Today I was snipping grass around the front yard when I spotted a clay clump, almost an inch high, too high to be made by a worm.  Then I saw more, hundreds of them in the soft dirt under the bird feeders.  When I picked one up, I saw a perfectly round hole formed in the clay, empty.  What could have made these?  I picked up one and took it to Timmy who was mending the deer fence - he had scared a turkey in the garden, and the turkey flew right through the netting.  He examined it, then followed me to the tiny village of lumps.  The first one he picked up was NOT empty.  There was a squirming cicada nymph in it.  UGH.

This is it - it's been 17 years since the cicadas have come up.  The last time I remember my nephew Patrick's son was here, probably 3 or 4 years old, and held his hands over his ears.  "Stop that noise", he demanded.  Yes, cicadas are very noisy.  I just looked them up in Wickipi (or whatever that internet dictionary is called).  Cicadas are the loudest of all the insect sounds.  They can cause permanent hearing loss if directly out side the eardrum.  (Bucky would have loved that.)  They are eaten by birds, sometimes squirrels and people in China.  They have to come out of the ground after all those years, a distance which varies from one to eight feet deep.  So what Timmy and I saw this morning was their exit tunnels. 

Apparently, when they come out, they climb a tree, and shed that skin and emerge as a full size cicada.  So be warned - they are coming.

Well, it finally feels like spring.  Juncos are gone and the turkeys are trotting all around the house.  We started work on the gardens, Timmy in the vegetable, me in the St. Francis' flower garden.  I can't garden like I used to.  I hoe a little then sit down on the ground and break up the clods of clay that have formed over the winter with my bare hands.   They don't call it Clay Hill Road for nothing.

Sitting on the warm ground, breaking up the clay with my fingers, I remember when as a kid I would help Poppy in the garden.  We lived on Falconer Street, a hill, so the garden was on a tier higher than the house, but not as high as 17 Falconer, next door where I lived.  Poppy had made a dirt strainer, an old screen mounted on a frame and I would help him sift the garden dirt until it was as fine as sand.  "Ready for planting now, " he would determine and put in a row of green beans.  Some different from this soil.  My kids used to make clay balls, form the balls with wet clay and let them dry in the sun.  A weapon of mass destruction when flung at someone.  Anyway, gardening is a meditation that takes you many place, from grandfathers to school kids.

Red Hook Elementary has a garden and Sabra and Tony volunteer there on Friday afternoons.  Sabra says the kids love, love the garden and get a lot out of seeing the flowers and vegetables grow.  Funny when you think about it, when I grew up everybody had a garden.  Probably a throw over from the war and the Victory Gardens.  No matter the size of the yard, there was always a part set aside for tomatoes. When we lived on Beacon Street where many Italian families were, they would bring out a fig tree that they had kept in the house all winter.  Hot peppers were in their gardens, with hundreds of tomato plants, growing to be canned for a winter meal. My sister Barbara told me about her neighbor who would hang geraniums upside down in the cellar, not even in dirt, and in the spring plant them and they would come to life.  Talk about reincarnation!  I never had much luck keeping plants over the winter, except for my Passion Flower that Mickey and Sue gave me years ago.  About two weeks ago, it started growing like crazy, sending out tendrils that reached for the window and light.  Yesterday, I told Timmy to put it on the deck, hopefully it can stand the cool nights.  I had too.  It was like watching a caged animal trying to escape. Hopefully, the Juncos were right and spring is here.  

Well, we got a new computer this week.  The last one I bought was in 2004 and I can't believe how much they have changed.  When Sabra hooked it up (or tried to hook it up), we got error messages and it was about 3 hours later after talking to India to a technician that wouldn't give up, he gave up and sent us something (this little penlike object) that had to be installed so that it would work.  Another 3-4 hours on the phone again across the waters with both Microsoft and Dell (Sabra said he told her it was summer there and she looked it up and it IS summer there now), and we got onto the internet.  Now the printer is no good, not compatible with this version of Microsoft, so I have to go deeper into my pockets for a new computer.

Makes me think of that Marx brother movie about the horse race.  Chico is selling aids to the horse race and everytime Groucho would get one, he would need another one to use with it.  But that is life today.  Nothing lasts long, like it used to.  Refrigerators, ovens, etc, all have a life expectancy of four to five years.  Not like the refrigerator my grandmother bought me for a wedding gift.  I was long divorced (25 years) and it was still going.  Well let's see if I can post this.   Another test. 

Just last week Laura and I were talking about the Boston Marathon.  We first went there in April of 1979, Laura took a lot of pictures and wrote on the backs so I am sure of that date.  She got pictures of Bill Rodgers, the winner of the Marathon that year (maybe the last time an American won) and Frank Shorter, who was kind enough to read Timmy's book on running.  My nephew John ran, and the back of his photo shows his time at 2:27:13, place:135, quite a showing at age 20.  Anyway, what Laura and I were talking about was the feeling of the Marathon, the joy at seeing that many runners go by, and the excitement and comradity of that day.

We stood on Heartbreak Hill in Newton, about the 20 mile section of the race.  When the wheel chair people came, we first heard the helicopter that preceded them.  What a sight, those men and women in chairs, concentrating on pushing, pushing and that hill had earned it's name.  Then the runners, just the sheer number of them, thousands.  It was reported that more than 20,000 runners were running this week.

The next year Bucky and Daddy came too.  Again we were posted on the same hill, but this time Daddy had his camera out and Bucky had a big cow bell to ring.  It was a warm day, people were grilling on the street, coolers were filled with drinks and food, and chairs were everywhere as people waited for the racers.  Laura's friend Danielle was with us and again the feeling of joy, excitement and pure pleasure of a spring outing, together with so many people sharing the same feelings, cheering the runners on was everywhere.

So there you are.  That's what I am thinking about this week...and praying for all those poor people, like us, just out for a good, family fun day.

 

Happy Easter everyone.  It's a cold one, 20 degrees when I woke this morning, we are having a cold, late spring.  When you get to be 70, you have quite a few Easters under your belt, and memories galore, going back to Falconer Street as a kid, where we dyed about two dozen eggs or more.  When there are six kids dying eggs, you have to do more than two each.  I have a picture of my friend Jackie dying eggs with us, something her family didn't do so we probably had four dozen that year.  I also remember Paul's friend Stan, dying eggs with us on Clay Hill.  He was about sixteen, but there was a big difference in age from his older brother, and his family just never thought to have him dye eggs, so it was a first for him.  He seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Then there was the Easter in Beacon, the kids were little, I had made yellow capes for the girls, and they had just little spring outfits and it snowed.  Contrast that to the year before Jer was born, when we dyed eggs outside on the picnic table wearing summer outfits. 

Ria died on St. Patty's Day, also the first day of Holy Week and her wake and funeral all seem to be tied into this occasion.  Five years later, in some ways a long time...when you see how grown up the kids have become in five years, it seems that way -five years makes a big difference.  And in other thoughts, it seems like yesterday.  Maria loved all holidays, and at Easter she went all out.  Cookies galore and for the egg hunt she would get all dolled up, long spring dress with a hat especially made for the occasion.  A la Martha Stewart, Ria would cover the hat with chicks and bunnies.  Makes me smile to think about it. 


 

Don't you just hate Daylight Savings Time?  First of all, there are the clocks to reset.  In the kitchen there is the stove clock, the clock on the coffee maker, the clock on the micorwave and then - the easist - the kitchen clock, which is battery run so you just move the hands an hour ahead.  The TV and the computer somehow change themselves, this always amazes me, especially because our computer is so old, and now the change occurs at an earlier date than ever.

There are 3 clocks in the bedroom, one on either side of the bed, and then the clock on the radio.  And there is a clock in the hallway upstairs, another battery one.  One of the hardest to change is the clock in the car.  I have to dig out the manual twice a year to see how to do it.  And then there are the clocks, three of them in the Bird's Nest.  It seems like you have them all, and then there it is, another one to reset.  I resolved not to ever wear a watch when I left my last job.  As a secretary, you always had to note the exact time of each phone call, visitor, etc.  Your watch was part of the job.  So, like high heels, the watch is gone.  Timmy has a watch and it took about 15 mnutes for him to get it to the right time today.

Then there are the meals - Is is too early for lunch?  Is is 11 o'clock or 1 o'clock?  Spring ahead, clocks ahead - its repeated a hundred times a day.  Nighttime has its own problems.  I go to bed early, usually at 7:30, listen to a story for an hour, then off to dreamland.  Going to bed and then waking up, a whole new game with Daylight Savings Time.  Who was the airhole that thought this one up?

In July of 1984 Chrissy and I went to Ireland on a week guided tour of Ireland that was spent three days in Limerick and then to Dublin for three days and back to Limerick and the Shannon airport.  In July of the next year we returned, but this time on our own, no bus, no guided tour.  But with both visits we had the experience of visiting a real Irish home - not just being a B&B guest, but a guest to the Irish.

The first time we met a guy named Tom (Chrissy said all the Irish guys are either Tom of John) and when we told him we had rented a car and were going to go to Blarney castle, he suggested that he drive us there, and we could also visit his "Mum" who lived nearby in Bantry Bay.  In Ireland they drive on the other side of the road, and our rented car was a shift stick that Chrissy had never used.  When the rental agent brought the car to our hotel he offered to give Chrissy a lesson on shifting.  I was having a cup of tea and thought best to not be a part of it.  I was right because in half an hour, they returned - both their faces were bright red, but I think the rental car agent was brightest and he could barely speak as he rushed out.  "What happened?" I asked Chrissy, who had ordered a pint, and was downing it quickly.  "Oh, " she said, "I was doing good, until I had to put it into fourth gear, and I accidently went into reverse.  The car jumped straight up into the air and that was the end of my lesson."  So, when we had an offer to be driven to the castle, we thought it a good idea.

We set out early the next morning.  We started to realize that Tom (or John) was a little unusual when he stopped to have us pick strawberries in a field to bring to his mother.  We got to the castle, climbed the dangerously small stairs, kissed the stone, and were off to meet Mum.  The house was beautiful - like somthing out of the movie The Quiet Man.  It was right on the ocean, their dogs, two collies, were frolicing near the edge of the water.  In the house, the TV was on, a game show from American, and Mum greeted us warmly, although it was hard to understand a word she said.  Two bachelor uncles appeared in the kitchen, looking at Chrissy and myself as if we had dropped in from heaven.  After a short visit, he left to return to our hotel, but the Irish visit outshone kissing the Blarney Stone by a mile.

The next year we visited the home of John ( maybe Chrissy was right) Quaid.  I had met him in Tivoli when he was working on the horse farm.  After his visa ran out, he had returned to Ireland and graciously invited us to his home.  We drove up, hestitantly, was this it?  The hedges were covered with laundry drying, no clothesline in sight.  Chickens roamed about the yard, and then the door opened and John came out, followed by his parents, both adorable, with white, white hair, and blue, blue eyes.  "Come in, come in" they ushered us into a small sitting room.  Newspapers were in piles all over the floor, the chairs we sat on were missing legs, held up by a brick instead.  They offered us large bottles of beer (Chrissy and I could never find bottled beer in Ireland) and then to a "tea" that was everything but tea.  Piles of smoked salmon, a platter of delicious potato salad with dill and peas, the bread so good, that we couldn't stop eating it and then a cake made, as John's mother said, with a dozen eggs.  What a feast.  We took pictures of them and they took pictures of us.  John and his brother looked sad as they said goodbye...sad that they weren't going home to America.  We said, "We'll be back" and they said, "See you soon', but we never did get back to see them.  I wonder now if I ever will get back.