Christmas 2021 Visiting with Alex

We picked Alex up from St Denis shortly after his lunch on December 24th. He would be spending two days with us. He had not been back here in our house since the start of the pandemic in early 2019, nearly two years ago! The first thing he did when he entered the house was to make a beeline for the garage and peruse all his beloved videos. He removed all those plastic storage bins and did a thorough inspection and “inventory”.

After Alex went to bed that night, we brought down the gifts to open the next morning. Note that in deference to our creaking knees and difficulty in arising from the floors, Santa was wise and kind enough to leave the gifts on the chairs and not under the tree where crawling would be required for retrieval.

Notice Alex did like to wear the Santa hat I'd knitted, but only over his Green Bay Packers hat. He is wearing his 101 Dalmatians shirt, which Robin made for him. Alex got right into opening presents. And voila! Once he tore off the Santa Claus gift wrap he revealed a 36-piece giant pirate ship puzzle.

Frank is all decked out in the Christmas shirt Robin sewed for him and his HO! HO! HO! hat. He is eager to try out two escape puzzles that Santa left for him under the tree on the chair. 

 

To complete the trio, I, too, am wearing a shirt sewn by Robin. I was very pleased with the Brighton heart necklace I got from Frank. To show off the detailed hearts of the necklace, I hung it on the lampshade amidst my fashionista lady ornaments from Chico's.

We enjoyed our FaceTime calls to Robin’s family who were celebrating the holiday in Oklahoma City and to Dan’s family who were on a road trip to Denver. Our Christmas 2021 was a pleasant affair, connecting with all our children, even if only virtually with two thirds of them. It was a quiet peaceful Christmas… well, almost quiet and peaceful. Alas, there had been one minor mishap the previous night, after Alex had gone to bed Christmas Eve.

I had been sitting quietly reading in one corner of the family room. On the other side of the room, Alex’s 3-ft-tall, traffic light tube bank, which has resided for years in our family room, spontaneously shattered, scattering coins hither and yon with a horrendous noise. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Frank came rushing in from another room concerned about what had happened and wondering if I was hurt. Apparently, the once-clear plastic tube, now yellowed and brittle with age had given way when loaded to the brim with all those heavy metal coins. Maybe that’s why it made a cacophonous sound like heavy metal music when it crashed?

Frank shortened the tube and built a shorter makeshift replacement. The next day, Alex adjusted fine but I felt bad for him. That tall bank was a favorite of his. I will look into getting a longer, thicker tube from a plastics shop.

Sunday morning, the day after Christmas we went bowling before taking Alex back to St. Denis. He and Frank are posing, wearing their snazzy new Christmas-themed shirts. Frank's has cats with Santa hats and Christmas trees; Alex's has figures of Santa, trains, and children playing in the snow. We had a great Christmas with Alex; Frank and I believe he also enjoyed his time in his childhood home with his familiar tapes, puzzles, and banks. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Pre-Christmas 2021 Feast With Alex

Last Thursday, December 23rd, we were dropping Alex off back at his home after his league bowling. This was the night of the clients' and staff's Christmas celebration and we were invited to stay. What a Filipino feast it was! Roast stuff pig, thinly sliced beef on skewers, two tender meat stews - whose Filipino names I do not remember - to be served on noodles or rice, spaghetti, Filipino lumpia (an extreme favorite of Alex's), mango cake, chocolate muffins, salad, grapes, jello salad, and warm rolls, fresh from the oven.

Alex seemed oblivious to all the food preparations in progress, intently working on his pirate ship puzzle and occasionally looking up to gaze at the Christmas tree on the other side of the room.

Once dinner was called Alex was the first one at the table, waiting to be served.  The other clients joined him shortly. Alex's plate was filled to the brim and he devoured all of it in a blink.

Frank and I  had just been discussing what leftovers I was going to heat up for our dinner once we got home, so this meal was a serendipitous surprise. We ate our fill. St. Denis Home does go above and beyond to treat their clients well. On our drive back to Livermore, Frank and I meandered through Alex's San Ramon neighborhood to enjoy the Christmas lights. 

We would be back for Alex the next afternoon and pick him up to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us at our home. Last year, Christmas 2020 Alex had sat in the garage at St. Denis and opened the presents we'd brought him while Frank and I sat distanced outside in the rain under golf umbrellas.

Because of pandemic restrictions, Alex had not been to our home in nearly two years. All of us are vaccinated and boosted now. Although we will still be careful, this Christmas 2021 Alex will be able to sleep two nights back in his old bed, open his gifts in our living room, and go for car rides to see the Christmas lights. We were so looking forward to it.

Visit from Rich and MK

December 17th through December 20th, Frank's roommate Rich from graduate student days, with his wife, MK visited us from their home in New Jersey. We have zoomed them a couple times during the pandemic but otherwise, except for Christmas cards, we have not connected with these folks in over 30 years. The weekend was a huge blast. We talked, we laughed, we caught up. We went bowling with Alex Sunday afternoon and took some photos at the alley. 

Unfortunately our usual bowling alley was too busy for us due to a tournament, so we went to our alternate bowling alley. It was great that our alternate alley was closer, but a bummer that the alley's policy was to only allow kids or special needs adults to use bumpers to preclude gutter balls. Frank Rich, MK, and I had to fumble along without the crutch of gutter guards. Consequently our scores were far from stellar; no one broke 100. I include the scoreboard here not to embarrass anyone but rather to prove we were there! Thank goodness our names are partially obscured.

 

After we were through, we asked an attendant to snap a picture of all of us.  We were permitted to drop our masks for the photo, otherwise the alley is pretty strict with their mask policy, for which we are grateful. From left to right: Frank, Rich, MK, Alex, me.

We rode out one night to view Christmas lights in the surrounding neighborhoods.  One local attraction in Livermore is Deacon Dave's display. We rode by twice but did not brave the cold and the long lines to park and get out of the car to walk through. It is impressive enough from afar. Instead we rode about to view the decorations in a variety of other homes in other neighborhoods.

On our last day we took some photos in the living room just before their noon time departure on Monday. MK snap photos of Frank and me and I snapped photos of Rich and MK.

Then someone got the bright idea of setting the timer so we could capture all four of us. After tweaking, positioning, and balancing a Seussian type tower of decorative  pillows with a wedge type tablet support cushion on the back of the couch, I set the time for 10 sec and rushed over to get in the photo. I tripped over the unused Christmas throws and pillows and fell flat on my a**. But I did scramble up in time to get in the frame. For future shots, I did get up first, and then push the start button. Thank goodness for cropping and angle adjustment editing! Left to right: Frank, MK, Rich, me.

 

There is one last anecdotal item. Rich and MK are coffee addicts. I had cautioned them before they came that I no longer had a coffee maker but that there was a Starbucks a few blocks down the street from us. Thinking this was insufficient for their habit, Rich and MK brought their own bag of coffee and ordered an inexpensive coffee maker from Walmart to be delivered to our house the day before their arrival. Only it wasn't in time for their arrival. Once Rich and MK arrived from SFO, Frank and Rich drove out to our local Walmart to buy a coffee maker so they could have fresh brew in the morning when they awoke. MK got up to brew the coffee only to discover she had not brought a bag of ground coffee but a bag of coffee beans. Back she went to Walmart to buy ground coffee. Safeway would have been much closer she realized as she passed it, but Walmart was already programmed into the GPS of their rental car. After this episode MK thought perhaps she and Rich should consider modifying their coffee habits. They took the purchased coffee maker with them on the next leg of their trip down to Monterey to visit Rich's brother. One hour after they left our home, guess what appeared from Walmart at our front door? We returned it and got their account credited. We did not keep it as a souvenir of their visit.

Ponder: The House in the Cerulean Sea

The phrase "So many books, so little time" (originally attributed to Frank Zappa) often subliminally resides in my mind when I select a book to read. So "why this book?" I asked myself. None of the following reasons guaranteed I was going to like The House in the Cerulean Sea ©2020 by TJ Klune, but I did like it, and very much so.

I thought I might like this book because...

1. My experience with a previous book by the same author, Under the Whispering Door, was very positive. I recently completed, enjoyed, and reviewed it in my post for 12/7/21
2. I was drawn in and mesmerized by the cover art by Red Nose Studio. These artists also created the cover for Under the Whispering Door and the artwork followed the story in great detail. Yes, I know you cannot judge a book by its cover – not always, but sometimes, and in this case, yes. The artwork is a match for the story.
3. As a quilter, I loved the reference to the color Cerulean
4. Perhaps I do enjoy the diversion provided by a fantasy author based on my recent experiences.

The story line of The House in the Cerulean Sea follows the investigations of a caseworker, Linus Baker, from DICOMY, Department In Charge Of Magical Youth, as he audits the practices of a home on an island that houses and cares for six children endowed with magical powers. Magical children can be dangerous as they grow and learn to control their powers – or so the standard logic of the times teaches. Common practice is to segregate them. But children, magical or not, still need love and understanding and this book abounds in that precept. The master of the orphanage, Arthur Parnassus, is fiercely defensive of the children and deeply devoted to providing for their well-being and happiness. I ponder if DICOMY is that different from dichotomy.

The six children, are off beat with childlike logic; the statements they utter and the conversations they have are delightfully shocking and humorous. Here is a bit of a glimpse at some of these magical children. One child is a talkative female gnome with a silky beard who loves to garden and threatens to bury anyone whose opinion differs from hers. One child's heart's desire is to become a bellhop and practices carrying suitcases and doing laundry. One child is a wyvern who collects buttons and shards of broken records and hides his stash under the couch. 

While Linus struggles to remain objective as he observes the children and the workings of the household he cannot help but being drawn in to the antics and quirkiness of the children. He fights to maintain distance as he writes and submits his weekly reports to DICOMY. The bureaucracy of DICOMY calls to mind the posturing in the 1980 movie Nine to Five and the absurdity noted in the Dilbert comic strip. The teaching and learning of the children certainly brought to my mind the halls of Hogwarts from Harry Potter fame. I loved this heartwarming, humorous book and recommend it as an escape-type, fun, fantasy read that will delight. In the book Wonder ©2012 by R. J. Palacio, reviewed in 12/3/17 post, the teacher writes a precept on the board which reads “If you have a choice between being right and being kind, choose kind." I am being right and kind when I give this book five stars.

★★★★★ Great! Read it!

Ponder: Apples Never Fall

Joy and Stan Delaney run a tennis training academy but have just retired and are struggling with the transition from a hectic lifestyle of teaching, running a business, and raising four children each of which is a potential tennis prodigy. An empty nest is new territory for them. One day a bruised and bleeding young woman, Savannah, shows up at Joy and Stan's door having been the victim of domestic abuse. Joy sympathetically takes her in and coddles her. Savannah in turn makes herself comfortable in the household, cooking and cleaning for the elderly couple. Something about the situation is vaguely disquieting. Could Savannah be a pathological liar and to what purpose?

In parallel there are the stories of the adult children of the Delaney family: Amy, Logan, Trevor, and Brooke. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. That is one boring for each would be tennis star that never was realized. Each has their defining characteristic: anxiety, non-ambition, flaunting wealth, migraines. I did not grow to like any of the characters.

Then Joy disappears and there is mystery and suspicion hovering around her absence. Her husband is suspected of murdering her. Savannah is coincidently and conveniently gone from the scene. The book dragged on with very little action, mostly more irrelevant character definition and many innuendoes with very few proven facts. Two children believe the father to be innocent and two believe him to be guilty.

This is the sixth book I've read by Liane Moriarty. Sadly I give Apples Never Fall  (©2021) one star and would recommend avoiding it. I did complete the book, believing it had to get better; but the resolution was trite, contrived, malicious, and unsatisfying.

I have read five other books by Liane Moriarty and found her to be an uneven author. I read Three Wishes (©2005), and The Hypnotist's Love Story (©2013)  both of which were disappointing and I gave them one and two stars respectively. I loved What Alice Forgot (©2012) and The Husband's Secret (©2015)  giving them four and five stars respectively. I whole heartedly gave Truly Madly Guilty (©2016) five stars. Although I either love 'em or hate 'em, I stated I would continue to read works by author Liane Moriarty. But wait; I have a bit of a calculation.

1 star + 2 stars + 4 stars + 5 stars + 5 stars + 1 star
divided by 6 books averages to 3 stars.

Hmmm. I may reconsider reading future works by this author.

Apples Never Fall  (©2021)
★☆☆☆☆ Awful but I read all of it

Thanksgiving 2021 with Alex

As I take a break from decorating the Christmas tree, I realize I never posted anything about Thanksgiving. Ours was quiet, low key, and enjoyable. I cooked the main meal for Frank and me on a simplified scale on Wednesday night. Instead of a whole turkey I made a butterball 3-4 lb turkey breast roast.  I made Pepperidge stuffing on the stove top and used the gravy packet that came with the turkey breast. We had whipped sweet potatoes with torched marshmallows and steamed green beans instead of the traditional green bean casserole. I had made pumpkins pies earlier in the day.

 

Having this meal the day before left our Thursday free to go to visit Alex on the holiday itself. The weather was gorgeous. We did puzzles with him in the back yard under the Gazebo.

Then we went for a walk with him on his adult tricycle. Frank had pumped up the tires. A lawn mower handle attached to the back enables Frank to give Alex a push when he needs it. A rope allows Alex some freedom when he is pedaling but allows Frank to rein him in since Alex does not know how to brake.

Alex pretty much sets the pace and we follow. Sometimes he pedals along at a pretty good clip. We only get to glance at the sites along the way such as the whimsically decorated mailbox at one neighbor's house.

We did a figure eight route: in and out one cul-de-sac with a long entry throat where we chatted with a neighbor putting up Christmas yard decoration, then backtracking to go the other direction back past St. Denis, and across the street into the parking lot of the Cal High swimming pool. Alex particularly likes the speed bumps in the parking lot.

After we returned, Alex did not seem tired at all, but we still wanted to keep him busy, so we went for a car ride. This pandemic has been hard on Alex since his day program has been held only virtually. Alex needs three dimensional people interaction so anything we can do to get him safely out of the home is a win-win for him.

We kept him out until it was time for his dinner, riding around about an hour and then returning him home. We left just before Alex's dinner time to return to our home. Our own Thanksgiving dinner was great – microwaved leftovers. There is no fuss and I believe everything tastes better the next day.

Ponder: Under the Whispering Door

Weird. Quirky. Eclectic. Under the Whispering Door ©2021 by TJ Klune is a very strange read that kept me up until 2:00 a.m. last night to finish, once I got past the first two chapters a few days ago. The first chapter is about a despicable lawyer, Wallace. Wallace's insensitive, even cruel actions punctuate his workaholic mentality. I kept reading, nonetheless, giving the book a chance. The second chapter is almost as bad. Only his partners from the law firm, his ex-wife, and an unknown figure visible only to Wallace are at his sparsely attended funeral. Eulogies are remarkably derogatory of his life. With such an auspicious beginning, the novel did not bode well to be an uplifting, fun read; but I continued on, giving the book a second chance, even though I am not a fan of snarky humor. Besides my interest was piqued in who this mysterious unknown figure was who appeared at the funeral. 

The cast of characters is unique and oddly endearing. The mysterious unknown figure is Mei, a reaper (note the absence of the adjective grim). She is guiding Wallace, now a ghost, from his funeral to a way station of sorts where he will be prepared to transition to the after life domain at Charon's Crossing Tea and Treats, by Hugo, the ferryman who owns operates the establishment. Other ghosts residing at Charon's Crossing are an elderly ghost Nelson and a dog Apollo. Wallace, accompanied and soothed by Mei is relentlessly yet gently pulled toward the tea house by a cable attached painlessly by hook to his chest. Yes it is strange and yet the story is strangely engaging ... and kind. The succinct final paragraph of the front flap says it extremely well.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind. Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.

The awesome jacket art follows the author's narrative in great detail, even down to the green scooter. Yes, the ferryman rides a scooter but do not necessarily jump to the conclusion that it is the means of conveyance to the after life. This is indeed a home that would challenge any fixer upper show on HGTV Note the silhouette of the stag in the background. It reminds me of the stag that is Harry Potter's Patronus. Hmm... could it have a similar significance? The jacket art is attributed to Red Nose Studio but no specific artist. The jacket lettering is credited to Katie Klimowicz. I checked the website of both the artist and the studio; cover art they have produced for many novels is truly amazing and distinctive. I know it is said that you cannot judge a book by its cover, but I certainly am tempted to try several of these books solely from the cover art.

 

Artwork, reaper, ferryman, ghosts, scooter, tea house, wacky architecture, kindness, caring, and love. Have I caught your interest yet? Because of how off-the-wall it is, I hesitate to give Under the Whispering Door five stars. But any book that can keep me up to 2:00 a.m. to finish, surely deserves at least four stars.

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience

Happy Birthday Frank

Frank's 73rd birthday was Wednesday, November 10th. Yes, I am a bit slow in blogging about it, but we all slow down a bit at this age and I was behind writing posts about a SoCal visit,  part 1 dated 11/16/21 and part 2 dated 12/2/21.

I had planned to make Frank pumpkin pie, his favorite, but my online order with Raley's for the Pillsbury rollout pie crusts had been unavailable, and therefore it had been omitted from my order pickup on the 9th. The morning of his birthday I decided to brave an in-person visit into Safeway itself to see if they had them. I asked several clerks where they might be and got a deer in the headlights look. I thought I'd better go with Plan B and get a cake from the bakery instead. This bright orange one with the sunflowers caught my eye; it was ⅛ of a sheet cake and I had the baker write on it for Frank. It turned out those sunflowers were pure sugar and edible – somewhat. But the cakes was delicious. I also got him a bouquet of roses and a present.

Throughout the day our kids Robin and Dan called, grandkids sang to him, and our friend Vickie dropped by with a card and lemon meringue pie. Frank and I had a hot date that night going out for dinner at Livermore's IHOP. The local pancake house has been surprisingly empty during the pandemic and so we were willing to eat indoors. Once back home I sang Happy Birthday to him (Again. I had sung earlier to him upon arising.) I lit the candles, he blew them out, and we ate cake in a mini-celebration just the two of us.

He wondered what was in the box. After some jiggling and guessing he opened it. Our local Orchard Supply Hardware may have gone away but our Livermore Home Depot store is still active.

A couple days after his birthday we had our friends John and Marita over for a board game session. We did a repeat of the whole singing, light-and-blow-out the candles ritual, and ate some more of the cake.

 

It was a fun birthday and heartwarming to know how many thoughtful people remembered.