Day 2 Day radishes

October 30/ odds and ends

If you want a house plant that is effortless, get a jade plant.  I had one in my bathroom that I did not water for a year.  It looks pretty bad, but it is alive. 

I pride myself on just today buying my Halloween candy . . . heavily discounted.

Yesterday saw the movie, "Departed".  A Martin Scorsese movie.  Very violent, a la Martin, but I liked it a lot.  Excellent acting.  They did not name it "Departed" for nothing. 

This is a reminder not to use your cell phone at the gas station.  PaBam!

October 28/High school date

I just finished talking to my thirty five year old daughter. During the conversation I asked her how she liked the last blog about Mountain View.  She said, "It was nice, thank you, but get on with the high school boyfriends."

My husband, who I met in my sophomore year of college, was without a doubt my best boyfriend, and he is still my best friend today.  But he thinks I was a little snotty back then.  Hum! He tells the story about how he took me out on our first date to the theater, which took his hard earned money, and when  we got there, I said, "I have already seen it." I tell you this to show that I may not have always been the perfect date.  For several  years after that, we dated each other only when we had no one better. Eventually we decided we liked each other. 

I wish that I could pass on to my granddaughters what I know with hindsight, how nice the few boys I dated in high school really were.  We laughed a lot.  So I must have had a sense of humor then, but for sure they did. What gentlemen! On a scale of 1 to 10, I was a five/six.  Contrary to commentors on this blog, I did become a Cheerleader. But I did not have this aura of sexuality. I wouldn't say that I was an ice princess, but. . . .you get the idea. My father was a formidable man, and he greeted each date, which got fewer and fewer, with his little speech about cars, etc.  After the first one,he really did not need to do this, as my father's presence went before me. 

The boys I dated were not on the football team, or the Jimmy Dean bad boy types, although one was on the baseball team.  The boys I dated in high school were fun, they were mostly funny, and smart in one way or another.  I don't want to mention the word "geek" here,  but now that Geek has become fashionable, and also I have come to intimately know the GEEK SQUAD, at BEST BUY, I think I can say the word.

I dated Mr. Printed shirt only once .  He was not a geek. But he wins the prize for being the ultimate gentleman.  This date was problematic in that Mr. Printed Shirt was Japanese American.  I was looking forward to the actual date, but first he had to meet my father.  My father was at the Battle of Okinawa, where the ships on both sides of him sank. My father was still saying things like, "Dirty Japs."  My father told M. Printed that I had to be home at midnight.  We went to San Franciso to a  night club that played jazz, and the music was just getting going at midnight.  But home was an hour away,  which meant we had to leave at eleven.   Here is a guy who had spent a lot of money to buy me dinner, and leave at eleven. But at eleven, he looked at his watch and said it was time to go. He did not complain, make excuses, or make a joke. And no one else did either.  He had that sort of presence.

I  had a wonderful time. Probably the most adult date to that point. While quiet, he discussed topics of substance.  My father was awake and he asked if I had a good time.  I said to him, "You should be so lucky as to have me date someone like him all the time." And I went to bed.   

So to my granddaughters I say, give a little thought to the guys hanging in the wings, with a good sense of humor, who are smart and nice.  Don't be too quick to pass them over. 

October 27/Mountain View

Mountain View, the city, had a stigma of being a lesser town, a place where history had come and gone.  The only good thing going for it was the High School and Penney's.

Origionally, the area was beautiful with rolling golden hills with the live Oaks, and when I was young, you could see hillsides of California poppies in the spring.   San Francisco Bay stretched down nearly to San Jose.  The bay was clear, and ditto the air. A Mr. Henry Rengstorff, from Germany,came to enter the Gold Rush, but arrived in San Francisco a little too late.  He sailed the bay from San Francisco to Alviso,( a place where in high school we regarded, metephorically,the dump of  the world) saved his money, and started buying land.  At that time there were actually small ports. Rengstorff then raised cattle in San Mateo,harvested grain and hay near Milpitas, and planted fruit trees in Los Altos. He planted Italian plum and apricots.  When the apricots were in bloom, it was a beautiful sight, much like here, where I live, and the snow geese take flight.  You would be hard pressed to find an apricot tree now.  The orchards have been replaced by homes. The San Francisco Bay, at the San Jose end became very pollluted and unnavicable, partly  because of Morton Salt Company across the bay.

I am unsure when the City of San Francisco started sending their garbage to Mountain View mud flats, but send they did. This meant that there was a lot of garbage in Mountain View, a city with not much going for it.  I do not know much about the reclaiming of the Bay.  However, Morton Salt started to clean up their act; the garbage was leveled and molded on the mud flat on the Rengstorff property,  then allowed to compact for a while, covered with dirt, the inlets filled in with water,and Voila, there was a park with golf course and a well known amphitheator, and several restaurants and boat rentals. And the Bay is cleaner.   This is where our reunion was held. I love full circle stories.

This is addendum was furnished by George, our host, and  I hope I have this correct.  When the garbage was covered over, this left methane underground which would seep up through the grass on the golf course, so that when a golfer lit a cigarette, a little flame would sizzle from the cigarette to the ground.

For those of you high school graduates, who may know the accurate story, please feel free to comment.

Octobe 27/ Reunion #3 add on

This is the woman Stuart married, Jeanie.  Are they not a handsome couple?  Jeanie and I could be great friends now, for many reasons ,not the least of which is that she can milk a goat. 

Octber 26, Reunion #3

Stuart  was my eighth grade  boyfriend.  In eighth grade we  all had bicycles and rode them with purpose. He would come after  school and hang out at our house, and I think,  we swam when it  was warm, and  danced in the  garage sometimes.  In those years  there was a commuter train that went by our house twice a day, (the tracks were later removed for an expressway) when the 5:50 train whistle blew when arriving into the station, Stuart jumped on his bike and he flew home as dinner would be ten minutes later.

He invited me to my eighth grade dance.  I was a little disconcerted what I was to wear, but on the last day of school I came home and went to my bedroom, and there laid out on the bed was a fabulous outfit, a black sweater and a yellow circle skirt with a Merry-go-round of black on the hem.  As you might imagine, this was not standard eighth grade clothes, but I did feel very elegant, even though the sweater was so hot I sweat. 

The dance was great! Stuart and I danced very close. I suppose we kissed, but that was not the important part, it was the dancing close I liked.We danced so close that the buckle on his belt ripped an inch tear in the skirt by my waist line.  That was a lot of fun to explain to my parents. 

We went our separate ways.  I went my freshman year to Sacred Heart, and he on to our public high school where he found Jeanie,who lived close to him on the other side. 

My husband and I, and Stuart and Jeanie went to the high school reunions.   I was always interested in talking with Stuart.  But in those times, one did not linger with other married people, or at least I didn't.  Then at the last reunion, their daughter died in a tragic accident, and they were devastated, chatting it up did not seem appropriate.  At this reunion we were at a party the night before, and Stuart came up with his arms out to hug me.  He said, "Sarah Margaret", which is my  given name.  He is the only person who has called me that  in many years.  Be still my beating heart. 

Ocober 25/

See previous women photos.  Two of those women I did not recognize.  Had I had the benefit of a high school  picture, I would have known one, Mrs. Multicolored floral top.  But the woman in pink came up and said, " Sally,it is me, Vera." I actually said, "I  don't know you." Though I am not into political correctness these days, still, that was very bad form.  I had not prepared myself for this sort of meeting.  I assumed that if I did not know someone, they would not know me, no problem. As if not knowing her in person was not bad enough, she added, you will know me when you see my high school picture.  She took my hand and led me to the year book. I looked at her picture, and I still did not know her.  But by now I was figuring out that I was being either rude, or having a major senior moment, and kept my mouth shut.  She said, "You know, I lived just four blocks from you, down on Third street."  Aargh!

I was on the fringe of the first woman's, Mrs. Multicolored Floral's group, like a groupie. I always did think she had a stupid hair cut, long hair with a sausage roll at the end. And she wore twin, lambs wool sweater sets.  Who could be close to someone like that when my mother was eager for me to wear white blouses to school with the same old sweater every day. Well, I might have had two. My mother wanted me to make my own clothes, as it was much cheaper.  Nearly everything I made, was just that, 'homemade', if creative.

The above two women were a delight.  I could be very good friends with them today.   Mrs. Pink was a sleuth finding people from our class, which is not all that easy, as the women were going by their married name. Mrs.Multicolored worked with Cancer patients. How could I not have known Mrs. Pink who lived four blocks away in our small town?

Just as all the reunion festivities were over, and we were all leaving for home, I asked Vera why we did not know each other better.  She said, "I guess I just wasn't on your radar." Later I asked Jo, "what happened to me back then?" She said, "You did more work, and babysat at home more than any of us, you were not allowed out much." It is true my social life was not my parents first priority.  Still wasn't that dear of Jo to think up such an out?

October 24/ Reunion #1

The big fear about going to a high school reunion is that you won't know anyone and no one will know you, or you will be too fat.   The woman on the far right was my hostess, and I of course, knew her.  We were friends since seventh grade. But I almost did not.  She said to look for her and she would be driving around the airport in front of baggage claim in a gold Cadillac SUV.  San Jose airport is no longer the comfy small airport, and it is now a large,multi terminal International Airport.  Can you imagine how many goldish, silverish SUV's can be driving around Arrivals at San Jose International Airport? Gold and silver being this year's SUV color of choice.  Anyhow, one woman kept driving around and as she made the last curve to where we were standing,  I waved, trying to flag her down,  "Jo, Jo we are over here."  But alas, the woman would drive by, and I would see that she was not Jo. This did not stop me from waving each time she came around.   Eventually the real Jo did stand up and arrive in her gold car.  I had forgotten that her hair was short and grey, and I then realized  the other woman was driving by with Jo's 1970 black, page boy hair style.  Lots of those cars matched our hair. 

October 24/Red

A short note about 2 1/2 year old Red.  He is still in the hospital, but will be released soon,however staying in a local hotel near the UCLA Med Center for more weeks. He is in pain because of swelling in head and back. He knows his parents are with him and he has some movement in his arms and legs.

October 20/ I am off!

I am off with my pink teeth to the reunion, and will not be back for several days.   But just to hold you over, a fact that I had not known.  Do not wear the same bra for two days in a row. Love to all, Sally

October 19/

When my mother-in-law went to her 50th high school reunion, I thought she was ancient.  I thought perhaps she was too frail to travel.  So here I am off tomorrow to my 50th.  I can not even find a picture from high school to add here, I think I was so plain.  Anyhow, I am preparing, and I have found an outfit in which I will be comfortable, unless the weather is the predicted 80. I have nice black pants, an expensive, new,clean T shirt, a longish, flowing over top, and unheard of for me, scarf accessory.  I have been practicing walking in my old medium high heeled shoes.

The above, of course, is ridiculous even giving what I am wearing a thought,  at least at our middle class high school. Your fiftieth reunion people are thrilled that you have not died, and that you  made the effort to show up. I make exception to the total alcoholics and druggies. 

But I must  have some reservations, as I had a dream that I was at my reunion, and I was dressed as I was supposed to be, feeling comfortable, chatting it up, and then I looked down at my hand, and there were crushed lenses from my glasses, and all my teeth had broken off at the gums like rows of a corn cob, and they were pink cloisonne, outlined in gold.