Life and Fish Tacos

photo stolen from https://www.ebay.com/itm/304663195481 Toy Story Story, by Julie Elias Bird                    "Somewhere in that pad of stuffing is a toy who taught me that life's only worth living if you're being loved by a kid" –Toy Story II               In thinking about upcoming Christmas shopping, I began musing on past Christmases—gifts I have received and gifts I have given to others. My oldest daughter, Georgia, good-naturedly accuses me of having given her all of the boring, intellectual gifts, while her younger sisters got “fun” gifts. I do recall a Christmas when she tore open the wrapping paper to reveal a globe of the world, and her sister next to her opened a Cinderella Horse & Carriage. Oh my! Was I THAT mom?? I don’t deserve to ever live that one down.           ...

  Outstanding    “My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view -- A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold A tapestry to feel and see , impossible to hold .”   --Carol King, Tapestry   On a cold February day in 1965, a little fella was born to Bob and Lynda Bird of Menomonie, Wisconsin. They named him Tim, and Tim had an older sister by a year and a couple of weeks, Tammy.   After Tim, came Steve, Kevin, and Amy, and the family was complete. Tim grew up rough-housing and watching the Packers with his brothers, sisters, and many cousins. A day in the life of Tim, as a youngster, consisted of getting up each day, dressed and ready at 7:00 a.m., helping out with farm chores, taking the bus ride to and from school, and enjoying after-school activities as well as church events--a normal upbringing in all respects with the added bonus that Tim was an exceptionally hard worker, who never q...

   “The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.” --Andy Rooney      We stood there looking down at her. She sat there gazing up at us. She had tried and tried to make it to a standing position, having wet herself in the process, and we tried to boost, support, and lift her. Until this morning, we had always managed to get her 90 lb. body moving. Today, with a finality that shook us to the core, she laid back down. It could not have been more clear. She wanted us to know she was done trying.    Earlier that morning, we were discussing what we thought was the slow demise of Dharma’s back legs. A trip to the vet the week before determined that our 13 ½ year old Lab-Doberman was suffering from gradual nerve deterioration in her spine. For the last couple of years, she had become slower and weaker, but she figured out how   to acclimate herself to her old-age problems. She could still pull herself up onto the couch, and still loved...

  Wait, what is that ?? Is it dead? Oh my gosh, it’s SLEEPING! As I stood out in our wildflower garden, my sightline expanded and adjusted to the patch of zinnias before me. Not just one solitary bumble bee, but 20 or more, tucked up into the petals of ALL of the zinnias, ALL of them, sound asleep. It was an early autumn morning nearly a year ago, with just a little chill in the air, but otherwise calm and pleasant. I reached out my pinky finger and gently brushed the furry back and translucent wings of one of the bees, giving him a little “pet”, if you will. He responded, stretching one of his velvety back legs behind him. Startled, and a little bit afraid of getting stung, I pulled away and stood back. He groggily settled himself again and went back to sleep.             What had just happened? My life had been changed in an instant—well, my knowledge of bees certainly had, and I could not get that image out of my mind. Aro...

  Take yourself back to your 8 year old self. Close your eyes. Imagine a castle with high walls as transparent as glass, the main entry guarded on each side by towering crystal dragons. Imagine that you live here! A medieval knight in armor stands at the ready to guide you into the castle’s magically gleaming courtyard. The floor beneath your feet is the purest white. Off in the inner reaches of the castle you catch a glimpse of a diamond sword embedded in an imposing crystalline stone. Your quest is to make your way to that sword and claim it as your own. From somewhere in the background comes the sound of singing. You turn, and there before you is an exquisite princess. She leads you up a daunting staircase and you wonder where on Earth you could be going, until you reach the top, which opens onto what seems like a mile long pair of giant slides. She challenges you to a race down this vast, steep slope.  Sound good so far?  Oh, I should have said, “Put on your warmest...

  “What is it, Lassie? What’s happened?! What? Over at the Harrington Place? A fire? Ok, Girl! We’ll go get the sheriff. Good Girl!” Together Timmy and Lassie race to help put out the dangerous fire raging on the other side of the mountain. Timmy & Lassie, Shaggy & Scooby, Charlie Brown and Snoopy--there is no end to the legends that are born from a boy’s relationship with his dog. This past weekend another famous duo, “Gary Bird & Dharma Dog” (and I) made a visit to the Larson house in Spring Valley, where Kaye Bird’s sister, Nina, introduced us to their new “grand-puppy”. “Buttercup” (as in Princess Buttercup from The Princess Bride) is an 8 week old cocker spaniel. She doesn’t know it yet but she is going to grow up to be a gorgeous dog. Most of her is a soft cream color, with complimenting butterscotch velvet ears and butterscotch freckles on her muzzle. Her person is Elliot, who is eleven years old. Even though she has only lived with him for a day at the time of ...

  Do you have a Bucket List? The other night my husband, Gary, and I sat down and  watched the 2007 film, from which this famous question was born, The Bucket List , starring Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson, and Sean Hayes. I had never seen it before. It is billed as a comedy, and although we found ourselves chuckling at certain moments, it was not slap-stick or sidesplitting. What was supposed to be one of the funnier scenes was when Carter, Morgan Freeman’s character, fulfills his dream of driving a 1961 Red Shelby Mustang with white racing stripes. He and Edward (Jack Nicholson) end up at a race track, Carter with his Shelby and Edward in a 1970 yellow Dodge Challenger. They are racing around the track and it’s a thing of beauty to watch…until they get overly-excited and out-of-control. They WRECK these iconic, classic cars. Oh my stomach! Yet the film was endearing, and left us with a lengthy discussion afterward about goals, dreams, and our need to know we’ve squee...

 

Happy beginnings happen. June 27, 2020, we officially married each other. Neither of us knew exactly what the other was planning to say for our vows. This morning, one week later, we watched the video of the ceremony. We were able to listen to each other without the distraction of our nerves. There wasn't a dry eye in the kitchen as we sat there on our bar stools at the island. If you have Facebook, you can watch at this link:  https://tinyurl.com/yanpwqko   There were two other shorter segments of our wedding ceremony that aren't viewable due to some technical challenges.  I don't have much else to say on this post. It's all there in our vows. But you may be wondering about the wisdom of having a wedding and reception during this time of pandemic. This was indeed a huge concern. We limited our actual ceremony to immediate family who live in the area, and our children & grandchildren--roughly 35 people spread out in their family groups, outside on a large plot of la...

I have thought that what I'm about to post here would never see the light of day. It comes from New Year's day 2019, which was not a day that I consider "light" in any sense of the word. I wrote it in a hospital waiting room, while my daughter suffered on the other side of a secure door through which I was not allowed to enter.  I can only share it now because we have come so far past that dark morning in the ER.  Much good has transpired since then. We are healed and are healing. She is now in college and living on her own, working on her coping mechanisms, and enjoying a new-found family with her soon-to-be step father & step siblings. She is beautiful, healthy, and determined to find happiness each day. COVID-19 has reminded me of the anguish of that January 1st of 2019. How many people since January of 2020 have been sitting out in their cars, or home alone, or in a waiting room, not being allowed to see a loved one in intensive care as they struggle with this...

“Hand me that wrench over there…”  “Sure thing! You mean the one with the blue handle or the hand-adjustable one?” Again with the hands! This is Part 2 of a column that Gary Bird and I co-wrote and posted back on March 19 of this year. In Part 1, we talked about our fathers and how their hands told the story of the lives they led and the values they lived by. Kelly Carswell added a poignant description of her grandfather’s farm-worn hands.  We also mentioned hand size, comparing NBA player Boban Marajanovic’s hands with those of tiny Kristin Chenoweth, the 4’11” actress from the Broadway musical “Wicked”. We mentioned Alan Alda’s unforgettable monologue from M.A.S.H. where he describes the miracle of the hand. I sent our family a text, asking to help me out today as I write. I requested that they think of the word “hand” and tell me what crosses their mind on the spot. What followed was a bombardment of phrases from the very silly to the profound.  “Han...

All this washing of hands lately—it has had us thinking, well, about hands: how useful they are, how beautiful they are, how culturally indispensable they are. We clean with them, work with them, make art and music and inventions with them. We text with them, travel with them, make repairs with them. Dabbing would not be dabbing without them (Google: “Betty White dabbing” and you’ll see the best example). We greet with them. We welcome with them. We comfort and cure with them. We reject with them. Think about it. Hands are truly amazing. We looked up NBA players with the biggest hands. Boban Marajanovic, center for the Dallas Mavericks, wins the prize with a hand length of 10.75 inches (base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger), and get this, a hand span (pinky to thumb) of over 12 inches. Keeping it close to home, Milwaukee Bucks’ Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo, is a close second. His hand span is equal that of Marajanovic, but just an inch shy in length. Of co...

My friend, Angela, recently built a harp. I remember when she first told me that she had plans to do it. She mentioned that she had been perusing the various patterns and kits for a while, trying to reconcile the complexity of the project with her resolve to finish it once she started. Building a harp from the ground up!   How does a person accomplish that?!   Well, Angela, for one, would have had both the nerve and the drive to attempt it, so as proud friends do, I made it my goal to throw my enthusiastic support her way.  When I saw her weekly at our band rehearsal, I would ask her about her progress. One week she let me know she had made a decision and had ordered her kit. A couple of weeks later she announced that her living room floor was sectioned off with all of the innumerable pieces, and that she had begun sanding the wooden parts.   There was one week where she wasn’t sure if she had bitten off more than she could chew with this project. “But,” ...