Suzy Says

I took a couple of days off, and you know what that means! That’s right: a searing heat wave! There was an extreme heat warning for Friday and Saturday. And extreme it was. It hit 100 at the family estate and was probably in the 90s at my place, though I don’t have a thermometer or the room temperature readout on the heater like I did at the old place. Sometimes, you’d rather not know.

Despite having an irrational fondness for the old place – In spite of its faults and quirks, it will always have a special place in my heart – I was glad I wasn’t still living there. Its total lack of insulation meant that it was a nightmarish oven, particularly in the sleeping loft, where the heat gathered and loitered with intent. The new house is well insulated and has a water tower on top, which helps to insulate further. So it was (relatively) cool inside while the onslaught of heinous heat raged outside.

I did venture to the Village on Sun Stroke Saturday, though. Usually, I try to avoid shopping on weekends, but sometimes it’s inevitable, and this was one of those times. As I stepped outside, I noticed it was definitely warmer than I would like at 9:00 am, and also that it smelled like summers in Maine, with the sun heating up the pines and scenting the air with the distinctive scent of sap and sun-warmed forest. This was further reinforced as I got closer to the ocean and could smell low tide, which always makes me think of Maine, no matter what the time of year.

Arriving at the rather old-fashioned grocery store, I was lucky enough to park right out front and find that the store itself was delightfully uncrowded. I didn’t even have to wait in line. My shopping style tends to be grabbing what I need and getting the hell out. I later regretted not getting those tangerine popsicles, though. Note to Self: Popsicles are always a good idea. Especially during a heat wave.

As I drove home with surprisingly few cars impeding my summertime progress, I thought of how this shop was quite similar to the Don’s Shop’n Save* in Bar Harbor. Also that the summers that I was nostalgically recalling were half a century in the past.

*It is no longer the Shop’n Save, having been bought out by a chain called Hannaford, but I am pleased to say that Don himself is still around.

A YEAR AGO:Drinks with the girls at our favorite watering hole.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Harvest time.

Dad at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, 1993

Nineteen years ago, my life changed forever with a phone call. I will never forget hearing my sister’s voice telling me that our beloved father was dead. I understood the words individually, but not together. They seemed to hang in my brain, jostling each other and moving through a cloud as I struggled to understand what Megan had just told me.

To be fair, we had been informed that he was recovering well from routine gallbladder surgery and was expected to be released from the hospital just a couple of days later. There was no expectation that he would die.

Dad was only 70 when he died, just twelve years older than I am now. He was still editing a monthly scientific journal, and was slated to chair an international meeting OECD meeting in Germany a couple of weeks later. Plants he had ordered for fall planting in his beloved garden arrived a few days after I did, and the bird list he sent weekly to the RSPB lay on his desk, with his pen and glasses on top of it. When I first saw his study after his death, it looked like he would walk into it any minute and pick up his work. The work he loved.

There was no reason for him to die.

The hospital staff took Dad off blood thinners before the surgery so he wouldn’t bleed out. Then they forgot to put him back on them afterwards, and he died of a blood clot. Totally preventable.

He died in his sleep around 6:00 in the morning, the time when he usually arose for the day. My sister told me later that all the lines were gone from his face. She got into the hospital bed with him and put his arms around her. She stayed there until physically removed. She could feel the broken ribs from the pointless CPR efforts. She could feel his stopped heart. She could smell his scent. She knew he was gone.

She wasn’t even 30 years old.

Nearly 20 years after his death, I can understand why Queen Victoria mourned for the rest of her long life after losing Prince Albert. I will be mourning the rest of mine, too. Some days, I feel as devastated as I did that summer morning when the phone rang. Sometimes I remember Dad with a smile, thinking of the many happy times we spent together. I still think of him every single day. And I will always miss him. I will always mourn him. I will always love him.

Sometimes you just want someone else to cook for you. And more importantly, clean up after both the cooking and the eating. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather cook three meals than clean up after one. This may have something to do with the fact that the only dishwasher I have ever had was Me.

When John and I were selling our apartment in San Francisco, the girl who ended up buying it complained bitterly that there was no dishwasher. I seem to remember she also complained that the height of the 1920s-era counters were not high enough to install one, either*.

When I was a kid, dishwashing also included drying and putting away, in addition to wiping off counters, putting away placemats and napkins, and wiping the table. Now, I tend to leave the dishes in the drainer, though I do all the other things, despite telling myself that when I grew up, I would do none of those things. My childhood self might also be appalled and annoyed to learn that I still make my bed before going to work and lay out my clothes the night before, since I also decided I would not do that when I was (allegedly) a grown up and could (allegedly) do whatever I wanted.

Little did child Suzy know…

But one thing the present day Suzy could do was go to Queenie’s for a breakfast made by, and fit for, a queen. Not to mention cleaned up by the queen’s courtiers. I sat outside on the wooden deck and enjoyed the view:

while breakfast was being made. It was worth the wait:

That’s freshly-squeezed orange juice, a waffle, real maple syrup (accept no substitutes!) and chicken-apple sausage from Roundman’s Smokehouse. It was so nice to have breakfast across the street from the ocean, sitting in the sunshine.

And no dishes to do afterwards.

*She solved this “problem” by making the kitchen into a second bedroom and part of the living/dining room into a boring stainless steel kitchen. Undoubtedly, there is a dishwasher in my old living room now.

A YEAR AGO: Vanquishing the mess from the move. Things look pretty much the same, though I did get a bigger area rug. I still love this house and can still hardly believe I live here.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Kalli’s birthday camping party. So fun!

TEN YEARS AGO: Marilyn’s house was up for sale.

July 1 marked Megan and Rob’s 29th anniversary! Here they are on the big day, with a beaming Dad:

I realize that Dad was around the same age then as I am now. How did that happen?

Megan and Rob were married at our godparents’ house in San Francisco by a Justice of the Peace. Dad and I both had concerns about Megan getting married so young. She turned 20 just a few weeks before the wedding, and Rob was seven years older. Rob has been our brother’s best friend since they were nine years old, so Megan knew him most of her life. But your baby sister or youngest child getting married when barely out of her teens would give many people pause.

Megan has always known her own mind, ever since she was a baby, so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that she and Rob are still married.

At the time they were married, they lived on a little sailboat at Pier 39. Then they moved to their teeny house in Hooterville, and finally to the family estate, where they and Jonathan live. When they still lived in the teeny house, they had our dying mother living with them for several years, including stints with her hospital bed taking up most of the living room. Rob made changes to the house to make Mom more comfortable, and visited her in the hospital. He never complained about having his admittedly difficult and very ill mother-in-law living with him for so long in such a small space.

Megan and Rob have been through a lot over the nearly three decades they have
been married. Megan says that when things get hard, she and Rob just take each other’s hands and walk through it together. I would say they probably love each other more deeply and truly today than they did on the starry-eyed day when they took their vows. I am so glad they found each other and stayed together all these years. Here’s to the next 29 years and all the adventures still ahead!

A YEAR AGO: The wonders of Flynn Creek Circus.

FIVE YEARS AGO: What do mysterious runes and my handwriting have in common? And is Erica a magician?

TEN YEARS AGO: Unfortunately, some things never change.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: In case you ever wondered, hospitals are not at all like spas.

Happy Fourth!

My English father used to say that England should really the be one to celebrate the Fourth of July. After all, they were finally free of America and all its problems, which have not diminished in the two centuries since we became independent. I often wonder what Dad would think of the things that have happened in this country in the nearly 20 (!) years since we lost him.

My American mother’s ancestors arrived in Massachusetts more than a century before this was a country, building a house in 1641 which still stands today as the oldest wooden frame house in the country. Perhaps it’s fitting that the land where my childhood home was built was given to a Revolutionary War soldier in compensation for his service.

My brother is named Jonathan, for the first Fairbanks to land in what would one day be America. Both the original Jonathan and the current one have enjoyed making trouble in their own ways. Rumor has it that Original got in trouble for wearing silver buckles on his shoes, something frowned on by his Puritan neighbors. Current once motorized our sister’s tricycle and encouraged her to ride it. She and the enhanced form of transportation both ended up in the neighbor’s pool. The neighbors, who had to drain and clean their pool, took it better than our parents did. Megan, the one-time tricycle driver without a license, has Fairbanks as her middle name. So the legacy lives on.

Today I celebrate both sides of my heritage. Happy Independence Day!

A YEAR AGO: Earthquakes and foxes.

FIVE YEARS AGO: An alarming and mysterious smell at Stately Suzy Manor. I am afraid to tell you what the belatedly discovered cause was.

TEN YEARS AGO: File under miscellaneous.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: I always love tales from the ambulance.

Ginger and Jonathan at our childhood home

I came across this photo recently of my brother and our dog Ginger at our childhood home in upstate New York.

The photo gives a clear view of our route to the school bus stop, at the Nagels’ farm, just across the road from the Morgans’ house, on the upper right hand side. Given that our driveway was about a quarter of a mile long, I think it was close to half a mile to the bus stop, rain, shine, or snow. I clearly remember following the path we made in the snow. Sometimes we would walk past the five acres of pine trees, which housed our tree house and the large enclosure for the wounded* Snowy Owl who lived there for many years. We chose a Christmas tree there every year to cut down and bring home.

It was only recently that I wondered why my mother, who never worked, did not drive us to the bus stop, or to school, for that matter.

Ginger did not follow us to the bus stop, though he was never far from Jonathan’s side, and rescued him a couple of times, Lassie-style, from falling through a snow bank and into the nearby creek. Ginger never had much use for females of any kind, though he had a soft spot for the Nagels’ dog Daisy, who was actually allowed to play on our land. Ginger was welcome at the Nagels’ farm, where he obligingly removed the rat population from the barn.

Everyone needs a hobby, and Ginger’s was killing things. He was very efficient, from the few times I saw him in action. A swift neck break and it was all over. He also took his guardian duties seriously, even silly females like Mom, Megan, and me. When Dad was home, Ginger slept on the landing of the stairs, but when he was away, Ginger slept stretched out across the front door. No one was getting in without his knowledge.

Ginger was devoted to Dad. After all, Dad found him.

For some reason, Dad used to load us into the car and take us grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. We would also go to the library and anywhere else that was necessary, like the hardware or feed store. Again, it’s only in the last couple of years that I wondered why he didn’t just go alone, which would have been much easier.

On this particular day, we arrived at the Victory Market to discover that they had animals up for adoption, an arrangement that Jonathan would refer to as a “pity pit” as an adult. Jonathan would adopt the unforgettable Jed** the Wonder Dog from a pity pit on the other side of the country about 20 years later. Dad warned us that we could look at the animals, but we were not, under any circumstances, taking one home.

Of course, we would have agreed to just about anything to go and pet the puppies and kittens. One of those puppies jumped into Dad’s arms and stuck his wet, cold nose into Dad’s neck. Ginger came home with us that day, and was a beloved part of the family. He had his quirks, but we all do, and we all loved him. He was a great dog for kids who played outside as much as we did, year-round.

We were all shocked and saddened when Ginger was accidentally killed by hunters, but it was hardest, I think, for my father. I still remember the stricken look on his face. He immediately set off over the fields alone, where I suspect he wept and mourned his old friend where he could not be seen. He refused to get another dog** until Megan rescued Jesse, the last dog Dad would own, many years later. But that’s another story.

*Like Ginger, the owl was shot by hunters. Unlike Ginger, he survived. He was equally beautiful and fearsome.

**Jed has been gone for 13 years, and Jonathan has never adopted another dog. I don’t think he ever will. Jed was a once in a lifetime dog.

A YEAR AGO: Dodge’s daring (and destructive) escape.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A fun day off with my sister.

TEN YEARS AGO: A long day for my little sister.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Watching TV shows about a fictional hospital in an actual hospital.

Mother’s Day has rolled around again, bringing with it all those complicated emotions.

Since I took over writing all my work’s Facebook posts, maybe a year and a half or a couple of years ago, I have had to surmount challenges like writing something uplifting about domestic violence and teen date rape (I did it!), and this year I had the bright idea of collecting photos of the babies born to our staff over the past couple of years to celebrate these hard-working mothers on Mother’s Day. Looking at the pictures and writing all the cheery captions was a little upsetting to someone whose mother was never all that crazy about her. She never really seemed to love me, or at least not in a way that I could see or feel.

I don’t know if it was me, or because she was abandoned at birth, literally left on the orphanage steps, which has to have a huge psychological effect on anyone. Having said that, her adoptive parents adored her and always told her they chose her out of all the children in all the world, and that parents who gave birth to their own kids just had to take what they got, which is true, and also a great outlook on adoption.

They adopted Mom at the age of three and fostered her before that, so she couldn’t have had many memories before that time, but maybe the feeling (and fact) of abandonment was just hard-wired in her DNA.

Mom never had the slightest interest in her birth parents, but I do. When I got that Ancestry DNA kit from Erica, I have to admit that I was hoping to find that Mom had siblings out there or some kind of relatives that I was unaware of, but nada, nothing, zippo. This was disappointing to me. Our family tree is more like a twig. Mom was an only child, Dad’s sister was mentally challenged or whatever they call it now, and never married or had children. So no uncles or cousins for me, and Megan, Jonathan, and I do not have children, either.

I never wanted to be a mother, and I am perfectly fine with not being one. But Mother’s Day still brings up so much grief. Sadness that my mother never loved me, or at least not that I could tell; sadness for my grandmother, who endured seven miscarriages before adopting Mom; sadness for the girl who felt she had no other option but to leave her newborn on the steps of an orphanage one fine spring day. Whether you are a mother or not, Mother’s Day is never simple.

My happiness at seeing an email from Cammy, a friend of many years, quickly turned to sadness when I saw that she was alerting me to the untimely and unexpected death of a mutual friend, Randy. I literally gasped out loud when I read the news.

Randy wasn’t much older than I am, and we were just joking around together on Facebook a couple of weeks earlier about the unseasonable, and to Randy’s mind, unreasonable, snow he was still getting where he lived in Chicago. I have noticed over the years as my expertise in the field of death has unfortunately grown* that people always say, “But I just saw him” as if that made the fact of their being gone forever impossible. It does make it more surreal and unbelievable.

When I wished him happy birthday at the end of March, I had no idea it would be his last, and from what he said, it doesn’t sound like he did, either: “Thanks for the birthday wishes. The best present would be for all to be around for many more. Let’s hope this craziness passes quickly and we can all celebrate together.”

I learned from his wife that Randy had died within ten days of being diagnosed with mesothelioma. Like my former brother-in-law, Mike, it seems that Randy died quickly (and hopefully peacefully) of something that can be a lingering and horrible, suffocating end. His family was with him and I hope he slipped away easily and without fear.

For those of us left behind, it’s hard to imagine that we will never again see those blazing blue, twinkling blue eyes, ask him for advice, hear his infectious laugh, or get one of his comforting hugs. Randy loved his family with all of his heart, and in our friendship, there was something fatherly as well.

I am lucky to have known and loved him, and to have had Randy touch my life. He will always be in my heart and my memories.

*People always unhelpfully inform me that you have to expect increasing visits from the Reaper as time goes on, but a) I’m not that old, still in my 50s; and 2) This Reaper bullshit started with me when I was 15. I lost all my grandparents within one year, and both of my grandfathers within three weeks. I was barely 16 when they were gone.

A YEAR AGO: I may have missed the Derby (gasp), but I did make it to a fabulous BBQ at Rio’s place.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A new Royal Princess, a new ‘do, and the Derby – what more could a girl want?

TEN YEARS AGO: Dad’s amazing Honey-Mustard Chicken. Try it, you’ll like it!

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Plumbing problems

The grandfather clock in my house is probably older than this country, depending on whether it was made by John Jullion Senior (born 1701) or Junior (born 1734). Mr. Jullion was a famous clockmaker from Brentford, England, who also made the oldest clock still on public display in Australia. That one was made in 1770. Even if it’s Junior, the clock is around 250 years old. And very well-travelled.

I first met this grand old timepiece at my grandparents’ home in Surrey. They moved into the house when they were married in the 1920s and lived there for the rest of their long lives. The clock had been in Grammie’s family since it was first built, coming down through Grammie’s mother’s family, the Smiths.

At my grandparents’ house, the clock lived in the dining room, which was used for every meal, but was also sacred to the game of cricket. When there was a match – especially a Surrey match – on the wireless (radio), no one could make a sound in the house while Daddy’s Daddy listened to the game in the solitary splendor of the dining room.

The Clock

When my grandparents died, the clock was shipped to us, and when Dad retired back to his native England, the heirloom timepiece made its majestic journey with him. Unlike Dad’s 9 year old mutt Jesse, it did not have to be quarantined, and ended up living, like Jesse, in my stepmother Margaret’s lovely house in Wimbledon. About a dozen miles from where Dad grew up. Indeed, Dad used to walk Jesse on the same downs where he walked with own father as a boy.

Dad wound the clock twice a week, and it kept good time in Margaret’s pretty sitting room overlooking the big garden.

When we lost Dad, I gained a clock, and it once again made its way across the ocean, this time to San Francisco, which was a mere wilderness when it was first built. Very long-time readers may recall the battle with Customs and the hassle of getting it set up and running again in my San Francisco apartment, where it lived in the hallway.

At that point in the clock’s long life, I learned that my great grandfather, the splendidly named Sydney Joseph Beaumont Smith (all of his children had only one first name), had cut the clock down from its original height in order to fit it into the flat where he and his family lived, above his butcher shop in Chiswick.

It was something of an Antiques Roadshow moment, where a person learns that if they only hadn’t cleaned that painting, it would be worth a million dollars, and now it’s only worth $20. But the value for me is not the financial one. It is knowing that generations of my family have cared for this timepiece, lovingly made by hand by a craftsman centuries ago, and now I am the guardian of the family legacy. It’s knowing that my grandparents used to listen to its measured tick, as did my great grandparents and earlier generations of my family, and that we are all bound together by the shared experience of caring for and marking our lives and our time together by this ancient timepiece.

A YEAR AGO: I was crowned. And not in a good way.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A lovely evening at the theater with the girls.

TEN YEARS AGO: The story of Henry, the stray cat who found her way into my heart. Our time together wasn’t long enough, but it was sweet.

Mom, 1942

I was yanked out of one of my weird dreams (is there any other kind? My two brain cells seem to go on a riotous rampage when I’m asleep. It’s like David Lynch’s Funhouse in there most nights) at 3:00 am. I knew the answering machine would pick up before I could find my glasses and stumble to the phone, so I didn’t try to dislodge Clyde and get up.

When the phone rang again not three minutes later, I did get up and answer it, and there was no one there, at least no one who wanted to admit they were there. My feeling is that if someone makes you answer the phone, they should talk to you. They should at least apologize for getting you out of bed at 3:00 am.

A friend of mine said it must be one of those robo calls, but what do they get out of it if they don’t even try to scam you?

I went back to bed, though not to sleep. We are a family of bad sleepers, and in my case, if I get woken up, it’s difficult verging on impossible to get back to sleep. I lay there in the dark with Clyde once again cuddled up to me, and I thought how when the phone rang in the depths of the night, I instinctively thought it was about Mom, even though I know that’s impossible and even though she’s been gone for 15 years. I guess her long and terrible decline has left permanent scars behind. Also, it happened to be the day after my mother’s birthday. Not a milestone birthday – 88 years – but a birthday nonetheless, and I always think of her more often around those days.

The next day, I turned on the radio and they were playing a song from the Moody Blues’ “Seventh Sojourn”. That was one of Mom’s favorite records and she played it a lot when I was a girl. It was amazing how listening to that song brought me right back to that time, when Megan was just a baby. I seem to remember it was playing the first time Megan laughed. I remember her lying in the playpen in the sun, looking at the flowers on the syringa bush waving in the wind outside the window, kicking her little feet and laughing joyously.

As I remembered that long-ago day, listened to the music, and thought about that early morning phone call, I wondered if it was all Mom. After all, I thought, if anyone could do it, she could.

A YEAR AGO: An update on Dodge. I’m happy to say that none of these things have changed. He is a joy.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Getting used to the new job. I am pleased to say that my office is much improved these days, at least in appearance.

TEN YEARS AGO: Back home after a trip to the City, missing little Henry Etta.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Mom celebrated her last birthday in the hospital, her spirit unbowed despite everything. I miss you, Mom.

I was shocked and saddened to receive an email from my ex-husband John saying that his brother Mike had died an hour earlier that day. He had pulmonary fibrosis and had not shared this news with John until last week, when they did a FaceTime call. Apparently, this is a family trait, since John’s Dad also kept from him that he had various ailments that John felt he should have known about.

Despite Mike’s terrible semi-secret illness, he died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family. I’m not sure how this happened, considering that deaths from that illness are generally gruesome, but am so thankful that this was the case. John said that Mike knew the house was paid off, so his wife of more than 40 years (they married at 18 and were grandparents before they were 40) would be OK, and that his three boys were all fine, so he had no fears or regrets.

And you may remember that John’s Dad dropped dead on his way to the car with his wife Marj, as they were going on a routine shopping trip, at the same time I was watching a lunar eclipse and a shooting star that I still think was his farewell to us. In both cases I am glad it was swift and they were not scared or in pain, and that they had their loved ones with them.

The last time I saw Mike was long ago, when John and I were still married and we had dinner at Mike and Charmaine’s house. We laughed a lot and had a great evening together. They were a very caring couple. During the bad ice storm in Ottawa back in the 1990s, they had power for some reason when their neighbors didn’t, and they had everyone at their house, eating and staying and keeping warm until their power came back on. That’s the kind of people they were.

Losing Mike hit John pretty hard, and I’m trying to be there for him as best I can. I am thankful that when John and I broke up, his family continued to care for me, and that John and I found our way – or perhaps are still finding our way – to be supportive and caring for each other. We have helped each other through a lot of things over the past few years and I am glad he is part of my life.

A YEAR AGO: A last supper with Erica and Jessica before they moved away, apparently forever.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A busy week before I started my new job. A lot has happened there in the past five years.

TEN YEARS AGO: A hell of a hailstorm!

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Farewell to Florida!

The monthly Bored meeting at work fell on Dad’s birthday. It was supposed to be a much longer meeting than usual – and it’s more than long enough – and would mean a much longer day than usual. I decided that I didn’t want to face the lengthy drive home after a day that would be at least 12 and might be as much as 14 hours long, so I asked a local innkeeper and friend if he happened to have a room for that night.

He not only had a room, he gave me a prix d’amie that I thought must be a typo due to its tininess. I double checked that there wasn’t a digit missing, and then happily took him up on his offer.

The morning of the meeting, I packed up my suitcase, checking it for moths since it hadn’t been used in so long, gave the cats as much food and water as their dishes would hold*, and headed out into the morning darkness, admiring the slim golden crescent moon and the bright, silvery Venus hanging over the ocean.

The meeting was changed at the last minute and was much shorter than expected, so I got to the hotel before the sun set. I ordered dinner to be delivered and while I waited for it, went out on the balcony and watched the sun set as the ducks and pelicans swan serenely around the estuary below. I thought of Dad and how much I miss him, and how he would have approved of my working a long day on his birthday, since he loved his work so much. He used to say that he would have done his own work whether he was paid for it or not. He was lucky to feel that way. And I was lucky that he was my Dad.

*I am 99% sure that Clyde ate 50% of it. Lately, he has been more food obsessed than ever, walking all over me in bed and meowing starting around 3 am. Can cats be emotional eaters?

FIVE YEARS AGO: Wild turkeys and secretly expensive wine.

TEN YEARS AGO: A day at the beach.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Thinking about Dad. And Mom.

Dad heading to school, circa 1936

My father was born on this day in 1931.

He left us too soon, on August 18, 2001, at the age of 70. As I approach 60 – I am turning 58 this June – it is a little alarming to think that at my age, he only had 12 years left to live. I am consoled that he lived them with Margaret, who I believe was the love of his life. They were so well-suited to each other. They were from similar backgrounds, about the same age, and loved art, traveling, wine, good food, and books. They had many wonderful adventures together, and I am glad to know that the last years of his life were some of the happiest.

Some years, I am happy that I had Dad in my life and had that kind of love and support which I now realize many people – even most – never have. I was lucky to have experienced being loved by someone who knew all the worst things about me and loved me anyway. But the grief is the price of the love, and this year, I am sad and angry that I lost him so long ago and so young.

If you’re joining this telenovela in progress, here’s a brief recap. Dad was taken off blood thinners for a routine gall bladder surgery, and the hospital staff forgot to put him back on them, so he died of a blood clot in his sleep the night before he was supposed to be released from the hospital.

Life has never been the same.

I know Dad wouldn’t want me to be sad when I thought of him. So I will try to think about this little boy, so excited about his first day of school, just the beginning of a fine academic career that would culminate in a PhD in organic chemistry and a Doctor of Science degree awarded to him by the Queen Mother herself. He loved his work, and made important contributions both to the world of science, and the world.

Little did that boy imagine how far he would go in life or how many adventures were ahead of him. It may have been short, but it was a wonderful life.

A YEAR AGO: A festive birthday celebration.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Remembering Dad and the happy, golden summers we spent in Maine.

TEN YEARS AGO: A chilly birthday.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A visit to one of the most beautiful beaches in America. Again, I’m sorry to say that the photos didn’t come through, but you can have a peek here.

The Naked Ladies are flaunting their pink, leafless blooms by the side of the road, and you know what that means: high beams have made their unwelcome return to my morning commute. I need a flashlight to get to the car, and I am extra vigilant looking for the wildlife hanging out or meandering on the Ridge in the early morning darkness.

This morning, I wondered what that mysterious light through the trees was. It turned out to be the nearly full moon once I emerged from the redwoods. The moon kept me beaming company all the way down the Ridge and yet was also hanging over the pastel ocean once I arrived there.

It reminded me of when I was a young girl and my mother’s father, the inimitable (and much missed) HoHo, had me convinced that he put the moon up every night, using a long ladder. Once the moon landing happened, I asked him what he did about the astronauts, those men on the moon. He explained that he used a catapult for that. Remembering this half a century later still made me smile as I drove down the beautifully empty highway. Is there anything lovelier than a two lane highway beside the ocean with no other cars in sight on a clear summer morning?

Work has been a crazy thing lately. Or crazier than usual. I worked 35 hours in three days this week, as the Feds examined the operations at the clinic where I work. Weeks of planning, data gathering, and fretting were involved, and there was of course a last minute scramble for documentation, and you know how I love that. In the end, we got 88 out of 93, and have a certain amount of time to fix the 5 things we did not pass. The graders themselves said it was “excellent”, but somehow I just feel let down and not all celebratory like my boss and my coworkers. Maybe because the fix involves having yet another board meeting this month, which means yet another twelve hour day for me.

I have to admit that I’m a bit worn down. I feel like I have been running a marathon. First the move in June, then the dreaded annual staff day and 25th anniversary party in one week in July, then the Feds in August, and now the annual audit is looming in September. I also have to find time to help set up the library’s annual book sale, since I am now the board president, and have been knee deep in dealing with contracts for the library expansion, a thing I know nothing about. Not that this has ever stopped me.

In other library news, yet another board member has passed away, making a total of three this year. To be fair, she was 94, but it’s still a sad loss. She was much loved by the community and still very active on the board. So I am attending her funeral next week and hoping that I will not find myself shoveling dirt onto a coffin again.

I keep thinking, “Once this is over, I can relax”, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.

A YEAR AGO: Yup, the darkness was coming back in. And the new normal does seem to be the norm, since I am sleeping with fans again and can’t remember the last time I didn’t. I miss having the screen door open in the bedroom at the old house. If I have the windows open here, Dodge pushes the screens out.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Under construction!

TEN YEARS AGO: The sudden, unheralded appearance of my landlords. Yet another good reason to move.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Summering in the Hamptons, darling!

It seems to be a universal truth that we all have more things and stuff than we think we do, and we find out how very wrong we were about that when the time comes to move. I thought I had a few boxes in the storage loft over the bathroom, along with the battered old white Christmas tree and sundry decorations. Imagine my horror when I discovered that there were TWENTY ONE – count ‘em, 21 – fun-filled boxes up there.

Going through them was a dust-filled extravaganza that brought up a lot of memories and not a few tears. I got rid of most of the books, including complete sets of the Dr. Dolittle books and Mary Poppins books, as well as all of my Miss Read. I sacrificed the complete collection of Trollopes when I left Oakhampton and I still regret that. I kept one box, which included my father’s childhood book Outdoorland and the Bible my grandfather carried with him when he went to fight in WWI. I also kept his letters home during the War.

I sobbingly threw out countless letters, cards, and postcards from family and friends, though I kept all of my father’s letters. I threw out so many photographs of people I didn’t know. I think they were friends of my grandparents’, but since I didn’t know who they were, off they went. The thought occurred to me that a few years down the road Jarrett or Jessica will be doing the same with the photos I saved.

I kept some color photos of my parents’ wedding, which I had never seen before, and a wonderful photo of my mother’s parents a couple of weeks after their wedding, marked with my grandfather’s hand, “US 8-24-’24”:

Also a breathtaking photo of my grandmother in the full flower of her youth and considerable beauty:

And a photo of my dear friend Alice* and me in her house in Amsterdam, just a couple of years after she stopped modeling. When I shared the photo with her, she noted that she was wearing Jean-Paul Gaulthier:

It brought back so many happy memories of the wonderful times we had together.

I ended up throwing out the old Christmas tree and only keeping my very favorite ornaments (I still miss the one Clyde broke). New house, new tree. I wonder if I had known this past Christmas was going to be the last one in this house if I would have decorated and celebrated instead of ignoring it. I guess a new house calls for a new tree and new traditions.

But for some reason, I was unable to part with the keys to my now million+ dollar apartment in San Francisco.

I told a coworker who moved here from New York about my travails, and she said that after clearing out two attics and a basement, she swore she would never put another thing in her attic. So far her attic remains empty, and houses here don’t have basements. Hopefully I can follow her example and not accumulate more things and stuff after I move. It’s hard to let go of the past, but maybe it can be liberating, too.

**We have been friends for 40 years now. We still email each other nearly every day. I am still thankful every day that she is still with us after that scare a few years ago.

Dad’s birthday dawned sunny and beautiful. He probably would have approved that I spent the morning doing some cooking for the week: my friend Alice’s recipe for dak dori tang (spicy braised chicken) and Ottolenghi’s recipe for mejadra. It was Suzy’s international kitchen!

Megan and Rob hosted the party this year. I arrived to find that the appetizers were ready:

set by a photo we call “American Dad”:

It shows Dad in Cloverdale, wearing Jonathan’s straw hat and holding a slushy from the no longer extant Foster Freeze. He’s standing next to Jonathan’s old car, Grandma. Among Grandma’s eccentricities was the need to operate the windshield wipers by hand, using a string. I love that photo.

The appetizer was baguette with melted cheese and peppers my siblings grew and roasted over mesquite. It was delicious.

We headed to the greenhouse to snip some salad for dinner:

I got some extra to take home. The latest resident of the greenhouse is a Meyer lemon tree, which is something of an experiment. We are hoping it will work, since it would be great to have our own lemons.

Walking back to Megan’s place through the garden, I really felt like the seasons had changed from winter to spring. The plum tree agreed:

I know we are still slated to get more rain, but I think winter has lost its grip on us for now.

Back at Megan’s place, we toasted Dad with the cider we made last fall: “The old man wasn’t so bad!” Megan made spaghetti carbonara to go with the salad, and dessert was two sorbets: one made of wild blackberries and the other from raspberries my siblings grew. They were intense and delicious. After dinner, we watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, this time catching the Master’s cameo and enjoying the film very much.

I think Dad would have approved of his party.

A YEAR AGO: Celebrating Dad’s birthday.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A boy and his dog.

TEN YEARS AGO: Remembering a vintage birthday.

Wartime Dad on His Way to School

A friend noted recently that they had never seen such a family for cleaning our plates as ours. Thinking about the observation, I realized that this was true, and also that our behavior has its roots in WWII.

Our father grew up during WWII, being bombed and having food rationed, and the effects never left him. I believe that it also started him on the path to becoming a research scientist. His childhood home was heated by coal, and by the age of 9, he was experimenting with the coal dust at the bottom of the bin, seeing how much he could mix with other substances and still get some heat from the adulterated briquettes he made.

Rationing went on for about 10 years after the war ended and Dad stopped sleeping in a bomb shelter under the watchful eye of his hero, Winston Churchill, whose photo Dad had cut out of the paper. The photo was still there when I visited my grandparents in 1977, the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. My grandmother used to tell the story of having to live with powdered eggs for years and finally getting a ration of fresh eggs, one per person. On the way back from getting the precious eggs, bombing began and my grandmother hid under a bus with her children and her eggs. She prayed for the safety of the eggs.

I am pleased to report that everyone, including the eggs, survived. But so did the effects of rationing, and they live on in this new (though not necessarily improved) century and from generation to generation. Like Dad, I am incapable of wasting food or leaving a light on in a room when I leave it. I sleep in darkness like he did after years of black outs and turn the heat off at night.

When I cook, I sometimes think of how I come from a long line of good cooks and how I still do things the same way my father and Victorian grandmothers did. I learned to cook from them and I still miss cooking with my father. I loved that we both knew each other’s kitchens so well and that we never got in each other’s way. Of course, having a glass of wine (or two) at hand inspires the cook, as Dad used to say. It’s nice to think that in some ways, they live on in me.

A YEAR AGO: Surprises at the post office.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Being a dog aunt is fun!

TEN YEARS AGO: Rob’s hospital stay ended well (though not as soon as he would have liked).

I took a couple of days off around the Labor Day weekend, and I am pleased to announce that nothing horrible happened for a change. Faithful readers may remember that when I took time off last Labor Day, it was about 5,000 degrees every day, and when I went to Eureka over the Christmas holidays to meet up with friends, I got the Flu from Hell.

So I was a little worried about what might happen on this long weekend – being a worrier – but nothing untoward occurred, unless you count going through the two blanket chests from Megan’s house which supposedly contained Depression glass, but in fact contained 100% junk. It reminded me of when my brother and I cleaned out Mom’s storage in Santa Rosa and found that it was mostly junk, including a phone book from 1982 and an empty answering machine box. It did not make me happy to know I had been paying for years to store Mom’s crap collection.

I have admit that I was hoping for some of Nana’s square, emerald green plates and dishes, like these:

And in my heart of hearts, I was also hoping that maybe, just maybe, there might be a couple of the miniature creamers decorated with rabbits which we used to pour milk on our cereal at her house. Even though I never use milk. Such is the triumph of nostalgia over practicality.

Megan and Rob are out of their house and into their new home. It’s still hard to believe that they aren’t just down the secret path through the woods and huckleberry bushes. They are now in the throes of figuring out where to put everything. Unpacking is almost as much fun as packing when it comes to moving.

Our friend Carrie came up for the weekend with her daughter Miranda. It had been a whole year since they were here last! Erica and Jessica came by for a BBQ one night, full of plans to sell their property and move to British Columbia as soon as possible. I will miss them if they do move. At least we’ll see them at the Fair in a couple of weeks.

Clyde and Audrey are coexisting with Dodge. I think Dodge would like to play with Clyde, but it’s going to take a little more time. Audrey will continue to disdain the interloper like she does everyone else. As long as there are no fights and the older cats are happy, I’m happy.

Included in the adoption fee was a free exam at any local vet, so Dodge got the once-over from Dr. Susan*, Dr. Karen’s partner. She said in 30 years of veterinary practice, she had never seen a cat with markings like Dodge’s. She believes he is a pure-bred Siamese, and that he is very smart and curious. Here he is, exploring his new home:

She was also impressed by how friendly and affectionate he is. So other than needing his fur to grow back and to put on weight, he is in good shape. She agrees that he is around two years old. I wonder what his story is. I guess we’ll never know, but it has a happy ending.

*He’s lucky he didn’t end up being a boy named Sue, considering all the Susans in his life: the one that found him, the one that adopted him, and the one who gave him a check-up.

A YEAR AGO: Having a great time with family and friends.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Lounging in the fabulous spa in Reno.

TEN YEARS AGO: Oh, Ray. I think I miss you most of all. In fact, you may be the only thing I miss about Oaktown.

Every morning now I check the progress of the wildfires on the Cal Fire website. Overall, containment is up, but it seems that the Ranch part of the Mendocino Complex fire keeps losing containment. It’s down to 20% today. Overall, containment is at 46%. Full containment was originally projected for mid August but has been moved to September 1.

Today the air was smoky as well as foggy. Surprisingly, it’s the first time it’s been smoky since the wildfires began in late July. The forecast calls for a shift in the wind tomorrow to clear out the smoke. The Mendocino Complex is now the largest wildfire in recorded California history. My heart aches for our inland neighbors, going through this yet again after just a few short months.

So far, we are safe here on the coast. We are all working together to get Megan and Rob ready to move – next Saturday! Even though their current home is on the small side, there are many things that will not fit in their new abode and are being rehomed. One of these was a rather battered dresser which had been Megan’s since she was a kid:

It was worse enough for wear that she decided to give it away. I listed it on the local message boards and it was snapped up in about an hour by a guy who lived right down the Ridge. When he came to pick it up, he told me that he had helped James to bend the redwood to make my house’s distinctive shape.

Despite the diminutive size of Megan’s house, there seems to be a lot of stuff be sorted and disposed of. That’s what happens when you live in one place for 20 years. Megan observed that this is the only house she has lived in as an adult. She went from living with me during high school to living on a boat at Pier 39 to living in this house.

This is also the last of our homes where our parents spent any time. Dad visited there often, including the time he had a stroke between Megan’s house and what was then Jonathan’s house. He recovered, but died nine months later in London of medical malpractice. Megan’s house is where our mother spent the last few years of her courageous battle against breast cancer. We celebrated many Thanksgivings and Christmases there. When Megan closes that narrow front door for the last time, she will be closing the door on a long chapter of her life and many memories.

A YEAR AGO: A visit from our friend Carrie and a passel of quite excellent teens. They are coming back for Labor Day weekend!

FIVE YEARS AGO: Clyde’s encounter with the slobber monster. He seems to have avoided it ever since, and it had better stay that way. The fur where the injury was is notably white against his black fur.

TEN YEARS AGO: The walk in pharmacy and other Oaktown delights. I do miss Ray the Safeway guy, though.

It’s hard not to retain a certain amount of interest in the past, though sometimes it’s better not to look back, since you might not like what you see. A case in point is my old apartment in San Francisco, which is now unrecognizable.

For starters, someone decided that it would be a great idea to turn the kitchen into a bedroom, making it the first room you see as you enter. The new bedroom presumably uses the small, shallow former pantry space as a closet and has a door and window overlooking the back stairs, allowing its occupant to hear and see their fellow residents throwing their trash down the chute, not to mention the 5 am pick up by the enormous and enormously loud garbage truck.

The hand-made Italian tiles are gone, along with the charming ironing board cupboard in the wall where I stored spices, and, worst of all, the magnificent vintage Wedgewood stove and the quarter-sawn white oak countertops my brother made by hand. Here’s how it used to look:

Here’s how it looks now:

The same geniuses decided to put a generic new kitchen in the former dining room, sacrificing both space and style. It looks like every kitchen everywhere:

They also decided that painting long, windowless walls dark and depressing colors was a great idea:

whereas I painted it them a light color to reflect back the light from the bay windows at the end of the room.

I notice they kept the recessed lighting I put in, though. And they kept the most of the fixtures I put in the bathroom, including the vintage crystal doorknobs, though they painted the walls black and the antique, cast iron clawfoot tub that I had to charm workmen to drag up two flights of stairs black. Because why not make a room whose only natural light comes from an airshaft as dark and dismal as possible?

Here’s how it looked before:

And how it looks now:

It appears that they also closed off the door which led to the walk in closet in the bedroom, which was a wonderful convenience. It was very nice to be able to walk straight from the bathroom into the closet to dress, and vice versa.

I’m sure that adding the so-called bedroom added to the considerable value. Even though there is an apartment above and one below, so you get noise from both, and no parking space*, it is on the market for $1.25 million. We paid $190,000.

To me, what they did to my formerly charming former abode is symptomatic of what is wrong with San Francisco now. They made the place as generic as possible and added an additional “bedroom” to jack up the price and to appeal to the soulless wealthy who now inhabit this once-wonderful city. The beauty and charm of my apartment have vanished along with the charm and character of the city. Now it’s nothing but rich people and expensive stores that could be (and are) found in any city anywhere, instead of each neighborhood having its own special character and delights.

When I lived there, John’s barber brought his dog to work in the shop he owned with his father. The people who owned the grocery store where we shopped would ask you to watch the cash while they cut a watermelon in two for you in the back, and would joke with John about buying sandwiches while I was in England visiting Dad (“Bachin’ it again, eh?”) with a wink and a smile. An older Italian couple owned two neighboring businesses. He repaired shoes and she was a tailor. At lunch time, they would pull two chairs and a little table out to the sidewalk and have lunch together, greeting passersby as they ate. They are long gone, replaced by Starbucks and things of that nature. At least I still have the memories. And I won’t look back anymore.

*The difficulty in parking in that neighborhood, even 20 years ago and even with a permit, is why I ended up selling my beautiful, silver-blue Mustang, Josephine. I’m sure the parking situation has not improved.

A YEAR AGO: I hit a dog with the car. Fortunately, he is as good as new and I am meeting his owners for lunch in a couple of weeks.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Beautiful Day of the Dead art and other fun things.