Just Thinking...'s Open Salon Blog

What a Screwed-up Open Salon Cover Page

Fri, 1 Jun 2012 13:06:46 -0400

The title is my vent.

Post titles not matching the stories, writers attributed to the wrong articles, repeated listing of stories...

Spam everywhere.

Ai yi yi.

Now I shall go attend Youngest's 8th grade graduation !

....thank you for listening, feel free to add your own personal vent...

I add that as I know how close-mouthed and long-suffering you all are.

(Or maybe you are content with the status quo.)

Waving at Kim and Kate ~ and the Beach On Our Side

Thu, 31 May 2012 03:05:55 -0400

Once upon a Winter's week, we drove down to the coast...

I love stopping here ~ almost always an empty beach up here on the Lost Coast.

Another favorite stopping place on the far northern California coast ~ that water will freeze your toes, even in August !

Hi to Aussie and Kiwi friends !

~ from a third favorite, Mad River Beach ~

I love the Pacific coast....even if it's usually cold.

....and now that Spring is largely gone, the photos I have found.

Fighter Planes, Video Games, and my Brother's Father

Mon, 28 May 2012 17:05:18 -0400

The sounds of air battle were loud, we could hardly hear ourselves talk over the noise of the video game the boys were playing upstairs in their grandmother's bedroom. Don, my (twice widowed) mother's third husband, offered to go upstairs and check on them, to get them to tone it down.

"I'll go with you," offered Mom.

"Sure, Pat."

We all knew Mom was just worried about Don getting upstairs unscathed with his ever-present 50-foot long spaghetti noodle of oxygen tube that followed him wherever he went -- a barely tolerated concession to staying alive is how Don seemed to feel about that 24-hour oxygen.

As they slowly made their way upstairs toward the virtual melee of World War II fighter planes attacking the bad guys, as played out by two adolescents safely on the homefront, the volume was quieted voluntarily by the boys. They had been at the receiving end of Don's impatience before.

"Sorry, Don," I hear both boys mumble.

"Will you look at that," I next heard, a tinge of wistfulness in my mother's voice, "that's Lou's plane. I'll never forget the day he took me for a ride in that plane..."

"That Lou was born to fly, wasn't he?" remarked Don.

Total silence wafted down the stairwell, a ribbon-cloud of the invisible world of this old couple's rememberings wrapped us all in its weight.

"Who's Lou again?" asked our ten year old.

"Oh, Lou was your Uncle Mike's father. He died in the war, shot down in a plane just like that one you're playing games with."

I could feel the boys' flinch rocketing down the stairs.

"Oh Don, they don't mean any harm," placated my mother's voice.

"Nice, Don," I think to myself. I loved Don, but got to know him too late in his life, after he was elderly and curmudgeony, our meeting only after his wooing of my mother from afar when Mom and Don, a recent widower, were both age 78.

They were all from the same small town in upstate New York, Mom, Lou, and Don. Back when they were all young, full of life and promise, Lou won my mother's hand. Don was a young preacher with a young wife who'd come to town to start a church; he always thought my mother "a doll."

Later on, we all heard Don's war stories; he was a Navy Chaplain on a ship at the storming of Normandy. I still cannot get out of my mind his descriptions of the acrid scent in the air, the visual horrors of his memories, of a sea so bloodied and full of parts -- limbs and torsos and heads and bits of the young soldiers that Don had counselled earlier, when they were full of fear, when they were still alive, before the invasion began. Not until then did we understand how offending that game must have seemed to him.

"How old was Uncle Mike when his Dad died?" asked our twelve year old with a strange quiver in his voice.

"Seventeen days old, Honey. I was a war bride. Lou never got to meet his only child..."

Mom and Lou ~ after a day at the lake, just engaged (You okay there, Lou?)

Their wedding day, just before Lou was called to San Diego for training.

Lou in uniform with my cousin, Carol.

My oldest brother, Mike, as a child. He was adopted by my father eventually (before this photo, I think), after my parents' marriage.

The 1944 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, taken by my father's photographer friend. This photo and the following I add because I grew up loving to look at them. There was a photo of dead Mussolini hanging upside down, also taken by this photographer, that I was a little too fascinated with apparently -- that photo disappeared while I was still a child (just got an email from said brother Mike ~ he has it).

A worker clearing debris in a bombed-out cathedral in Sicily

Thinking of you all: Mom, Don...and especially Lou, who died so young in the war.

A Tiny Peek at Horrors Unspoken of

Sat, 19 May 2012 10:05:25 -0400

Each year when this day comes, I quietly mark it with a small smile. I don't tend to say a word, but I know.

Today is my Freedom Day.

The day I left

fear.

So long ago, another world ago,

18 years

today.

Escaping with my two small boys,

far, far away.

Living in the truck for months, rather than spend one more moment

afraid.

Our found sanctuary

remote on a mountain,

less afraid, never as afraid again.

Our little cabin with a view from dawn all the way until dusk,

chopping wood, hauling water.

Singing songs with my little ones,

the Wild singing her songs back to us.

Today. May 19th

marks the day

I began to love myself....

strong.

You Ignorant Slut

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:05:55 -0400

Long ago, when my mother once remarked, "You look blowsy" I thought she meant 'vibrant, bright-colored, gyspy-like.'

I distinctly remember the event: I was in my late teens and finally daring to wear on a date the Forties-inspired, brightly printed bandeau halter with long, flowing skirt I'd secretly tried on in my room close to two dozen times.

After each donning of the outfit, I'd crack open my bedroom door, make sure no one was around, then throw open the door to inspect myself in the mirror across the hall.

Once I grew used to the sight of three or four inches of skin showing at my waist (gasp), with more cleavage revealed than ever before, I thought I looked daring and wonderful.

Grown up.

Avant- garde.

(This was the late Seventies.)

Beautiful.

I have carried this illusion all of these years, this illusion that my mother's amused-yet-annoyed smile that evening was of pleasure with a tinge of jealousy for her bold and vibrant daughter going out for the evening in gypsy-like attire.

Until today.

Today -- when I looked out the kitchen window and felt the discrepency between today's garden and yesterday's post filled with photos of an earlier, burgeoning Spring. Those photos were demure and innocent. Today's garden is vibrant and brilliantly-hued.

I thought happily to myself, "Such a blowsy garden..."

I hadn't thought of that word in years.

I tossed it around in my mind for awhile while gazing at the various irises and poppies.

Hmmm.

I soon was looking up the meaning of the word 'blowsy.' The dictionaries checked stated:

blows'y, (blou-zee), adj:

* characteristic of or benefitting a slut or slattern; used especially of women.

* (esp. of a woman) untidy in appearance, slovenly or sluttish

* (of a woman) ruddy in complexion; red-faced

Well.

That certainly puts a different spin on the word 'blowsy'...

Mom's careless phrase was the only remark made about my outfit that evening by anyone, that I recall. If my date loved my look, he preferred to show appreciation by fondling, and anyway, who cares what he thought? I barely remember him, although I'm sure he seemed important at the time.

I do wonder if Mom realized I had no idea what she meant as I walked away from her words with a smile. I am sure she knew what blowsy meant, piecing together now the times I heard her use the word...and about whom.

I say that somewhat matter-of-factly now as, even with surprises like this, I accepted she could be impulsive and thoughtless a long time ago. My mother managed to blurt off-hand, searing remarks to most of her friends and all of her family, at one time or another.

Thank goodness she also had her charms.

I do try not to repeat her verbal patterns.

Sometimes I fail.

I've decided to keep close what I first thought my mom meant when she spoke those words over me -- it's the same as how I felt when my younger self assessed the reflection in the mirror so long ago:

I was beautiful that evening, vibrant and bold.

...and so is my blowsy garden.