The Birthday Challenge--What Will You Do?

Christmas and birthdays have always coincided in our family. One of the funniest things about Christmas birthdays is that birthday cards trickle in from the beginning of month to the New Year along with Christmas cards.  As the "Family Circus" cartoon shared this week when the little boy looked at the calendar and saw that his friend's birthday fell on the 26 of December. He said, "He just missed being Jesus."  We all missed that mark, but it made me smile at his innocence.

As adults we understand why our birthday gifts were wrapped in Christmas paper, and why birthday parties during the holiday season are rare. This year a SURPRISE greeted me at the door. An opened door revealed two friends, standing in the door way holding this note:

Two friends presented me with this Happy Birthday message, chocolate mousse cake, birthday cards both sweet and naughty, and a gift of teas for my BIRTH-TEA. Before I knew what happened we were singing, laughing, and wiping chocolate off our faces like little children. 

Kim Stone, Letty, Beth Brown

Tears trickled down my face as I laughed. My friends had gone out of their way to make the moment special for me. My heart was filled with love and happiness. Thank you, dear friends, for sharing your time with us. 

More often during the holidays Jack and I enjoy sitting quietly, reading, watching birds out the windows, and playing with Murphy Doodle. Winter solitude fills my soul with peace and a deep sense of gratitude for the world around me. I make time to relax and listen to the morning chirps of the robins after sunrise. 

This week I read the sweetest reflection on sisterhood. It did all I asked of a book. It made me smile, laugh, and think. 

Challenges are something we all face and learn from. This story shares my challenge to each of us in the coming year. Barbara Piece Bush, and her sister Jenna Bush Hager together with others founded the Global Health Corps in 2009. Their mission to develop a generation of leaders committed to realizing health as a human right across the globe. In their book Sisters First (2017. Grand Central Publishing, p. 234) Barbara describes a memory that has stayed near to heart about a child living in Burundian.

Alida grew up with several brothers and sisters; many of them were the children of friends that her parents had taken in during hears of bloody civil war. They treated all children equally, regardless of whether they were related. On birthdays in her family, rather than being showered with presents and treated as someone special, you were asked to make a case of why, in the previous year, you had lived the best year that you could. You did get a cake, but first you had to share what you had done for other people and how you had contributed. 

I was struck, she continued, by the profound idea, even for little kids--the concept that you needed to make a case that you were living life in a way that was worth it, in a way that was giving to others. You are here for a reason, and you should be grateful for every year, and be ready to do the most with the next one.

This story humbled me greatly and yet filled my heart with hope and respect for those who make a huge difference in our world. I thank all  the people who share their lives with the less fortunate. Reflecting on what I might have done in the previous year helped me clear my head and heart. I hadn't lived up to a worldwide standard but I had stepped in and helped others. 

As my new year continues, I will keep this thought in my mind, "I am here for a reason and will do my best to help our community be a better place to live and show respect for others." A plan of action will follow this. 

What will you do? 

 

Sending Love on the Holidays

 

L

O

V

E

From our

 table, where all is well,

 to yours.  May there be Peace on Earth

and Goodwill toward all people.. 

Jack and Letty Watt, 2023. 

Grace is a New Day

Grace is each new day. Some days she's dressed like a child on Merry-Go-Round, laughing, kicking, swinging and swaying. One time I felt her next to me when oncoming traffic slide on ice and by her grace missed our car. I gave thanks to her flutter touch on my shoulder, and placed my hand on top of hers. 

I saw him once, standing on distant hill. The clouds came in that evening from the hilltop in shades of blue and gold. He stood gloriously looking down at us like a shepherd whose sheep were safe for the night.

I do not have to see Grace to believe in her or feel him in my heart. It is a knowing deep down inside that lifts me up in ways I can't describe. A chirping Bewick wren returning for the winter months peeks at the feeders in our yard. When the bird finds food I watch her tiny tail flip into the air and then jerk back in forth in eager movements. Is he pleased, hungry, curious or communicating with others?  I lose track of time and worries when I watch our birds outside. This is Grace.

I've been beaten down lately, by man-made rifles of death in the hands of angry people.  I hurt so deeply for people who are victims of Hate that my insides quiver from my heart to my toes.  

Hate comes dressed in dirt and filth with a sad grim expression. He eats selfishly off the plates of those who are starving. She slays another and another without stopping for fear of death meeting her first. 

If only, I think, others could see the beauty out my window each day, thanks to Grace.

National Museum of the Pacific War Tributes

Admiral Nimitz truly stands head and shoulders above the many. 

A few weeks ago my husband and I toured the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. I cried both internally and outwardly, as I slowly read, step by step the many stories people wrote about their family members who gave their lives for us. Fortunately, many of the stories have happy endings where their father, son, brother or sister returned. 

We toured the museum twice in two days and still could have returned. This museum above all others felt personal, as my father and Jack's father both fought in the Pacific.  We knew about war.   National Museum of the Pacific War

Where are the words to describe the surrounding walls of heroes and heroines of the war? The museum covers over a full block of land inside and out, plus a field of artillery on another block. I noticed tears flowed from many of us as we quietly read story by story and walked away. 

What's it all about, Alfie?

Is it just for the moment we live?

On Day One I walked and read the walls inside the   George H.W. Bush Gallery  where I began to piece together centuries of war and decades of senseless fighting that seem to culminate in World War II. To better describe the layout, it is best to imagine a maze of endless hallways of pictures of the war on one side (my right), along the top of the pictures was a timeline of what was happening worldwide. On my left, which I never had time nor the fortitude to read were details about rulers, ruling countries, governments and hierarchical systems. 

What's is all about when you sort it out, Alfie?

Are we meant to take more than we give?

Or are we meant to be kind?

    There were cubby holes or special rooms to the right and to the left that showed exhibits such as these:

F4F-4 Wildcat (Marine)

  
Necessity was the reason for the famous "Cactus Air Force" being a mixed Marine, Navy, and Army/Air Force command. Despite being cobbled together, it performed an indispensable role in the long campaign for Guadalcanal. Australian and New Zealand units supplemented the Cactus Air Force. It is this kind of strength and fortitude that fascinates me about people and makes me proud inside and out. 
Cactus Air Force History

And if only fools are kind Alfie

Then I guess it is wise to be cruel

And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie

What will you lend on an old golden rule?

This is where I exited on Day One. My stomach swirled in agony, not hunger.

Spending the evening with Jack's brother, Jerry, his wife Vreni, daughter and son-in-law Sophia and Tim lifted our spirits. Thank heavens for good food and tasty brews.  

As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie
I know there's something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in

Day Two for us found our family members walking different directions around the museum. I meandered to the quiet Japanese Garden of Peace on the same grounds as the weapons of war and destruction, the tributes, and the history. Such a contrast and so needed to calm my inner soul that runs from conflict. 

My father always spoke with respect for Admiral Nimitz and Jack has often quoted and regaled Nimitz's leadership abilities. Story after story expresses his strengths and diplomatic skills. The garden is a result of two men who showed respect and understanding for each other.  After World War II, Admiral Nimitz was instrumental in saving Admiral Togo's flagship, the Mikasa, from destruction. 

The friendship between Nimitz and Admiral Togo, started when the two men met in Tokyo at a reception honoring Admiral Togo and his victory at the Battle of the Sea of Japan in 1905. This friendship continued through Admiral Togo's death in May 1934. Then-Captain Nimitz and his entire crew marched in Admiral Togo's funeral. At a rededication ceremony Muneko Hosaka, the great-granddaughter of Admiral Togo, spoke, "My father was sincere and rational and that became my image of Togo Heihachiro as my great grandfather," she said. "It is very special that this garden of peace is the birthplace of Admiral Nimitz, who showed respect for Admiral Togo. The garden shows the strong spirit and importance of peach and it was given with prayers for everlasting peace.

I believe in love, Alfie
Without true love we just exist, Alfie

I slowly made my way back to join our family and even though I walked through the Bush Gallery again, reading, pondering, and soaking in the agony that the world must have felt during those world war years and after, my strongest image and gut feelings in the garden of peace where I felt reverence, and honor for the peace that I found in the garden. 

May our veterans be always remembered and thanked. 

Letter: A Veteran Named Old Bill  I felt honor this weekend to have the Norman Transcript share how I learned what fighting in the war meant to my father and his generation. I am here writing in English with a beautiful garden out my window. The only winds that blow here are filled with dust and leaves, not weapons of mass destruction.

What's It All About Alfie? Thank you Burt Bacharach and Hal David for these words that took a generation through a war called Vietnam and all the years to follow. 

The Lady in Pink by Jonya Stapp Pry

 To Letty,

Let's have a drink

  To the lady in pin.

"Why the pink?

  Oh, it's not to over think.

A chip she did sink

  Then offered a wink.

It's just instinct

  She anticipates the clink, clink, clink.

To rally her inner fink

  About Barbie she did think,

Then she worked out the kinks

  That day on the links.

Now she's a pro and on the brink

  Of putting it all together; in a manner succinct.

Love what you do, just don't over think.

  That's the magic of the color pink. 

9/17/2023 sent to me by my little sister after I played in the club championship and dressed in pink for Barbie's world, in case, there was a perfect shot left inside of my aging body.

A chip-in birdie (more like an eagle on hole 11 at The TRAILS) cinched the moment and the year for me, but not the title of club champion. We don't often win the title if we don't play the game. 

"You are not responsible for your score, but you are responsible for your effort and actions while playing."  Thank you VISION 54 

The Good Housekeeping Fairy

8:30 a.m.--This morning I grudgingly invited the Good House Keeping Fairy to help me. I must confess that between August 15 and October 29 I have approached house keeping with a minimal level of commitment. I shall call it surface cleaning. 

We returned last night from five days on the road visiting Fredericksburg, Texas and Round Top, Texas with our Watt family from Seattle. The days were hot humid and cloudy, and that was fine with us. The key word for me is hot. If it is warm this woman prefers the outside.

Arriving home last night to "old man winter" I slept fitfully. During the wee hours of the morning I awoke to read AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman. At 3:30 this morning, while waiting to go back to sleep I traveled with my shadowy leading figure somewhere in the north country of Wisconsin fighting the bad guys. No,  neither he nor I know who the bad guys are, but 300 pages into the journey we are still searching and dreaming. I returned to bed.

I awoke a few hours later to a new buzzing noise. Jack had misplaced his phone and hit his find phone button. Waking to an alarm I had never heard gnarled my mind slightly. 

The sunshine and the cold morning alerted me that it was time to I climb out of bed. Still in my soft comfy pajamas I began to read, legs covered in a warm blanket and a heating pad on my back, I stepped inside the black Lincoln with Shadow and Wednesday, and traveled to San Francisco  to meet another illusional character. Traveling through time in illusional ways takes my mind away from the sadness in the world today. Neil Gaiman likes to think of it as warping time, creating space for more, or in my case more to do. 

Somewhere, in my reading mind I looked at the dusty window blinds and wished for the Good House Keeping Fairy to show up and clean those dusty gray brown window blinds. NOTE TO SELF AND AUDIENCE: When reading a book by Neil Gaiman do NOT make wishes.

Suddenly, the house cleaning fairy fluttered between the pages of the book in my lap and explained that it was time to get up and clean. I pleaded, "I'm warm and comfy and it's cold outside. Let's wait till another day." In a flash of light she beat her wings in agitation and flew away.

An hour later, after breakfast while I was innocently washing the dishes and cleaning the counter tops, she returned with her team of Good House Keeping Fairies.  Before I knew what had happened I had completely dusted the tile floors,  was cleaning the bottom dusty edges of the refrigerator. In the air I could hear the fairies chattering about the old days when we had to defrost the Ice Box.  The chatter improved my mood and I began to hum a tune from childhood.

One misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather

I chanced to meet an old man, dressed all in leather.

He began to compliment and I began to grin.

How do you do, how do you do

and how do you do again.

I continued cleaning in under and around the refrigerator, as my mind wondered back to The Blue Barn Antiques and clothing fair at Round Top, Texas. While trying on a dress, the saleslady helped me with choices  and somehow our minds drifted to a common childhood of wearing our winter pajama bottoms under our dresses to keep us warm.  Being a cloudy moist day she began to hum and I began to sing the words.  We laughed and loved our commonality. I bought the dress. 

Like 'Touch Magic,' the cleaning of the black refrigerator is complete. My hands dry and wrinkled, my pajamas damp. Jack and Murphy returned from their walk and I took a moment to change clothes and be ready for the day. 

11:32--I am really quite irritated with this house cleaning fairy, but all the while I am laughing out loud at myself. By 11:00 a.m. I dressed in jeans and a warm shirt and begin the laundry. Whether I can give thanks or blame to  Mother Goose for doing laundry on Monday's is beyond me now.

Suddenly, Jack finds me and says with his head bowed, "Don't let Murphy in."  I followed Jack to the back door and there stood the muddiest dog on earth. Even he felt ashamed of his appearance. I overheard the cackle of the fairies in the background. Now, how to add a Murphy bath to my long list of chores.

The dishwasher is unloaded and I discover that my dry tennis shoes must have been mudded from the rains before we left on our Texas tour. Below and behind my feet I see a trail of mud chips, from the closest to the bathroom, back through the hallway and to the kitchen my shoes have left dry mud blotches everywhere, which means I will be vacuuming the bedroom and hallways. 

12:40 Laundry going full blast and two more rooms to vacuum. Lunch will be a nice break. 

1:15--We step outside to decide Murphy's fate. Then I realize that I can tackle a gardening project, while Murphy plays behind my back. This will help to dry him and I can take time to rub him with the towel and brush him, in between digging up plants.  Luckily, Jack helped with the heavy lifting and keeping Murphy occupied while I groomed the geraniums, plumbago, and ivy.

2:55  I am now forced to sit outside in the sunshine and read. 

With the plants ready to come inside and Murphy drier I will happily sit outside and read while he continues to sit nearby for occasional  brushing and combing.  Forty pages read while wrapped in a warm blanket.  So far to go and so little time....

4:47 Plants tucked into the back porch in hopes of sunning themselves for a few more days outside. Murphy is dry and brushed but smells of dirt. He goes to the groomer on Wednesday.

Last spring's frozen chili is on the stove and I am ready to sit back down on the heating pad. My eyes may close for a few minutes. 7, 543 steps and never once did I leave the front door for a walk. The fairies disappeared when I sat down to read in sunshine, but I am sure they will be back tomorrow as the dusty gray brown window blinds still have my wiggly finger lines showing. 

I do not understand why folklore tells dozens of stories about fairies and elves helping people, yet my fairy brought in helpers and they only seemed to create more work for me? 

IN TENT CITY by Murphy Doodle

this is not my idea of fun, sitting in the hot sun. i like to sit with jack in the cool house on the soft blue couch that i share with him

i learned about tent cities when jack and letty took me to a market place one day.....i liked all of the smells but not the peoples feet....they were too close to me and i felt like each one of them might step on me...

people of all sizes and smells reached over and tapped my head and said things like OH HE IS SO CUTE. letty says thank you to them and jack growls like a man....i wag my tail and we all laugh

lately our house has felt some InTentCity (that's what letty calls it) when jack and letty watch read and white football on the colored screen in our living room....jack yells and gets upset....one time he scared me so bad that I jumped up off the couch....he slammed the door before i could follow him outside

letty tried to explain football InTentCity to me but all I can think of is what happens when jack gets mad and yells

he yells when the boy throws the ball to the wrong person or when someone in read and white drops the ball in the wrong place....there are read and white people everywhere on the screen why does it matter as long as someone is throwing the ball and having fun?

and where are the tents?

i am glad he likes me when i drop the ball anywhere i want

i wish you could see me wag my tail right now....i figured out what intentcity feels like....

one day when i was protecting jack from the squirrels one squirrel nearly slapped my face with his claws...i chased him fiercely all over the yard before he could jump in the magic tree and disappear...  

jack clapped and yelled GOOD DOG MURPHY... that is how jack acts when that boys runs the right direction with the ball toward the tents 

i show intentcity when i chase squirrels...

every day i learn something new about people and how they act

 

What I Am Learning by Murphy Doodle

I am Murphy Doodle, writer and people lover.

I am two years old now whatever that means to people but I am still the same writer I have always been

Letty said I had to use CAPITAL letters when i write...it is hard for a dog to hit two keys at once but i am learning

I like to write about what I see and smell...mostly smell

one day letty turned to jack and said that I had a keen eye for squirrels

I think she meant that I could smell squirrels and see them run on the fence and in the trees…I think that is what keen means

There are little mice running in letty's garden and i try to catch them everyday so they will not hurt letty...once when i caught one she screamed like it was wrong...i dropped the mouse and ran away

Once maybe twice when I was a puppy  and very small I saw a square flat thing on the table and mice where on top…they didn’t move and I couldn’t smell them but it bothered me to see them in the house…

I decided to sneak up on the mice and kill them before letty got home…it was very difficult to kill them…worst of all they didn’t move or even smell like mice…I chewed an chewed on the corners of the box until I was tired of the taste…the mice didn’t move so I guess they were dead  

When Letty came in the room she picked up the box and scolded me in a loud scary voice that made me hang my head and feel really bad on the inside…she didn’t understand  that I wanted to protect her from the mice

Next she picked up boxes everywhere and said these are BOOKS, MURPHY…do not eat BOOKS and she pointed a finger in my face and hugged the BOOK (box)  i think that means i need to learn a new people word called books...she has books everywhere but i will not eat them ever again

One time I chewed on letty’s purple eye glasses because I was lonely and wanted to be by her side…when she saw what I had done she shook her head sideways (that means no in body language) and then she scolded me again and said NO NO NO

Later she invited me to sit on her lap and she petted me….so she did not stay mad at me very long

I have chews everywhere now so i do not get in trouble

 

I wag my tail a lot now that I am older because I am always happy to be in my home and I do not chew up things like I did when I was little

 

 

 

 

Bag Worms! Really?

 

This "Old Gold Juniper" shrub grows quite well in our Oklahoma soil, and most commonly referred to as an Evergreen, or in the case of this true story, it is called a "Damnable Bag Worm Bush."

Somewhere in between Independence, Kansas Country club and the Miami Golf and Country club or better yet between the ages of 4 and 10 years old, I found a thrill in picking bag worms off the evergreens bushes at the country club where we lived in Kansas. When we moved to Miami, Ok the bag worms once again greeted me in the early summer months.

How my father ever managed to make it fun is beyond me. My mother did nothing but suggest that her little girl was not the right age to do such dirty work. To which I more than likely said, "I can do it!

In Kansas, the caddies who showed up daily at the club for work were assigned to picking the bag worms, and landscaping jobs if they were not caddying. Since I followed them around everywhere, dad decided to teach me how to take care of the evergreens in our yard, rather than have me "wonder of to the ends of the earth" as my mother often yelled at my father. 

I think the trick or the thrill must have be pulling the sticky bag worms off and dropping them in a Folger's Coffee can filled with one--two inches of gasoline. I learned, by orneriness and observation, how to squeeze them out of the sticky brown bag and squash them flat. (I can't believe I am even writing this or recalling it.)

If I didn't put the bag worms in the coffee can with gasoline then one by one they would crawl out of the can or container and drop to the ground where I watched the brown bag wiggle like a worm before I stepped on it. 

The Miami Country club in the 1950's planted rows and rows of these lovely evergreens along the driveway entrance, and on the golf course near tee boxes. Summer after summer in my childhood years I would help dad pick bag worms. My younger sister, Jonya, joined us in the gross pleasure of picking the bagworms by hand. She especially loved squeezing them.  We were not alone, as the greenskeeper's staff and caddies most often did the job. 

When our coffee cans "runneth over" we dumped them in nearby trash barrels. The greenskeeper would take the barrels out to the shed, away from the golf course, then drop a match into the barrel and watch it go up in flames.  

Occasionally, to my delight and the kids who gathered round (the boys often volunteered to leave the swimming pool to pick nearby bag worms) dad would have us dump the containers with worms and gasoline into a nearby barrel. When everyone from the swimming pool to the upstairs breezeway was watching, dad would drop a lighted match into the barrel and boom. Our screams filled the air. Life on the golf course, as the golf pro's daughter, was never dull.

Somewhere in between my teenage years and my senior adult years I lost interest in picking bag worms. However, Mother Nature seem to dictate what gardeners and gardens must endure. In June of this year, I saw my first bag worm in our back yard. Naturally, it was not ONE bagworm, but one entire side of our glorious "Old Golden Juniper" bush, covered in wiggling brown bags.

It took me several days to build up the nerve to pick the bag worms, one by one. Being rather cautious, I choose not to use gasoline and I certainly did not have a Folger's Coffee can nearby. 

Instead, I dropped each one that didn't stick to my fingers into a plastic cup. I frequently yelped with disgust as the worms stuck to me. Squashing them when they dropped to the ground felt purely disgusting. Where was that five year old child when I needed her. 

This detestable bagworm could be a Star Wars creature in my imagination.

Then I faced a dilemma...what to do with the bagworms, since I could not toss them into a barrel and watch the explosion? Panic set in. I sealed the squiggling brown bags in a container until I could google the answer.

The easiest way to get rid of bagworms is to cut off the bags by hand and destroy them. Lift branches, clip off bagworm egg sacks, and drop them into the buckets of water with dish soap, making sure they are submerged fully. Dump the soaked bagworms into a sealed plastic bag and throw them in your trash. 

Who was to know that Dawn detergent could solve my dilemma? Thanks to the golf pro and Google, I think I can handle anything that Mother Nature sends my way.

Another one of Mother Nature's challenges is shared at:

Hail. Oh! Hail.