The architecture of the Kansas City Public Library 




inspired a group of young people to create this in Russia.



I wish they were my snapshots.

A spot

This is the culprit.  A spot in a bathroom tile.

Ever since I moved into this apartment 6 years ago this spot in a faulty bathroom tile causes me to be troubled and not only when I do my house cleaning.  Seeing this is as bad as seeing each dust particle flying in the air through the rays of sunshine inside my apartment.  Nothing I can do about these bothersome things short of putting the blinds down or changing the tile or tell myself how lucky I am to have nothing more to fret about.
Finally today I opted for the last-mentioned after I had proceeded to clean the next room where I banged my head on an open cupboard door.  Whenever I bang my head I question the thoughts I was entertaining at that particular 'bang' moment and always realize that they were thoughts which I needed to stop immediately or as soon as possible.  Thoughts such as in this instance "what will people think when they see this spot?"   
My sister-in-law came out of the bathroom after her first visit to this new dwelling of mine
laughing as she was telling me that she tried to clean that spot.  

Now l look at it and see the sun and ask for more appropriate but soft head bangs.  

KAVADI

The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Camp and their Temple are nestled in the woods on the mountain across the street from here.  Yesterday they celebrated Kavadi, a religious Hindu festival.  Offering of a Kavadi  filled with self-torture and suffering at every step promises peace and good luck.
It is said that thousands of devotees attend - yes, no parking to be found in a radius of 3 km.  They drive in from near and far and all hope to be amongst the first ones to arrive in order to park as close as possible to the Ashram.  The  procession starts at 9.30 in the morning and ends at  3 in the afternoon. They walk on gravel and asphalt. 

                                             The first ones are arriving

the young ones flashed their feet in a different way

This man rolled down the entire stretch of more than 1 km paved road

and this devotee seems to have needed to impose the severest penance on himself

Maybe I should have photographed more of the beautiful dresses but I overcame my shyness to late to do so.  

  

Arriving in Canada

Laszi batchi, a friend of my Magyar husband, who had arrived in this country months earlier, was waving at us from the landing pier as we disembarked the SS Neptunia in 1956.  He took us to his apartment and suggested we walk up the street and find ourselves a room to rent until we know in which area of town we want to settle.  I had never met this man nor his German speaking wife who I later learned had left her husband and Russia some time ago with the extremely huge diamond which she wore on her finger, hidden in some part of her body.                                                                                               Magyar translated the conversations between his friend and him for me occasionally. Although we all spoke German, the two men liked to speak Hungarian with each other.... and who was I to stop them.  Apparently the area here was inviting because a young couple from Austria were living across the street and further down a Hungarian couple had moved in not long ago.  We found a room the same day not far.

Alois, our next door room-neighbour with whom we shared bathroom and kitchen facilities babysat little Pisha aka Pasha or La Puce the day I decided to get my hair cut.  I walked down our street past rooming houses, duplexes, the hole in the wall known as Chinaman's laundromat, the butcher who carried no European cold cuts, the tavern where Magyar liked to stop for a cold one but where no women were allowed to show their face.
We lived one street over to the east from the street known as the Main which divides east side from west side Montreal. I did not know that then nor was I aware of the fact that we had settled down in the red light district. Yes we had.  I was a naive 21 year old  who had no idea why men gave a second look  when I strolled down the street or when I sat on the benches in Carré St.Louis around the corner or on the steps of the rooming house with baby on lap nor did I know what I was doing when I walked into a barber shop asking for a hair cut. I think he was Italian.  I know he was handsome and polite the one that lead me to a back room, cut my hair, asked to be paid and escorted me back to the front door. 


  
  



    

???????

What the schnuck happened here?

The only thing that I knowingly did was edit words underneath my name.  All else happened by just looking at what was available.  

Did not succeed fixing it so will leave it alone for now.

45 years ago

I shall do a bit of what I set out to do with this blog.  Triggered by the word 'sleep paralysis'.

she and  the Magyar had decided to divorce.  He had moved out and she and her daughter remained in the home till end of the school year.  The past few months had been extremely unpleasant.    

Lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, she opens her eyes and freezes.  She sees his dresser and the chair besides the dresser. He is sitting on the chair doing what she had seen him do for many years.   She can hear the crackling sound of the starched shirt as he bends forward to pull his socks off one by one.  Slowly, as he used to do it, and the starch continues to make itself known.  It is incredibly real real real.  Real to the extend that she can also hear the usual sounds of his labored breathing. 

Although a harmless event to witness, she is terrified and feels completely paralysed.
He is not in the house. She feels completely awake.  

She knows that fear-and distress-dreams can be triggered by 'feel back emotions' but, this is not a dream.  She is awake.  She is frightened and paralysed to the extend that she does not dare to breath and her heartbeat is racing. What is happening?

Finally last week, she came to read an article about sleep paralysis. 

It is said that sleep paralysis experiences are usually very terrifying but that blissful and harmless ones are also reported.

She needs to add that this good man, yes he was a good man, was 14 years her senior and had an alcohol problem which, when outbursts occurred, frightened her to the bones.

World Autism Awareness Day

As I read the 'Spiegel' and the 'Guardian' this morning I was reminded of 

                                                   

                                                                                             Nov.15, 1972

I don't know what Moselito knew way back then.  I had never heard of Autism....now we are both fine with it and life is beautiful. 





                               

Petrus and the weather

Is Petrus still in charge of the weather?

He was when I grew up.  Or, was he only responsible for rain? I can't remember.

I talked to him this morning but you don't want to hear what I said.

When Moselito and I returned from the movies last night the pine trees were green - this morning we woke up to sugar coated green.

Two days ago it was -20C, today -5C and still snowing.  

Winter tires and boots are starting to feel heavy but waking up still feels good.

Happy New Year

My wish to all of you dear friends is a great 2014 Year filled with love and health, with happiness and some madness and ....of course numerous challenges....which you will overcome, just enough for you to become stronger and stay fully alert.


PS: Lovely blue sky but.....minus 35. So very grateful to be sitting inside cosy and warm.

Rest in Peace Nelson Mandela

In June 1990, 4 months after his release from prison, a co-worker and I  wanted to witness Mr. Mandela's visit to Montreal.  He gave his speech on Champ-de-Mars near City Hall.
We left early for the one hour+ drive to town.  We absolutely needed to find parking near City Hall.  The lucky find was on a street along a steep grassy mound.  On top of this mound was the field behind City Hall on which they had build a podium for Mr. Mandela's appearance.   We, like hundreds of other people, climbed the mound as high as we could to be able to see Mr. Mandela as he spoke.  We could hear him but as much as we stretched our necks, we could not see him.  As we were standing there, happy to be that close but stretching to see, I felt a tap on my back.  As I turned, I faced a man.  I can't remember his face.  He was kind and strong and I got to sit on his shoulders. I was allowed to see what I could hear.  I was able to observe Mr. Mandela's conversation with us for a little while.
My notes indicate that he was saying something along the lines of the whites not being the enemy in the fight of apartheid and that we are all facing a common front against racial oppression.
                                           

Kazu came to visit

Kazuko has been working at Moselito's home away from home for 12 years now.  She is one of it's strong pillars.  Her parents still ask when she will be coming back to Japan. They don't know that she has no such intention. 

Whenever she comes to visit with me she arrives after closing the day at the Maison E. community which is 9 in the evening.  Most of the times it's a spontaneous surprise visit. She is used to find me pyjama-clad and each time she sends me an e-mail the next day thanking me for my hospitality and apologizing for having kept me up till 2 in the morning. This time she even went so far as to reserve March 2 for a visit. On that occasion we will open the TV - she wants to watch the Oscars. I love her dearly.

Here she is showing me how to take a video with my camera.

Unfortunately she was not around when I needed to be shown how to transfer the video into the blog.  It looks as if I managed. Hm, took me long enough!

They came, they played, they laughed, they argued and Oma is exhausted.

Yes, woof woof, this is the path that leads to the corral where Major is kept. 

He did not 'woof' us that the horse was in the barn.

Where are skateboard sharing rules to be found?
Sneak-a-Snack and Hungry Man were not happy with the ones I made up for them.  They prefer to wrestle over who gets to put his foot on what.

The fishing license was on hand but the boys had forgotten the rods at home.

                    





                    So, what's next?  Let's climb the pole!

           Let's remember this tree so that we can catch the bird on the way back down the mountain.

The boys are back to school.  Not to be seen again till Christmas.


  

Farmer's Market

was on my 'to do' list yesterday.  My first stop was to buy 2 heavy loaves of sesame seed coated spelt bread kneaded by strong hands at a biological co-op farm nearby.  The tall, clean looking farmer with kind words passing his beard-framed lips answered my "how many families run this co-op"  etc. questions with pleasure.  I don't know how our conversation reached the point where I said "I will if I remember".  That's when he started praising the effects of coconut oil.  It being very good for avoiding short memory lapses and even keeping Alzheimer's away.  As he asked "will you remember?" he slipped me this note

We both had a good laugh as I slipped it into the bag containing the breads.

Then, Mr. K. and I bumped into each other as we were looking at a display of mushrooms.
"Oh, the chef is checking out the mushrooms" I exclaimed. He does not know me but everybody knows him.  I remember him parading though the banquet room to a roaring applause of  us diners after a 7-course meal.                                                                    You know what I said to him? No? You'll never guess.   I cleared  my throat and said "when I left the house I told myself that if I meet a chef at the market I will ask him...and you know what, I forgot the question".  Mr. K. laughed and consoled me with "I am to be found here each Saturday".
We parted and a few tables away I stopped here

and remembered my question.  "Do you buy your garlic here at the market? Who has the best? I have a problem with garlic. I don't buy the one from Ch... but the other does not taste like garlic either.  Maybe I have a problem with my taste buds. What do you say?"
I looked for him everywhere, going back to where I came from but no Mr. K-chef was to be found.

Very disappointed I walked back to my car parked in the parking lot of a big surface food store.  I saw him from far and started waving my arms in the air as I was walking towards him.  I told him how I came to remember and put my question to him.  I think he is my age, retired now.  We 'Golden Agers'  are so nice to each other.  He thinks that all garlic sold at the market is good and suggested I never cut it into small pieces but always squeeze it open before adding it to any dish and added with a smile "if that does not work it could be your taste buds".  

The Boys

I have been kind of 'goofing off' lately doing easy on my brain things. 

When Noah, aka Sneak-a-Snack welcomed the arrival of little brother Hayden, aka Hungry Man, I went out and bought these two little journals.  The very first page asks "what is Noah/Hayden up to"  and the following pages give the answer. 
The question is always asked by me, Oma, and the answers can be from either the boys themselves or their parents or other family members or their friends.

I wish I had a drawing talent.  It would have been so easy to just draw a few lines to go with the text.  Something like a comic book but.....  

The way I planed it, I need to be around till age 90 to see their faces when these little journals are given them.  

Not sure I understand

This morning I read the heading of an article in the Guardian in reference to the British Medical Association declaring that force-feeding the  prisoners who are on hunger strike at Guatanamo  is a gross violation of medical ethics.

Why so?  Is it not done to prevent suicide?  If it is done for other reasons it is political and not medical or ?

What about medical ethics when terminally ill patients or elderly that do no longer want to live are kept alive by force-feeding through tubes and other means? 

Why are my thoughts wrapped around this article which I only read the heading of?  If I had read the article I might have found the answer to my questions and would not have had the opportunity to get this off my chest....... Mutti was 88 when she died in hospital.  For three days she had to share space with other patients and each time I sat with her she would whimper "please let me die".  When I returned on the forth day she was in a private room and no longer whimpering.  I was trying to feed her the pudding from the tray that had been brought to her when a doctor walked in and said " why are you feeding her when it only prolongs her agony".  I stopped feeding her and the trays stopped coming . Maybe the trays stopped coming first but I can't help but feeling as if I had stopped first.

Moselito

I picked him up on Friday afternoon to be with Ellena, as he says, for 10 nights.  His vacations with me are not only highlighted with X on his calendar but are also referred to  by the number of nights he sleeps over.

Today, Tuesday, he said  "10 nights sleep here".  As I answered "some nights have passed already", he replied  "Friday 10, Saturday 9, Sunday 8, Monday 7, Tuesday 6, today 6 more nights sleep here".

Amazing!  Enough to 'make' my day.

I am so grateful for such surprises and wonder as to how much more is in his brain that I/we are not aware of. 

Just saying and to explain

why I was invisible in recent days.

Wrestled with a 20pound bag of earth - the bag won - my back lost.

10 days of wrong body predictions promising a better tomorrow.  Pain killers now at work.
Date with a 'Chiro' on August 8th.

Please, not more than a HI in comments.

Lac-Megantic

Human error - equipment malfunction - lax regulations - corporate greed - whatever 

I hear voices and read text messages

          "let's go for an after work drink"
          "wait I'll give you a lift home"
          "I am on my way home-getting into the car now"
          "come over to ....bar, we are celebrating her birthday"
          "what a beautiful evening, let's go for a walk"

and I hear screams and footsteps of people that could not run fast enough.

Instant cremation

My heart goes out to the families.      

And then I was thinking

"what is it with ones blog?".  I am not sure I would have asked my daughter Pasha to set up a blog for me had I known what having one, or should I say writing one, turns out to be.

What I wanted to do is get my house in order.

All photos are in albums in chronological order starting with arrival in Canada in 1956 and ending with NOT YET.  Photos of people that my children don't know are burned and others such as of office parties and other events are weeded down to two or three of the same event.  Why burden Pasha and Besito de Luz with 'who is this' questions after I am gone. Most photos have a little story to tell. I typed it up, cut it out and inserted it below the photo. That part of 'house order' is settled.  Shots of our family life spread out on a shelf. 12 volumes long.
Then there is a thick album which I named 'Je me souviens'.  
The first section contains 2 photos of German grandma and grandpa together and many photos of grandma's 4 siblings.
Next section shows Greek grandma alone and Greek grandpa with his 3 boys, one daughter.
Next section is filled with photos taken when mom and dad were courting, 2 of my baptism on a Greek island and a handful of other shots of my brother and I in Greece and some nieces and aunts and uncles.
Next section is my life in Germany, age 6 up to the day my husband, baby Pasha and I left Germany. Lots of '1st time' memories are living here. Some are typed and inserted and some.........................now my thoughts finally return to the why of this post.
  
This blog was meant to contain little life stories that mothers tell their children.  Things that they remember but never had the chance to tell them.

I have since realized that writing a blog also means reading blogs and reading blogs means making comments and making comments means that the writer looks at the blog of the commenter and, being polite, makes a comment on the writer's blog.

I know that you follow me but have a hard time following myself. Just said Prost to myself for the second time.  A wineglass filled with Baileys, the original Irish cream.  Ya, ya, I do have the little liquor glasses that this drink is served in but they are to small to be used for what I call desert.

So, where was I?

Yes, I found R's blog and liked it and thought to myself  "let me see if I like any of the blogs she reads, I can't go wrong" and that's how I got to you L. and to you N. and to you T. and to you RR and to B.  Of course I continue reading H's blog which is kind of a ground stone of my blog reading.
I never mentioned that it sometimes takes me more time to write a two-line comment than it takes you to write a two-page post.  Why, because I chose to read challenging blogers and/or blogers who inform me about subjects that have woken my curiosity.  I now feel that I am playing in a league into which I don't belong. But, I got hooked on you all, on your kindness especially, and don't want to let go.

So much about blogging.  

While writing this I realize that NO, I am not super organized, I AM controlling and the other thing I noticed, actually it rubbed itself in as I was writing, is the fact that I/we do not have a single picture of Mom and Dad together.  I know that they were married. I saw it written on their divorce papers.

PS I wrote this last evening. Just justifying time of drink.

One more time

did I have to tell the life story of Moselito, last week.

He has been a bit more anxious and stressed as usual lately.   The care givers at Maison E., a community founded in 1982 , invited me to talk about Moselito to a group of 15 people gathered in the living room of Maison C.  Caregivers, new volunteers and the leaders of music therapy, pottery workshop, weavery and farm wanted  to learn more about Moselito in order to see how they could help to bring him back to his usual rather easy to handle self.
Pictures of events and former coworkers were spread out on a table, covering 31 years of his life in the community.  All thoughts were concentrated on Moselito.
I began with my pregnancy- heavy cramps, kicking and boxing as if he were looking for a way out.  Very happy in his crib but unhappy if placed on the floor to crawl or to sit and play. Needed security of the small crib area.                                                                              Montreal Children's Hospital were the first to mention the word 'Autism'. Fine Motor Therapy was suggested to teach him to play and interact with other children. I enrolled him.  3 times a week I dropped him off at therapy, his sister at school and myself into the office and three times a week I had to run to the car park, drive to therapy, pick him up and drive him to babysitter and then drive myself back to the office, all in one hour (my lunch hour). Speeding at 125km an hour on three lane highway is still haunting me. Autism specialists at 3-day convention had Moselito on stage and over the microphone I was informed that they had a  very intelligent child in front of them.   At age 7, we (his father and I) registered him in a private school which served special needs students. Until school registration I used the 'I' because that is how it was done (mother did best).  
Divorce.                                                                                                                           School suggested home speech therapy.  I accepted to do it, was given a lesson as to how, the school came to tape first lesson and last lesson video and were happy about the results. Music therapy after school became also available and Moselito attended.
In the mornings I drove 1.25 hrs in all directions dropping one child here, the other there and myself somewhere else and in the evenings it was the same  with pick ups except that it took longer.
I did not know much about autism. How to, what not to and what to do.
There were all kind of incidents with M.
M. in the back of the car, no seat belts way back then, me driving on three-lane highway and him jumping at me from back seat and him banging his head on mine and biting my neck - M. sitting on passenger side, me turning left on one lane road and door on his side opening wide - and more of such. I always kept my cool and managed to calm him down.
As my strength and patience started to wear out and knowing that I would eventually not be able to continue like that (I was 47then) and  not wanting to burden his siblings with the responsibility of taking care of their brother, I decided to place him.  Needless to say that it was a heartbreaking decision.
This was 31 years ago. The Maison E. center had just been founded and has since grown from 3 to 22 'villagers' in need of special care and about 30 caregivers who share 5 residences. Moselito's home away from home is paradise to him and to Ellena, as he calls me.  
Although I am not ready to check out, I can die in peace because of this place so close to my heart.




This is Maison C., the home which Moselito shares with 5 other villagers in need of special care, houseparents and coworkers.