You've Probably Met this Guy

He has Velcro memory. “In ott-6 I was traveling down Interstate 99 and I turned off at Highway 65 and went to Tamarac Way-- turned left there--on the corner I filled up at a Texaco service station where I bought gas for 26.9 cents a gallon…”

That’s not me.

I was in Germany in 1990-something.  1995. My traveling companion just told me. While there we visited a grocery store where they used no plastic bags—no paper ones either, not even for produce. One simply weighted their apple, orange, cabbage, whatever, put a sticker of weight and price on it, and put it back into the cart.  Cart usage cost 25 cents.

The customer ran the cart through check out, took out the groceries, paid and put them back in. They then wheeled the cart out to the car, and if they were smart, because they had no bag, they stowed the groceries into a box. At home they carried the box inside the house, unloaded it and, if they were smart, replaced it into their vehicle.

It was easy.

After that I championed the cause of no bags. Many people carried bags, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember to take a bag into the grocery store.  

Now I’ve got it.  Eugene forced me into it.

On May 1 Eugene enforced a no plastic-bag law. Paper bags are offered at check-out for  5 cents, and they do supply free plastic produce bags. The retail stores have joined the fray and offer no bags. The first day, so I heard, women carried out purchased clothing in their arms.

We are getting it.  Now I carry canvas or recyclable bags in the car, and I remember to take them into the store.

It tickled me when I got a garbage can, a recycle container, and a yellow tub for glass. The instructions that came with them read like assembling instructions from IKEA.  Contrast this to California were I was shameful,  throwing glass bottles into the dumpster because I didn’t know what to do with them, or was too lazy to find a recycle center.

Now I’m even washing my garbage.

 

This picture tickled me. frankcluck is selling them on etsy.com Many different recycled bags from which to choose.

 

Last week I spent time contributing to my writing blog

http://thebestdamnwritersblogontheblock.blogspot.com

Today I’m facing the empty box of Corel Draw. It is downloaded.  I’m scared to begin.

Tomorrow I need to make a cover, and learn to format my book Mom’s Letters, Daughters’ Secrets for an eBook.

That’s May in wrap-up.

 

 

"When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."--John Lennon

 

 

P.S.

On Pinterest I’m Jewell D

On Twitter I’m JewellD@jewellD3

On Facebook I’m www.facebook.com/jewell.davis2

Followers get special love zapped through the ethers right onto their shoulders where they will feel all warm and fuzzy.

Here I’ll remain Joyce, Jo, or jewell, or Honey or Dear.

 

There are a million BONKS in the Naked City, or is that BUCKS?

 

NOPE, THE BONKS ARE IN THE KITCHEN.

 

I put a plate on the granite counter top, BONK.

I pull a pan from the shelf, BONK!

Placing a cup on the counter, unloading the dishwasher-- grinding coffee? Forget it. All is noisy.

Maybe I’m just clumsy.

The reason for noticing all this BONKING, BANGING OR GURGLE, GURGLE as I pour water into a pitcher to make iced tea, is that daughter dear and grandson sleep right off the kitchen. In the mornings the cat wants their bedroom door open for he needs to do his laps. Daughter works way into the night while her young one is sleeping, so in the mornings, I try to be quiet. It’s impossible. Doesn’t seem to bother her though, so guess all my bonking needn’t be a concern.

A concern worth addressing is the online store eBay, daughter’s source of income.  It has gone cuckoo. If you call eBay, they will say everything is okay. Talk to the sellers and they are crying gigantic crocodile tears, for some say their sales have dropped 50% in the last month. That coincides with a change in eBay’s search engines, and search tactics. Cassini  is the name of their search engine, and it is so specific as to be ridiculous. It appears to be phasing out the little guy. Oh gee, and daughter dear is a little guy. She was making quite a living selling Legos. She and I went together and are selling Duplos, the 2 to 5 year-old baby’s version of Legos, (larger bricks, larger animals and figures), and they were selling well until all hell broke loose.

Cassini is so invasive it tracks where a searcher’s curser is on the screen, and what sellers and customers  are saying to each via emails. It favors the top seller bumping them into top position to insure that they sell more. Thus it is favoring mega stores like Toys R Us. “Best buy” isn’t necessarily the cheapest. eBay, of course,  wants to make money, so the no-so-cheap items will pop up first. Some say if your items aren’t selling raise your price, and here we were trying to sell low.  I thought eBay was about the unusual, the odd, the unique, the bargains, a place where customers could search for specific items.   I thought it was friendly. It looks as though sellers must list for the search engine, not the customers. One seller of Wigs said his wording has to be WIG, not wigs. Oh gosh, oh gee. No wonder people get conspiracy ideas floating through their brain.

We’ll see. I hope it all gets worked out.

Meanwhile I sit here at the window in front of my computer looking out to the street. All’s quiet. All’s well. This is a great street, many nice homes, many cars, yet few on the road. Where are all the people and why so few cars on the road? I’m not complaining. Just wondering. It’s a mystery. Maybe we’re like the Truman movie where everything is a movie set.

My window is facing North so the sun does not shine on my screen or in my eyes. In California I had to keep the blinds pulled so I could see.  In Hawaii I could look out over the expanse of green that was the mowed area around our house, and there I watched the morning sun enliven the green like the morning goddess tuning up her rheostat. In Oregon I could see Duchess grazing behind the house. When I got other horses and she moved to the paddock, I looked out over the Douglas firs. Gosh I remember living on Hendricks Hill in Eugene before moving to Davis mountain and having a window. Before that in Rancho Santa Fe CA, I sat at another window that opened to a view of the canyon.  I’ve been writing at windows for a long time.

I completed Mom’s book this morning though. I wish I was clever with titles. Do you have any suggestions?  Maybe simply: “Mom’s Letters” Secrets, the End of the Story

 

this book is about Letters written by my Mom to the Holt Adoption Agency that have survived for 50 years, plus my responses.

I have to do it for Mom and for my sister Jan.  I have decided to publish it as an ebook. Marketing? Hell, publishers want you to do the marketed for them, so I might as well do it for myself. I will put it out there. Mom didn’t write all those letters and have them survive for 50 years for nothing. And Jan? I owe it to her. Now for a cover.

This is our book. This is our story. It will fly.

 

Find Duplos on http://www.ebay.com/store/wigglywombat

I was about to have a tizzy-fit because I could not find my daughter’s site, and I knew it existed. How in the world people find her items is beyond me. I was  trying mini-figures, dragons, those sorts of searches. Finally I resorted to PayPal and there found her address.

Here it is:  http://stores.ebay.com/HappyBricks

I have a few items. My ID is douglasfir541 

 

 

 

“Phonic isn’t spelled with an “F”. That’s the reason the aliens fly right on by and don’t stop here.”

Jewell's Do's and Don'ts

 

 

 

Do go to the window and stick your head out and yell, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

 

Don't watch the news—it will ruin your whole day.

Do welcome strangers, foreigners, imports from across the state line, from across the ocean, from across your county’s borders, from across your property line.

Don't read beauty magazines, they will make you feel ugly.

Do take design magazines as inspiration, not as a way to sap your energy that your house doesn't look like those pictures.

Don't listen to financial Doom Sayers’ propaganda. They are compounding the problem.

Do get out of the house, feel the sunshine, see the wonders of your world. Travel, see that other people have the same desires and feelings that you do.

Don't let the media determine your view of the world or allow the toy makers to make your children violent.

Do pursue your goals, Do find something to be happy about. Do let the sweet scent of spring hay waft through your nostrils, Do hug your children, your spouse, your partner, your cat, your dog, your horse, your goat, your iguana, your inner being, a tree, and your grandmother. Do write to me and tell me how God’s creative energy is working in you.

Do listen to Luis Armstrong sing, “I see trees of green, red roses too…and I say to myself, “What a wonderful world.”

 

Do Pursue your own dream or someone will hire you to pursue theirs.

 

Do know that I love my readers and I would be ever so pleased if you would follow me. This site hit over 1,000 page views last month. Thank you to all whose eyeballs hit this page.

 

 

Aloha,

Joyce, or Jewell, whatever

(Remember Aloha means to do good without expecting anything in return.)

 

Jan's Story

She was crying when I first saw her. She was three years old.  I was twenty.  

It was evening.  I rushed in the door fresh from work anxious to see my new sister and was met by a sobbing little girl. Here she was fresh off the plane from Korea, and had ridden with my parents from the airport in Portland to our little town of The Dalles Oregon. She was thrust into a new family, into new surroundings, panicked to see a dog, and our little Jan was so tiny we didn’t know if she could stand. She kept repeating a Korean word we didn’t know that sounded like “Ummaya” which we think meant “Grandma.”

Mother was making all efforts to comfort her, and knowing she was tired from her long trip and in need of rest, Mom filled the kitchen sink with water and bubbles, and set little Jan in it. Jan reached out in joy and curiosity to the bubbles, and a smile broke out over her face that brightened the room like a crack in the cosmos.

Jan was our girl from then on.

That night Mom took her into her bed and cuddled her until morning. Mom became Jan’s haven, a place where she felt safe and adored. Jan was a joy to the family, and she and I became fast friends. She would crawl into bed with me in the mornings, wet my bed, and greet me with incredible affection. I loved her, and I loved showing her off. She liked pretty clothes and I would dress her and brush her beautiful long dark hair, and take her into town with me.

Mom said when I was at work she would wander around the house asking, “Where’s Jo?”

Regretfully I waited out the day assisting dental procedures instead of meeting the plane from Korea and experiencing the joy of watching babies being placed into eager parent’s hands. Mom said when a parent connected with their child, it was cosmic. Mom took Jan into her arms that day, and that was it, they were connected. Jan was a sister to me and to two brothers and a sister who came later. Mom got the family she longed for, and Jan got the mother she needed and with whom she wants to be buried.

Jan died last Thursday April 24, 2013.

Two months ago Jan exclaimed about her new-born grandson, “I didn’t know I could love that child so much. I love being a grandma.”

She had undergone her first round of chemo and felt good, hopeful and filled with dreams. “I want to get a little house I can play with,” she bubbled, “and entertain, and I am getting my music back. Maybe I will perform. I used to do that, and people in town still remember my piano music.”

“Go girl! Go to L.A. There people with ethnic backgrounds get top billing.” (She gave up her music long ago, a decision that will be apparent in a minute.)

And now, once again, I look at the letters Mom wrote to the Harry Holt Adoption Agency between the years of 1957, when she began the adoption process, and 1968 when she died. Jan was only thirteen years old. When I read Mom’s heart droppings, I wondered why I never knew her at that level. But then, I suppose it is easier to open one’s heart on paper, or to a casual acquaintance, than to someone close. The agency kept those letters all these years, and some years after Mom died they sent them to my step-dad. Jan drove the four hours from The Dalles to Eugene to give them to me. I have typed them and am ready to compile them into a book, Letters, A Mother’s Secret, a Daughter’s Secret. 

Yes there were secrets. And it happened before Mom died. The father had a fishing boat, he needed help, a daughter’s help. She was alone with him on the boat. We do not believe Mom knew that Jan’s father (my step-father) molested her. Authorities often say that a mother knows, but I’ve thought long and hard, and knowing my mother, I believe if she knew she would have done things to him I dare not say here.

Jan was the courageous one, breaking open the sexual abuse issue, confronting the step-mother and the father who molested her, and she spent years ridding her body of the injury she received from his betrayal. She was a sensitive child and to have a father turn on her hurt her deeply. These are the secrets that ought not to be buried. Expose them. Leave a legacy for Mom and Jan. We women, and the men who support us, must stick together. We must not keep a conspiracy of silence.

Jan married and had a beautiful daughter, divorced and raised her child as a single parent. She was highly efficient, even as a teenager she could clean up a kitchen before the guests had finished burping. She gave up her music in response to the father who kept volunteering her for events without asking. And she wanted her expression back, her skill, her ability to make music. She wanted her power, to dream again, to laugh that infectious laugh again.

I miss her terribly.

In my mind’s eye I asked Mom why this happened. Why did Jan die so young? I saw the image of Mom taking frail Jan into her ample loving arms, and cuddling her as she did that first day.

For years after Mom’s death, Mom's grave had no gravestone. One year we kids went together and bought one. Jan and I had never visited it together, and so on a cold December day I drove from Eugene Oregon to The Dalles Oregon so we could visit the gravestone I had never seen. I had brought flowers, and as it had begun to snow that day Jan grabbed a broom as we exited her back door. Carrying flowers and a broom, we walked through the cemetery under a gray sky while snowflakes drifted onto our heads and collected, tiny crystal pinwheels, on our coats. We placed the flowers beside the gravestone, and gently swept aside the filmy white so we could read the words written on her tombstone. 

As we stood there talking to Mom, saying what a wonderful mother she was and how lucky we were to have had her, the gray clouds parted in a tremendous arc, revealing clear sky above. The snow stopped. We stared above in disbelief. “I feel joy,” said Jan. “So do I,” I said. Then as abruptly as they had parted the clouds closed and it began to snow again.