The last day of the year.  I like to list some of the best moments of 2016.  Anne Morrow Lindberg wrote that we can't expect best whole days, only that there are best moments, moments that give us joy and pleasure.  So here are my best moments of the year:

(1)  Five minutes of fame being in the Poughkeepsie Journal for having a weasel live with us in the house.  I still think it was a least weasel, but the authority said they are rare in New York State.  But I saw her and her picture and I am certain it was a least weasel.
(2) Shane's graduation from Simon's Rock - when his Aunt Rachael asked "Where's Sammy?" her dog she inherited from her mother, my best friend.  Sammy was found right where she left her, by the library.  As Uncle Toby had said, "This could be bad, really bad" and it turned out fine.
(3) Solomon playing the trumpet at his grandfather's memorial.  Over the rainbow, very suiting, Joel loved the Wizard of Oz even though the flying monkeys scared him as a kid.
(4) Wellfleet - again.  Four generations - the youngest being Cove who took to the water just like his name.  I enjoyed the boys' humor, especially their discussions on Star War on the beach.  Good to see the Kelly's all together enjoying the walk to the Gut.
(5) David Sedaris at Bard College.  A birthday gift from Paul and Helene, Sabra and I waited in line before the show and he signed my copy of Maria's obituary, me explaining how much she loved his writing.  He signed his name, with the word "sadly".
(6) Oysterfest - again Wellfleet, meeting Caleb P in PJ's restaurant.  He told Timmy that Timmy was an LM.  I thought he meant my name, but then he explained  - LM lucky man.  He sure is.
(7) Church.  This is a strange one, but I am getting used to my new church.  I especially like it when our priest put a statue of Saint Lazarus on the front altar.  He looked like a Halloween fright, rags falling off, bloody sores that the dogs were licking.  I tried to find one on the internet that looked as good (or as bad) , but none came close to that.
(8) And finally, Maria's Christmas tree.  We usually make a blanket, cover chicken wire with branches and decorate that to lay flat on her grave,  This year Laura suggested putting up a whole, regular size real tree.  So the girls bought one at Williams, we decorated it at Sabra's house and drove it fully decorated and in a stand to the grave.  When it was situated there, you had to smile.  A full size real Christmas tree, putting all the other wreath covered gravestones to shame. 
(9) The really best moment when Timmy put the sick skunk in my car to drive to another location and the car came back, skunkless and stinkless .  You can't ask for more than that.  Happy New Year.

For Christmas I got two items that were exactly the same thing, from Sabra and Laura.  They were a pair of socks that have different faces on them with the word asshole near by - men, women even a cat and a dog, all with the word asshole written by then, except for the cat which said not an asshole.

This was an appropriate gift because one of my favorite words is asshole.  You can use it with so many different adjectives....dumb asshole, stupid asshole, perfect asshole, wise asshole.  You don't even need an adjective, the word itself is so good.  In Planes Trains and Airplanes I laughed out loud when John Candy said "You inconsiderate asshole".  I'm still waiting to use that one.

Bucky liked the word asshole.  I remember fondly being in Beacon and workers were putting a roof on their house. My brother was complaining about them - "they take too many breaks, they disappear for hours at lunch, etc, etc".  My mother just looked at him and said disgustedly, "You're the asshole that hired them."  Bucky knew when to use the word.  If she were alive, I would give one of my pair of socks to her.  Merry Christmas to all.   

I have in my pocket two horse chestnuts from Provincetown.  We were walking on Commercial Street when I noticed piles of horse chestnuts just under a fence.  I asked Timmy to get me some and he did.  We used to have horse chestnut trees all over the place.  The last one I knew of in Tivoli was blighted and torn down.  I remember Bucky always picking up horse chestnuts and keeping them in her pocket.  Then I read Anne Morrow Lindberg and she did the same thing.  On her walks,she would stoop and pick up a chestnut and drop it in her pocket.

These chestnuts are poisonous, not like the ones for sale near the holidays.  They look alike, except the edible ones have a point.  Horse chestnuts do not.  The ones from Cape Cod are small, not big and healthy like the ones that I remembered.  They are suppose to be good for circulation and also an aid to arthritis as they are anti inflammatory.  I just like reaching into my pocket and feeling them, warm to the touch and smooth.  Like a worry stone and also a reminder of last week and 60 some years ago.  And just maybe they will help my knees.

Home from Wellfleet since last Sunday.  I love Wellfleet, especially the cabins in the Sea Shells.  Each day brings a completely different view, the changing tides, the changing sky and clouds, the sunsets and the sunrises.  I told Timmy it's like being in an art museum.  You are in one room and you think" this is beautiful".  Then you go into the next, and you say "Wow, this is really something".
And when you are heading toward Provincetown on Route 6, you go over a hill and there are the dunes to one side, the rows of identical cottages on the other side - it's like another world entirely.

We did our usual, one day a trip to Orleans for the Bird Store ( Timmy won a pencil for his riddle:  What month has 28 days in it?  There were all old people waiting in line, and one old man couldn't help himself and blurted out THEY ALL DO.  An old lady said she heard that joke back in second grade and we all had a good laugh.  Every year if you give them a joke, they give you a free pencil.  No different this year).  Then on to the Christmas Shop, Fish Market and back on the beach for the afternoon.

The next day is Provincetown, my favorite card store, a new age type store and the red Lobster for my usual lunch, crab filled avocado.  On the way back, we stop at the graveyard and plant the bulbs on Mr. Brown and give him a pumpkin, that you can see from the road.  A stop at the Preservation Hall showed us that Maria's name was no longer on the top of the bench, just on the arm.  Timmy picked the bench right up to see if it had fallen off, but no piece of slate with her words and name "my heart belongs in Wellfleet". We spoke to someone who took down the information and promised it would be fixed.

We did go to the realty that had rented us a house this summer.  The owner had found Jer's keys, lost in July and found in October.  A miracle if you ask me.  And Uncle Phil's wedding ring was still attached.  Honest people still exist in this world.

But the big surprise was the Department of Health closed the Wellfleet bay for all shellfish. So the Oysterfest was an oysterfreefest. Still a big crowd, even bigger than last year.  The music was good and the cam chowder and lobster roll hit the spot.  Coming home, we stopped at Catherine's in Great Barrington for Halloween candy.  Same as ever.  Just like seeing the geese flying south, this past week is a symbol of the summer gone and winter ahead.

The hot August nights are full of the sound of crickets.  I found one today on the porch, pretty big, but I have seen bigger.  We used to go to Wellfleet in August. I would get a small cottage "The Owl's Nest" and Maria would get an identical one right next to me.  They were really nice, on a quiet road, overlooking Black Creek.  Getting to town was easy.  A quick walk across Cannon Hill (really fun at low tide when the fiddler crabs were running around) and the walk across Uncle Tim's Bridge got you there is minutes.

But one thing, it was August and the crickets were amazing.  Rachael came over one morning, I think she was about ten.  She complained that a cricket had kept her up all night with his racket and now was behind the refrigerator, still at it.  I teased her and said, "well he is now your pet, you have to give him a name."  She looked at me disgusted and said, "I already did.  His name is ass hole".

So that it what I remember these nights when the sound of hundreds of crickets are at it.  I smile and think of a famous cricket that spent time with us on our vacation in Wellfleet.

I felt badly the way I skipped over a life that meant so much to me, so I will try to make it up to him.  Joel was a very complex person, his brother said his first love was Gloria L, because of her fur coat.  When I started going out with him in our Junior year, she told me that Joel was the only boy she knew that if a girl hit him, he hit her back.  That was Joel, but he gave me great kids and a home that I love dearly.

We moved here in the fall of '67.  We had looked at the house in spring, with four apple trees surrounding it in bloom.  But it wasn't until the fall that we decided to buy it.  Maria was in Kindergarten in South Avenue in a trailer, the school was so full.  Red Hook was the best school in the area, and that made the difference.  The first bank denied our loan, "structurally unsafe" and the price started to fall.  Uncle Phil came to Tivoli, put a line on the west wall and said the same thing.  The price dropped to $8500 and we found a bank that could loan us the money.  We had the whole family here for Christmas, and Joel went into the cellar and jacked up the floor with beams, so we wouldn't have a family falling through the floor.  That was his first house project.  He put a marble on the kitchen floor and we watched it roll across the room.  And so, with metal beams, new wood, he made the floor safe and even.  Then he took a little room that Paul was using and started on our bedroom.  He parked his truck outside the window, and with a chute in place, and a diaper over my face, I threw the old horse hair lathe down the chute.  With bare walls, he started, adding a new window, and making closets out of the little room.  Wait, I think he might have done the kitchen before that.  I was pregnant with Sabra and he put shelves on the open porch for the pots and pans.  The saw was kept in the kitchen and Paul would play with his cars in the saw dust.  He was speed racer and I was Trixie.  Joel found wainscoating in an old barn somehow, and that is what he used to make the cabinets.  He had me stand where the sink was to see how high to make the counters to match my size.  Then he enclosed the porch.  I think in 1970 or '71, because Sabra was in a playpen outside watching him while he hammered to Johnny Cash music.  Then with the porch done, the next May he tore the kids bedroom apart, and the three older ones had to sleep on the porch.  It only fit two beds, not Maria's so she had to beg every night to sleep with someone. CPS would be after us today if that was going on.

And then it was the kids room, followed by the addition when they no longer could all fit four to one room.  So you see, he worked hard and long for this house, for my home and I told him that in the last letter I wrote to him.  I had typed it out, thinking it would be easier for him to read than my handwriting, and then before putting it in the envelope, I wrote "thank you for all the work you did on this house.  I love my home." I hope he understood.

It's been a whole summer without doing a "post", so I will try to get updated in one swoop.  The big news happened at the end of June, my ex husband and father of our children died.  He had been doing better, was home and Sabra had even spoken with him on the phone, when the call came.  It was a difficult time, the communication between the two families had been tense and unfriendly (on their side) and his death came as much of a surprise.  Sabra researched the correct German words to send with the flowers and on the 4th of July he was buried.  We had a memorial get together at Sabra's, it was quite pleasant.  She made Mass cards, I made an album of a collection of family pictures, Helene brought the picture of Zach and her visit with him last year, but it was not like a real funeral.  An obituary in the Poughkeepsie paper brought some condolences, but on the whole it was like it never happened.  Then to top it off, the funeral director emailed pictures of the flowers and the funeral home and each of her kids had ribbons with their names, and the big ribbon in front, and in English, read "Good-bye my love" and his wife's name, who rarely spoke English.  We wanted ribbons but that's another story. 

Then on July 9th it was off the to Cape for two weeks, the first week with Sabra, Tony, Solomon and Henry and woowoo and Paul's boys Zach and Ian.  First day and a half were rainy, cold, then the heat kicked in.  This was the first house we ever rented with central air, and believe me, we needed it.  Days passed quickly and the second week brought Shane and Ava out, then Jer and Gabi.  We came home on the hottest day of the year (that's what they said then)  but since then it seems each day is hotter than the one before.

So now the garden is doing good, lots of beans in the beginning, now the tomatoes and zucchinis are coming on strong.  The zinnias attract lots of butterflies and hummingbirds, and just to prove Bucky right (after the fourth of July the summer is over) the farmer's almanac has August 24 - hummingbirds head south.  Most of the time the yard looks like Mrs. Murphy's Turkey farm, I counted 14, all sizes there today.  The turkeys are a big hit with the B&B guests, so I feel they earn the corn I throw to them everyday.  Timmy is looking to buy a car, he wants a yellow Fit, with manual steering, and apparently, manuals are almost impossible to find, and now they are not making any more for this year.  But the quest for a car gives us a lot of phone calls and emails, so far only a purple fit has been offered and Timmy said, "I can't drive a purple car".  So I guess that gets us caught up to the middle of August.  And boy is it hot and humid.  This too shall pass.

Lately, either on Tuesday or Thursday, I get a chance to watch my great grandson, Cove, who just turned one. His mom goes to exercise and it is only about an hour and a half.   He comes with a variety of toys, books and we play with them for a while.  He's also a good eater and comes with rice cakes or blueberries.  He ate so many blueberries one day, I was afraid to give him anymore.  We go outside where he likes to watch the birds or tear up dandelions.  It's all good and I love it.  Last week I told Timmy, "You know, yesterday, watching Cove, my knees didn't hurt once".  He's like a tonic.  And the books are a part of it.

I read in the NY Times about a pediatrician who gives each child that comes to the office a book.  And the parent is given the prescription - "Read to the child everyday." Studies have shown that this results in brighter, happier kids.  I also read in the paper that volunteers are reading to abused dogs.  They pick a book, any book, and sit by the caged dog and read to him.  It said at first the dog cowers in the corner, and then lulled and eased by the steady reading, comes closer and closer to the reader, eventually, out of the cage, and even leaning on the person. 

I don't read to Cove yet, we just look at the books.  He had one with fuzzy animals that he could pull the fuzz.  He liked to chew on one of the books "Not in the mouth, not in the mouth" I would say.  I think his mother found a book that was child safe for eating.  Timmy and I used to read to each other, all the Harry Potter books.  Now we listen to tapes before I go to sleep.  No matter what age, or even if you are a dog, there is something to it.

Over the years, we've had our share of critters sharing the house with us - mice, rats, red squirrels, all in the walls.  Yesterday was a first when we finally saw what had been sharing our home with us for months - a least weasel. 

Since January there have been no mice in the house, before that at least one every night was found in the kitchen drawer, in the peanut butter filled trap.  Then no mice.  No mice droppings in our utensils, or on the counters.  We wondered why, and last month found out when we heard scratching noises in the living room wall.  The noise was loud, too loud for a mouse, and then last week Sabra and I were having Happy Hour in the living room, when we heard strange, almost human voices, trilling, fast and high, like Alvin and the Chipmunks.  The dog jumped off the chair he was sharing with Sabra, went to the wall.  "What the hell was that?" we asked each other.  Then Timmy saw what he thought was a ferret on the deck.  Then yesterday all hell broke out.

The noises in the wall were terrible, screeches and that weird sound, so bad I decided to go outside and weed the driveway (yes, the driveway.)  I was weeding when this small, dark sleek and almost beautiful creature ran by me and into the shed.  "Timmy," I screamed,"I saw it, I saw what is living in our walls." And then he saw it too, with a baby in the mother's mouth, she dropped it into a chipmunk hole near the shed.  That was it.  It was moving time and all that noise was the mother taking the babies, one at a time, out of the dark walls, and into the daylight.  So we looked up least weasel on the internet, and there it was, just like the picture.  A beautiful creature, the smallest of the weasel family. I searched through the articles, looking for "weasels living in the house" but the closest I could find was weasels in the barn, near a large supple of mice - their favorite food.  So two mysteries solved - the no mice, and the talking creatures.

"Poor man's fertilizer" Aunt Lillian used to call it - a late year snow.  Snow contains nitrates and can add 5 to 10 pounds per acre into the soil.  I suspected winter wasn't really over - the juncos have never left.  The red winged blackbirds have been here for weeks, and the juncos usually leave the same time the squaking  blackbirds arrive.  So here it is April 4th and we have more snow on the ground then for the entire winter. And the first snow day of the whole season for the school kids.

The forsythia is blooming, but the snow does nothing for the usual cheerfulness of the flowers.  The daffadils are drooping under the weight of the snow.  The lawn furniture just looks plain silly with snow on it.  Yesterday after leaving Mass the priest was wishing people Merry Christmas, as he wore a heavy coat and hat.  So the weather makes for some interesting conversation.

We've had snow in April before, the most famous was an April Fool's snow that knocked out the electricity for a week.  It was kind of fun though, using candles, going to the fire house for dry ice, and even a community breakfast of pancakes at the firehouse.  When the Central Hudson trucks came down the road, people cheered, like they were the winning Super Bowl players.

The latest snow I remember, and have the pictures to prove it, was May 7th.  The apple trees were heavy with leaves and buds and snow.  So, come on down, poor man's fertilizer.  Do your thing.

This year's Republican race for the Presidency kept reminding me of a story I read years ago.  Yesterday I got a book in the mail, a collection of humor, and there it was "The Greatest Man in the World' by James Thurber.  It's a story about a surly bully named Jack Smurch that managed to fly a monoplane around the world without a stop, tanks of fuel attached to the sides of the plane, and a gallon of bootleg and six pounds of salami.  The world watches his progress, and he becomes more and more of a hero, finally landing safely.  Meantime, the reporters and government have been researching his past, and it is a terrible one, he stole from church, knifed his principal, long history of arrests.  And when he meets the press, it gets even worse.  He insults Lindberg, calls the French men who died in their plane "frogs" and wants money for his success. Every sentence is full of swearing.

The government tries to hide him away, but the people adore him, and finally they have a conference with the governor of New York, the Senators, and even the President.  It's in a hot room, and Smurch opens the window.  Bad mouthing everyone, and demanding lots of money and women, the President gives a nod and the Secretary of State pushes him out the ninth floor window. His funeral is extravagant and attended by thousands, but not his mother, who is smirking, in his same style, as she fries hamburgers in a run down joint. 

Now this is all written in the Thurber manner, amusing and witty, but certain similarities do appear.  Whenever our Smurch talks, I shiver, and an embarrassment comes over me - embarrassed for our country, for the people who are cheering him on, for me.  Even the name is kind of familiar.  Well let's see what happens.

February 3 is St. Blaise Day and this Sunday our throats were blessed in his honor. "May God at the intercession of St. Blaise preserve you from throat troubles and every other illness".  The original saying was every other evil but I suppose that is too broad a subject for today.

We knew all bout St. Blaise - Bucky told us.  He saved a boy's life that had a fishbone caught in his throat.  She told us this because Daddy was a fisherman and we often had to eat whatever fish he brought home.  Poppy too fished, so there was fish at Grandma's as well.  And there often were bones that we had to pick out.  Thus the story.  Bucky had another solution.  "Chew a piece of bread and that will get rid of the bone,"  To this day, I only buy filleted fish, no bones for me.

An interesting part of the blessing, is that two candles are crossed and thrust around your neck while the priests says the words.  The first time I took the kids to St. Blaise's Day, I said to them that I had had enough sore throats (Maria used to take a note every day to school - "Please allow Maria to chew asperin gum - she has a sore throat.").  And so I thought a blessing might help.  I explained to them that the priest would put two candles around their throat while giving the blessing.  Paul looked worried and asked "Are they lit?"  I remembered that yesterday.  It would be more dramatic if they WERE lit.     

I've been praising P. G. Wodehouse for months now.  We've been listening to his stories on audio books and for Christmas I bought Tim the television series Jeeves and Wooster.  The same stories, but visually quite different.  On audio, you never see what a bonus it is to have a butler, especially one as meticulous as Jeeves.

Jeeves brings Bertie his morning tea on a tray right to his bedside.  Jeeves makes a cocktail for the morning after a rough night that straightens you out in minutes.  Jeeves irons the clothes and lays them out on a pillow for Bertie's daily wear.  Jeeves draws the bath, putting salts in, placing the towel near by, so Bertie never has to even take a towel out of a closet.  Jeeves answers the phone, and will cover for Bertie if Bertie doesn't want to talk.  The same with the door, if an unwanted visitor, Jeeves makes an excuse for him.  In short, he is like a doting parent, but acts and is treated as an equal with Bertie.  And all the stories have Bertie getting into trouble, either with the law or a female (he has been engaged many, many times - often to the same woman) and Jeeves devises a plan to rescue him. 

So, I am wondering if there is still in this day and age, someone like Jeeves, a butler, but more than a servant, who you can hire.  I will have to look on the internet.  If I ever win the lottery, I will hire one.

On another note, Hugh Laurie plays Bertie Wooster, and his eyes popping out, jaw dropping antics are nothing like the character in  house, M.D. which I am now watching too.  Timmy looked up Hugh Laurie and it said he had been in a deep depression and it was the Jeeves' books that brought him out of it.  I can believe that.  I dare you not to laugh at them. 

Winter is finally here - single digits on the thermometer, windows all iced in the mornings.  This is when I most appreciate the feather bed comforter given to me on Christmas by Paul and Helene several years ago.  It is a pleasant weight on the body, and holds the heat under the other two covers, making for a warm nest.  It makes me think of the squirrel nests that I can see so clearly now the trees are bare.  We have a big one in the back yard, mostly made of oak leaves, which do not deteriorate very easily. 

The squirrel's nest is called a dray and can be as large as two feet wide and a foot high.  In cold weather, like this, they share the nest.  January is also the mating month for squirrels - that's why you see them acting crazy in the roads.  (I use to think they were so cold it made them suicidal, but now I realize it is something else.)  On the internet they had a drawing of two squirrels sleeping in their cocoon like nest. This is how I feel.

Years ago my sister Diane gave me a "Bucky ( that's what we called our mother).  Anyway Bucky is filled with buckwheat, and you stick it in the microwave for two minutes and it is toasty warm.  That goes on my feet.  In only minutes, the featherbed has done its job and the bed is warm.   The warm bed, the fundador and the one or two pieces of candy, and you can't ask for anything more.  Nighty night, as Aunt Lillian used to say.