What I Learned from My 3rd Cousins Over President's Day Weekend

We were all fast walkers.



Maybe it was because we wanted the most out of our 3 short days together in paradise.



Seven cousins had met for the first time to spend a long President's Day weekend in a century old house rented from the  Colonial Dames of America in St Augustine, America's oldest city. How appropriate. Not the oldest part, but the historical part.

 I called it my Downton Abbey Smith/Crompton Cousin Reunion.







Three of the relatives who had narrowly escaped winter storm Pax to make the flight from Pennsylvania and Connecticut certainly needed every drop of the sunshine state they could absorb.

Fairly shoveling their way to the airport, they now enjoyed the clarion blue skies and 65 degree weather.

Three of us were from Florida and came by car or train. One flew from the Bahamas.


All but one of us abandoned our husbands on Valentine's Day to make the trip.         Oh, well!

Though we were fast walkers, we also lingered when it was time to. Breakfast, lunch and after dinner teas were chock full of conversation about our ancestors, relational connections and family stories.
 

Story

                                                   after story

                                                                                                            after story.


There is so much to say about our adventures and talks. My favorite being the spontaneous recitations of an A. A. Milne poem, The Owl and the Pussy Cat led by Gwennie and Wynken, Blynken and Nod spoken by Carrie and I around the dining table.

But I will limit it to a few things that I learned about each of my six 3rd cousins. Our great-grandfathers were brothers - Harry Worcester Smith and Frank Bulkeley Smith.

Here are some snippets gathered from my new-found cousins:

Carrie Crompton

Carrie: One should eat cereal first thing and then read the NY Times on their ipad mini to start the day. Sunshine should never be squandered.



Afternoon naps are necessary after touring the Flagler Inn.


Her books she authored on the Cromptons and Smiths are a family treasure. You can check them out here:

http://www.mycanvas.com/Flash/Viewer.aspx?fp=GBxsggvZXWFokZ7Be0oujA%3d%3d&access=7G9jonmoqno%3d&trackingId=5e4f68f6-00f0-45cb-b7d7-8298b97adcf3

Gwennie: Dessert is important and so are patio heaters when dining alfresco. (Why couldn't that waiter get the flame to stay on??)

Please don't take a photo of her in her nightgown! Sorry, I thought it was a dress! :/

One should be wary of the size of chicken breasts. Truly. Their proportions are increasing at a disturbing rate. After offering a bad joke about chickens and breast implants, I realized she was right. They are much larger than the pieces we were offered as children. Although, I've always been a 'wing' girl myself.

It's good to plan your day and stick by the plan.


She agrees the antique chair in the Flagler dining hall stuffed with horsehair tests out to be much better than the newer version.

Abigail Scholl (Abu)

Abu (Abigail): Her snoring never bothered me. But if it had, we were the perfect partners to sleep in downstairs rooms together. Her with a snore and I with a bad ear; all I had to do was sleep on my good ear and we were both happily dreaming.


Love her Abu-isms, especially


"Too many birthdays!" Or was that Hasty when she was talking about 'floaters' and 'flashes' in her peripheral vision?
At any rate, we could all relate and repeated the phrase,

often!

Hasty (Nancy Wendell), Abu and Carrie - Gwen on cellphone.

Pachi (Patience):  (Below) She has mastered the art of story-telling that takes a multitude of bunny trails and divergent paths, but if you have the Patience to listen, (pun intended) and smell the flowers along the way, you will have learned the point of her story and so much more.


Thank you Patience for organizing this wonderful gathering!

Prudi and Nancy(Hasty). Cousins in Stripes.

Prudi (Prudence):  Her husband, Jon was one brave man to hang out with 7 women.

He's a keeper.


Hasty: Buy sailboat supplies while stateside to take home in an extra suitcase to your Bahamas winter house, avoiding a 50% tariff.


And...It's ok to read original poetry about your late mother, Twinkie,  and cry in front of the other cousins.

In fact, it's very healing for those of us who have lost our mothers recently.

I hope we don't walk too fast past what we experienced together this weekend. As our gait slows, perhaps our souls will also, long enough to savor, remember,

Carrie, Gwenie, Pachy, Abu. Hasty in front.

And especially still  taste the key lime pie and the baklava.

Next year, St Augustine!

Carrie, Hasty, Patience in back, Gwennie, Angela and Abu in front

Or one of the other Colonial Dames' homes that dot the country.

A Letter to Myself on My Son's 21st Birthday

Dear mother of a 21 year old son,

It's time to let go. High time!

Your son is an official adult, now.

Don't orchestrate a business trip to New York on his birthday weekend to make sure he doesn't overdo celebrating his new-found legal status.

Stay home in Florida and trust his judgement. Give him a chance to exercise moderation. Or else trust that his level-headed girlfriend will keep him in check. Ya know, we girls still have to stick together.

If you jump in when he is short of money, hit the problem with a money stick, he will never figure out how to make ends meet himself.

If you try to answer his prayers, he will never experience God's personal and powerful miracles.

Hold the harsh criticism. Correct gently. They still look to us for soft pedaled guidance. Speak life. Tell him what great things lie inside of him.

Pray hard. Really, really hard.

Then get the heck out of the way.

Wow! That's a lotta snow!

There's snow on her doorsteps. Something my daughter never had during her 16 years in California.

Or her 14 in Florida, for that matter.

She sent this this morning. Just 3 months ago, I was sweeping October leaves off the front steps on a visit to see newborn baby girl. 

Wonder if they had to buy a snow shovel to get the mommy-van out of the driveway this morning.

I'm waiting for photos of afternoon sledding she texted me about. Can't wait. 

Fun.

New.

January snow.

And son, Jesse in Brooklyn sent pictures of huge snowflakes and drifts on car hoods.

 My daughter's family in Virginia cozies in from the 12 degree night. And my son in New York sleeps in long underwear through a low of 7.

We shiver in our 44 degrees tonight. 

Where ever you are, stay warm and dry.

Songs of snow and letting go of Christmas

Was taking down the tree as hard for you as it was for me?

As glad as I was to remove the clutter, I wanted to see the house lit up a few more nights with icicly lights and multi-lit door garlands.

But I wasn't done yet with Christmas. The tree had just begun to make the house smell wonderful. I guess it was too fresh when we first got it.

So I un-decorated it while I watched the Pasadena Rose

Parade like I do every year. It's my personal tradition that

 none of the males in the family care to join me in.







Although hubby did help with the tree, he was not

so interested in the types of leaves, petals, beans,

roses, seeds and other natural materials used to

decorate the beautiful floats of my home state.




Then there were a few songs and sights that I just hadn't had enough of; like the piney camp scent on my clothes after our backyard Christmas Eve fire pit under the twinkle of Orion, sky clear with satin black backdrop.

Like the sight of snow - which I only viewed on the ever running "White Christmas" on AMC.

And  the video my sister-in-law took while sledding in Idlywild California, steering with her feet  going 35 mph down her snowy street with a bunch of neighborhood 'boys' (aka grown men).

Take a ride with her here and have fun wipin' out at the end, eyes to the clouds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB-Oe9dMrqY

And my new favorite Christmas Song by Audrey Assad called Winter Snow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpHiAmL8-b0

I wasn't done giving either. Sad to say, there are still boxes to mail. But on New Year's day, I ran down the street like a fool after the trash truck to give the trash man a bag of Christmas candy.  Thanking him for picking up my trash and recyclables all year long.

I'm not the only one who could do with more season cheer. I noticed a tree in someone's living room while bike riding the other night. There are lights and garland still adorning a house two doors down.

So let Christmas linger. Let those lazy winter vacation days, satiated with food and too-much-chocolate-days, full of family-embrace days live on. Let the lights twinkle in your eyes through Valentine's, the giving continue till well past summer.

I guess I don't have to be done with Christmas after all.

Run, Don't Walk to See "Saving Mr. Banks"

Take your tuppence and go see the movie, Saving Mr. Banks. Pop your umbrella and catch an east wind to the nearest theater.

Based on the collaboration between P.L.Travers and Disney studios in the making of the1964 movie, Mary Poppins, the multi-layered magical ride will certainly prove to be an "E" ticket.

This is a film everyone should experience.

If stories exist to help make sense of our world, as Tom Hanks says, playing the beloved Walt Disney, this one is the pinnacle.

I hope I wasn't too annoying to other moviegoers, but I couldn't help sing along with all the wonderful Sherman and Sherman tunes I'd grown up with.

Richard Sherman, 85, the sole survivor of the songwriting duo.

The movie tenderly opened with the delicate

descending baseline of the minor harmonies of


Chim Chim Cheree played on piano.

Then sprinkled throughout came

Feed the Birds

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Let's Go fly a Kite

A Spoonful of Sugar




A word of advice to you post 60's born youngsters: Do not see Mr Banks if you haven't seen Mary Poppins.

In fact the more you've been immersed in the Mary Poppins culture the more you will get out of  Saving Mr. Banks.

My indoctrination began early as my mother regularly read several of P.L. Travers' books to me at nap time. That was the beginning of my infatuation with that quirky English Nanny. I distinctly remember the hardback books with the whimsical illustrations of the slender, rosy-cheeked British woman and her two charges.

Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens The Door, Mary Poppins In the Park, Mary Poppins From A-Z, , Mary Poppins in the Kitchen, Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane,
Mary Poppins and the House Next Door.

Even before I was born, my father was keeping close watch on Walt Disney. Maybe because they shared a first name, my father, Walter Allen.

In a July 1955 letter to my older brothers when they were visiting relatives in Massachusetts, my father  wrote abut the grand opening of this wonderful amusement park in Anaheim a few miles from our home. "It's a fantastic place! We will go when you get back. It costs a large sum of $15 for the whole family to go!"

Wow! A whopping $15!  The cost, now? Add a couple of zeros for a 3 day trip to Disney World.

Growing up in the early 60's, if we did our summer chores faithfully, we'd be rewarded with a trip to Disneyland. I remember saving all my A, B, C, D and E tickets in my top desk drawer to be used on the next visit to the Magic Kingdom.
 
When Mary Poppins, the movie came out in 1964, I was done. A year later at age 8, I had to be her at Halloween. Mom bought me the plastic carpet bag and let me wear her old suit, blouse and hat. Adding a household umbrella, I thought I looked pretty close to the real thing.

Me dressed up as Mary Poppins - Halloween 1965

The surprise in Saving Mr Banks appeared in the personal conflicts within the author and how Disney was an agent of healing for her past. One doesn't know often where history ends and Hollywood begins, but the message, whether fact or fiction was true and poignant.

My husband shed a tear at the end of the movie too, identifying with having lost his father to an untimely alcohol related death. My husband was 17 and his dad under 50.

The highest purpose of a work of art has been accomplished in this movie. It redeems the horrible things that can happen to a person. It fosters forgiveness and births hope and joy.

One more thing.

If you exit the theater before the credits finish rolling, you'll miss the best part--actual audio recordings of Travers hashing out the details with Disney producers while creating Mary Poppins.

Bravo! Bravo! Saving Mr. Banks.

Those Blank Slate, No Agenda, Post-Christmas Days

It's empty.

My schedule is.

There are no piano students coming at 9am to to break the Saturday morning silence and wake my sleeping sons with their Frere Jaques and other Lost-at-middle-C beginner pieces.

The trash truck rumbles past the house, stopping to collect the piles of Christmas box debris and wrapping. The mail truck motors by stopping to pick up the late cards I send out. Several still wait on my desk needing stamps.

It's a slow morning of left over Betty Crocker Jolly Breakfast ring from Christmas breakfast.

Month old chores try to elbow their way into the day's calendar. Cleaning the garage, re-papering the kitchen shelves. Cleaning out old clothes in closets. The bathroom never got a wash down this week.

But I resist them and determine that we will play today. Though the skies are grey, it's warm out. Perhaps a walk in the preserve to sight tropical winter birds. Or a Home Depot run to return an unused tool.

I could read my eldest son's master's thesis he had bound and gave us for Christmas. It's on phenomenology. The philosophy of communication; the function of language; exchange of ideas between the subjector, the subject and the interpreter. Heady stuff for someone who only completed her bachelor's in music.

The pounds of gifted candy will be surrendered to when the afternoon chocolate craving comes.

Not sure what to do. Except we have to fog, cause our lazy dinner dish habits caught up with us and a little colony of dreaded detestable roaches have populated a corner of my kitchen. So we drop the insect bomb at noon and go out to play.

Or head with the masses to the mall to exchange Christmas gifts that didn't fit.

Saturday night church at 6.

That's it.

That's it for the day.

This blank slate, no agenda, Post-Christmas day.

Carol of the See's Candy

Every year my siblings in California send a huge box of See's candy. I'm telling you it just doesn't feel like Christmas until that box arrives. Maybe the Christmas feeling is aloof because it's still 86 outside, I don't know. 

Florida's version of chocolates by Hoffman's just doesn't compare!

My NYC son says it doesn't feel like Christmas. He says the lights, cold, hot drinks and snow bring on the festive feeling much better up north.

"Yeah, but you wouldn't be going to the beach right now if you were in NYC." The younger brother quips.

Being a Californian, I'm kind of used to the weather not being an indicator of the Season. Although it still chills enough there on the West Coast to don boots and sweaters. 

Anyway the See's candy is on my dining room table now and it feels like Christmas. 

Thank you bro and sis,  Chris and Cath!

Carol of  See’s Candy

Some people say the season starts 

When snow lies on the ground

Or when the shoppers crawl the mall

And scurry all around 

Or with the lighting of the tree in the center of the town

I count the season starting...

In chocolate by the pound!!

Does the merriment begin 

With snowman in the yard?

Or with the stockings hung

Or the opening of cards?

I say the Christmas cheer begins

When See's is in my cookie jar!!

Nuts and creams and glorious chews

There isn't any better news

Than when I hear the doorbell ring,

"A package came!" Our hearts just sing!

We look for it throughout the year

That wondrous day of holiday cheer

From relatives so loved and dear

It's Christmastime, the See's is here!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

New meaning to "Smokin' What You Sell."

On a recent missions trip to Cambodia, my friend distributed Bibles.

The third world folks read a few pages.

And smoked the rest.

That's right. Turns out cigarettes are hard to come by. Loose tobacco a little bit easier.

But when the American missionaries brought those Bibles, they learned that the tissue thin pages

were very good for rolling a smoke. They made nice cigarette papers.

Who knew?

So the missionaries tried to teach the Word, while the indigenous people read a little of it

and smoked the rest.

Those of us who call ourselves Christians or the new-fangled term:  Christ Followers need to do more of what these Cambodians did. We preach that Jesus is all we need; that He is enough, but we run like crazy to other things when we are feeling a bit down. We fill the hole with things just like anyone else. Instead of satisfying ourselves with the Source of peace and joy, we follow the crowd.

Shopping, drinking, partying, checking the 'likes' on our latest blog post or twitter, instagram, or Vine post. Because the attention gives a little lift.

We tell everyone else that Jesus is all we need, but we do not practice what we preach.

Nor do we smoke what we sell.

Those Cambodian villagers got it goin' on.

Guess Who Called After I Wrote the President About My Spiking Healthcare Cost?

Well, it was NOT the President of the US (SR, soon to be).

But I did get a call from a representative from the Health and Human Services Department that oversees the new brand of government insurance.

He was concerned about my letter (see 12/7/13 post).

Wow! I was at the Mall where my piano students were playing to benefit VITAS Hospice children's Camp when the call came to my home landline.

I was a little freaked out when my husband texted me that someone from the HHS called in response to my letter to the White House. My heated email to them was about my husband's insurance being canceled and replaced with a policy that was $533 dollars a month higher than our current plan!

Was I in trouble?  (My good friend wanted to know if she needed to bake me some pumpkin bread and hide wire cutters inside). Admittedly, I should have been a little more respectful, but it's hard not to get emotional when the freedom to buy what you want  is being snatched away; when you are being forced to buy something you don't want

Or NEED.

When it's being replaced with coverage that defies all logic.

My 57 year old husband needs maternity care coverage? In case he gets pregnant, right?

He is mandated to take out pediatric care for our adult children? Adults covered by pediatric care?

I'm really confused.

The utter lack of common sense kind of jarred my brain and the outraged words just spilled out on the keyboard.

So I returned the call today to the HHS office gentleman and another quiet listener on his end heard my complaint.

But, when I asked him why my husband needed maternity care,

He

Could.

Not.

Answer.

Excuse me sir, with all due respect, you are a reperesentative of the HHS and

You.

Do.

Not.

Know??

I rather think he knew, but would be self-incriminated to verbalize the fact. The reason is that my husband's premium is funding someone else's medical bills.

I believe they call that Socialism.

The end of the free market, earn-your-own-way economic philosophy.

Now we earn for others.

Yes, it's here, now, in the Land of the Free. Socialism.

Over 5 million people are in the same situation as we are.

Over 5 million people have had their insurance plans canceled; the plans that the President said we could keep - over 26 times he said we could keep them along with our doctors.

I believe they call that Corruption. When information is deliberately concealed for the advancement of a political agenda.

That's Corruption.

Oh, but the President apologized, the HHS representative gentleman reminded me on the phone.

Apologies are only as good as the restitution made, I replied. Until the wrong is righted, the apology is worthless.

If we were told the truth, the outcry would have been so pervasive and intense that this unfair, tyrannical, despotic health care bill would have never passed.

But it's too late now. The HHS gentleman said we could apply for an Exemption. I went to the website and no details are available right now for the "hardship" exemption. There was no hardship until it was foisted on us.

He politely, but patronizingly ended the conversation. I told him to call me when he found the answer about the ridiculous maternity coverage my husband was forced to buy.

So, in 2015 my husband has these choices.

Either pay $577 per month for coverage he doesn't need. Or carry NO insurance and pay a penalty of $95 the first year, then $315 the second and $695 the third year. And the next? And the next?

Or (Gee, I wonder if this is was their intention all along), we have the choice to buy government medical insurance from the Marketplace.

Oh, and I understand it's less than affordable. Another Administrative marketing lie: Affordable Healthcare Act.

Not a lot of choice in the Land of the not-so-Free anymore!

Advent: Week 2 - Handel's Messiah, A Holiday Must-Hear

The second week of Advent had our family taking in Handel's exquisite oratorio, sitting in a brick Presbyterian church in West Palm Beach. The young conductress and featured soprano was my eldest son's friend.

Lesson to self:

When hearing Handel, always have a handkerchief handy.

There are few words that describe the glory of his music, and the human response is one of pure tears of joy. The telling of Advent from the prophets to the angels is no better conveyed than through this baroque musical story-telling medium. And Handel created it best.

Soloist, choir and orchestra combine to bring a transcendent offering of the greatest story ever told.



Being in a beautiful church added to the richness of this morning when we heard an abbreviated version of the oratorio.

Arched windows that let in the morning glow,  diffused by leaves of mature trees. My home church meets in a windowless, renovated Target building, so daylight during worship was a welcomed change from my weekly practice.

Fluffy clouds that had just showered, broke to reveal a powder blue sky.

And strains of "Comfort Ye my people" and "For Unto Us  Child is Bo-rn" rang clear, accompanied by an small ensemble of violin, flute, cello; the rest of the orchestral parts transcribed and quite adequately filled in by the small church's lovely pipe organ.

What would Christmas be without a recital of that classic cantata?

But it's not for just this time of year. Many church's reserve that household tune, the Hallelujah Chorus for Easter services.

My Led Zeppelin-Jimmy Hendricks- husband used to listen to the Messiah every morning before he left for high school.



I have no idea where he got the notion to do so, but he bought himself a vinyl record set of the Messiah and blasted it every morning before class.



It charged him up, got him in a Jesus mind-set, ready to face the day and spread his joy through his high school halls.




Annie W. Patterson authored a book on Oratorios that describes a concert of the Messiah from over 100 years ago in her book The Story of Oratorio. Here's an excerpt:

A large concert hall brilliantly lighted. Ladies and gentlemen in evening dress are being bustled into their seats by stewards. the capacious orchestra s filled with chorus-singers and instrumentalists. The bright dresses of the soprani and alti form a broken crescent of brilliant colour, surrounded above and intercepted in the center or rows of black suited male vocalists. Aloft, the organ peals forth the pitch note...all tune their instruments.

...and immense outburst of applause....four soloist singers take their place....the conductor bows solemnly.....applause sinks to a murmur....conversation subdued....click of the wand...

The opening chord - a chord which resounds in anticipation already in the mental ears of many cultured musicians present. At last it comes; solemn, grand, pathetic, and yet heroic in its strength and nobility - 
the full e minor common chord that ushers in the fugal opening movement of Handel's Messiah.

...The solo tenor, "Comfort ye...Every valley shall be exalted...And the glory the glory of the Lord"...
While tears rise in the eyes of many as they hear, Come unto me, all ye that labour...ye that are heavy laden..
Through the music of the Messiah many have felt their hearts burn within them as the divine words of scripture wedded to Handel's sublime music have fallen upon their ears..

Even for the free thinker and agnostic, therein is the triumph of Purity and Truth, the symmetric harmony of the universe, the evolution of perfection and purification of all things good and evil, the glorious consummation of the Faith, Hope and love that rules the universe.

Perhaps the genius of the composition is found in George Frederic's quote after emerging from a feverish 24 days of sequestered composing:

"I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself. "

The Messiah, an Advent must-hear for all.

And be sure to carry tissues.