Photoessa #2899 - My mother's yahrzeit

Thursday was my mother's yahrzeit, or the anniversary of her death. It's been three years.

 I wanted to go to Friday night services at the local temple, hear her name read or call it out, read the kaddush.

 Naomi and Dennis went with me to Temple Beth Am. It was a short early service, the tenth grade was having a fund-raising dinner after. I called the temple office in the afternoon, asked if her name could be added to the list to be read by the rabbi:

 Claire Ginsburgh, mother of Sandy Barnes

The person at the office graciously said she would add her name to the list. I felt grateful and a little teary.

 So at the end,the rabbi read the names including my mom. In this temple, the rabbi asks the mourners to rise, I stood up (along withe the others) and then a few seconds later she asked the rest of the congregation to rise and we read the Kaddush.

 It's near the beginning of Purim; I had mainly learned about it as a child, dressing up as the characters in the story, special pastries and noisemakers. But it really can be a wild time. I remember going to the conservative temple for their reading of megillah and the older men had bottles of vodka stashed at their feet with paper cups and handing out shots. The rabbi talked about going to Jerusalem at Purim, alcohol everywhere, kids smoking cigarettes and the older orthodox men dressed up in women's clothes. The rabbi suggested for the purim service that everybody could bring their cell phones, video games and ipads, text during the service. And wear really crazy clothes.

 We also participated in the "Healing Challah" project. Each month, they make a list of people who can't come because illness or recent tragedy. The temple buys a challah for them along with a card. People attending are asked to deliver the challahs. Detailed driving directions provided. So this man had these challahs, looking for volunteers. Dennis picked one up and we delivered it to a lady after the service. Kind of fun.

 The money picture of my mom. She worked as a volunteer at the municipal nursing home River Bluff for many years. My siblings and I agreed that this was the picture we would use for her memorial

Photoessay #880 - Illinois countryside

On Saturday, my mom, brother and sister went for a ride to Edward Apple Orchards maybe 20 miles from Rockford. Through the autumn midwestern country side of brittle bleached gold corn and uncertain skies. Definitely fall, huge movements in the land and sky, you know that spring is far far away. Here, most leaves are falling but most everything still green.

View taken from the car heading east from Rockford near Calezonia.

The destination mostly had specialty foods along with a jolly banjo player. Known for their fresh doughnuts coated with sugar and cinnamon. Definitely hallucinegetic (sp). Pony rides in the back. I bought some pumpkin butter and some pickles which will arrive in a box I shipped. Second shot my mom, brother and sister sharing one of those BAAAAAAAAD doughnuts outside of the shop. You can see the severe landscape stretching out behind them.

They had samples and big bins of apples. Some unfamiliat varieties. Yet I wasn't too impressed, they have good apples here in Washington State!

Photoessay #679 - Chico 1977

My mother, myself and Dennis in the backyard of our Chico CA house in 1977. That house was very small house (750 sq feet) but it was newish. In a modest area of town but easy bike ride to the campus. Our mortgage payments were $199/mth! We were right next to a mill facility, corrugated warehouses housing a large population of feral cats. A big black walnut tree, gorgeous and so Valley. Next door, some contractors had a shop and office. Helpful when trying to put the piano into the truck. Across the street were some very derelict apartments housing some crazy people. We mean, the kind of crazy where vans of guys in white coats come by to take them away. One dishevele3d older lady would knock on our door and Dennis would listen patiently to her admonitions about all the undissolved matter in the universe as she handed him little bits of paper. Another middle aged man would stand in the street in a captain's hat and give long spouts of unintelligible oratory until the white coats etc. And, of course, the drug dealer/rapist. Cordial enough but responsible for a large number of traffic at all hours. One day, one of my friends, called and said "Your neighbor is wanted for rape, look in the paper!" Sure enough. His dog used to be able to climb over our 5 foot fence and play with our dog. Another neighbor, old lady named Goldy, very elderly but she could take darn good care of herself and, a few times, she and I rented a rototiller and turned over the soil between our yards and the warehouse.

You know about zucchini and valley towns like Chico. You had to be careful how many seeds you planted because they came up with a vengeance and produced a ton of zucchini whether you wanted them or not. I used to joke that the big semi trucks used to run over my zucchini plants when they came to the warehouse and it didn't bother them a bit. Etiquette decreed that if you went over to somebody's house for a social event, you brought zucchinis; they had to accept your zucchini and you, in return, had to accept their zucchini that they handed to you.

You know, I started this blog with another picture in mind (our engagement picture) which I also wrote about on April 15, 2008 and talk about how things that you think when you are first married are quite different than your experiences after you've raised 4 kids. But I couldn't find that picture, it's around somewhere.

So let's turn out minds to Chico in 1977 (32 years ago, aack). Wonderful place to live, really liked it. Dennis finished college at Chico State and I worked for an independent evaluation consultant. ("Spend New Years Eve with Nan and Ira" aack! no! injoke for another post). We were just married, 24 years old, way too old for those other undergraduates. In fact, our friends were junior faculty members. One faculty member went to Europe for the summer and gave me his university account to use a little bit while he was gone. I pushed so much information through the account, when he came back at the end of the summer, he found that he was now the heaviest user in the whole California State University system and everybody thought he was an expert. Whoops. We had the only daisy wheel printer in town and when students came and wanted to use it, I demanded their university accounts and passwords in return. Wow, I was BAD!

We are all, of course, much thinner in this picture. My mom is younger than I am now.... Our dog Winnie at our feet. About the most useless dog ever.

Just occurred to me that my father must be taking the picture.