Andy

So Andy Williams has died.  He would do well to seek out my mother in the land of souls.  She was a terrific fan of his.  Unbeknown  to me at the time, I too was becoming a  fan of the crooner  (actually I should make crooner plural) albeit a closet crooner lover.

In the summer of 1961, shortly after the red measles disaster at 1514 12th Street, we acquired a STEREO system in our living room.  It was components, long before components were cool.  But my Dad was cool, so it was inevitable.

Guess who was  not satisfied?

I wanted one of those long console models, with graceful carvings over the fabric of the speakers and a sliding door on top to cover the turntable.  Or just a Hi Fi set up.   No,  we had dual three foot by two foot high speakers, big enough to have their own knickknack adornments on top.  The speakers could be strategically placed (and always were) for maximum sound quality.  Dad taught me, which didn't do much sooth me, that if the sound is accurate, you will hear it coming right smack dab at you.  These were pre-surround sound days.

Those speakers,  of premier quality,  were used in the living room until the household closed up shop for good in 2009.  Almost fifty years is a pretty good run.

Well the component system arrived and along with it about 100 albums of various artists. I do not know how that  huge pile of 33 1/3 RPM's  came into being.  Did my Dad just go wild one day at Deveu's Music Store or was it some package deal?  It even came with a two tiered storage rack.  Whether Andy Williams was in the original C pack I don't know, but he was soon crooning out his magical songs when Mom was doing her daily household work.  Itunes has the exact album for a mere $9.99.  I suppose the original platter is in Chicago with Tom, as are the speakers.

Those songs: Tonight, Three Coins in a Fountain, The Twelfth of Never, It Might As Well Be Spring, Moon River, Misty, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, If Ever I Would Leave You, Days of Wine and Roses, I've Grown Accustom To Your Face,  and the Christmas fave ~ It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, yours truly knows the words to all those songs.  I can even  play a few on the piano, with a  healthy smattering of mistakes.

I really did enjoy Andy and his life became even more acclaimed for me knowing he was in the Kennedy circle of friends.  Point  getter for this writer, a dedicated Kennedy watcher.  He sang Battle Hymn of the Republic at Bobby Kennedy's funeral.  I was glued to the TV set those long days in June of 1968.

Andy Williams, the  entertainer, had a part in my youth, but then so did Robert Goulet, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme, Bobby Darin and Mom's big pile of Longines Symphonette Albums.  I learned to love all their music, thanks to Evie and the components.

Rest in Peace Andy.

Post note: Hi Fi isn't in my spell check.  Am I that old?

The Glasses?

I am on Grandma duty with my little Mercedes for two night and three days (really only half days times two and one full day sandwiches between the sleeps).  The house caves, cooking escalates - only to satisfy a three year old, sorry Ron  and I get behind on my routine.  Now as the little princess sleeps I am catching up on what I missed on CBS This Morning.

None other than Penny Marshall, the lovable Laverne.

She has written a book about her life, though it isn't over as yet.  "My Mother Was Nuts," by Penny Marshall.  Yea, weren't they all at one time or another?  Or from the  viewpoint of my children, "Yes, there were and still are."

So the venerable TV queen turned director was on this morning to promote her tome.    But what is with the glasses?

I could only think it was  a clever way to disguise those wrinkly hunks of under the eye skin we have,  some more than others I may add (ME!).   It came across as so 70ish, something Janis Joplin would have done, and come to think of it, I think she did.

I love  the way Penny  has fluffed out.  My fluff is a direct result of alcohol infestation.  I am going to guess hers is too.  After all her mother was nuts, she has a book to prove it.   Now what is my excuse?

Red Laser

I just love technology.  And the more I use it, the more I love it.  Today I am embracing the iPhone.  Not the new iPhone 5 that all the world is raving about (they should be raving about the Apple stock price which went over $700.00 yesterday).  No, I'm raving about my two month old 4G and what it can do.

To set the stage of my excitement, yesterday I received my new rewards card, why I don't know.  It is the same as my old one and it certainly wasn't because I was wearing out the previous one.  I'm not really a CVS fan.  So  anyway the vendor gives me two options: put the card on a ring for easy use at the till OR scan it to my smart phone.

The last time I had a few rewards cards on a ring, the ring fell off with the cards, along with a cute Seattle Space Needle key chain; all lost forever.  So much for that plan.  It was time to move-on-up to the world of scanning.

I'm not exactly "new new" to the scanning arena as on my old Android phone, which I later liked about as much as CVS (more on that later),  I had an app with a scanner but it really wasn't much of a mover or shaker, needless to say  I seldom used it.  After the Droid was dropped and certain areas on the screen didn't work well, I didn't use it at all.

Fast forward to the land of iPhones and my new rewards card.  After reading the card "how to."  I knew I needed  a scanner on my phone in order to optain the bar code.   I click to the App Store  and the first one on the search was Red Laser - FREE!!! It had almost five stars behind it so I looked no further.  Download....

 This cool app will let me put all my rewards cards on my iphone.  How amazing is that?  And better yet, I get 30% off my entire bill the first time I use it.  Yes, I know I will have to go into CVS, but I can then figure out the next step: how to use the reward card in the store!!

Addendum: Why I don't like CVS.  I have gone in the store for a purchase of a sale item and guess what?  They are out of the product.    I once went in looking for Selma Hayek cosmetics  that were on sale.  The sale paper came out on Sunday, the very day I was in store, and the Hayek shelf was bare.  Just a little too suspect for me.  I don't want to be duped into a special stop so I have crossed them off the list...until I got my 30% reward offer.

Technology  saw me coming!

Back In My Groove

After a whirlwind summer, one thing after another, I am back in my office with every intention of  some consistent posting.  I repeatedly amazed myself, all summer long, with one excuse after another to refrain from writing.  I do have to concede:  the upstairs is not air-conditioned so my little nest often was a steam bath.

THE VIEW

Now it is the 18th of September and my office view is still green leaves, although a tour of the valley, as recent as yesterday, shows the gold is arriving.  The newspaper remarked it will be a weak showing of adornment, related to the drought, but it still will "color-up."


Twenty years ago today - on a Friday,  about this exact time- 10:00 in the morning,  I was sitting on the piano bench listening to Jim Sewick give devotions to the SVCC residents.  I looked out over the Mouse River valley and the trees were in full autumnal ornamentation.  It struck me at that moment, what a glorious area we live in.  Maybe the devotions were drumming home to me the splender of our world and our Creator always at work.


Quite a memory you ask?  Well, the secret to this retrospection is that on the 19th of September, 1992, my fourth son was born, Carsten Jacob Espeseth.  Tomorrow he will be twenty, leaving his teen years behind and entering the twenties.   The 18th of September I remember well.

Will I  remember forty years from now, September 18th?   I will be 98 and may still be coming up with excuses!

The Natural Hilliary?

According to the latest news flash Hilliary Clinton is going without makeup and doesn't give a damn what others thinks.  Good for her, she has more guts than I do.

The real deal

A nice headband, not plastic

This morning I watched Hilliary  on the CBS Early Show. She was sporting glasses, no foundation or eye makeup.  She did keep  the cardinal rule (according of Evie)  in check: LIPSTICK. Which means she  isn't exactly au naturale.  Thank goodness we all have limits.  The close up photography on our HD 42" screen did a marvelous job of exposing the imperfections on her skin.  Hooray, she is  like the rest of us.

I have mixed feelings.




Hilliary goes back to those goofy headbands,  not the kind like we wore in grade school with sharp little teeth fixed inside a plastic crescent, which by the  end of the day a sure-fired itchy headache belonged to you, the wearer.  She was  running as a potential first lady with a headband???  Come on.  Once again, nobody stood at the doorway and said, "Okay missy, where do you think your going with that on your head ?"

She  is now comfortable with who she is and where she's at in her life.   "Let someone else worry about what I look like."  Makeup unnecessary?Eh Gads, I hope I never get that comfortable.  I look like a three day old cadaver without "my face," on (more Evieesse).  Eyebrows, blush, mascara and lipstick, they all put me in my comfort zone and the rest of the world,  who sadly would  suffer if I were not to paint  the canvas I call my face.

But now on the flip side of  facial commando, what about Michelle Bachmann?  She wore false eyelashes and often really really long ones.  What would she look  like without her Bare Escentuals?  I couldn't help wonder, as she graced the screen back when everybody and their brother wanted to be president,  how many lonely hearts  in TV land developed a crush on her with her  stunning beauty?  Sarah Pallin, she was no slouch either, that is until she opened her mouth.  This could lead to reckless, irresponsible voting.   Do we want high maintenance in the White House?    The question posed this morning, and this is not verbatim:  Do we want  political women to go red carpet on us?

I liked the comment about being "put together and looking appropriate." Fix the flaws you have, in the best way you know how and hope for the best.  Straight from the mouth of Evie, God rest her soul!

Another Victim

I read  in the Fargo Forum Alzheimer's has claim another victim.  Bobby Vee,  or to the locals: Bobby Velline.  He is a Fargo boy who did good.  Who can forget "Come Back When You Grow Up Girl" or "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes?"

His big break came when a plane crash killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper.  On a snowy night,  February 3, 1959, their Beechcraft airplane went down near Clear Lake, Iowa-killing everyone aboard.  The day the music died.

Bobby Vee, at the ripe old age of 15, and his band, The Shadows, quickly covered for the missing musicians at the Moorhead Minnesota Armory.  The rest is history.

I was too young to be in the audience that winter night, but as I grew up  the Bobby Vee  story became part of the lore, one more antecedent we Fargoans treasure as our own.

Last summer when dining with the friends in Vergas Minnesota at Billy's Corner Bar, Bobby Vee was there with his wife, enjoying life like the rest of us.  The was BDD or before the dreaded diagnosis. But I guess the signs are there long before the doc lays it out in plain English.  Stories  say he has known for awhile, but now has decided to go public.  He has become one more victim of the cruel disease.    His wife, of forty-eight years, is awaiting a lung transplant.

Women and Embezzelment

Another woman, Rita Crundwell, has been accused,  and  if proven guilty,  may join  the ranks  of other women embezzlers.  This time the numbers were big and Harriet Walker's 48M dollar  filching title may have some serious competition.

Rita, the Dixon Illinois  city comptroller-a job she has held since the 80's, took it over the top with her 30M dollar swipe.   The scam  recently  hit the wall when  another person filled in for her while she took vacation time, four months to be exact.  What the hell?   Four months vacation time is pretty extravagant for a town of 16,000.  And the poor town,  possibly scammed  by this villain,  has an annual operating budget of 8-9 million.   One article stated employees went without raises for three years and the town's side walks were falling apart.  Not so at the Meri J Ranch.

Ms. Crundwell has an extremely  successful horse breeding business, the Meri J.  Over the years there were questions asked: why would she keep her measly (not by my standards) eighty thousand a year job when her horse business was so lucrative?  The little voice in her head must have said: "don't quit your day job, don't quit your day job!"

I tried to get on her website for her business, possibly funded by Dixon, but they said to check back later, site unavailable. Hmm....

Rita in her glory days

Leaving the courthouse yesterday, looking less glamourous I would say.

I don't understand, which is frequent,  why do women seem to be the favored gender with  sticky fingers and then get caught?

I have some unproven theories:

• Tempted by never having enough  money.
• They are forever trying to balance some budget: personal or employment. 
• Women are good at doing what needs to be done, "somehow the money will show up."
• They become careless at covering their tracks.
• Men manage to stay out of the courts and/or newspapers. Their problems are fixed with the help of the good old boy network. 
• Gambling.

In North Dakota alone, over recent years,  we have had a fair number of women with their mitts in the cookie jar: insurance agents, treasurers of local organization  and churches (how could they??), bookkeepers, school secretaries, city auditors.  And then, with our nice North Dakota  polite ways, these Matoff wannabes  never seem to go big with zeros.  No, they  screw up their lives up forever over  a few thousand dollars.  Large dollar amounts  of female embezzlement in ND are few.

Now Rita, she went big.  Living Large.

But I suppose, like everything in this state where it takes us a few years to catch up, that too will change.

Wild

I have finished another book. I want to share:  WILD, by Cheryl Strayed.  Preface: this tome was chosen  by an online  discussion group "Beyond Busy Global Monthly Book Club with Christina Katz."  I am a rookie member and with hope, won't be sliced out of the loop for extreme tardiness.  Anyone can join by requesting to be a friend on Facebook.  I didn't think it would be too difficult to participate: read the book and join in the  discussion to which  a daily question is asked. Seven questions to be exact, one week's worth.    You are given a few weeks to read the book.  I jumped on board towards the end of the read, but was sure I could master the time frame. I'm  much more productive in my mind's eye than in  reality.  The discussion started on April 1st.   I missed the deadline by fifteen days.

Anyway, a captivating non-fiction book telling  of one woman's 1,100  mile hike of  the Pacific Crested Trail (PCT).  ALONE.   This monumental undertaking was done in 1995, when she was twenty-six.   Cheryl  was not a tree hugging, back packing amazon  yearning for an outdoor experience.  Not at all.  She was a mentally injured human being  dealing with her mother's cancer death at 45; abandonment by her abusive father when she was a young child; estrangement from her siblings;  a failed marriage and a fondness for heroin.  No fun in her dysFUNctional.

The hike  took on a"what-the-hell, this-trail-can't-batter-me-anymore-than-my-own-life-has"  affect or a personal "come to Jesus" moment  with herself and the world.  The moment took four months.  Her writing skills do a beautiful job of recreating this horrendous hike - on a trail I didn't even  know about (me, hiking??? What about my hair?  And why would I know of the PCT??) until I read the book. She encountered snow, unbearable heat and humidity (there goes the hair), lack of water, trail food at its worst, bears, snakes, a potential rape, getting lost, even losing her shoes.  How she mastered the trail, and didn't let it master her, is amazing.

But she also discovered there is lots more good in this world than bad.  And yes,  life will beat you up if you let it.  She prevailed.  Good read, now go get the book!!

Cheryl with Monster - the friendly and way too heavy backpack

Next month's  (May 1st) discussion is for the book "Some Assembly Required."  I wonder if I will make the deadline?

Love and the Measles

I am a member of an online writing group.  We have fifteen minutes writing challenges.  This one was to be about love and the measles.  I rather liked it when it was finished (fifteen minutes to get it down, and a wee bit more time to polish ), so I thought I would post it:

Love and the Measles

My brother Tom, eighteen months to my junior, and I lovingly shared many things in our youth, back in the wonderful years of the fifties and sixties.  But one event I was not going to accept from  him no matter how much we loved each other.

The year was 1961, June to be exact, the last day  of the  first grade with Mrs. McLaren.  My life would soon became a series of warm summer nights, bike rides, swimming,  mosquito bites, running barefoot and wearing shorts.

I  happily cleaned out my desk, bringing home used workbooks and old papers signifying: school's out for summer. My first full year of school was completed.  

But a cloud of the doom was hanging over the day.

The night before my brother was  struck with the red measles, or as my mother would say, "hard measles."   It landed at our house with the horrid stench of vomit (down the side of the couch-a side I never sat on until it was recovered) and a high fever.  My mother diagnosed his virulent strain of spots and symptoms in a matter of minutes.   This was not to be taken lightly.  I, his loving older sister,  would have to be protected from the  ensuing dangers measles could bring.

Protection meant one thing: a shot!  A hypodermic needle of unknown length  to a six year old little girl like me was the behemoth of terrors.  After an emergency stomach pumping at age two, I had developed a fear of anything medical or dressed in white,  and a shot was the H-bomb.

Remember since this was the last day of school and we were cut lose at noon, I had some time to set up my strategy and attempt  to sell the idea to my mother regarding the pending injection, and how it was so unnecessary.  A waste of her time and mine.

"I'll simply come into the house by the front door and go directly to my room and shut the door.   I'll stay there as long as need be, weeks-doesn't matter.  I've got all summer.  I'll eat in my room. I won't be anywhere near  Tom.   Therefore, no need for a shot."   Simple, clean cut and best of all, shot free.

It was a no-sale, an adamant no-sale.  Fell in its entirety on deaf ears.

Before the sun set, on the last day of school, I was hauled  to the clinic, the old  St.Luke's Pediatric Department with its yellow painted walls so firmly housed in my memory, and given a  penicillin (I presume) shot on my cute little back side.  A shot that was intended to lessen the severity  of the measles, so lovingly shared by brother.

Funny, in thinking back, I do not remember every getting those dreaded measles.

Medicrazy

Medicare deserves a new name: Medicrazy.  Granted I am not of Medicare age, but Ron joined the ever growing dynasty last August.  He was deemed disabled by his employer due to an unrepairable injury.      He went on  Medicare last August, fourteen months early.

My nightmare began about one month before.

Why my nightmare?  I am the bookkeeper, bill payer, life sorter for the disabled one.  Usually I do well with my paperwork. I am not afraid to get on the phone or website to crack a case. It is possible I may hold an unofficial record for dumb questions.  I live firmly behind the axiom: there are no dumb questions, just ones not asked.

This essential health coverage for the "elderly" is a serious, complex web of paperwork, algorithms and PLANS. Can't forget plans-plans are big; so are key words like supplemental, enrollment, Medigap, drug plans (haven't had one since high school).  My personal favorite is the word formularies.

To make it all very tolerable, each year you get a U.S Official Government handbook called Medicare and You, in large print.  This year's full size handout had 148 pages.   Thank you Department of Health and Human Services, you are doing your part with our national debt.

As I wade through dates and deadlines I keep thinking of real elderly people who  don't know which way to turn in their medicare golden years.  You have to pay for supplemental insurance and drug plans, which then,  you wonder if you have picked the one best for you.  Lots of these folks live on limited income, that is if they don't qualify for Medicaid.  Pity to the poor oldsters who don't do or use  the "web."  I happen to know of one.

I asked a friend  if they switched during open enrollment season (that brings a wash of mail in the fall) she said "We just kept the same drug plan because we didn't want to go through the confusion of a switch."   Ron has one drug (of the two he takes)  that doesn't fit under the right tier, of the five tier system in his abridged formulary.  So the next step is to get the doc to rewrite the script.  Your local pharmacist is a big help, but...  they have to be a participating pharmacist with your specific drug plan, if not, you will need to switch to another pharmacy.

Yikes, it makes my gut hurt as I write about this chapter of the golden years.    I am Medicrazy before my time.