Happy Birthday Mother!

It seems totally unreal to me that twelve months have passed since I was back in England. One year ago today I was waiting with total excitement and trepidation for my brother to return my mother to her home so that I could say Happy 90th Birthday face to face. This is the photo that never got posted here last year when I returned as it was to become a present to both my sister and mother. Strangely it is possibly one of the only pictures of the three "Cave" women together during our entire lives.

I only wish that the three of us could be together again this year for her 91st today, but sadly it cannot be as she sits at home in England one of us will be in Italy and me I'll be here in the USA - guess that's one life plan she never saw panning out. But do not fear in love and spirit we will all be together raising a glass, celebrating and hoping that very soon we can be together again as last year. Till then may your good health continue and Happy Birthday and many many Happy returns

It isn't only Buffer who brings wildlife in from the garden. Hubby has his moments too! I am also pleased to say I treat them both fairly and scream abuse at hubby in equal measure when he thrust his latest find under my nose.
This little beauty was, he claims, clinging to the front door the other night - can't say I blame it as it was pretty darn cold outside. It is , I am reliably informed by hubby, a tree frog (must need an exceedingly small tree methinks) and it is the creature that transforms the still and quiet of an English summer night that I am used to into the cacophony of jungle calls that are our summer nights here.

OK I admit it it is one cute little critter , but no I didn't want to hold it and NO I didn't want hubby adopting it. I trust it is back in the garden like I asked, and I trust it has a warm hidey hole for the bitter winter to come, but if it fails to make it from the sound of things we have a couple of thousand of its cousins to make up the numbers!

Bad Buffer

Buffer is up to her usual tricks again. This poor little fellow brought in by the intrepid hunter was, unmarked, caught by ME and left under a weighted mug for the night. On hubby's arrival home it was revealed in all it's tiny glory - shaken but not stirred. I sometimes wonder as hubby tosses the nights haul from the deck into the bushes whether it is actually just one mouse we have and it is a continual game that Buffer and the hubby are playing night after night.

Shit Truly Happens .....................

Oh boy when shit happens round here it happens in style, and I suspect we are going to be recovering from what will only be forthwith be referred to as the "poop pile" for some considerable time to come........... such is life as they say. I'm reaching a point where on a day to day basis I can be stoic about it all (in between bouts of voiced and unvoiced Rage). The poop pile was not my doing, and as such it creates a weird reaction in that I will try to be as supportive as I can and silently (yeh me right) take the consequences as they are surely affecting me. But as with all things, from disaster rises revelation in this case a slap in the face to me that I have some amazing friends both here in my new home and still back home in England. To those of you who are aware of the "poop pile" and have aided me, or just listened while I ranted and railed, I can never thank you enough believe me you have helped more than words can say - it can be a lonely place. and it is only when you are forced to accept you are not alone in times of trouble you see the sun truly does shine on the cloudiest of days.

And in the midst of this, September is drawing fast to a close here and the leaves are daily setting the skyline ablaze with the display they put on before they slowly float to the ground revealing winters coming cold and barren skyline. We have had a glorious September, weather wise, and have enjoyed many an evening if not smelling the roses, at least smelling there much more fragrant bed fellow my ever faithful Nicotiana.


Somehow I don't think in England in the last week of September we could sit outside of an evening and enjoy this.

Of course we are fully aware that winter is approaching. and as I have been bemoaning the fact someone ignored me and went about his business. preparing for the cold reality of January to come.




Truly down to hubby's hard work we now have an enormous, stacked, wood pile outside and the promise that we will be warm whatever winter throws at us (well at least for the first weeks)

I was also amazed on my birthday to discover that whilst up in the woods .no doubt irritating the neighbours with the chain saw running for days on end, hubby wasn't just chopping wood. Sometimes you discover that even your own hubby can be that little bit more wonderful and talented than even you knew. I now have my very own mushroom ! Yes hand carved by hubby from a solid piece of wood using the chain saw he created the perfect pond side perch.




This garden is turning into a veritable hideaway for gnomes, bugs, mushrooms and rabbits and of course ......................... the very strange lady from England.

Scenario

Scenario: You are up a ladder trimming branches from a tree, you fall from the ladder breaking ten ribs and two vertebrae at the base of your spine. But for doctors working on you for ninety minutes while you lie in your driveway (including opening your chest to gain access to your trapped heart) you would be dead. You are then life flighted to a specialist hospital where you are placed in intensive care where you are attached to machinery that nurses inform your wife costs $32000 a day to run. Three weeks later you are still in intensive care making a slow but certain recovery - your wife has been able to stay free of charge in hospital provided FOC accomodation to save endless travelling to remain at your bedside.

I wonder what the bill would be running at by now, that is if you have health insurance?

Fortunately this happened in the UK and there will be not one bill arriving from the ambulance/doctor/hospital and no insurance company will decide how long you are allowed to stay till your are fit to go home only the consultant in charge of your care. Yes this is the true face of "socialised"medicine in the UK ............. and before anyone mentions the words "death panels" this happened three weeks ago to my friends father who is 78. God speed his recovery and I know he is recieving the best possible care in the world.

Where did it go?

Impossible though it seems to me today is the fifth anniversary of me stepping off an airplane at Pittsburgh airport and beginning my new life here in America. The day went unnoticed by everyone and totally uncelebrated ....... maybe I should get a second birthday?

I find it incredible that it has actually been five years, it has gone by in a flash, but at the same time it seems like forever since I lived with all things secure and English. Let's get one thing straight I love living in America, married life is nothing if not eventful and I wouldn't do a thing differently given a "do-over". I am frequently asked which country do I like best .... almost a stupid question I have never answered it mainly because it is just that, and this is now my home and wherever you live life truly is what you make it. But I would be dishonest if I didn't admit that in my heart England is still home not in any tangible sense but more in the same way a black man whatever ever he changes in his life will always be a black man. The longer I live here and the more accustomed and assimilated I become it will forever be England and the English ways which course my veins.

I wasn't a sweet young thing that stepped off that plane, yes yes far from it. I had had almost fifty years taking an awful lot of things that I assumed were facts of life for granted and though you can re-learn the tangible - how to mail a letter, new tax forms and letters, - there are many intangibles that I discover I cannot re-learn, or perhaps more accurately don't want to. It isn't possible to truly explain, in the same way a tourist however long they stay never fully understands a country the same is true here. The things I find hardest are the core values. I come from a place that has health care for all, its isn't free every taxpayer pays, and it sure never seemed "socialist" as it is portrayed here. But it was a fundamental right of all just like education, free speech etc. I cannot understand a country where they claim to be the leaders of the world but their citizens can lose everything by an illness or accident that means at any moment anyone can be wiped out financially. I was used to a country where a news channel presented facts, and debate or discussion meant hearing two sides to an argument with a reasonable unbiased view mediating and at no point did it degenerate to lies, abuse and name calling.

I came from a country which for a large part of my lifetime faced regular terrorist acts on its soil in the name of freedom and religion but with a government who eventually negotiated a peace with those said same terrorists because fundamentally that is what reasonable people do - to a country where the mere talk of talking to "the enemy" can be a cause of derision and abuse. I came from a country where even the police don't carry guns let alone the citizens, to a country where even my own husband (and yes I do not understand why) would defend his own constitutional right (set out in a document in a time and place oh so different from now) to bear arms, to his dying breath. I came from a country where servicemen were doing a job they had chosen, no different in that regard to many others, to a land where just by joining up you can become a "hero" and acquire a host of benefits for life regardless of any true reasons for joining up in the first place. I'm sorry I just don't get that an American is any more patriotic than a Brit. I come from a place where we have some respect for others be they old, young, black, white, gay, straight and although I have no illusion that there isn't prejudice galore in England it has absolutely nothing by comparison to what I have experienced here, in the country that truly does believe itself to be intrinsically the greatest place on earth. In a hundred ways it is not my country and I know that because of who and what I am I will never truly belong even if one day I do learn to speak the language properly.

But it is my home and I love it. After a long and lonely first year I have made friends and despite everything possible conspiring against us hubby and I have a life together and are happy - you never know one day we may retire and actually get to see each other. It is a totally different lifestyle to that which I left behind and I miss both the people and places I left but this is my life now and somewhere whilst I wasn't looking five years have passed and I look forward to the next five years which the same sense of adventure with which I approached the last five.

Boys 'n their toys

I have never been quite able to hide the fact that cars do nothing for me. They are merely functional in the same way a typewriter is merely a box to create a neat readable missive. A car is just a box to transport you from A to B. So when husband took possession of his dad's treasured Oldsmobile I wasn't quite as enthusiastic as he was and I promise it had nothing to do with the fact that it is PINK (sorry as husband forever corrects me it isn't PINK its "Coral"). When you have a car that needs more cleaning than any other car has had in its entire lifetime and then once gleaning you don't drive it anywhere to this dumb female it's kind of defeated it's production line purpose - sort of the sissy of the car world.

It isn't cute, it isn't phallic its just big with a weird kind of charm. Of course hubby loves it and is having a ball with it this summer. I once lived with someone who revealed to me (oh lucky me) just how much boxing there was on television I now have the car equivalent ....... have you any idea just how many "Classic Car" Shows there are ? Well I hadn't either until we took possession of the beast, I can now reveal it's one every weekend whoopee!

Don't even begin to try to explain to me the fascination of lining your old car (dare I say Clunker .... perhaps not) up alongside everybody elses old car and standing back and sharing the "your cars older than my car" stories with all who pass by. OK I admit it I'm cynical and really don't have any problem with hubby wiling away his Sunday afternoons, whilst I am at work, in a field with a bunch of old motors and motorists

Occasionally you even get a pretty cool picture out of the days events

And a plus is some prime bonding time, sharing his passion with a grandson.

And I admit that occasionally me and a friend can get ourselves chauffeured out to dinner in the beast.

And somehow from this angle even I find her vaguely attractive.

But best of all to justify your summers efforts are moments like this one

When on his 82nd birthday you get to share the spoils of your summer with your Dad, precious moments, precious memories.

Just sad

It was a strange day, the passing of two icons of a generation, my generation. It was with little surprise that I heard the announcement this morning that Farah Fawcett had died, finally succumbing to the cancer she had battled so hard against. In contrast it was with total shock that I took the news of Michael Jacksons death when hubby came out to the garden this evening and told me.

It would have been impossible to grow up in the 70's or 80's with access to either a radio or TV and not to have been effected by one or both of these two icons for a generation. Did you want Farrah's hair, figure or whatever she had that certain something that any teenage girl wanted! Personally I wasn't a fan of Charlies Angels, have never had any urge to go blonde and have always been "blessed" with big hair. I much preferred her later work especially the film "The Burning Bed". I recently watched the video diary of her battle against cancer and was impressed by her strength and what shone through as an amazing woman with a wonderful zest for life and the relationship she shared with Ryan O'Neal. Her imminent death was obvious but no less sad when it comes.

By contrast no-one my age hasn't danced to the music of Michael Jackson. His music has been part of my life since I can first remember watching Top of the Pops with the Jackson Five and then as a solo artist. Again I wasn't a big fan but his influence was everywhere and like much of the music of my generation many of his songs can evoke a memory and take me back to another time and yes like many million others I do have a couple of his records in my collection. Unlike Farrah there was a fragilty to what was undoubtedly the genius of Michael Jacksons character. I suspect the fame may never have brought him true happiness and from childhood onwards it would appear behind the facade was a deeply troubled human.

Two icons so different but who were both a part of our lives for so long both now dead before their time. Death comes as an end to us all but its inevitabilty doesn't lessen the shock. I hope for both that they are now at peace one from the pain at the end of her life the other from what appeared to be the pain that was his life. Their work means that both will live on for a very long time.

This is how it is .......................

Rarely do I direct anyone reading this to another blog, basically because I'd rather you waste your time reading mine, but then you find something and just know you have to share.

In the last couple of weeks I've had a few "wake up" epiphany moments. First I was making my usual banal, mindless, conversation with a customer who just happened to have lived in Europe for a few years (England four years, Spain two) and she said something that I have been thinking for the last three years and now hearing come from a middle-aged American made me want to leap the register and hug her. What were these words of wisdom, so profound? Actually something very simple ......... "Americans are so brainwashed!". This wasn't an observer this was someone who is American but who had stepped outside and lived the other life just like me! And her conclusion astounded me, not for it's content, I long ago realised the same conclusion, but because this was the first time I had heard an American with knowledge of the other side articulate the same. She cited lifestyle, healthcare, transport infrastructure etc. and stated the Americans haven't a clue about the truth of the UK system and that it far outweighs what is on offer here. As I am actually not allowed to leap registers and embrace strangers at work I just smiled to myself and realised I'm not totally going crazy living here ..........

Another wake up call has been watching numerous of my colleaugues at work get sick of late and enter the American health system. Couple this with the current arguments going on here regarding Obama's desire for health reform and I spend my time feeling like I need a pemanent roll of Duck Tape in my hand to apply to my mouth at any available moment! Here is not the place to comment on the disparities in treatment that I see. Just to say to those I know who believe the current system here is "the best" and shouldn't be meddled with I disagree whole heartedly and that is from someone who has experienced the "socialist UK model" for the better part of 47 years and would take it over everything I see here every day of the week. Healthcare here may be good if you have ful access to it but if you live in a depressed area where wages are low and access to insurance is poor, you don't have the choices that others have and that is not right or fair in a civilised society - choices in basic healthcare should not be determined by either your wage packet or your employer human rights 101 in a civilised society in my book. I believe in universal healthcare provided via a single payer system (there I said it) and that is from someone who has lived both sides of the coin.

And so to my blog recommendation if you are looking for an amusing take on life/politics here. Take two 80 year old ladies, living on opposite sides of the country, creating a discourse on current news today.

MagaretandHelen

This blog not only makes me smile but really does give me hope that there are like minded thinkers here ......... and you never know maybe an activist or two god forbid.

And should anyone wish to create a similar style blog dicourse on the UK v American healthcare system (Malcolm?) I'm up for it !