Not because I’m home, but because of what showed up in our huge stack of mail.
A letter from my husband’s employer that said we need to verify our marriage or I’d be dropped from health insurance.
I was stunned, I tell you, stunned.
We celebrated 37 years of marriage this summer. THIRTY SEVEN!
I spent a good hour gathering requested documents. Scanning and printing said documents. They want them faxed.
Requested documents included a certificate of marriage and tax returns, bank or mortgage statement.
What ticked me off is I am a former employee of this firm. They have everything about me. ALSO, we have a number of bank and investment accounts AND mortgages with this company.
When we filled out mortgage applications, we provided all the requested documents including tax returns and bank statements. They have our information.
How can I NOT be verified as a spouse?
Of course, I am providing all the information. I’m just annoyed that I have to do it. We live in a world where everything is compartmentalized and computerized. The personal touch is gone in much of our lives. We’re a number. Gone are the days of my childhood where we all knew each other.
I guess this is a reality check that my vacation is indeed over. Back to real life.
What has annoyed you this past week? Or have you had a great week without minor inconveniences?
Hedgehog cactus in bloom in a pot in our backyard.
I was surprised to see cacti in bloom in our yard. I didn’t think August would be the time for such beauty in the desert. Maybe it’s the rain we’ve had? I’m learning that in the Sonoran Desert, plants bloom throughout the year.
This blossom is right outside our front door. It’s the first thing I saw on my morning walk.We walked extra early because a rainstorm was headed our way. I loved how the hillside was touched with sunlight. It did rain on the way home, but it felt great.
Yesterday, one of my neighbors went with me to a framing store. She’s a watercolor artist. One day when she was at our house, she said I needed to reframe a painting.
“But that’s the original frame,” I said.
“That’s okay. A new frame will brighten up the painting. Right now the frame cuts off the painting and makes it look dark.”
I invited her to accompany me to the framing store. She obviously has better knowledge in frames than me.
This is the original frame. The painting is by Lawrence Hinkley, who was married to my husband’s great aunt.Here is the same painting without the frame in the framing store. I can’t wait to get it back with its new look. It’s definitely brighter, don’t you think?
We received the painting from my husband’s grandfather before he passed away. I have treasured it and thought it would be sacrilegious to reframe it.
I did a google search of the artist Lawrence Hinckley and found out lots of interesting things. He was born in 1900 in Fillmore, California. He created a studio called “The Artists Barn” that attracted internationally renowned artists and visitors. Hinkley also worked in ceramics and made an elephant piggy bank named Fundo for a women’s Republican group in Santa Barbara.
From a news article I found online from the Fillmore Gazette:
As Mildred Hinckley in her book “The Artists Barn”, “The result was a cuddly little elephant about six inches long and half as high, with a tummy fat enough to hold a lot of dimes and quarters. His name was “Fundo”…On his white back was printed in red and blue, “Peace, Prosperity, and G.O.P.” Production of Fundo had just started then President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack. The Club requested that Fundo be sent to the President in the hospital. Lawrence personally decorated on, adding the usual inscription “For Ike” and “Get Well Soon.” I wrapped Ike’s Fundo and mailed it to the hospital.
Mildred went on to write, “On the morning of November 11, Lawrence was downtown and stopped in a café for a cup of coffee….When he opened the Los Angeles Examiner and started reading the lead story under a double column headline he nearly spilled his drink. It read in part, ” …… all during his illness, it was revealed, [President Eisenhower] has been persuading visitors to his eighth-floor hospital room to put something into his personally sponsored kitty, an elephant made of crockery with a slot for the deposit of money…..”
My husband told me that Hinckley also worked for Disney and painted some of the backgrounds of the classic movies. During World War II, he worked for Douglas Aircraft on technical drawings and charts.
I feel like I’ve discovered treasures including the history of my husband’s artist relative and the blossoming cacti.
Have a great weekend!
What treasures or small pleasures have you enjoyed this week?
Today my husband and I went looking for art, stone or something for two 16 by 16 inch spaces at the top of our bar. We found a few things including glass, natural stone and geodes. But we have different ideas of what will work. I want a bright contrasting color like orange or red. He wants green or blue. I like green and blue, but I feel those colors will get lost.
I have a feeling those spaces will remain empty.
It was very hot and humid outside. We walked around our little town of Carefree and then Cave Creek going in and out of consignment stores and art galleries. When I got back home I felt dizzy with vertigo. I have gotten vertigo twice in the past year. Hopefully this time it goes away quickly without having to see the doctor or going on prednisone like the last two times.
I’m sitting in bed typing this and finishing my neighborhood’s newsletter — hoping I don’t fall off!
Have you had vertigo? What has worked for you to get over it? Happy August First!
I got back home from running errands right before the storm hit. My phone gave that loud alarm with a flash flood warning stating to shelter in place, that it was a matter of life and death. For hours the rain poured and the thunder was constant. It was exciting but the noise level was exhausting.
Sunset views.
When the rain began, while there was still visibility.The view from our driveway after the storm passed.
After the storm, we had a beautiful sunset. Today the rain should be here at 11 a.m. and last until the sun goes down again. I guess this is the Monsoon season I’ve heard so much about.
Have a great weekend everyone!
What are your plans for the weekend? Are you having any unusual weather?
Vacation motivated me to clean out my closet. Seriously, every time I come home from a trip I want to throw things out. It’s because I manage to live with very few things on vacation. I love the lack of clutter and stuff. I manage to pack just what I need and live quite well without anything extra.
I decided to make a promise to myself this week. One shelf or drawer per day. That’s it. It’s doable. Like my husband says, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
What happened on day one was I did two shelves — one shelf led to another. On day two I did the entire dresser. Today I am doing the hanging clothes. It will be done before the week is over. I’m surprised at some of the clothes I moved. I wonder why I didn’t throw more out at that point? I think it was because I got exhausted with all the decision making of moving from a house of 28 years.
I feel better. I feel more organized, lighter. However my husband said he can’t tell any difference. Thanks a lot.
What motivates you to clean closets? How do vacations motivate you?
I was talking to my son on the phone and he didn’t sound well. He sounded congested and he was coughing.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure it’s allergies,” he said. “But I’ve had trouble breathing at night for the past few days.”
After he hung up the phone with me, he called back to say he had taken a COVID test and he tested positive.
I told him to call his doctor and he said he would, and he had to call other people like his PT that he had been around in the past day or two.
Because he has asthma, he is a high risk COVID patient. The doctor gave him an RX for an experimental antiviral. Currently, he’s in bed miserable. I’m hoping the drug kicks in soon and he shows improvement. Yes, I’m worried.
Next, I got a phone call from the mother of the bride from the wedding we went to on the weekend. She sounded awful and said she tested positive for COVID too. While we were at the wedding, we talked to one guest from overseas who said his wife traveled all the way for the wedding only to test positive that morning. So she was in bed and flew halfway around the world for nothing. I’ve heard of a few other people who came down with it, too.
A neighbor called and asked me out for lunch. I told her I will wait a few days. I don’t feel like I have COVID, but on the other hand, I’ve been exposed. I think the polite thing is to stay in for a few days and make sure I’m not coming down with it and test.
My book club was cancelled this week due to the hostess having COVID rebound.
It seems weird to be this far along from 2020 and have the pandemic rear it’s ugly head.
Have you heard of an uptick in COVID lately? Or is it just the people around me?
My mom cooked oxtail soup. Now it’s one of my specialties. I cooked these two pots of soup for Christmas week when we had our son’s girlfriend’s family stay with us.
My mother had a few recipes that I couldn’t stomach. Mom loved the odd cuts of meat (like organs) and learned how to cook them from her mother and grandmother. I don’t remember many of our neighborhood moms cooking the same things.
I liked her chicken hearts that were dusted in flour and fried. But I passed on gizzards.
Beef tongue was a hard pass.
Mom’s beef heart I could handle. She’d stuff the heart and bake it in the oven. Then she sliced it and I’d have a thin ring of heart around delicious stuffing.
The oxtail soup I shied away from until I hit junior high. Then I discovered oxtails were the most tender delicious meat I’d ever eaten and the broth was rich but so flavorful. Years later, I made oxtail soup for my “at the time boyfriend.” I overheard him telling a friend that he had to marry me because of my oxtail soup.
“How can she make something so amazing out of !!#!??”
I discovered this recipe in one of my great-grandmother’s cookbooks that she published in the early 1900s and sold to Ladies’ church auxiliaries across the country. It’s my dream to bring the little cookbooks back to life. Great-grandmother Nellie’s recipe is not how I cook oxtail soup, but it’s the same general principle.
My dad’s side of the family had some oddball dishes too. Christmas meant Lutefisk and fish head stew. I could not get myself to stop staring at the eyeballs staring up at me from the stew. It definitely killed my appetite.
If you haven’t heard of Lutefisk this is from Wikipedia:
Lutefisk is prepared as a seafood dish of several Nordic countries. It is traditionally part of the Christmas feast; Norwegian julebord and Swedish julbord, as well as the similar Finnish joulupöytä.
