Of Teeth

Caroline's tooth came out. This she told me tonight with much excitement. "Now I don't have any teeth on top."

"Who pulled it out?" I asked.

"Nobody. It came out while I was eating my breakfast."

"Did you eat your tooth?"  That question came because I had told Caroline how I lost my first tooth.We were visiting Grandma in Utah. She fixed corn on the cob, which I loved. When I finished the corn I discovered that my very loose tooth was gone. I ate it with the corn. "Yuck," we all agreed.

"No," she said. "I didn't eat my tooth."

Update and Upkeep

My grandson Aaron runs track, ran the 200 meter high hurdles Thursday.  He didn't win, but I love it that he keeps running.  I mean, that he keeps going out for track and football and so on.

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Fun private birthday dinner Thursday night with Paul, the birthday boy, and his family. Private except that we were at P F Chang. Thursday night and the place was full; good thing we had reservations. One of the most noticeable things: Peter is getting an appetite. He ate a lot. Did my heart good.

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How much is a yard worth?

• I will have the big ash tree in front of the house taken out--$200. That's hard to do. We planted it, you know. But I'm doing it.
• I hired a guy to spray the lawns and try to bring them back--$218 (that's with the $12 discount). 
• The mowing guy will charge $30 per. 
• I must try to plant something back in that corner where the neighbor's pine tree--only one of four pine trees--has killed the grass, something that will grow without sun and in spite of the pine needle acid. Cost? I don't know yet.

I have told myself, again this morning, I'll give these guys one year.
 
Next year? Certainly my yard upkeep will not be free, but perhaps I'll find a better way.

I do want to keep living here, so don't tell me to move into a place where they do all this for me. People who recommend such a move seem to forget the fees charged in such arrangements, in such places.

Then, there's the other part of moving to a new place. I won't go into it, but it has much to do with my age and how others perceive an older woman and how they treat her. Just ask my mother.

Think this over; it's not new but it's true

When you learn something, it's yours. It belongs to you, like your skin, like your brain, your heart.

This I thought today as I pictured Johnny at the piano. Lola gave him three piano lessons while she was visiting last week, and he learned to play a piece. Now it's his. I can see him going to the piano, playing this one piece he knows, feeling the power of that knowledge, wanting to know more.

This is what I want all my grandchildren to understand. So I repeat: When you learn something, it's yours.

It is what I wanted my children to understand. It's why I taught them all to read at home, before they went to school. Reading was something they could have. And keep.

It's what I want the young child Carol to know. Perhaps she did. She grew up loving to learn--not always loving to do what is required to know something, and isn't that a key! But loving to learn. She still loves to learn.

(Okay, so I know it's weird to speak of myself in third person. Sorry. It seemed the right thing to do here.)

It would be good

if the news media could get things right.

Two versions of one story. The first one I heard Thursday, quoting 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspect #1 who is now dead, "I have no American friends. I don't understand."

The second I heard Friday, and I saw the actual words . "I have no American friends. I don't understand them."

I'm assuming the second is correct. But who's to know? Anyway, the meaning changes considerably, don't you see.

Now, if this suspect #2, the 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, lives, and if Matt Lauer and his ilk don't mess it up with their self-proclaimed smarts and "I know the law and other stuff" talk all over the networks and the world, maybe there will be answers and a solid case and conviction. And I have had enough of talk from people who know him or knew him or thought they knew him.

I just heard that their father says he's coming to the United States and that his sons were framed, and he also said, "My kids didn't do nothing." He wants proof.

The Boston Marathon Bombings

Warning: Difficult to read.

Three dead, more than 150 injured, some critically, so the death toll may rise. More than a few amputations required.

This is what I mean.

An 8-year-old boy who was enjoying ice cream with his family was killed Tuesday in one of the explosions at the end of the Boston Marathon as he cheered runners completing the 26.2-mile race.
Martin Richard, the boy, was with his father, mother and 6-year-old sister near the grandstand when one of the explosions occurred. The mother and sister were both critically injured in the blast. Martin's mother underwent brain surgery Monday night and his sister, 6, lost a leg in the blast, WHDH.com reported. The status of his father, William, has not been released publicly.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/16/boy-8-killed-in-boston-marathon-attack-reportedly-hugged-runner-dad-seconds/#ixzz2Qe6De6YQ

We are Boston. We all are. Those people who were directly affected are part of us.

We may be thankful our families were not hurt, and I am thankful. We may be thankful we live out here, hundreds of miles away, and I am. But I am not glad for those who live there and now have to be afraid. We feel and weep for them.

But, of course, we are all newly afraid. Again. And we are all now wondering what is next. Are we safe in any big city? Any large gathering? Anywhere? 

Suspicious packages here and there. Some harmless, but you can't know until they are examined. Tighter security at airports, no doubt, and some of us will grumble. With good reason. But we'll likely understand, too.

Who has done this?

And your answer . . .

What do we ever learn when things are going great?

Yes, we want our lives to be good, for things to run smoothly. Wouldn't it be nice? We'd like to be able to relax and kind of watch life glide along. 

But that is not how it has been or, I have to say, is supposed to be. It's when we're stretched or hurt or ill or when we're pressed to do the hard thing that we learn and grow. If we let ourselves. That is when we have the best chance at becoming good people, worth something, trustworthy, dependable, wise.

So I repeat the question. What do we ever learn when things are going great?

Who Knows?

Note: This is not a pleasant subject. You may want to stop here and not read this post.

I wondered today about heart attacks. Who has them and why some who look like they might or even should have one don't. It's because of my friend Emmie, probably 80 years old or so and quite plump or heavy, as my mother would have said--that's the only way I've seen Emmie in the 10 years I've known her: quite plump. So I love her anyway, you know.

She was telling me stories about people who have needed her CPR assistance--I think she used to be nurse--which one died, which ones lived.  She said she doubts she could give that kind of aid anymore; her back wouldn't take it. Apparently, you sometimes have to keep up that pushing on the heart for long periods of time.

So I looked at her and wondered why she has never had a heart attack and why I have. No. I don't wish she had. But I do wish I hadn't.

Emmie left the room and other women entered.

I wondered out loud if the moment some people are born they are destined (not the word I want) to have a heart attack later in life. And somehow that is known throughout the universe, and maybe, no matter what they do, it's just going to happen. 

Lucy scoffed. I might have scoffed, too, if I hadn't been the one who said it.

She, Lucy, said it's diet and life style. Okay, I know that. Except has my lifestyle and my diet been so reckless? I don't think so. I'm not fat, well, not very. I have never smoked or drunk alcohol. I would suggest my life style has been no more reckless than the way many people I know have lived. That's what I would suggest. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps.

My mother died of a heart attack. Will I? And was that programmed into my genes or my whatever from the moment of my birth? 

Not a question I'll be able to answer here. Wait and see what kills me, I guess. Happy thought.

You know, it's part of being a person to wonder about stuff like this. That's what I think.