Cerebrations

Best Season of All

October 11, 2014 kathygetto

Boise, Idaho

For me the best season of all is fall. (And that is the extent of my poetry abilities. 🙂 )

Bar none, there’s nothing like the vibrant colors and rich textures that come to life each autumn…

Here are a few of the colors and textures that I saw on my walk yesterday…

And a lovely poem to welcome fall in:

Fall, leaves, fall

BY EMILY BRONTË

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Now if the weather gods would just realize that it’s fall and quit heating the days up to near summer temperatures we could all enjoy fall… 🙁

People

Passages

October 10, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Boise, Idaho

These are very sad times for my family and me.

My mother passed away last night.

My sister let us know with this eloquent text: “She flew away…”

Mom’s been emotionally and spiritually ready for many years, but unfortunately her body was not.

In the last ten days of her life, she celebrated both her 89th birthday and her 64th wedding anniversary.

She also received Last Rites, the Catholic Church sacrament administered by a priest for spiritual strength.

My hope and prayer is that her passing was as spiritual and as peaceful as possible.

She was particularly fond of Mother Teresa and would have appreciated this quote:

“Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.”

– Mother Teresa

Wow!

A Stitch in Time

October 9, 2014 kathygetto

Boise, Idaho

Got lucky and stumbled along into another quilt show the other day. This one was in Boise, and it was fabulous!

Three of the quilts were judged good enough to apply to the national show in Houston, Texas. That’s an amazing feat!

I would have voted for this to be Best in Show. This quilt is three dimensional in that the sheep and many of the flowers pop out of the quilt’s base fabric.

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Here’s a closeup of the lower right panel showing the applique and embroidery done to create the flowers.

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Here’s a closeup of the middle panel. The sheep is about a half an inch thick, made with a heavy wool thread.

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Here is another one of the quilts that received special honors. It didn’t photograph particularly well, but it’s of twelve different panels of an tightly woven fabric that was then machine emroideried with gold silk thread. The mono-chromed golden colors make it even more effective.

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I thought this quilt should have been selected fort the national show. It’s all hand appliqued trapunto which means that every single different color of fabric is hand-stitched to the base fabric with tiny stitches almost underneath the piece and then stuffed with a small bit of extra padding from the back.

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The quilt is of twelve different birds. Here’s a closeup of the hummingbird that’s made up of over two dozen fabric pieces. Simply amazing.

Even the machine quilting was uniquely done. If you look closely at the base fabric at the left of this picture, you can just see a hummingbird quilted in relief. And now some random quilts and why I photographed them…

This quilt immediately made me think of Melissa because she loves bold colors and all things concentric….
Although I usually don’t like pastels, this quilt made me realize that they are, in fact, quite pretty.

I love the free-form feeling of this quilt.

The quilter designed her own pattern, and I discovered a bit more about how she made it when I took a closeup. It is a series of rectangles sewed into panels.

This quilt was made by teenage girls who live in a group home. Once a month they meet with volunteers who teach them sewing and quilting skills with donated fabric. I loved the angularity of the quilt design and the way they quilted the top with decorative stitches.

I’ve always loved landscaped quilts, and this one appealed to me because of the simplicity and the use of batik fabrics.
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And the best part of the show? I found some great new supplies to help me get started on my own quilts… 🙂

Memories

Heathrow Goodbyes

October 8, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Boise, Idaho

Carol and I had to unexpectedly fly home yesterday. Flights were quickly changed, activities canceled, and Carol and I hugged goodbye, several times…

This brought back memories of our trip to Europe to see Richie.

We were set to fly from Dublin, Ireland, to London, England. Once there we would split up. Richie would fly back to Hamburg and grad school.

Carol and I would fly to Munich and start hiking through Bavaria.

But, there was huge computer glitch that disabled the majority of air travel in western Europe. Long story short, it was a mess.

We finally got to Heathrow and hoped to make our connecting flights.

Richie and I hugged quickly and said our goodbyes. I was crying because I wouldn’t see him for at least a year…

Alas, our connecting flights were canceled. I think we set up a rendezvous spot just in case that happened. So we met again.

We got in line to try to find a hotel room for the night. The cheapest we could find was over $300; way too much for maybe six hours of sleep…

Richie called his friend Simon who lives in London. Simon said we could all crash at his place, but I was too worried about making our morning flight. So Carol and I decided to spend the night at the airport along with oodles of other stranded passengers.

Once again I said a tearful goodbye to Richie…

After a rather sleepless night, I mistakenly walked into the men’s restroom to brush my teeth. 🙂

As I was walking back to join Carol, guess who I ran into? Yep, Richie, looking fresh and relaxed after a wonderful night’s sleep in Simon’s flat.

So for the third and final time, I bade Richie a tearful farewell. It was excruciatingly bittersweet.

Yesterday, Carol and I went through goodbyes two times.

Richie called me while Carol and I were saying our second goodbyes when he was on a layover in Chicago on a business trip.

Carol told him it was like Heathrow all over again…

People, Places

Medal by Default

October 7, 2014 kathygetto 4 Comments

Las Vegas, Nevada

Carol and I are in Las Vegas to visit and play some pickleball.

Yesterday we played in Women’s Singles. The majority of pickleball players don’t play in singles and just compete in doubles, but Carol and I like singles because it’s a good way to get a lot of exercise and sweat a ton in a short period of time.

There were only four women in our age bracket, so we played each other two times for a total of six games.

M.J. is from Chicago and a former killer tennis player. She’s incredibly good. Jan lives in southern California in the winter and trains with some amazing players. Even though she’s only been playing a little while, she’s also very, very good.

These games are arranged by age bracket, not by skill level. I prefer skill level because I am not that good. While I’m fine with losing, it can get rather disheartening to continually get whooped… 🙂

M.J. lost to Jan once, and she beat her once by a one point margin. They both beat Carol and me. And Carol beat me twice.

While pickleball is incredibly fun, scoring is weird so I won’t go into the mechanics of it all here… And you’re welcome. 🙂

The day ended with M.J. first overall, Jan second, Carol third, and me fourth.

But it turned out that M.J. was younger than the rest of us, so she won the gold medal in her own 50-54 age group. Jan won the gold, Carol the silver, and I got bronze in our 55-59 age group. Oh, and because Carol was the only one from Nevada, she won a gold for Nevada.

I told you pickleball scoring was weird. Ha ha…

Cerebrations, Memories

Old Couples

October 6, 2014 kathygetto

Boise, Idaho

I was sitting in the Boise Airport yesterday waiting for my flight to Las Vegas to visit with Carol. Within ten feet of me there were two couples who are in their late seventies.

Oh my goodness! There’s something so special about couples who have been together over three decades. And come to think of it, Carol and I are a couple who have been together for almost six decades. 🙂

There’s a succinctness in dialogue spoken in front of others that’s usually not there when they are alone.

Dialogue is often missing words and even whole sentences. and yet each understands what the other is conveying perfectly.

Another phenomenon that I’ve noticed with couples who have been together for many, many years is that they often talk like there is no one else listening to their conversation regardless if there are two or twenty people in the same room.

So in addition to being succinct they also tend to say exactly what they want with no filter.

Carol and used to talk a lot like that when we double dated. One would start a sentence and the other would halfway finish it. There was no reason to completely finish it because each of us knew what was unsaid. Used to drive our dates nuts!

My favorite story showing old couple communication involved Rich’s aunt and uncle Sis and Howard Winder. Howard rarely went to Reno, so he hadn’t seen his son James for a while. On a trip from their home in Fallon to see doctors in Reno, Sis and How stopped by to see James at his new home.

Howard was a dyed in the wool cattle rancher–cowboy hat and boots and silver buckle on a hand told leather belt.

James is a sophisticated doctor who is now a university professor.

They were very different, but their love for each other knew no bounds.

Howard stepped out of the pickup, looked at James, and said to Sis (as only someone who’s been married over 40 years would), “Jeeeesus Chriiiiist! He’s got a pony tail!”

I don’t think that it ever occurred to Howard that James could hear his comment just as Sis did…

(This picture isn’t of James; it’s just to show a man’s ponytail…)

James didn’t take offense. He just giggled when he told me the story.

Memories

Cue the Deer

October 5, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Boise, Idaho

While we were in eastern Idaho last week, Rich and I took a drive to tour Driggs, Idaho.

We hadn’t been there in almost 14 years. Wow, has it changed.

We were there for a long Thanksgiving weekend in November of 2000.

Richie was a senior at Montana State University. Melissa was a freshman at Boise State University. And I was a junior at University of Nevada, Reno.

This was the second Thanking we were going to spend on our own, not with any other family, since Rich and I married in 1977.

Rich and I drove from Fallon up to Boise and picked Melissa up. Richie drove down from Bozeman.

We rented a log house on a working cattle ranch just outside of Driggs. Located at the base of the Grand Tetons, Driggs is the cheap Idaho side of the Tetons, not the expensive Wyoming side.

It was a very special holiday. For lots of reasons…

I went for run once we unpacked. The ranch was so close to the state line that I literally ran to Wyoming. That’s the first time I ran across a state line. 🙂

George W. Bush and Al Gore were in the middle of battling over hanging chads.

We had no television at all; radio reception was very spotty because the ranch was so remote and the weather was bad. In 2000 there was no Internet available other than dial up, and the house didn’t have any connectivity. We drove miles and miles to try to find a newspaper with current national news, but we never did find one.

Richie and I were going crazy because we wanted to know what was happening. Rich and Melissa could have cared less…

It was freezing cold. Rich was in heaven stoking the fire in the huge masonry fireplace.

It snowed a little on Thanksgiving night, adding the perfect ambiance to the weekend.

Have you ever seen the Chevy Chase movie “Funny Farm”? It’s a great comedy about a young couple that moved from New York City to a farm in Connecticut.

One of our favorite scenes involves sending a deer across their yard when prospective buyers are looking at the farm. The deer is released with the now infamous line, “Cue the deer.”

While we were there, someone kept cueing the fox because it ran across the yard multiple times. (Not my photo…)

That was our best Thanksgiving ever, and driving to Driggs brought all those happy memories back.

Cerebrations

Things You’ll Want to Know

October 4, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Boise, Idaho

Because we made our decision to buy a motor home and travel for a year in a nanosecond, there are a few (dozen) things we didn’t know about full timing that would have been beneficial to know before hand.

Here are a few of them…

Business Cards ll

Most full timers (those who live in their RV 365 days a year), snow birds (those who go south in the winter) and seasonals (those who go north in the summer) use business cards printed with their various contact information to let others know how to reach them.

Some include their snail mail address, but most just include their cell phone numbers, land line numbers, and email addresses. Those who maintain a blog or Web site usually include that as well.

Then as they receive cards from others, they race back to their RV to make notes about where they met, what they have in common, etc…

This is critical because we’re all getting older and have CRS. 🙂

South Dakota Residents

It’s common to look at RV license plates while traveling and whenever parked in a resort.

There are a disproportionate number of plates from South Dakota. Either there are a lot of RVers from South Dakota or something else is going on…

Turns out that South Dakota has special laws that make it easy for full timers to establish residency in a state with no income tax and other tax friendly reasons to live there.

So when you see a South Dakota plate on an RV, it’s not a guarantee that the driver actually resides there.

It Pays to Talk

It is beneficial, very beneficial, to talk to and with others while RVing.

Most people are ready and willing to share routes, ideas, and knowledge with others.

We’ve visited some amazing places we hadn’t thought to visit based on the recommendations of others.

We’ve learned how to pick RV parks better based on lessons others have learned. (If the main photo is playground equipment, expect kids, kids, and more kids.)

And there’s always equipment talk. Which tire is best? Does your generator run when….? Where is an easy place to get diesel?

What I’ve noticed is that men talk to and with one another much more than women. About 90% to 10%. At first I thought it was just me because I’m not particularly social, but apparently neither are most of the other women in the parks.

Cerebrations

Aaahhhhh vs Oh!

October 3, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Boise, Idaho

Sophie gets lots of petting from random strangers whenever we are at traditional tourist stops. Most tourists don’t take their dogs, and they are in need of a petting fix.

Doesn’t matter if she’s soaking wet, covered with stickers, or jumping into their laps. They just want to pet a dog. Any dog.

That’s perfectly fine for Sophie. She’s more than happy to stand in as a substitute for their dogs. I can almost hear those petting her say, “Aaahhhhh!”, as they think of their dogs at home…

While we were in Yellowstone, we joined a crowd looking for wolves. A young twenty-something who works for the Yellowstone Association came up and asked she if she could pet Sophie.

While everyone else was searching for the wolves, she had made a beeline for us. As she was bending down to pet Sophie, the young woman asked if she was a Welsh Terrier.

Her parents had just had their Welshie put down at the ripe old age of sixteen.

The minute she laid her hands on Sophie, she said, ” Oh!” Short and forceful, like she had just put her hands into something disgusting in a pitch black Halloween haunted house.

She looked up at me and exclaimed, “She doesn’t feel like Jack!”

I calmly explained that Sophie’s about 10% overweight. We’re working on it, but living in a motor home and traveling through biblical amounts of rain have cut down on her exercise…

The young woman continued to pet Sophie a couple more minutes, but her heart wasn’t in it. She never did let out an, “Aaahhhhh!”

But Sophie did… 🙂

Places

Mackay’s Hill Mine Tour

October 2, 2014 kathygetto

Boise, Idaho

After we visited Craters of the Moon the other day, we traveled to Mackay, Idaho.

Based on the recommendation of our RV Park owner, we took the self-guided tour of the Mackay’s Hill Mine area.

Mackay is a fun little town with a quirky sense of humor…

That’s evident at the first sign we came across on the tour proclaiming the way to The Company Crapper.

The outhouse had room for eight. Yep, eight at one time. The posted sign says, “Not designed for comfort. The idea…just do what you have to do and back to work.”

No doors on the stalls probably helped speed things along.

There are a few exhibits to walk through and they are excellently displayed and labeled.

Not to mention the ambient lighting caused by hundreds of BBs…

From there were traveled up the mountain to view the mines, the ghost town, and spectacular scenery.

There was an amazing series of trestles that moved or carts up and down the mountain.

It was surprising to see how little vandalism there was. Some of the buildings still had tools in them–and there are no locks.
Of course, the buildings are nearly 100 years old, so there is some wear and tear.

And the view out over Mackay is lovely…

Cosmic Kicks

Monthly Archives: October 2014

Best Season of All

Fall, leaves, fall

Passages

A Stitch in Time

Heathrow Goodbyes

Medal by Default

Old Couples

Cue the Deer

Things You’ll Want to Know

Aaahhhhh vs Oh!

Mackay’s Hill Mine Tour

Cerebrations of Life