What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street?
Money. That’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever found in the street. I don’t think I ever found more than $20, but one time a twenty-dollar bill floated right in front of me in the ocean. It glided by on a gentle wave. Turns out that a wet twenty needs to dry out in the sun, but then it works just like a regular twenty. 😉
Quick update on the fruit trees—the fruit picking tool arrived! And there’s plenty of fruit left out there. The squirrels are still MIA.
My second Winesap apple pie of the year just came out of the oven. I’m using the recipe on a ceramic pie plate that I’ve had for at least twenty years. I believe my mother got it at a “garage sale” for me.
So maybe this pie plate is a better answer to the prompt. Around here, “Garage sales” typically take place on the street in front of the home.
For what it’s worth, I think very old people should retire, especially from Congress.
At age 80, Ed Markey is too old to be elected to a six-year term as a Massachusetts senator. I voted for his 47-year old primary opponent Seth Moulton—a Harvard graduate (Physics Major), multi-term U.S. Representative, decorated Marine Corps veteran, and married father of two daughters.
The main objection to Moulton seems to be that he once said something along the lines of “I don’t want my daughters to have to play contact sports with formerly male athletes.” This seems like a ridiculous reason for Massachusetts “progressives” to throw him under the bus, but that’s exactly what they’re doing, including many of the activists from my church.
So now, I keep my mouth shut. I’m obviously going to vote for Markey over any Republican in the general election.
Markey is a tall old white man (not a known member of the LGBTQ community). He has no children. I believe he served in the Army Reserves during the Vietnam War. My favorite thing that he’s done as Senator was to speak out against the TikTok ban.
Here’s what the New York Times had to say about this race.
We hired the young man who plowed our driveway last winter to help install my husband’s new vegetable garden (aka The Retirement Garden), which will have four large raised beds, irrigation, and a deer fence. (Fingers crossed the kid is up to the job. The soil where the fence posts need to get sunk in is very hard.)
In the meantime, a few of the many fruit trees my husband planted about twenty years ago have survived deer and other blights and are producing fruit. And for some reason, this year, the squirrels are missing in action. Typically, they would’ve had these trees stripped by now.
I made my first ever pie from the apples in our yard yesterday.
According to Google, “Winesap apples are a classic American heirloom variety prized for their deep, cherry-red skin, exceptionally crisp texture, and unique, tangy, wine-like flavor. Dating back to the colonial era, they are famous for an intense sweet-tart profile with spicy undertones, making them a premier choice for fresh eating, cider brewing, and baking.”
My Winesap apple pie was really good. I used the basic recipe that’s printed in the bottom of my pie plate, but these apples definitely have a complex, spicier taste than the usual store-bought varieties.
Thank you squirrels for taking a vacation this year.
Bosc pear tree
Asian pear tree
I have done some baking with our Asian pears in the past, but they’re very sweet. They’re best eaten fresh off the tree.
These beautiful pears are hanging just out of my reach, untouched by squirrels. We finally broke down and ordered a fruit picking tool so we can get these down, but it’s not being delivered until Tuesday. 😕 I really I hope we beat the squirrels to these.
And here’s a throwback photo (August 2002). Check out that harvest. My husband grew all that food! He actually remembers the exact moment he went Organic after reading the ingredients on a bag of grub killer at our first house in Canton, MA in 1995.
Growing some of our own food again has become increasingly appealing in Trump’s America. Between skyrocketing food prices, never ending news of American food supply contaminations, and now an absolutely ridiculous trade war with Canada, we want to put our sunny yard back to doing something useful.
If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?
I don’t know if everyone knows this or not, but there’s an entire corner of the internet dedicated to “Eldest Daughter Syndrome.” It seems like it applies largely to immigrant families where the oldest daughters and/or oldest granddaughters get stuck with a LOT, like becoming the family’s default adult long before they’re actually adults, translating for parents, managing paperwork and appointments, mediating conflicts, supervising younger siblings, and generally absorbing emotional labor that “should” belong to a parent. The pattern often continues into adulthood.
Now, I’m not saying I had to do any of that really hard stuff. (I’m a third generation immigrant. My parents were both born here and did fine. My grandfather was born in Italy and died young, and my grandmother was illiterate in both English and Italian, although she spoke and understood English just fine.) Still, I do relate a bit to the Eldest Daughter problems that other women describe. Being the oldest, I think I tried too hard to please my parents. I cared too much what they thought. As I’ve mentioned many times, I was raised Catholic. I think I took the fifth commandment “Honor thy Mother and Father” too seriously. I tried too hard to be perfect — for them. Also, I was made to feel responsible for some of my sister’s problems, which were completely beyond my control.
So, I guess my message to my younger self would be, don’t worry so much about what Mom and Dad think, especially Dad. It’s OK to disappoint them. You do you.
Perfect me with my father and sister on my First Communion day. That dumb veil pinched my head so much.
If your future self could send you one sentence, what do you hope it would say?
I feel like I am my future self. Things are somewhat settled for me. I’m 61, I’m retired, I’m a grandmother, I’m married and I’m going to stay married until one of us dies.
My hopes for the future are all for my kids and grandkids, and for humans in general.
I am beyond horrified at what we’re currently seeing in my country…from the return of measles, to the reversing of the hard won victories of the Civil Rights and Women’s movements, to the alienation of our democratic allies over a wildly ill-conceived war in the Middle East, which is costing us all a shit ton of money and has no end in sight.
I hope 81-year old me can say something like this in 2046:
Dear Mary,
Fear not! After President Trump was found dead on the toilet by his delighted wife, VP Vance was sworn in, but lost in a landslide to President Ocasio-Cortez, who ushered in a new era of democracy, peace, prosperity, equality and optimism, which continues to this day.
What’s something you used to worry about but don’t anymore?
I used to worry that something would happen to my husband before our kids grew up. I worried that he’d die and I’d be left to raise them alone. We never had life insurance policies. (Too expensive) When I had just one child (my daughter), I figured I could manage. Somehow, she and I would get by. After my son was born six years later, I was really dependent on my husband (and his income). I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own without help.
Sometimes now, I just revel in the relief of having them both grown and living independently. I am here if they need me, of course, but they don’t NEED me, need me—in that food/shelter/life/death kind of way—anymore. Phew.
I still worry about my husband dying, but it’s more about me now. How would I change the water filters on my own? Or reprogram the sprinklers after a power outage? Who would watch Masterpiece with me??
Nantucket, 2007 I sometimes found raising two kids hard with two parents on the job—literally, one for each kid. We also had a helpful set of grandparents nearby. Hats off to all the women who raise children completely on their own. Some of them do it so brilliantly, but I’m glad I don’t have that particular worry anymore.
My son grew up with the girl next door. He was three when we moved here and she was the only other little kid in the neighborhood. She’s two and half years older than him, but when they were small, that didn’t matter.
They played in leaves, they played in snow, they played in sand, they bounced on her trampoline. They played video games or did legos together when it was too cold to go outside.
“Can I call Maddie?” was his #1 question in life for many years.
Eventually they grew apart, but she was his first best friend.
The Girl Next Door.
John and Maddie in 2005. She turned 28 yesterday and I reached out to her Mom with this photo. Her Dad still lives next door, but we don’t see him much.The friendship lasted through several years of grade school.
What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel?
I remember reading The Lacuna (copyright 2009) by Barbara Kingsolver and deciding I really needed to visit Mexico. I was in my mid-forties and I’d never been.
I don’t remember much about the book, but I know that at least part of it was set in Mexico and that Kingsolver is an incredible writer. So we went! I brought the whole family. Even though my son got a stomach bug, my kids still remember it as one of our best vacations.
We stayed in a resort, but it was one with a town nearby that we could walk to.
We took a boat over to Cozumel for a day trip.
My kids with other kids from all over the world at our hotel beach in Mexico (2011)
Yup, that’s right. I’m going to have another granddaughter and I’m thrilled.
There’s a new show on Apple TV called Margo’s Got Money Troubles and it’s really got me thinking about grandparents and the many different ways people inhabit that role.
We tend to think of grandmas as kindly, white-haired ladies that bake stuff and give you socks for Christmas. That’s pretty much how I think of my grandmothers. Both were widows for decades after their husbands died. (I never knew a grandfather) and both were wonderful, but very typical grandmothers to me and my sister. Interestingly, both played a very different role for my cousins (two sets of cousins on opposite sides of the family). One set of cousins lost their mother to breast cancer when they were tiny, so my grandmother (my mother’s mother) became their second parent. She moved in with them, cooked for them, taught them to read, etc. And my father’s mother did the same thing, but for a different reason. In that case, it was because my aunt and uncle worked 24/7 at their grocery store. It was a family business that required them to be gone all day long, so my grandmother did all their cooking, cleaning and childcare until my cousins were grown.
So, one woman can be two different “types” of grandmother, depending on the circumstances of her adult children.
In the show, Michelle Pfeiffer (age 68, but looks younger) becomes a grandmother unexpectedly after her daughter (played by Elle Fanning, age 28) gets pregnant accidentally in college—via her lit professor—and decides to keep the baby. Michelle Pfieffer’s character has been a single mom and Hooters waitress who had hoped her daughter would have a better life. She’s about as far as you can get from the white-haired, baking stereotypical Grandma.
There are other great characters of my generation in this show. Nick Offerman (age 56) plays Elle Fanning’s biological father, who was not around at all while she was growing up, but appears on the scene straight out of rehab. He’s a former pro wrestler who may or may not have been Michelle Pfeiffer’s one true love. He needs a place to stay and ends up moving in with his daughter and helps care for his grandson, while his daughter tries to make some money for them to live on. (Enter “Only Fans”) Offerman is SO good in this unique role. I’ve really never seen a grandfather presented in this way.
And then there’s Greg Kinnear (age 63). He plays the guy Michelle Pfeiffer is planning to marry. He’s a stable, kind, quiet churchgoer who devoted his entire life to his parents, until they died. Michelle Pfeiffer is his first girlfriend – ever. Kinnear is also terrific in his role. He turns what could have been a silly joke of a man (a Mamma’s Boy extraordinaire) into someone understated and complex. I’m actually really rooting for him too.
In any case, there are many different ways people become grandparents and fulfill the role. I really had no idea how I would fulfill the role before my granddaughter was born. How much would I be needed? Or wanted?
One online resource I wish I’d discovered earlier is: More Than Grand. (Yes, they are trying to selling you some products, but the advice delivered through their social media posts and blog is very solid and helpful.)
Finally, if you’re not following Red’s Wrap here on WordPress, you’re missing out on a fantastic writer. Jan is a REAL writer (unlike me). She will touch your heart in a way similar to great talents like Anne Lamott. Tragically, Jan lost an adult daughter to a heart defect recently and is now caring for a 4-year old granddaughter in her late 70s.
So many different ways women are fulfilling the role…
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