Dearly Beloved ...

Thirty-three years ago today, 2 strangers stood side-by-side and pledged to have and to hold and all that good stuff in a pleasant backyard in the suburbs. Strangers who had known each other only six months and whose parents were aghast at the idea that they would want to get married. And they had just finished college a week ago! Actually, due to frequent changes of major, the bride had another semester to go. But what good is college for girls anyway?

I thought then, and still think, that if you don't know if you want to marry someone after six months of serious courtship, then the answer is no, don't get married. What good will another 6 months or 2 years do in figuring out if you can live with this person for the rest of your life?

I know if our parents were alive, they would be proud of us for proving all of them wrong on this one issue.

Today my husband has asked me to go on a hike with him. This is the same man who tricked me into going on a 32 mile bike ride for which I was totally unprepared. Yet I still trust him and will go on this mystery hike no matter where it leads us, as long as there are snacks.

Some times you just have to have faith. And having a good partner helps too.

Welcome Parker Grimp

We are excited here at The Empty Nest to welcome a new commenter, Parker Grimp.

Parker's comment: "people reading this blog for the first time might be led to believe that you only have two sons. are you ashamed of your middle son?" is very interesting and deserves to be addressed out in the open.

Parker, are you a middle child? Do you have some unresolved issues about birth order? Did your mother favor the other children over you? Or do you just think she favored the other children over you? Were the other children somehow better? More loving? Better looking? Gosh, there are so many possibilities here. I'm afraid that here at The Empty Nest, we are not equipped to help you with these issues and perhaps you need to see a therapist. But please come back often and continue to comment.

love,

mom, I mean Janet

My son the lawyer

We had an exciting weekend as our oldest son graduated from law school. We are so proud of him. He and his wife have 2 and 7/9 children, so you know they worked hard to get into law school and then finish. He has a position in a prestigious firm and they have just purchased a wonderful house. And they have a great dog which makes grandpa very happy as grandma (me) doesn't want a dog living in our house at this time.

I was going to write something about how great it is to have a lawyer in the family but that is so cliched. Since our children are all adults now, I have been thinking about our role as parents in shaping them into functional, self-reliant, and accomplished adults. The baby is 18 and headed to college, which isn't totally adult, but close enough for to reflect on our role in getting him launched into the world.

I never feel like I "taught" them enough or did enough to get them ready for the world. But there they are, living their own lives successfully. So the old guy and I must have done some things right. I know that my husband is an excellent role model for the modern father. The father who cooks, shops, hauls kids around, does laundry, changes diapers, helps with homework, all without saying 'why do I have to do this", or thinking "this isn't my job." And I can see that our oldest son has fully embraced his role as the total father. Certainly there are roles best left to mom: making things clean and nice, soothing hurt feelings and scraped knees, offering kind and gentle words of guidance when one of the lunkheads has really screwed up, giving birth and breastfeeding. But in our house, we pride ourselves on our interchangeability in parenting. We've got each others backs, I guess you could say. Sometimes one will say to the other, "I can't handle this anymore, please step in". And we do.

Maybe this evolved because I have always worked outside the home. I certainly can't say that I have always worked "inside" the home, but upon reflection, I (and we) have done a pretty darned good job of keeping all the balls in the air and having a good time doing it.

So here's to our family and all that we have done, and all that we will do. We are pretty darned awesome, and now we have a lawyer to cover our backs.

Way to go, Jake!

For my friend Rita

My friend Rita has been sick all week with a bad case of bronchitis or something like that. Since she loves animals so much, especially cats, I have created a new slide show for her.

If you click on a cat photo, a new, larger window opens so you can see more cat.

Rita, take care, xoxo.

Insouciance

We live with a high school senior. Today I thought the word "insouciance" seemed fitting for his demeanor. This is a fancy word for senior-itis. We've got it big time. Staying out late. Counting the days till classes end. Just one exam to be taken, in math, which as everyone knows is hopeless so why get worked up over it.

To be truthful, I am very happy to see him so lighthearted. He has at times been an anxious person. He is a good student (the smartest one, I tell the other boys) and a dedicated runner. He is respectful and pleasant to adults. He has a good sense of humor and can be fun to be with. He pays attention to world events and will probably make good choices as to a major and career. He is going to Virginia tech and I think he is just catching on to how much fun college will be.

I am proud of him and hope he enjoys these halcyon days of nonchalant unconcern.

Rhodo-Riot

Virginia Colussy Cooke

January 5, 1925-September 29, 1981

Today is the 100th anniversary of Mother's Day. I was pondering what to write, on this day made just for me, a 3 time mother, when I remembered that I also had a mother. I mentioned her in yesterday's post. So here is something about my mom.

She was loved by all for her vivacity and generosity. If you needed a good listener or someone to cheer you up, she was the one to do it. She raised 3 children and worked outside the home, yet her house was always spotless and welcoming. How on earth she did that, I will never understand. The spotless part I mean. She had lots of energy and loved to be outdoors working in her yard or having adventures. My mom was a wonderful cook and I wish I had paid more attention so I could make scalloped potatoes like hers, or meatloaf, or wilted lettuce salad.

She waited her whole adult life for grandchildren, but her life was tragically cut short at age 56. She succumbed to lung cancer, after surviving a bout with breast cancer a number of years earlier. I can remember my mother taking good care of friends or relatives who were ill, such as her friend Edith who battled throat cancer and my aunt Ida. My mother was a volunteer for Reach to Recovery, a group for breast cancer survivors who would visit women with breast cancer to give support and advice.

My mother died when my oldest son was not quite 2 years old. She would have loved all 3 of my children and I often think about how much pleasure she would get from being their grandma. As a grandma myself, it breaks my heart to know now what she is missing. Here is a photo of her with my nephews Christopher and Russell, taken in 1978.

I am glad she was my mom and am proud to share her with the whole Internet.

Race for the Cure

Today I ran in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I did this for 2 reasons: it is a worthy cause and I am glad to give money to help fund breast cancer research, and to prove that I could run 3.1 miles. I am a terrible runner, but by golly, I did it. Ladies pushing double strollers passed me, 8 year olds passed me, people with oxygen tanks passed me, but who cares. I did it. And I met a nice person who had about the same pace as I, so I ran with her, since I never did see the people I knew who were running it. Ruth has survived two breast cancer occurrences. She asked me if I had anyone with breast cancer, someone I was running for. I told her my mom survived breast cancer, but some years later she did not survive lung cancer. As I drove home I was thinking about all the women I know who have been affected by breast cancer. My good friend Jane died in 1992, when her cancer spread to her bones. My high school classmate Peggy died a few weeks ago, after her breast cancer metastisized. I can name many women who have been treated for breast cancer, seemingly successfully, but they get up every morning and remember that it could come back anytime. You can probably name a bunch of women in the same situation.

I wonder what it will take to cure breast and all the other cancers that plague us? Who hasn't shuddered to learn that someone you know has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which my friend Jill is fighting with all her might. Why is there so much cancer? Are we just better at diagnosing it now, so we hear about it all the time? And, while progress has been made in improving the odds of surviving breast cancer, what makes it happen in the first place? Are we any closer to knowing? And what about ovarian cancer, that has no symptoms and doesn't get diagnosed until too late, why does that happen so often?

When I think about the billions going to fight terrorism, and I compare the number of us affected by terrorism to the number of us affected by cancer, I get angry at our misplaced priorities. How likely are you to get injured or killed by a terrorist compared to your likelihood of getting cancer? I know where I want my tax money going, and it isn't into an hellish, senseless quagmire with no end in sight. I pray that an election and a new administration will lead us to get our priorities in order before we lose more Peggys and Janes and Ginnys. I hope you will work with me on that.

I'll have mine to go

Every morning before I get in the shower, I pull back the window curtain and look out over my backyard. From the second floor I can see what's blooming or if the birdbath needs to be filled.

A few days ago I saw this:













"Eeeew. What's that?", I hollered to the person most likely to know who was still in bed. "What's in the backyard that looks like worms?"


"Spaghetti for the possums."


Oh, of course. I should have known.



In the past we have fed scraps to the possums who we think lived under the shed. I haven't seen them lately. Perhaps they moved to a yard with better scraps.

"They are not going to eat spaghetti. If this slop is still there tomorrow, you better clean it up."

"Yes dear."

Since I didn't have to go to work until later in the day, I was able to observe this:









and this:












I missed a really good shot of a giant crow with a big wad of pasta in his beak.


When I got home that night, the possum feeder said a neighbor's cat had stopped by to lick the sauce when the pasta was all gone.


And the next day:












All that remained was a hint of Prego.

I was wrong, OK. But I don't think the possums got any.


(Ahem .. these photos are fuzzy because the idiot photographer wasn't bright enough to raise the window screen. D'oh.)