion.

Employee 1 (to me):  “Was that a glazed donut?”

Me: (figuring the whole order was in doubt) “I want a medium decaf with cream and a headlight.”

Employee 2: “Oh, we’ve got it.  We’ve got it right here.”  She hands me the bag and cup.  “You don’t owe anything.  The customer in the car ahead of you heard you screaming and paid for your order.”

I’m thinking, “Oh, great.  This anonymous person thinks I am a crazed whacko having a bad day.”

Employee 2 nods toward Employee 1:  “She’s hard of hearing.”

Me:  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to shout at you, but I kept raising my voice and you still couldn’t hear me”

Employee 1:  “It’s OK…it’s OK.”

So, I’m driving away pondering, “Why would Dunkin put an employee on the drive-up window who has a hearing problem?  Why would the employee not admit she has a hearing problem and can’t adequately do that job?

AND

Is there a person driving around town thinking they have done a kindness to a poor unbalanced soul (me) who screams at Dunkin employees?

I got to my physical therapy appointment and the young man who gets me started on the exercise bike asked me how things were going.  I told him this story.  Another patient in hearing distance cracked up laughing and said, “Oh, that is hilarious!”

I’m glad someone found it amusing.

She Meant Well

I had a high school English teacher who once said, “’She means well’ is the most damning of all compliments.”  The primary reason I have remembered this for nearly 60 years is that I heard “she means well” so many times growing up as an explanation for dear Aunt Emily’s behavior.

Aunt Emily was my maternal grandmother’s sister, so she was actually my great-aunt.  She never had children, and to my knowledge, only had occasional part-time employment, so this left her with adequate time to insert herself into the lives of others in both positive and negative ways.

She was sometimes hired by wealthy families to stay with their children while the adults traveled for extended periods of time.  She was a good cook and housekeeper, but not necessarily the best with kids.  She was pretty rigid and liked to lay on guilt trips.  I remember when I was quite young that she fixed me an orange with sections arranged in pinwheel fashion, a cherry in the middle, and sprinkled with sugar; but then she made it very clear that I was supposed to be overwhelmingly grateful to her for this snack. Apparently, my thanks had not been profuse enough, and guilt took away some of the enjoyment of that orange.

On another occasion, I was with her while she ran errands.  She parked the car illegally and left me alone while she ran into the bank or store or dry cleaners.  She instructed me that if a policeman came by and started to write a ticket, I was to tell him that my aunt would be back in a few minutes.  I was terrified that a policeman might actually come by and write a ticket.  I knew I didn’t have the courage to speak up to a policeman about my strange aunt.  My plan was to crouch down and try to be invisible in the back seat.

Aunt Emily did like to put on airs.  That branch of the family was from Alsace-Lorraine which over the years was sometimes German and sometimes French.  Everyone else in the family considered themselves to be German, but Aunt Emily always insisted she was French, even though her maiden name Bischoff is rather German.  The family used to joke behind her back that the older she got, the younger she dressed.  She was quite stylish and did sometimes wear things that seemed a bit out of her age range.  She was fond of big clunky earrings and bracelets.

Although she was in most ways prim and proper, she scandalized the family by sharing the little detail that she and her husband (great-uncle Art) took baths together.  TMI in that era!

Even as a child, I was aware of friction between my grandmother and Aunt Emily.  Sisterly love was not evident.  Aunt Emily was bossy by nature, and my grandmother seemed insecure by nature, and I recall some family feuds.  Long years after they had both passed away, my mother told me one of the sources of resentment.  Aunt Emily desperately wanted a child and never had one.  My grandmother had 5 children, although one died in infancy.  Three of the surviving children had brown eyes like both parents, but one had blue eyes.  Their hidden recessive genes got together on that one.  Aunt Emily and her husband were blue-eyed.  She tried to talk my grandmother into giving her the blue-eyed boy to raise.  My grandmother was livid.  How dare she ask her to give up one of her children!  The resulting anger apparently was underlying much of the animosity that was evident for the rest of their days.

Aunt Emily did try to be helpful.  My mother was bed-ridden during two of her pregnancies, one of which occurred when I was twelve.  I always knew when Aunt Emily had been to the house to clean for my mother.  I don’t know why she did this, but when she dusted, she was in the habit of arranging all sorts of items on the windowsills.  If I came home from school and everything from my dresser (except the lamp) was on the windowsill, I knew Aunt Emily had been there.

One of my mother’s brothers told the story of a time when my grandmother was deathly ill with a very high fever, and Aunt Emily decided it was a good time to defrost and clean out the refrigerator.  He was a logical fellow who saw this as quite bizarre.  I suppose “she meant well.”  Perhaps she thought it would take people’s minds off my grandmother’s dire condition.

Aunt Emily nearly killed herself once.  She decided her cellar floor needed a good cleaning.  She had no knowledge of chemistry and figured anything could be improved with bleach.  She mixed together several cleaning products and ended up creating a toxic gas.  She was almost overcome and barely made it out of the basement.

As they aged, Aunt Emily and Uncle Art became very dependent on each other.  She was the stronger one physically, and he was the stronger one mentally.  My mother, who was the closest of their nieces and nephews, worried about them.  Aunt Emily was no longer sharp enough mentally to pay attention to whether the food in her refrigerator was still safe to eat.  Ironically, she couldn’t clean out her own refrigerator.

After more than sixty years of marriage, they ended up in the hospital at the same time and died within 24 hours of each other.  The notice of Uncle Art’s death made it in the newspaper, but Aunt Emily’s did not.  People came to the calling hours expecting to see Uncle Art, and there was Aunt Emily too. 

One never did know quite what to expect from Aunt Emily.

A Work of Art

My great-uncle Art was an interesting character.  In part, because he was married to great-aunt Emily who was an even more interesting character.  Aunt Emily’s ability to cause upset in the family and talk people into situations they never expected to get into was legendary.  But, I’ll save her for another day.

Uncle Art was long-suffering.  He seemed to be able to ignore lots of things about Aunt Emily that others found annoying.  He was a smoker, and she wanted him to quit.  He would go outside thinking she didn’t know it was for a smoke.  She pretended not to know.  If she happened outside, he would stuff the cigarette up his sleeve running the risk of torching himself.

Uncle Art was a painter by trade.  He wasn’t exactly an artist, but neither was he the run-of-the-mill-slap-paint-on-the-wall type.  He was expert at painting gym floors in the days when all those lines were hand-painted.

Aunt Emily had a bedroom suite that I’m sure Uncle Art must have hand-painted.  It was shades of pastel pink and blue and had gold edges.  I thought it was beautiful and have never seen anything quite like it.  It made me think of pink-tinged clouds in a pale blue sky.  I have no idea what happened to it after they passed away.

Uncle Art could color beautifully with crayons.  He didn’t just take a green crayon and color the leaves on the trees in a coloring book.  He used multiple shades of green, and the tree came alive.  When he finished, the picture really was a work of art and a work of Art.

I wonder if there is another woman in the world who as a girl asked her uncle to color a page in her coloring book when she got a new one.  When he colored a page in my book, I felt like I had a special treasure.  I wonder what else he might have done with his life, if he had been born at a different time and place with different opportunities.