Memorial Day

Early Monday morning, Sonja rushed into our house, urgently asking us if we wanted to go to a Parade.  Well, of course, we did, everybody loves a parade!  By 9:20 am we were on our way to Williamston, a small town about 15 miles east of E. Lansing.  The entire parade route was only two blocks long but the street was lined with many people including lots of families.  We sat on the curb right in the middle of the parade route, eagerly waiting for the parade to begin while munching on pistachios.   It began promptly at 10 am.  Riding in the first car were veterans from World War II and then followed cars with vets from other wars.  Everyone stood and applauded them, waving their flags furiously, outpouring good will and patriotism.  It was heart-warming.   Next came the very large local High School marching band including 5 tubas, and 3 or 4 rows of saxophones.  Then came the very large Jr. High marching band.  Both bands were playing patriotic songs.  The love of marching bands starts early here in Michigan.  The lady next to us told me that all these students were from Williamston.   Being in the band is the year round sport for most students.  Bringing up the rear of the parade were all the red fire trucks and emergency vehicles, always inspiring.  After the short sweet parade was over, everyone swarmed, neighbors greeting neighbors, all moving as a messy mass of people to the park at the end of the parade route, where flags were raised, memorial shots fired and speeches made with the High School band playing more patriotic songs.  Who could one ask for more on Memorial Day?  I imagined this scene repeated in hundreds of thousands of towns across the country.  Coming from Berkeley where we have protests not parades, it was wonderful to celebrate Memorial Day and to appreciate the sacrifices made by some for all of us in this wonderful country of ours.  

Icons

Paul had a surprise for me when I arrived to E. Lansing.  It was a beautiful hand-painted Russian Icon he got at the E. Lansing Public Library fund-raiser auction.  It is very beautiful.  I was thrilled!  This one was painted by the wife of the new Associate Director of the library.  After placing it carefully in my bookshelf and gazing at it for several days, I told Paul I'd like to invite the artist over for tea to tell me how she made it.  Through a series of emails, we set the date for this afternoon.  She arrived with a bag full of carefully wrapped icons and a cedar sewing chest filled with the materials.  Over tea and banana bread, she explained the process of iconography to me.  She learned from a monk in New Mexico and did my icon in a class she was teaching over a 6 month period.  Generally, she told me,  icons are lovingly wrapped in a purple cloth and displayed on an altar with a small candle, a cross and a vase of fresh flowers.  Then she unpacked her paints, all in powder form, pure minerals like those used centuries ago.  Some are very expensive and hard to get.  For example, the Cerulean blue comes only from Afghanistan. She buys the boards which come with twelve layers of linen over them, which are glued on and then sanded.  The paints are mixed with only natural solvents, such as a little honey, white wine, sometimes even vodka (these are Russian icons) and egg yolk.  For the halo, she prefers German gold foil over the Russian.  My favorite part of the story of making the icon is the "breath of heaven."  When the iconographer is ready to place the gold foil over the many layers of base paint, she must drink some tea and then breathe out a big humid breath over the icon.  The gentle condensation provides just enough stickiness to perfectly glue the thin gold foil in place.  It sounded really tricky to me, like surgery on a retina.  Alice is a lovely friendly gentle artist and I am so happy to have met her and to have this beautiful icon of the Archangel Michael.

Pure Michigan

It was a busy weekend for us here in Michigan.  Both parents were gone and we were on full duty, babysitting for 5 days.  Erika had her for the Community Music School chorus (an MSU affiliate) concert Saturday night and they both had their piano recitals on Sunday afternoon.  The choral concert was amazing, and the girls played very well at their recital.  It brought back many happy memories of going to countless recitals and concerts for our sons many years ago and of supervising their practicing.  Somehow we squeezed in the big E. Lansing Arts Festival on Saturday and church on Sunday.   Here in Michigan, deep in the Midwest, I noticed stark differences from Berkeley.  First of all, everyone was white, predominately Northern European ancestry, at the concerts, the recital and at the Arts Festival.  Little diversity was evident.  Second at the Choral Concert everyone was very modestly dressed.  Erika wore her required uniform of black tights, a black skirt and a long sleeved dark green shirt.  She had it impressed on her, her hair had to be tied back off the face, no jewelry or makeup and her shoes had to be black and simple.  Everyone looked like they had come from the 1950's I remember, looking so clean cut and super neat.  Third, the choral concert, nearly two hundred singers strong (3rd grade through high school), sang pieces with definite Christian ethic reminding me of a time long ago when Christmas carols were heard and Christianity was the assumed faith in the US.  One song, "Beside the Still Waters, was a paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm.  It would never be sung in a secular concert in the Bay Area.  Life here for our grandchildren seems idyllic:  with the well kept green lawns, the shady sidewalks, the middle class neighborhoods, the safe walking to school with crossing guards who know all the children's names and the excellent public schools here in E. Lansing.  It's a great place to raise children.  LIfe seems like it should be, but there is another side hidden from view.  At the Choral concert they were collecting food and raising money for a project to feed 850 children in the county who come to school  hungry.  There is an unseen underbelly of dire poverty.  How sad that in this prosperous land of ours, here in idyllic E. Lansing area,  here in pure Michigan, there are hungry children.  Babysitting is exhausting work, but the special times with the granddaughters make it well worth the effort.  

Earthworms

We're back in E. Lansing to visit the family and to help out by staying with the granddaughters for about a week while the parents head off in different directions for conferences.  We haven't seen the girls since Christmas and I noticed right away how much they had changed.  Erika, almost 10, is taller and is much more mature.  I am struck by her ideas and how grown up her conversation is.  Sonja, ever exuberant, just turned 7, and  seems much more comfortable with us and more focused.  They're both a joy to be with.  A story:  Yesterday afternoon, Erika wanted to plant the flowers she'd gotten at the nursery on Saturday.  That day it turned too cold to plant anything.  On Monday the weather had warmed up, so Erika wanted to plant her flowers.  She found a sunny spot for her garden.  She arranged rocks to make a border, then while I dug the holes, she planted the flowers.  Sonja hovered, watched, wanted to be involved, but Erika had this time staked out as "her private gramma time."  An earthworm appeared in the soil, then another and Erika told me how since the Ice Age here in Michigan, there have been no native earthworms.  The ones here now are an invasive species brought by the settlers and they are causing a big problem in the forests by eating all the duff, making the forest floor more compacted.  "Really," I said, thinking lots of earthworms were good.  Sonja has loved earthworms her whole life.  She brought earthworms to show us.  "NO, Sonja," Erika cried out in vain.  But she just kept on bringing more and more earthworms.  Finally Sonja, frustrated, began digging a big hole in the lawn.  "NO Sonja, don't dig there," Erika called out.  The earthworm war ended with a tearful Sonja placated by gramma's earthworm knowledge.  "Sonja, did you know earthworms have 10 hearts?  Did you know earthworms breathe through their skin?  Sonja, can you show me where you find so many earthworms?"  And so with equal time and attention, peace came and off Sonja and I went to find more earthworms.

Black Spot

My beloved apple tree has a bad case of black spot fungus.  Yesterday after I noticed it on some of the leaves, I e-mailed my wise garden angel who told me it's likely from the late Spring rains we've had.  She suggested  I need to clean out the bed under the tree and prune the affected parts off the tree.  This morning I began the treatment.  Quickly, I cleaned out the bed, tearing out masses of a succulent that had grown very aggressively over half the bed and then I cleaned out the rest of green growing there leaving mostly bare ground near the base of the tree.  I will cover the bed with new soil, just in case the soil itself is breathing out unseen fungal spores.  So far so good.  Then I started pruning off the infected leaves.  Do you know how many leaves are on a mature apple tree?  Neither do I, but it's a lot. The fungus is spreading fast, there seem to be many more leaves affected this morning.  I will go to the nursery and get a fungicide to spray on the tree.  I felt out of control with concern about this unseen ubiquitous enemy that floats through the heavy wet foggy air landing on my unsuspecting tree.  I want so desperately to stop this fungus, to help the tree fight this attack.   After pruning off many leaves,  I had to come inside to collect myself because I was so upset.  This seems a big threat to something I love.  Is it crazy to love a tree?  Taking a moment to step back, I saw that it is my concern for the well being of the tree that has been driving me into a frenzy.  When I calmed down, I realized I will do what I can and then trust the tree itself has the resources to heal and hopefully recover.

Cinco de Mayo

I had not realized how much I have changed.  A friend is coming over tomorrow for lunch and it's Cinco de Mayo.  I told her I'm going to make tacos to celebrate.  On my grocery list, I listed the ingredients:  crispy taco shells, taco seasoning powder, ground beef, avocado, iceberg lettuce.  Then today at the gym, in some down time, I realized these ingredients were all UNHEALTHY and mostly processed food.  Oh horror.  So canned the previous menu and decided to make healthy fish tacos.  I've never made fish tacos before though I love them.  I bought carb balanced soft tortillas, took the cod out of the freezer, bought cilantro, shredded cabbage, and lots of lemons.  Tomorrow I'll broil the fish with lemon and chili powder, warm the tortillas in the microwave, put on the greens, salsa and avocado and serve it with shredded white cheese.  I hope they'll be good.  I am surprised by how much my cooking sensibilities have changed toward healthy when I wasn't really paying attention.  Looking back, I'm shocked how I served processed food sometimes, rarely really,  to my growing family in years past.  I'm sorry guys.  Now aware, we eat much more healthy food!