There's No Place Like Home

About a year ago, my darling grandfather died.  According to his wishes, his funeral was a simple affair- no fuss, no muss.  But there was a lovely military ceremony in the National Cemetery in San Antonio where my grandparents were living.  My mother, my brother and I made the trip to Texas and it was very nice to spend time with them talking about our memories of Grandpa.  After the funeral we sat outside at a cafe on the Riverwalk and shared a pitcher of margaritas- something I think my grandfather would have really

 enjoyed.

This past March my darling grandmother joined him in heaven.  It was easy to be happy that they were together again, after being together in this world for 66 years.  A devoted lifelong Catholic, my grandmother asked for a Funeral Mass to be celebrated in her hometown.  My mother and I made the trip together to Atchison, Kansas- a lovely little town on the banks of the Missouri River- the same town where Amelia Earhart was born.

About 15 years ago for Christmas, my grandmother gave me one of those 'Grandmother Remembers' books where she wrote down her memories about growing up and marrying my grandfather and raising a family.  It really is a treasure with family recipes written out in my grandmother's handwriting and old family pictures pasted to its pages.  I took it with me to Kansa and leafed through the pages while my mother filled in the details with her own memories of visiting both sets of her grandparents in Atchison and going to college at Mount Saint Scholastica, at the time a Catholic women's college in Atchison, now a beautiful retreat center.  

In the back of the book there were a couple of pages where my grandfather wrote down some thoughts.  One of the things he said was that he first noticed my grandmother in church and thought she was pretty.  

This church:

This is the church where my grandmother's parents were married on New Year's Eve 1919.  This is the church where my grandparents were both baptized.  The house where my grandfather grew up is across the street from this church.  This is the church where they were married in 1947.  

And this is the church where my grandmother's funeral was held.  

It was so beautiful.

Because my grandpa was a Navy man and then my father was a Navy man and then I was a Navy woman, our family has spread out a bit.  We moved a lot and usually lived places long enough to make memories but not really put down roots.  It was neat to spend time in a place that was full of the landmarks of my family's story.  I can't wait to go back.  There's no place like home.

Patriot's Point

On our last day in Charleston, we went to Patriot's Point and soaked in some maritime history. We toured the USS Yorktown, a retired Aircraft Carrier, and got to talk to the boys about some of our adventures in the Navy.

Rick gave the boys a tour of the galley, where his Naval career began, and where we also found a recipe and the ingredients for 10,000 chocolate chip cookies.

I tried to interest them in the dental operatories and the operating room.

Will wanted to know if there was a piano and a TV on board. Interestingly, we found both in the Chief Warrant Officer's Mess.

We took a break for lunch at the Chief's Mess.

When we had had enough of the surface Navy, we walked across the street to the Cold War Era Submarine Memorial and we showed the boys the names of the boats Rick and Grandpa had served on.

I've only really ever been on board submarines before, when my dad's boats would host dependents' cruises. I never went to sea when I was in the Navy. I couldn't get over how big and roomy the aircraft carrier was- there was even an escalator so the pilots could get to the flight deck with all their gear.
Strangely, I couldn't stop humming the 'Top Gun' theme.

Farewell, Faithful Friend

Last week we had our 12 year old Ford Explorer towed to the Ford dealership. Because the air conditioner in it pooped out a couple of years ago, it didn't get much driving time this summer and it did a lot of sitting on the street in front of the house. It drives well in the snow, though, so we started to get it spruced up for winter, but were having a hard time getting it started and keeping it running. Rick thought the fuel pump might have gone bad. The Ford dealership had bad news: the gas tank was filled with rusty corrosion and that had caused the fuel pump to fail. $2500 to get it back up and running. So with heavy hearts, we signed the title over to Ford.

I kinda get why people get attached to cars and park them in places of honor on the lawn and let them rust into eternity. That was the first car I bought all on my own. I took it to Iceland with me. It drove me and my friends (including my new friend Rick Smiley) all over Iceland: up mountains, across fjords, over glaciers.
This is the Explorer on Snaefellsjokel. According to Jules Vern, the entrance to the center of the Earth is around here somewhere.

Our favorite Explorer story was when we took it camping at Thorsmork. There was a glacial river between the road and the campground and when we pulled up, a little Icelandic guy came out of the lodge, motioned to a huge tractor and rope on his side of the river, and hollered over to us in broken English that if we got stuck in the river he could probably tow us out. With Rick's coaching, I drove slowly and steadily across the river, glancing down to notice how high the water came up on the doors, and we made it! That afternoon, when we hiked to the top of a nearby mountain I took a picture of my proud Explorer next to a crazy Icelandic tour bus with huge all-terrain tires.

Its next great adventure was as a family car.
It transported my babies home from the hospital and Will to his first day of school.

Part of me sort of wishes we had forgone little luxuries like groceries and health insurance for a little while and poured ridiculous amounts of money into the Explorer to keep it running. Part of me is sort of happy that it will probably become an organ donor of sorts, donating its good parts to other cars in need at the Ford dealership.

So long, furry little buddy

This weekend our kitty, Captain Hook, went to Kitty Heaven.
He came to us from our friend Denise about 6 years ago. She called him Steve.
We changed his name to Captain Hook because his tail had a little curl at the end. We called him Cappy and Cappy Capperson and sometimes Cat-person.
He was a sweet, friendly kitty and had very pretty light green eyes.
He loved to give furry, purry kisses... especially if you were trying to sleep.

Goodbye Little Pink House

Never will I be able to listen to John Cougar Mellencamp's 'Little Pink Houses' without thinking that Mr. Cougar Mellencamp must have driven down our street and noticed our darling house and been inspired to write a cool song.

On Friday we closed on the sale of our Little Pink House. It was a great house with great neighbors. It was the first house that Rick and I owned together. It was the house that we brought Will home to when he was born. We were sad to see it go.
On the other hand... what a great feeling to not own 2 houses. A very cute young couple bought it and I'm sure they will love it as much as we did.

This is the stained glass window I made when we remodeled the bathroom.

Wedding of the Year

We just got back from Charleston, where one of my oldest and dearest friends, Honor, married her sweetheart of a bazillion years, Ned. It was a truly breathtaking wedding- if Martha Stewart and Southern Living Magazine got together to throw a wedding, it couldn't top this wedding. Since I was in the wedding, it was hard to take pictures, but Rick snapped this one of Honor coming down the aisle with her dad. Isn't she beautiful? Note her dad's seersucker suit- I love the South.

I've known Honor since high school and even though I'm not one of those people who is especially good at keeping in touch, we have managed it somehow. It probably helps that our birthdays are exactly 1 week apart, so at least once a year we take time to catch up. (Thanks, Honor, for always turning 29 again a week before I do).

Our paths crossed again in Boston, where we both lived after college. That's where I met Ned. Even though I think Honor was a little in denial, it was clear that Ned had it bad for Honor. You could tell by the way he looked at her when he thought no one was watching. His eyes were so full of love and adoration. It was very sweet and romantic.

Then there was the year that my amazing she-woman friend ran the Boston Marathon. She called me and asked if I would jump in and run the last 6 miles of the race with her for moral support. I thought we had a good plan. I got all geared up, went early to a spot in front of the Dunkin' Donuts right after Heartbreak Hill, schmoozed the policeman who was posted there to make sure people didn't jump into the race, and waited.
And waited.
And somehow we missed each other. When I spoke to her later, she said that she got past the place we were supposed to meet, realized she had missed me, and burst into tears (oof- break my heart). Luckily, Ned just happened to be at a Marathon Party about a block down the course. He spotted Honor, jumped into the race (I have no idea what footwear he had on or how many drinks he had had), and saved the day knight-in-shining-armor style. I'm certainly not trying to take credit for them getting together, but when Honor called me a few years later and told me they decided to give their relationship a go, I turned to Rick and said, "I knew it!".

She picked fabulous colors for her wedding: Tiffany blue and espresso. I couldn't help but go into crafting overdrive.

A CD cover I made for a mix of 'Laid Back Love Songs for the Breezy Bride to Be'

A little photo album













A smash book passed around the bridesmaids luncheon













The wedding guest book
(Thanks for your help, Leah)

Last ER Ever

Even though I hadn't watched 'ER' in probably more than ten years, tonight I watched the very last episode of 'ER'. Which seemed fitting because I vividly remember watching the very first episode of 'ER'. I was a first year student in dental school and taking my basic science courses over at the medical school. At Harvard they have this really wonderful case-based system where the students are broken up into tutorial groups of about 8 people with a physician tutorial leader (my first tutorial leader was Judah Folkman who had recently won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for figuring out that tumors can grow quickly by recruiting blood vessels to grow toward them. Seriously- how humbling is that). So a case would be presented at the beginning of the week- a patient description, vital signs, symptoms, history, etc. The group would develop a list of possible diagnosis and "order" tests. The next day we would have our test results and we would discuss how this changed the possible dignosis and maybe order more tests or procedures. By the end of the week we would have worked toward the final diagnosis and there would usually be some ethical or social issue worked in there along the way.

For some reason at Harvard Medical School they like to brag that Michael Crichton was a student there... before he dropped out. Michael Crichton created 'ER' and a lot of Harvard physicians were consultants on the show. I swear the characters on the show are named after real people. There is a Peter Benton Hall in one of the teaching hospitals and I saw Kerry Weaver on a plaque in one of the conference rooms. There was a lot of buzz about this new show coming on, so on Thurday nights a bunch of us would get together in the dorm and watch 'Friends' then 'ER'. We were a little surprised when the cases we had just discussed in tutorial started showing up on 'ER'. How fun was it to watch the show, then someone would shout at the TV, "That guy drank antifreeze" or "That kid wasn't abused; he has osteogenesis imperfecta" or we would just laugh when the actors mispronounced the medical terms. After I graduated and started residency, I stopped watching because it made me feel too tense and anxious. Tonight was no different-

HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN 15 YEARS?!