Reason Gone Mad

Althought it may be a tad bit late to be talking about New Year's resolutions, I just want to put it out there that my goal in 2012 is to let my hair down! I want to be less cautious, more quirky. Starting now.

I tried to convince some of my co-workers to don our Groucho glasses as we went through LaGuardia Airport Friday afternoon, but they decided that the TSA probably wouldn't appreciate the humor. However, I did wear them when Bill picked me up at the Jacksonville airport later that night and he does have a good sense of humor, thank goodness!

"Humor is reason gone mad." Groucho Marx

2011 Flashback: Not Again!

Heading home today from my bi-weekly visit to the local library I took a detour through a neighborhood just to familiarize myself with the area. All the streets were named after fairy tale, nursery rhyme or Disney movie characters. There was Cinderella Street, Snow White, Peter Pan, Bambi, Mother Goose, Tom Thumb, Boy Blue, Londonbridge and several others. I thought, how odd to have a “storybook” address.

Then I pondered the “storybook” life that some people seem to have. Everything just falls into place no matter what. Given the rollercoaster ride with my company over the past two decades, some may feel I've enjoyed a happy ending each time. I guess it depends on one's definition of "happy" but I've almost always looked forward to going to work each day no matter the challenges that awaited.

For several months there’s been a lot of turmoil and angst at Communefx, as upper management worked through the details of being acquired by another agency and made in/out decisions about the fates of 80+ co-workers on our campuses in Pittsburgh, Phoenix and Louisville. Many of my co-workers of just a few years, and some of 10, 15 or 20 years, will not be part of the acquisition. The survivors will struggle with equal measures of relief and guilt, but since we all know that things can still turn on a dime, add a heaping dose of continued anxiety to our states of mind too.

For the past several weeks I’ve slept fitfully, tossed and turned, struggled with 2 a.m. panic attacks and then tried to remain upbeat and positive during the day. Finally, after landing in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night and checking in to the hotel, I gave it up. I lay in bed and asked God not that I would keep my job but to give me the courage to be gracious in the face of loss. I asked for re-assurance that He is in control no matter what happens.

At a company meeting in Pittsburgh on Wednesday the new organization chart was revealed. I’ve made the cut. Then, it was on to another flight the next day to meet my new bosses and co-workers in Norwalk, CT. As I sat in their company meeting I had a déjà vu flashback to a year ago. This same week in 2011, I was in Louisville, KY, again sitting in another company’s meeting witnessing the deconstruction of that company in order to acquire part of it. This week it was Communefx being deconstructed for acquisition.

There’s still a lot to be worked out, new personalities to get to know, a different corporate culture to assimilate. But the constant that remains is the One I can turn to, giving thanks in all circumstances.

Just Call Me Gilligan

Not having been much of a boater growing up, and not being a very strong swimmer either, I was pretty nervous when Bill and I decided to get into boating in 2006. After all, the only “port” I was familiar with was of the alcoholic variety, and “stern” is what my husband looks like when he lifts one eyebrow! But gradually, with a lot of help from veteran boaters, I conquered my fear and the Allegheny River.

Oh, little did I know what was ahead! The Allegheny River, while swift, is about a quarter mile in width and only gets whitecaps when there’s a strong northwest wind. Marker buoys were plentiful and even night cruising was pretty simple. The most challenging thing we ever had to do was dock the Pure Grace in a hard wind against a strong current. That, as Bill says, is what bow and stern thrusters are for!

Contrast that with the three-mile-wide St. John’s River (which flows north, by the way!) where one is a true fool for boating without understanding how to read a chart or use a chart plotter (GPS for the river).  Having been loaned a Garmin chart plotter and armed with a comprehensive river map, we decided to spend New Year’s Day cruising south to visit new friends. The day dawned bright and then the fog rolled in. After delaying our departure by a couple of hours the fog had lifted and we set out. Fifteen minutes and a couple miles later we were stuck in the middle of pea soup! Thank goodness there were very few other boaters on the river but we did have to dodge the crab and eel pots. After feeling our way around in the fog for over an hour, it lifted enough so that we could pick up the speed and continue on our way. I don’t know if I was soaking wet from nervous sweat or the moisture in the air!

By two o’clock we were pulling up in Florence Cove, where our hosts Rex and Jimmie Patton were ready to take us to lunch at the Outback Crabshack, which catches it own crabs for the menu. For decades the Crabshack was a favorite boater’s hangout, casual with great seafood, but the economic downturn and rising fuel prices has really hurt their business. After lunch, Jimmie showed us her covey of peacocks and peahens, feeding them with cat kibble, and Rex gave us some pointers about avoiding crab pots. Steer to the side of the marker with the knot! That means the pot line (usually a chain) is slanting out on the opposite side of the buoy. Definitely not something to get tangled in the props!

We wanted to get back to the marina tonight because the weather tomorrow is supposed to be much cooler with high winds so we declined our friends’ offer to spend the night at their dock and pushed off late afternoon. I was able to get some beautiful shots of the sunset before we lost our light and the final hour of our cruise gave us some night practice. Although it was a bit hairy trying to locate and miss the crab pots in the dark, Bill made a perfect "landing" in Slip B49 and I added six engine hours eight minutes to the log!

Putting the Lid on 2011

I once read an article about life stressors which assigned points for the types of events that occur in your life. So many points for birth, death, wedding, job change or loss, a move, etc. and, of course, the more points you had, the more likely you were to be maxed out with stress. Thirty years ago I managed to accumulate enough points to, theoretically, give me a heart attack. In 1981 I went through a divorce and a new marriage (complete with two stepdaughters), lost two grandparents, moved three times, ended one job and began another in a brand new city, and bought a new house. My health didn’t suffer, so I guess it’s true what one of my stepdaughters tells me, that “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

This past year, 2011, was a bookend: I gave up two pets, sold the home I’d lived in the longest ever, went through a major downsize of possessions, moved to a new city and said goodbye to friends I’ve had the longest ever. Thank goodness there were no deaths in the immediate family, although a great-aunt died on Christmas. Thank goodness I’m not looking for a new job too! And, most of all, thank goodness Bill and I were able to celebrate 30 years together and start this adventure in good health!

While visiting my family in Chicago over Christmas my mother dug up the address of the house we lived in here in Jacksonville in 1958-59. Coincidentally, it’s only a couple of miles from our marina, but 50+ years has changed the area dramatically. Back then it was “out in the country”, now it’s part of the city of Jacksonville. We were here because my father’s first congregation after finishing his studies at the seminary was here, an all black church that is still functioning today. We only stayed 18 months because the Klanners didn’t appreciate a white man ministering to black people. It only took a couple of bomb threats before the elders of the congregation regretfully asked us to leave. The family headed south to Miami Beach, to a new start-up church primarily serving nearby military bases. Then in 1962 Fidel Castro decided to posture a bit and my elementary school incorporated missile defense activities into the curriculum. I was never sure how crouching under the desk in my first grade classroom would protect me from a bomb.

Tonight Bill and I observe a tradition we started over 20 years ago when he was a pilot for USAirways: celebrating Christmas together on New Year’s Eve. For many years Bill pulled trips on Christmas, then we spent the holidays first in Phoenix with his mother and then with my family in Chicago, so it was just a postponement of our own gift giving.

So as we unwrap packages tonight and ring in the new year, we’ll package up the memories of 2011 and put a lid on it! May 2012 be bright and beautiful for you, and may you know the love and saving grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

To Us

I’ve been looking at life through my mother-in-law’s eyes lately. I hear her voice in my head exclaim, “Oh, isn’t that elegant!” and I remember her unfeigned delight at the littlest of refinements. A carafe of water on her bedside table. White linen tablecloths and matching napkins. Nibbles, as she called them, enjoyed with a pre-dinner glass of wine. Her favorite toast was simple: To us!

Catharine was especially insistent that anniversaries be commemorated with an elegant dinner. For nearly 10 years after my father-in-law died she would arrive in Pittsburgh for the Christmas holiday a few days before our anniversary. We always celebrated it with her, the three of us dining atop Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington, or in the Strip District, or at a cozy suburban restaurant. Our 20^th anniversary was the last one she spent with us. Travel was difficult that year 2001 and the post-holiday flight back to Sun City was the last she would take. A painful bout of shingles followed by a broken hip and a fall ensured that we would have to go to her for the next several Christmases, arriving well after our anniversary date.

Today her son and I celebrated 30 years of marriage, enjoying dinner at a new-to-us restaurant in a new city. Although it was not “white tablecloth” – in fact, there was no tablecloth – we were grateful to be in a position where we could afford a meal out.

I inherited a lot of elegant things from my mother-in-law, some of them surrendered this summer at garage sales, most of them in storage for who knows how long. There’s not a lot of room here on the Pure Grace for elegant stuff, and although boats and glass don’t mix well, I do insist on serving that pre-dinner drink in a real wine glass. To us, Catharine!

It Shall Be So

The Christmas season officially began on Saturday, December 3 at 8 p.m. Although we start Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving because that’s a box that needs to be checked as soon as possible, the season really doesn’t start until we’ve taken in a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

In years past, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Mendelssohn Choir would perform this beloved oratorio not until the third weekend in December. Oh, sure, we put the tree up a week prior and I decorated the house, sent out cards, baked cookies (back when I was actually interested in doing that), but in my heart, it wasn’t Christmas until I heard the Hallelujah Chorus. There were many years in the past 30 that Messiah was not performed at Heinz Hall, so we made do with recordings…but it just wasn’t the same.

So yesterday I purchased five dozen homemade Christmas cookies at a local church cookie walk, we put up a small tree and affixed a wreath to the bow window, and then we got dressed up and headed the five miles into downtown Jacksonville for the performance. We had perfect seats, eleven rows from the stage, right in the center. Not quite close enough to see the mezzo-soprano’s tonsils when she sang the recitatives from Luke 2, but close enough to watch the very expressive faces of the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus.

We found that we were seated next to the symphony’s development director, whose husband soft pedaled a subscription to the 2012 Masterworks series of performances. We do plan to take in another concert this spring, courtesy of two vouchers in return for bringing a toy for The Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Toy Drive.

I loved every part of Messiah, but my favorite is the final Amen Chorus, and not because it’s the end of the performance! Christmas has begun. It shall be so!

Thanks Giving Wherever You Are

Thanksgiving has not been a traditional family affair for Bill and me during most of our married life. On our very first Thanksgiving together he proposed to me in a seafood restaurant, having hidden the ring in a basket of rolls. We had just moved to Pittsburgh and our families lived in Chicago and Phoenix. Then over the next three decades we often celebrated the day with friends, at their homes or at ours. Our second Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh saw a nice gathering of my Mellon Bank co-workers at our first home; I think there were eight at that table.

One year we flew to Phoenix to celebrate the Thanksgiving Day 80th birthdays of my father-in-law and his twin sister; the flight was delayed so it was close to 10 p.m. before we could join Bill’s family at a restaurant in Scottsdale. Another very sad year we were in Chicago having held vigil at my father’s hospital bedside for four days when we got the 4 a.m. call on Thanksgiving morning that he died. Coincidentally, my paternal grandfather had also died that time of year; he had a fatal heart attack the day after Thanksgiving.

Some years when it was just the two of us Bill prepared the turkey and dressing; when it was my responsibility I bought turkey dinners from Boston Market! There were also many years when Bill was flying for US Airways. Sometimes I was able to get a free seat and spend it with him in another city; when I couldn’t manage to do that, I enjoyed Thanksgiving with our good friends the Kellys.

This year, our first Thanksgiving in our new hometown, we began it rather more traditionally by attending a Thanksgiving Day worship service at one of the two Lutheran churches we’ve visited. Very few churches in the Pittsburgh area would have the service on Thursday morning, opting to hold it the evening before, so this was a nice change. Later we took a 4+ mile roundtrip walk to a small community’s Main Street and peered into all the storefront windows. As Bill noted to another couple doing the same, “This is the best way to shop!” Later, we drove into south Jacksonville for a traditional turkey dinner at The Chart House, at a table with a river view.

 
So, even though Madison Avenue tries very hard to have you believe that it’s just not Thanksgiving unless you have braved weather and incredible flight delays to get home halfway across the country, don’t believe it! Thanksgiving is what’s in your heart and what comes out of your lips, whether you’re alone or crowded around the family table. Be thankful in all circumstance and above all, be a blessing to others.