29 June 2014: Sunday ... Sun streaming through drapes ... apple juice & mandarin oranges ... call & FB messages reunite ... walk to lights of Delcastle ... a new phone calls out

First thought as I decide to get up is "apple juice for mom". She says it helps her be regular, to put it with a modicum of civility, and then I stretch, a bit, and move downstairs and decide, on a whim, to take the big clippers and remove dead limbs from the dogwood on the side. I don't reach all of them but I collect a pile of limp, lifeless tree appendages and then collect them for the yard waste container under the beautiful tree that I don't know the name of. 

Just back from an amazing service by Rev. Keith Goheen, a hospital minister in Lewes, Delaware, Beebe Hospital, I think, who is just a wonderful speaker and intellect. I will copy his memorable quotes (they're on my cell under the Notes icon) later in this blog, but I wanted to say that Lindsay inadvertently called while having lunch with Nick in Augusta at Nacho Mama's. She was in Augusta for the wedding of a friend yesterday and plans to leave today for Chattanooga with Alex, so she has some driving ahead of her. Nice to hear from her when I called her back. 

Marina van Renssen tapes her daughter Kate Nolan as she
sang "All Of Me" by John Legend beautifully in today's service. 

Len Cummings called tonight from Colorado and he talked, pretty much non-stop, so he's good and he has a library nearby and he always amazes with his intellect. He'd love to have a car to get around but he's making it and he apparently has plenty of minutes on his phone, so I'll call him next time.

Received a wonderful FB message from Katia and I responded posthaste. It's a start to rebuilding our friendship and I welcomed her kind words.

Got the new phone working for mom and a few numbers entered and an e-mail out to family and friends with her new number. It's a new type of phone, not a cell phone, per se, but a cellular transmission line and less cost per month -- $20 for unlimited minutes. I think she'll get use to it. Now, to get the land line up and operating. 


A young boy on a bike with training wheels fell over as I approached with Dancer and the father quickly went to his aid and asked whether he was alright. His immediate response: "I caught a firefly." Now, that was a quick riposte to an embarrassing incident. I was impressed and quite amused.

Over a 3-mile walk from home to Delcastle Recreation Area and a dip in the narrow stream and then off leash to try to get a decent fill-flash photo with the iPhone. This was the 4th attempt and it worked to a degree. 

12 April 2014: Saturday ... visit from Ana Steele and John Clark this glorious Saturday afternoon ... wonderful dinner with 7 at the Judy & Tom Papenhagen's ...

Wonderful visit from John and Ana (Steele) Clark this beautiful Saturday afternoon. They were traveling from Princeton, NJ, where they saw John's 90-year-old brother, and then a HS reunion for Ana at Ursuline where she graduated early at the age of 15 and went to college. Here, they display one of their 91 picture albums (they still take film photos) that focus on their many grand nieces and nephews, courtesy of brother Art's eight children. They are extremely close to many of them and know their activities and pursuits in life. So good to see them and so nice of them to stop by and see mom and me. 

(Took this photo as Ana and John entertained Mom with photos of their grand nieces and nephews. I did not ignore them but did spend a littler personal time with my dog, who entranced the Clark/Steele pair convincingly with her loving nature.) Dancer truly dislikes being picked up but she is thoroughly huggable and I took this selfie of us as she bemoaned her seated position on a chair. — with Dancer at Our home in Limestone Gardens, Wilmington, Del

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• Carol Seay Witzell, Vicki Gaither Proefrock, Sandra Eargle Sanders and 23 others like this.
• 

  Susan Louth I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off of her, that's for sure.

  20 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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  Karen Shields you took a good picture. I don't think i could do it.

  16 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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  Harriet C. Brantley You two have such a fun time together! Beautiful.

2 April 2014: Wednesday ... Krista in Body Pump (Swimming Instructors Director) ... Kathy Markham (Newark Councilman's wife & campaign director) ...

Body Pump, dominated by women in the class, is such a bonding experience. This young lady, who I befriended, wound up being the director of the swim instructors at the Y, even though she herself is not an avid swimmer. She taught the children of Amy how to swim. Her younger sister, who really looked up to her, literally (she was much smaller than Krista) and figuratively, worked out nearby during the routine. John, an older male regular, says that Helena (Hah-LAY-nah) is a true taskmaster during the Les Mills routine. 

9 January 2014: Thursday ... Linda Walls and Beth Kincaid come for a joint visit, again, a wonderful combo ... Memories of Geisha suggested by Linda ... the day is gorgeous ...

A good visit this early afternoon by Hospice -- Linda Wills, social worker, and charge nurse Beth Kincaid. Discussion of catheterization was put off but the supplies are here and when it needs to be done, it can be by an RN.

One of the suggestions from Linda was the movie Memories of a Geisha, as we discussed music and Yo-Yo Ma came up as well as Vladimir Horowitz, who she saw play at the Academy of Music with her father, an amateur classical pianist, the one who brought his baby grand to Princeton along with two other undergrads for a trio of babies in their dormitory. The movie is available on YouTube and I will show it to mom on the iPad at her earliest convenience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoSqhYEO3G8

1. I am in a rut. Today has been dispiriting. I have been exhausted. I am getting over a cold and did stay up late last night and watched the end of Titanic and the Colbert Report with an interview of Ishmael Bael, the child soldier from Sierra Leone, who has written a novel of going back home, but to the point, my "rutness" today. It was a motivational talk by this inspiring young man who misses his homeland.
   
2. It's the same old, same old. The lack of motivation. Not making an attempt to challenge myself and in the process, moving further backward. Looking for the easy way out and not making the tough choice or even the proper one like having dispensed mom's medications in her daily containers so they'd be ready today, which they were not. Well, this could go on and on and I feel the same way and I want to get to bed so that I can begin the same old, same old again in the morning and have things remain as is. Unchanged. That appears the way I want it.
   
3. I did have a good walk, a little over 2 miles in the mild chill compared to the other day, that was ended by a phone call about the time share and an offer to pay our maintenance fees, in perpetuity, but there's a catch and I've said that the caller, from Colorado, a woman who walks her two dogs in the morning, will call again tomorrow to set up a conference call for the offer.
   
4. This is getting tiresome. I'm getting nowhere. So, I think I will call it quits.
   
5. An additional note of thanks, the second of a proposed 5 on this page, is the acceptance of Linda Lucero to attend a concert, with a free will offering, of the Serafin Quartet in downtown Wilmington at Trinity Episcopal Church at 7:30 p.m. The concert looks totally engaging with the following pieces:
   
   (Hugo Wolf's Italian Serenade is a light, charming and quirky short work composed to reflect his love of the Italian countryside.
   Felix Mendelssohn's Quartet in Eb Major, Op. 12, was heavily influenced by the his awe of Beethoven, and contains both introspection and brilliance. It was written when Mendelssohn was only twenty years old, and although it bears an earlier Opus Number, it was actually written after theOp. 13 Quartet in A Minor.
   The String Quartet by Claude Debussy, written in the early 1890s, is considered a pivotal work in the development of his signature "French" style -- which in many respects ushered in the "Impressionist Era" with its exotic harmonic flavors and jazzy rhythms.) 

Not a good thing to give up, especially when you can make inroads, at least marginal ones, incremental starts that can be a place to return to, rather than defeat. I have know too much of that word in my life and much of it has been self-induced. I have made the willful decision -- was it my own free will? (a topic discussed in Stephen Hawking's -- is it "ph" or "v", I do not know -- am I just deficient memory-wise or do I just not pay attention?) -- (a quick, as always, Google check comes up with "ph" but I will I remember it, probably not, but it's a start, like those inroads mentioned at the start of this graph, you can only make an attempt and whether you opt for invasive chemotherapy or palliative care, that is your decision and one must live with it or in the case of Stage IV colorectal cancer (Stage IV is the most advanced stage of colorectal cancer. If you have been diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer, it means that the cancer has metastasized to distant sites, such as the liver or lungs. The cancer may or may not have grown through the wall of the colon or rectum, and lymph nodes may or may not have been affected.), die with it.) 

http://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0629/Stephen-Hawking-book-The-Grand-Design-out-in-September

So, as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking brazenly confronts in his first program on Grand Design, "The Meaning of Life", what does this existence consist of and does it have any meaning in the long run. I believe it does but it will not evolve without effort and interaction. As an agnostic humanist, one must reach out to others for existence is naught without the interchange of ideas and thoughts and laughter, much like Heide's call last evening before turning in for bed. It capped off with brilliance a day that had been, as illustrated by my bold and blue and large list above, a "rutful" day. This need not be the case if one looks for those "incremental starts" that can start the evolution of design and construct the building of meaning. 

23 November 2013: Saturday ... The Finns pay a visit to Limestone Gardens and Doug arrives in time to see them ... a beautiful morning exemplified by photo below ... dad saw them

Prior to the arrival of the Finns, mom put on a
little lipstick, moving her lips together and pressing
them out in her customary manner, and then added
a little makeup and then looked at her handiwork. 

Mia and Sean, but especially Mia, fell in love with Dancer in one morning. I think, it might be beyond probability, that Dancer might have felt too much attention.
So evocative, so mature, so engaging ... she missed her mother when she was a mother and got emotional
with her Great Aunt Jean on this late Saturday morning, 23 November 2013. I felt the same way as I read "The Giving Tree" to bubbly, vibrant and utterly loving Mia. We both began to shed tears. 

Just a loving family ... John Finn with his kids Mia and Sean. 

Dad and I are listening to the NPR broadcast by the late Walter Cronkite on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy which was rebroadcast yesterday, Friday, 22 November 2013, the 50th anniversary of the killing of a president.

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/22/246628793/walter-cronkite-on-the-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy

6 October 2013: Sunday, John Webers visits, Nick & Granny on way to Delaware ...

http://www.auburnheights.org/
Auburn Heights Mansion or Marshall Steam Museum is where Goose and I went, thanks to the largesse of volunteer ticket taker, one Kathy (Webers) Beck. What a terrific find. Had no idea that such a wondrous place existed of a fabled mansion and all those steam cars, one of the largest collections in the world, and we got to mean the only son, 89 years young, who still works on the place 3-4 hours a day with the engines and who greeted us, unaffectedly and charmingly, on the 2nd floor of his boyhood home, where he grew up playing with 3 cousins, same age, who were like his siblings. 

Mom gets a rehearsed kiss from Goose (aka, John Webers) after I missed

the initial smooch. 

Gooser dropped by to see his favorite older couple, my parents

during a visit to Delaware to see his sister and his father, who is

in a care home and does not recognize him. 

Goose posing with his favorite older couple, my mother and father, in the former's bedroom on the day of his visit, Sunday, October 6, 2013. He is visiting his sister and also his father, who is in a care facility and does not recognize him, although he does know Kathy, who sees him far more often and can get him to shower, which he hates, before going to Mass on Saturday evening.

This is the photo blog for one John de Gooser Webers with this pic from Steamin' Days at the Marshall Museum and Auburn Heights Preserve for the largest collection of Stanley Steamer automobiles and of course, this miniature train:

While Goose and I were at the Mansion in Auburn Heights, Nick was driving Granny north to Delaware to be with her daughter Jan (she will stay at John's place, the old childhood home of the Thisell's when they moved to Newark 50 some odd years ago), and they arrived when I called Mom and she said they were pulling up to the house as we spoke. What timing! It was about 8 p.m. and the traffic jams in Richmond and D.C. really slowed them down, but they got here, safe and sound and I grabbed this photo, a true grabber of the initial hug of Mom to grandson: