Bertie 的个人资料Beach gal Bertie照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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Beach gal Bertie10月24日 Cassie Starbright
The name she came with was Tinkerbell, but having had a Tinker in the long ago past, I renamed her Cassie Starbright and we call her Cassie. Cassie’s story was sad. She had apparently gotten pregnant on her first heat. Her owners from eastern Washington no longer wanted her and turned her into a rescue place. The kittens were all adopted but no on wanted this beautiful girl. She was then moved to Collar of Hope. When we got her she smelled like motor oil, and her coat was stringy looking and had some kind of oil or grease on it. I took her to our vet to check everything out. She was healthy, neutered, and had her shots and the impregnated ID chip. He prescribed a bath with Dawn soap which they use to clean up birds in oil spills. He said it would cut the oil but had something soothing to the skin in it. So Cassie had a bath that night. Then I began combing her. Cassie loves to be petted and sometimes rolls over to get her under side petted too. This is our new love, but Ayesha whom I lost to old age will always stay in my heart too. There is no limit to love. 9月12日 Once again joy of finding missing persons in my lifeI joined Facebook at the recommendation of my son, Jim Jr. DH kept saying it was dangerous. So I make sure I only accept people I know as friends. My experience has been wonderful. I hope if it is dangerous, they will get that part fixed because there can be so much more contact with people on a daily basis.
First I found three lost granddaughters and their mom. That was wonderful for me. I got to catch up with them in their college experiences. One wants to come and visit me for spring break next year. I hope she does.
Next I found many friends all over the world that I have known for years on the catsnquilts site. It even has pictures so we can see what our long time friends look like. (I refrained from saying "old friends"
 )Then I found some dear church friends and we can talk about our interests and concerns. Even our Pastor joined but he doesn't write much.
Next I found some dear friends from years ago.
And now I have been finding cousins that I knew when I was growing up, but lost as they married. changed their name and moved to different places. We were all busy as young adults, raising our children and assuming our new roles in life. I kept up with the aunts and uncles and we shared the same grandfather and Grandma. It is so much fun to find them and see their pictures. Now we have a lot of catching up to do. It just warms my heart.
My only regret was losing one friend, Beth, because Facebook thought she had a virus. But I see I have her address in my email, so I can keep in touch through that.
I'd say Facebook has been a blessing to me and many of us love it. I just hope we don't have any problems by sticking with people we know. This isn't a great writing, but it is something I really appreciate. We are long past sitting around a radio at night for news or a comedy like, Fibber Magee and Molly. The Great Gildersleve, George and Gracie, or the Inter Sanctom Mysteries. How fast our world is changing. It is mind boggling now. What will the future bring?
8月30日 This is the way it was.It was 1968 and several good people were running for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of our Nation. We lived in Iowa and I was selected to be a voting delegate at the convention. Because of that there were a lot of parties and gatherings in Des Moines to get to know the candidates. It was quite accidental that I was standing in a hotel entryway with Ted Kennedy and our then governor, Harold Hughes. Unbeknownst by me, a picture was taken and it appeared on the front page of the Des Moines Register the next Sunday morning. I still have a copy.
It seems so long ago. We were young, all of us. Teddy was helping his brother, Bobby, in his run to be our nomination. We all thought Teddy would be a candidate in 4 or 8 more years. But it wasn't to be. I think I would have voted for Bobby if he hadn't been removed by an assassin. That really hurt. Remember the song, "Abraham, Martin, and John? Then they added Bobby when they sang it. It always made me sad to hear, and remember how many ways our worold would have been different if any or all of them had lived.
One of the candidates was Hubert Humphrey. He had been an excellent and intelligent Senator. But he wouldn't consider ending another wrong war, Viet Nam. Therefore he couldn't win. But he had a very unusual ability. I met him at one of the shindigs in Des Moines. I said hello to him and introduced myself. About three months later, i was at the airport meeting my husband frtom a business trip he'd made. Hi plane landed, but people were not allowed to get off until some dignitary and his entourage deplaned. As we stood there waiting we saw the Secret Service men and then it was Hubert Humphrey who deplaned. As he walked by, he turned to me, and said, "hello Bertha". I was amazed that he remembered my name. Later I learned that he had an uncaqnny ability to remember people and their names. I still can't imagine, with all the people he met in his lifetime, how he could do that.
That was an interesting time. I did not continue with politics because wealthy people paid the costs that allowed me to attend of all those fund raisers. Then they told us to vote the way they told us to, or we wouldn't be back. That didn't seem very democratic. So I voted my conscience and never allowed my self to go further. It was a very sweet, and sad time, 1968. The night Bobby was shot, my beloved Grandmother died in La Jolla at the age of 89.
And now my friend Teddy is gone too, and my husband and I are senior members of our world. Time passes, but memories never die.
8月26日 Ode to AyeshaIt has been three days and it still hurts so badly. I still look for her everywhere. It is so hard to accept that she is gone. But I am trying to remember the good times, and honor the sweet little pal she was.
She had been dumped and all summer she would walk on top of our fence. But if I opened the door to give her food she was skittish and ran away. On an October Saturday that Jim and I were standing in our garage talking when she came up to us and rubbed our legs. I picked her up and she purred. Jim said "she's ours". We spent the afternoon trying to find a vet that would check to see if she was safe to put with our other two cats. The animal clinics close early on Saturday. We finally found an emergency clinic and it cost a lot but he okayed her health. I put her in the downstairs bath with tha door closed so the cats could get acquainted under the door. Then we took her to our vet on Monday. He guessed she was between 2 and 5 years old. She was so little the vet said she wouldn't have survived the winter if we hadn't adopted her. She only weighed 6 lbs.
Jim named her from a Psi-fi book meaning, "she who must be obeyed". Ayesha was a beautiful blue point Balinese. Her eyes were a deep blue. Her purr was so soft that it was hard to hear it. She settled in. She slept every night between my knees in bed as I slept on my side. She would jump up on the bathroom counter when I combed my hair in the mornings and then climbed on my shoulder to hitch a free ride downstairs for her breakfast. She always met us at the door when we came home.
Ayesha was a lap cat. She kept excellent time, because she was always around at the time for snacks or feeding. She loved the water fountain we had in the living room and did most of her drinking there.
When I wanted her and she was upstairs, if I started singing she would run downstairs, jump on my lap. and look into my eyes. Then she'd lay on my lap and purr.
I used to tease her and sing, "how much is that doggie in the windoe" or "Oh where oh where has my little dog gone", but she knew she was loved.
Her last illness and death was so fast. The vet said that was usully the way with renal failure. He said that is what causes deathe in most older cats. He also thougt she was older than we thought, Possibly 17 to 19 years old. We had her 12 years. She was strictly an indoor cat with us, but sometimes I'd carry her outside and we walk around enjoying the cool early mornings. The vet offered to take her back into the clinic so I wouldn't have to see her die. But I felt I owed it to her to be her comforter to the end. I was aready crying, but I don't think she minded. I bawled for two or three hours and still cry inside most of the time.
How on earth do these little animals get into our hearts and and become so much of our lives.?   The only time I remember crying this hard was when my Dad died. A pet isn't human but they become your fur family. We almost take them for granted until we lose them. Ayesha will always be in my heart and I so hope there is a rainbow bridge, and we will reunite someday. And I thank her for twelve beautiful years that she lifted our hearts and gave us her love.8月22日 More of our experience in the Hoosier State.One memory was very embarrassing for me. There was no nursery in the church so younger families like us took our young ones with us to services. Seven families had had babies about the same time that we did. One couple had twins. On this particular Sunday, our baby daughter started fussing a bit. I thought I could quiet her down but didn't have a chance. My husband said from the pulpit, "will you please take that baby out?". I did and later asked him about it. He said the other babies didn't bother him but ours did. I never believed that for a minute.
There was an elderly gentleman in our church whose wife had died recently. This man wore a bright orange wig. He was not someone I felt I could be comfortable with. One day, Jim said he would like to invite this man over for dinner because he was lonely. I didn't want to do this. I reminded Jim we had a young baby and I was concerned about cleanliness. Jim thought that wasn't a particularly Christian attitude and I had to agree. So we invited him and he came. We had our meal and then were talking together in the living room. He told us how his deceased sister came to him whenever he had a serious problem. She would sit on the side of the bed, he said, and talk to him until he had his concern worked out. After he left, I asked Jim if he believed this. Jim said we didn't really know one way or the other did we? So I figured he was right.
A few weeks later this man was struck in his car by a train and killed. Jim had the funeral. A couple of weeks later there was an estate sale. Since we still didn't have much we went and were able to get some garden utensils like a hoe, a spade and a couple of different kinds of rakes. After the sale was over we were told that nothing was stolen except his bright orange wig. That seemed so strange that anyone would want that.
Our church reminded me of that old movie, 'I'd climb the highest mountain". We had the annual church picnic in the summer. I had Deb in a Taylor Tot. which was a metal version of a stroller. Some of the older children liked to push her around in it and play with her.
When Deb was about six months old I became pregnant again, or as people said in those days I was "in the family way". More next time.
8月16日 And the family became three.Our first car was a 1936 Ford coupe. We had to have a car so Jim could call on people, but we didn't have much money. You know the saying "poor as church mice"! Well someone found this car for us but it didn't have a transmission. We paid $300 for it for the car. We bought a used transmission from a junk yard and the owner told us how to put it in. Jim did most of the work. But one night he came into the kitchen to tell me he needed my help. So I went out and crawled under the car to put some screws in a place that Jim's larger hands couldn't fit. Well he got the car to work and it served us well while we had it.
Our first baby was due on April 12. The night before April first our baby began setting up exercizes and the doctor said I should call Jim to come home. A nearby neighbor and his wife insisted I stay at their home and he would meet Jim's train. So in the middle of the night. Jim and I lay together in a twin bed. I relaxed and fell asleep. My brother in San Diego said later that our baby was playing an April fool's joke on us. In those days we didn't know the sex of the baby until it was born. So that whole weekend whenever we had time, we drove that Ford over all the bumpy roads we could find. All was calm. Then on Sunday night , Jim said, 'you know I have to go back to school tomorrow night don't you, and I said that I did.
That night I had put my hair up- in curlers and we went to sleep. Around midnight there was thunder and lightning and a big storm. We got up and then Jim went back to sleep. I had these funny little waves of something that I could time. I took my hair curlers out and began reading a magazine. About 5 am I woke Jim and said we'd better head for the hospital which was 25 miles away. The rain was pouring and that night two barns in the area burned down from lightning strikes. But at around 7:30 am our little daughter was born on April 5, still a week early.
There was another big storm that happened sometime during our stay in Indiana. It was on a Saturday, The wind was blowing very hard. We were debating whether we should go to the basement. We were watching trees a half mile away bending double. Jim said he thought we were okay. Well we were okay, but the next day at church our parishioners who knew about storms like that were all talking about going to their basements. This was all new to me because we never had storms like that ihn San Diego where I grew up.
So hopefully tomorrow night I'll add some more adventures in Indiana. 8月15日 Back home in IndianaIt was 1954 and 1955. Our little home in Indiana had a huge central furnace in the basement. We had to buy and put coal in it, hoping not to put too much or too little because that would change the temperature drastically. One night we got terribly hot. The wind had been blowing into the flue or something. We opened all the windows and tried to adjust all the entries into rooms. It was winter, but still hard to cool down enough to go to sleep.
I had a ringer washing machine, with the roller to get the soapy water out and into a tub of rinse water. After stirring, I used the roller to extract the rinse water and drop the clothes into a basket to be hung on a line. I had a terrible time trying to get all the soap out of diapers so the baby wouldn't be irritated. We had a clothes line to hang up the laundry. In winter diapers would dry stiff as a board. We started hanging them on line we stretched through the basement. Later we bouht a wooden rack for a fast dry upstairs for some of the baby things. I remember each time I was ironing maternity clothes, I would wonder if this would be the last time I'd have to do that.
There was also a differerent problem with the basement. It seems they unknowingly built the house on a spring. So the basement floor was covered with flooding water to about 6 inches. So we each kept a pair of golashes on the second step up to put on every time we went down there. This all sounds terrible, but we were young and happy and just did what we needed to do. Automatic washers and dryers were new then so I'd never known any thing but old fashioned wringer washers.
Our home had a stand of beautiful purple Irises all along the driveway in front. There were the prettiest Redbud trees I've ever seen in Indiana. Iowa had them too but they weren't as brilliantly beautiful. We also drove around and crossed covered bridges which are mostly extinct now. The state was picturesque and we loved it. Wabash college was a men's college and we had a good friend who taught there. Two of our children were born in Crawfordsville.
Shannondale was a tiny town people would say if you blinked driving through you'd miss it. It was 25 miles east of Crawfordsville, and 25 miles west of Lebanon. There were approximately 25 homes there and the white frame church. We were told that only about 5 of the houses in town had indoor bathrooms. Thank goodness ours was one of them.
 Most of the congregation came from surrounding farms. The church had outhouses, his and hers.We had a rule that we never pick up hitch hikers because of the danger. One day I was driving home from Crawfordsville when I recognized our friend from Wabash college, Dr. Cotton. He always hitch hiked. He was an older fellow so I gave him a ride as far as I was going. Then later when I told Jim I had picked up a hitch hiker, I didn't tell him who at first. That was one of the few times in our 56 years of marriage that I was able to put a joke on him. It was usually the other way around.
Tomorrow I'll tell you how we got a car, and what happened when the big storm came. |
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