All posts by laurahinnj

Wanderings

Where everything is smaller than usual

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Firstly, get out your granny glasses because the type on this page has gone all wonky again. Why does Blogger do that?

In addition to the fire tower incident on Friday, I finally drove far enough south to see some of the damage from the Warren Grove fire back in May. There’s a gunnery range there and well… an F-16 dropped a flare during target practice that set fire to 15,000 acres or so. Oops! It all ended well, with no one hurt, and the pines got a taste of fire again.

I took this pic along Rt. 539 and you can sort of get an idea of what the pine plains are like – those are dwarf pines growing in the distance – stunted and twisted from the dry, sandy, nutrient-poor soil to reach no more than 10 feet tall, but mostly they’re shorter. The trees grow so closely together so as to be impenetrable, but here or there is a way in.

It’s worth looking for an opening because there’s a subtle beauty to the plains. There’s pleasure in the absence of people and the stillness. The soil underfoot crunches with reindeer lichen and if you‘re patient enough to look for it, there’s bearberry, a neat little arctic plant that stayed behind when the ice retreated.

I didn’t spend very much time that day, mostly I was in a hurry to be somewhere else, but it was a worthwhile detour. I think my favorite time to visit the dwarf pines is in the middle of winter with a cover of snow and the company of a few chickadees searching the pine cones for a tasty morsel.

Snapshots, Whatever

Spare me!

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The pic has nothing to do with this post, exactly. Just my brother Kevin and I the other day after a pomertini or two. (Pomertinis are healthy and full of antioxidants, you know, or at least that’s what my SIL said when she kept pouring them!)

Anyway, maybe it was the vodka, but at some point on Thanksgiving we got to talking and laughing about Christmas and gift-giving. Kevin has a way of making everything funny, yet the gist of what he said was pretty depressing. Each of us, in my family anyway, spend an awful lot of time stressing about Christmas and wasting money to buy each other stuff we don’t need. We all make enough money. If we need something (or heaven forbid want something) we buy it for ourselves. Simple as that.

We wised up somewhat with gifts for my dad before he passed away. For a few years we rented a big stretch limo to take the bunch of us into NYC for dinner and a visit with the Rockettes, each of whom my dad was (not so) secretly in love with. Those gifts weren’t about money, but instead time. Time spent with his kids and grandkids doing something that made him happy. Much more meaningful than a silly tie or gadget for his computer.

We often talk about doing something similar for ourselves. Just planning a day to do something fun together, rather than buying gifts, but we always cave in and end up at the mall in a frantic dash with the rest of humanity. Hard to resist, I guess.

So… I’m hoping to be spared the craziness this season. I just need to come up with some ideas for things we might like to do together. And I need lists for the kids… cause they shouldn’t be spared and no Christmas is complete without at least one awful afternoon in a toy store.

Wanderings

Apple Pie Hill

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Ever climbed a fire tower? Well… DON’T!

Wandering around the Pine Barrens today looking for a Northern Shrike or two that have been reported, I came across Apple Pie Hill. It’s supposed to be the highest elevation in Southern NJ (at a whopping 209 feet above sea level) with a terrific view of the Pinelands. I’d always thought you had to hike in on the Batona Trail to find it, so hadn’t worked up the courage to try it alone yet. I often get lost (every darn road down there looks the same – sugar sand and pitch pine – how can you not get lost!), but as often happens, I stumble across something I’d been meaning to find at one time or another.

Anyone care to guess how far up those rickety stairs I got before having a panic attack? Vertigo to the point that I was afraid to move? Very weird. The wind and the dog barking from the car below didn’t help any.

Here’s the view from the bottom of the tower (when I wasn’t afraid to let go of the scaffolding and raise my arms to take a pic!). Worth clicking for a view of nothing but trees stretching all the way to Atlantic City 30 miles or so to the southeast and Philly 30 miles or so to the southwest.

Growing up, Remembering, Small truths

That girl thing

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Despite what I love to tell people to the contrary, I do sometimes wish I had a mother to tell me what to do.

I lost my mom when I was just 11, so it was up to my dad and big brothers to look after my growing up. I’ve had to make do with snippets of female wisdom garnered wherever possible, be it from a neighbor or one of my brother’s girlfriends, for most of my life. A lot of the people I might have expected to be there for me as a kid without a mother never were. I like to think of that as a testament to their confidence in my father, rather than proof of their indifference to me.

I figure I turned out to be a pretty good person, but wish someone had taught me to cook and iron and manage laundry properly. My mom must have done those things for my dad, so he had to fend for himself, too, when she passed away. He did his best to learn quickly and even managed to cook for us and was quite inventive in the kitchen. I remember just one occasion that might be considered a *cooking lesson* and it involved pie dough and a rolling pin, and a lot of yelling and cursing. Can anyone make a pie crust without cursing? Anyway, I sometimes feel that I lack a certain finesse for things feminine as a result. Shopping, decorating, hair and makeup – I’m clueless.

The older I get, the more I see the influence of my father in my personality and way of being. I blame him for my obstinacy and tetchiness. These I consider good, strong traits in myself, but I never thought of them that way in my dad. Oh he was stubborn and could hold a grudge for ages! I may be the picture of my mother, but underneath I am all my father, like it or not.

I’ve been blessed since adulthood by a few older women friends who’ve taken me under their wing when I needed help or guidance, or just needed help in learning how to do something that comes *naturally* to other women. Carol who taught me to tie pretty ribbons on packages and how to crochet, Joan who listened to me bawl and complain as a first-year teacher, Merry who modeled a life of quiet wisdom and acceptance, Kathy with her urgings to be independent and carefree in my love for the outdoors, Linda who shares recipes and beauty tips.

These may be little things in the making of a woman, but are important to the sense of self and to fitting in among other women. That’s not ever been easy for me and for the most part, I won’t be bothered with it. (There’s that obstinacy, again!) I often wonder though what women cherish about their relationships with other women and with their mothers. I wonder if it’s the same things that the tomboy in me as a child saw with such wonder.

I’m sharing another of what my brother calls *cheesecake* shots of my mom. Looking at her there, I’m reminded of something else I never learned: confidence in a bathing suit!

Seasons, Snapshots

Fall questions

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If spring is born at the river’s edge and the burning summer in the dust of the highway, then where do we discover fall?

Is it in the mothball-scented chests where the blankets are kept? In the hedgerow that vibrates with migrating birds? Or do you find it, like me, in the darkening sea and the immense sky of an October afternoon. Or in the dunes, scattered among the quick sweep of goldenrod.

I find fall when my shadow reaches out over the waves to meet the moon. In days that shrink before I’m done with them. In this time of anticipation, relaxing and enjoying the change, and the wait.

Yes…I’m still pondering fall while all the neighbors are perfecting their Christmas decorations!

Dog days

WANTED

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LABRADOR RETRIEVER

ALIASES: THE CLOWN, SNEAKERS, CHECKERS, HI-JINX, STINKER, SMOOCHER…

CRIME: STEALING THE HEARTS OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND AN OCCASIONAL TABLE SCRAP OR TWO.

APPROACH WITH CAUTION: LOOKING INTO EYES MAY MELT YOUR HEART AND CAUSE ADDICTION. WATCH FOR TILTING HEAD (“THE LOOK”) YOU MUST LOOK AWAY!

ANYONE WITH INFORMATION PLEASE CALL THE PROPER AUTHORITIES

LAST SEEN CHEWING MY SHOES

$1,000 CASH REWARD

Bunnies

Finally a fix!

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Boomer and I have a mutually agreeable arrangement on chilly evenings; he keeps my lap warm and I massage his ears and neck until he reaches something like bunny nirvana and rolls softly aside onto the carpet. Then I can go back to whatever it was that I was trying to do with him stretched out beside me. Boomer is a big boy and takes up all of my lap and stretches almost to my ankles if the massage is good. Sometimes if we’re in a groove, I’ll look up to notice that my feet and his ears are pointing in the same direction.

I’m missing the days when I could let the bunnies roam around the house for play. Buddy was mostly scared of getting in trouble for being too near to them; little Luka is all mouth and danger to a bunny. So the bunnies have been kept in their separate room and I haven’t had much chance to take pics of them; hence the lack of mid-week bunny fixes lately. Finding the time to exercise a pup is challenging; finding time to exercise 5 rabbits also is impossible! Boomer and Sunshine get lots of time out (though they hardly exercise – the big lugs!) – it’s the little bunnies here that aren’t getting the attention lately that they’re used to.

Whatever

Presents

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A gift from the spring garden.

Cathy at Looking Up is sharing the nicest sort of meme on her blog and I thought it might be nice to play. The idea is that I’ll send along some little gift to the first three people that comment here, so long as you continue the giving by posting the same meme on your own blog. I’d like to think up some way for people who don’t have blogs of their own to play along, as it seems you all are always left out of the fun, so maybe I’ll dream something up for that possibility.

Cathy explains that the gift needn’t be of any real value, but should instead be motivated by the beauty of sharing some small part of yourself, or something you make with your hands, or grow in your garden.

Remembering, Small truths

Gratitude 11/13/07

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I noticed the sad smiles of the nurses and the way they left us finally alone with him; the discarded socks; the empty lobby; the absence of any doctors.

I heard the silence of the useless machines; Sinatra singing about easy street; sirens wailing somewhere off in the darkness; the phone ringing too early, my brother apologizing for the hour, but “Come” he said; the rush of hot water on my heavy head.

I admired his grace and final acceptance; making it easy for us, for me, by not coming home to die; his concern always for someone else, someone worse off than he.

I was astonished by the snow in mid-November; by my brothers surprised faces that I should take my time in getting there; astonished that our last real talking had been about that damned car just a week earlier; that we would end this day scrutinizing his tuxedo and its cigarette burns.

I’d like to see that sunrise again, over the ocean, with the snow falling outside the window; him at the coffee pot or brooding over his computer; that light he kept in his eyes for me; his feet stamping and anger that used to frighten me so.

Most tender was Brian holding his hand and our laughter with the funeral director that afternoon writing his obituary; my friend Cathy standing off in the back, uncomfortable.

His quiet sleep was most wonderful, most deserved; seeing the men from his lodge that came out for him, so many that do this as routine; an end to the pills and eating cardboard; an end to the slow deterioration and loss of him.

I thought it was another setback, not the end. Really, I should have seen what was happening; his tears the day he left here; his fear at being alone in the world; his confusion of my life with another’s; his quietness; his surrender.

Mary Oliver fans probably recognize the format of her poem, “Gratitude”, borrowed here without any poetry. I had wanted to write something for my dad yesterday and couldn’t, but this poem helped me today to examine my memories of the day he died. Last year I had a little more fun remembering.