2020 Vision

June 28, 2020. We are two days away from the half year mark of this train wreck of a year. 2019 wasn't really a picnic. We put down our much loved bulldog, Beulah, July 4, 2019 and at the very end of the year, we had to also let our kitty, Bella, cross the rainbow bridge ahead of us. But, we felt like 2020 had to be better.  

First, I had a tea party with some dear girlfriends in January. In February, we adopted our new bulldog, Charlotte. We also flew down to California to visit our godchildren and their parents and while we were there fulfilled a lifelong desire of my husband to see the La Brea tar pits. We had a lovely time but the first echos of PANDEMIC were starting to penetrate our consciousness as we got ready to come home.

COVID-19 entered our lives and changed our world almost overnight. Watching the news became so anxiety inducing for my husband, we had to just stop. I would continue to surreptitiously check the news online to try and keep abreast of the number of people that were getting sick and dying in our state and across the globe. Eventually, I had to stop doing that because it was starting to make me anxious too.

Just about the time things were calming down on the disease front, the death of man no one had every heard of, George Floyd, shook the country and the world. To be precise, it was the manner of his death and the color of skin that started a fresh dialog about what it means to be black in America. I could not watch the video of him slowly dying -- suffocating -- while a police officer knelt on his neck. Frankly, everything that lead up to that point ceased to matter once he died at the hands of police officers. What followed were first protests, then riots, the looting and then "occupation" by those protesting of several city blocks up in my old neighborhood in Seattle. 

All of this you have heard about ad nauseam in the local and national media and social media. Friends became enemies as people debated and aired their views about the way the pandemic has been handled, the relationship of the police with the black community and the government's responses to both. It has been exhausting. It has been disheartening. It has been discouraging.

And yet, there have been good things and many things for which we are grateful.  Sometimes, making a list is the best way to count your blessings:

1. Charlotte -- John and I have both said numerous times how glad we are we broke down and adopted her when we did. We had no intentions of getting another dog but on the day the rescue posted her picture, I was tagging my husband in the post the same time he was sharing it to my Facebook page. She has provided us with plenty of laughter even on the darkest days.

2. Work -- Both of us are "essential" and have worked our jobs the entire time of "Stay Home, Stay Safe" and so while many have worried how they were going to pay their rent, buy food for their family and survive, we did not.

3. Family & Friends -- COVID-19 has not been terribly personal for us. A friend from grade school lost her father. They live in New York which has been very hard hit. A friend from book group contracted a mild case of it and has recovered. Other than that, those nearest and dearest to us have remained relatively untouched. More than 100,000 families have not been so fortunate.

4. We Two Alone -- While some have struggled with loneliness during this time and others have struggled with too much togetherness, we have enjoyed more time together with the person we each love most in this world. Previously, we would spend 12 hours a day away from each other and 9 hours a night asleep with each other and by the time we did household chores, we had about 2 hours in a day where we could talk to each other and just be together if we were lucky. The pandemic has cancelled everything but our time together. We have appreciated that more than we like to tell people.

Four seems like a nice round number to stop with so I will leave it there but there are more things to be grateful for in our lives than there are to worry us. We are well aware that is not the case for so many but in case you think we sleep on a bed of roses, let me assure you there have been thorns as well. What are they? Well, that's a post for another time -- maybe.

Lost in a Good Book

I looked up from my book a little disoriented for a moment as the bus pulled out of the tunnel and the sun hit the side of my face.  I had been deeply engrossed – so much so that I felt a little lost as I was pulled back to reality.  A moment before, I had been in England circa 1920, curled up in a chair in the Greene Library at Justice Hall reading a book by a fire with Mary Russell in the chair across from me.  The November rain had been pelting the window and the faint smell of rosemary was in the air.  Suddenly, I was on a bus in Seattle one stop away from where I needed to get off on a sunny April afternoon in 2016.

As I stepped off the bus, I smiled at myself, I had become so lost while reading that I was completely immersed in the setting and plot.  It doesn’t happen to me very often anymore.  One of greatest gifts a book can give is to draw you in so deeply that the present fades and you step into another world.

 

When I was growing up books did that for me a lot.  I wandered through Avonlea with Anne, through the fields of New Moon Farm with Emily, along the paths of 1800’s New England with Lousia May Alcott’s characters and I stood shoulder to shoulder with Jane Eyre at Lowood School and Thornfield Hall.  I rode the wagon across the Great Plains with Mary and Laura and trailed Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson through London and the English countryside.  The Hound of the Baskervilles still makes me shiver when I think about the first time I read it. 

 

I have always like Holmes – first in book form and later in movies and T.V. series.  I love Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey, Jr. and, most of all, Benedict Cumberbatch as the great detective.  For a time, I attended The Sound of the Baskervilles club that read a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story each month and then met to discuss it.  I also have enjoyed books by other writers that borrow Sherlock Holmes as a character – especially the children’s series about a mouse detective that lives at 221B Baker Street and studies Sherlock’s methods to solve crimes in the mouse world.  (See Basil of Baker Street)
 

Then I went off to college and traded reading for pleasure for reading to learn to such an extent that I lost my taste for reading almost altogether for quite a while.  I still read for the fun of it but less and less.  I had a busy and demanding job and I was often too tired to concentrate on a book.  Occasionally, I still read something that completely immersed me.  Memoirs of a Geisha and the Harry Potter series come to mind at the moment but it became a rarer occurrence with each book I read.  Eventually, I joined a book group to keep me reading and to stretch myself to read things I might not otherwise consider.
 

Then my dad and my friend, Dawna, both highly recommended the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie King.  It took me a couple of years before I finally picked up the audio book of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice at the library.  It is the first book in the series.  I have now buzzsawed my way through six of the books and I am reading a seventh Justice Hall. It was this book, for the first time in longer than I can remember, where I once again left reality and stepped so completely into the story that I was lost in a good book.

When Life Gets in the Way



I was reorganizing the favorites on my Internet Explorer today and realized that I had a blog.  A blog that I have neglected for the last three years.  I haven't neglected it on purpose.  Life got in the way.  Three months from today, my husband and I will celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Looking back, so much has happened in those eight years.  John has changed jobs three times, had shoulder surgery, taken a course in appliance repair, turned 40 and put up with me.  I have been at my job for fourteen years and I have not committed a major crime anytime in the last 8 years which is a win as far as I'm concerned.  Together we have purchased our first home, bought a travel trailer and a truck to pull it with, acquired a cat, a dachshund and an Olde English bulldog, changed churches and had many adventures together.  We've had good times, we've had tough times and we've had fun times and boring times.  What can I say, we've been busy.

 

So why the picture?  I don't know about the rest of you out there but sometimes, you have those days -- those days where you drag yourself out of bed and through the week, those Sunday nights when you seriously discuss running away and joining the circus, those weekends full of chores and household repairs and yard work.  My dear husband struggles with this even more than I do but we both have "those" days.  You know what we say to each other?  "Okay, it's time to be grown up." or in other words "Time to adult."

 

When you're a child, you can't WAIT to grow up.  You whine about your chores, you complain about your mom's cooking and you and your friends have the "when I'm a grown up I'm going to . . . " conversations.  Usually this phrase ends with things like "eat Cap'n Crunch for breakfast everyday" or "stay up all night and play video games" or similarly childish desires.  People are always telling you that you have it SO good as a kid and you should enjoy it.  You don't believe them -- ever.  Then you grow up and find that it isn't quite so carefree and fun as you thought it would be.

 

Perhaps you're wondering why I said I haven't committed a major crime in the last 8 years.  Truth is, I've never committed a major or minor crime but after you fall in love and marry someone that you would do anything to protect, the possibility of it can come home to you.  I do work at a job where I am confronted with other people's crimes daily.  It makes you realize that every day we all have the potential to do harm, steal, lie, cheat, have a road rage accident (ugh to city traffic) and kill someone -- even accidentally.  Every day that I don't do that, I consider it a win.  I successfully adulted today.

 

 

 

In Loco Parentis

I know the first time I heard the Latin phrase in loco parentis was sometime in my early days of working for a small law firm in Port Angeles.  The law is one of the few arenas where Latin is still tossed around willy nilly.  Amicus curiae (friend of the court), de novo (anew), duces tecum (bring with you), ex post facto (after the fact), habeas corpus (have the body) and lis pendens (suit pending) are still in common daily usage where I work.  In the beginning, I was constantly asking the meaning of Latin terms.  Now, if I don’t know them already, I can often puzzle out their meaning from the Latin I do know. 

  

In loco parentis means in place of the parents and is often used in describing the role of school in a child’s life.  This week, however, it was the phrase that popped into my head when we were asked to stand as godparents to two children who are very dear to us.  My husband and I have not been blessed with children and we have left that in the hands of the Almighty.  I have found that I cannot write about the subject easily and so have left it on the shelf to simmer until now.
 

As I looked down at the two sweet faces that had no idea what we were discussing with their parents, I was first and foremost filled with the thought that I hoped the guardianship would never be necessary.  Believe me, John and I will be praying with all our might for the health and well-being of their parents to ripe old age.  The second thought that moved my husband and me both nearly to tears was the humbling amount of trust and love that was being bestowed on us.
 

I turned 37 two months after we married.  We allowed ourselves some time to settle into marriage and talked at length about children both before and after we married.  We decided that we would try to have children but that we would take no extraordinary measures to do so.  After a time, it was clear that it wasn’t what God had for us and we quietly put that dream away.  That being said, I don’t know if you will find two people that value and honor what it means to be a parent more than we do.

 

I think especially after we knew that we would not have children of our own, I began to look around at those in my circle of family and friends that are parents.  I will say that I cannot think of a single one of them that doesn’t realize what a tremendous amount of work it takes to be a good father or mother.  I would also say, that without exception, I think they are doing fantastic jobs raising the ones to whom they have been entrusted.  I know there must often be days when infanticide seems a real possibility after a difficult time with a child but I also know that they see how greatly the blessings outweigh the problems.  I think they also realize what a brief span of time they will have with their children before they are grown up and flying the nest.

  

In my line of work at the Court, I regularly review cases that involve the physical or sexual molestation of a child.  As much as humanly possible, since it is not my job to do so, I avoid the facts of the cases because I found early on that the disturbed me to such an extent that I could think of little else.  If anything will turn you into a vigilante, it is child abuse cases.

 

Recently as I was setting aside several briefs that had been returned from the printer, I realized that attached to the copy of one was series of color photographs.  The first one caught my eye because it was a picture of a cell phone text message.  As I turned to the next one, there was a photograph of a little girl of about two years old.  She had big brown eyes and soft curly hair the color of honey.  As I continued to flip through the photographs, I went on to find a series of photos taken at the hospital of her little body which had been horribly abused.  There are some things that cannot be unseen.

 

I will not bore you with overmuch with what had to be done next.  The photos were an exhibit in the case that had been provided as a courtesy by the prosecutor’s office and should not have been attached to the brief nor added to the printed copies.  Another co-worker and I quickly rectified the situation for the case manager that had made the mistake since she was out of the office.  Both of us spent the rest of the day feeling quite ill over the photos.  The little girl survived her abuse and her abuser, if there is any justice in the universe, will never be outside a jail ever again.  He does not have a very good basis for an appeal from which I take a good deal of comfort.  I also take comfort that child abusers do not fare very well in our prisons.  My last source of relief is my belief that someday in the future, that man will stand before God and answer to Him for what happened.

 

Why am I telling you this?  Confession is good for the soul.  Also, I want the parents of all the children John and I stand as guardians for to know that both of us would give our very lives to keep their little ones safe should that ever be necessary.  If you have children of your own or children that are dear to you, give them an extra cuddle after you read this.  Not all children are as fortunate as yours.

Memories

“Memories light the corners of my mind,

misty water-colored memories of the way we were.” 

Alan & Marilyn Bergman

“Already old Fred’s face was creasing up in the soft expression

of someone who has been mugged in Memory Lane.”

Jingo by Terry Pratchett

Memories are funny things. Sometimes they well up at the most inconvenient time and you find yourself in tears or angry and sometimes they bubble up and you find yourself laughing or blushing. All sorts of things can trigger a memory. One of the strongest triggers for memory is odors. For instance, the combination of stale cigarette smoke and diesel fumes takes me straight back to being 12 years old and waiting for the bus to school in England. Don’t ask me why but it does. I know that 40 years from now if I get a whiff of Estee Lauder’s White Linen perfume, it will always remind me of my mother getting dressed for church.

Part of what steered me towards this subject was a particular memory that came up recently and has stayed with me for days now. It is of my elderly grandmother demonstrating the Macarena. Every single time I think of it, I hoot with laughter almost without meaning to do so. It would help if you knew my father’s mother. I have talked about her on this site several times. She was born in England in 1920. She survived World War II there and married my Canadian grandfather and eventually ended up here in Washington State.

She embraced American citizenship wholeheartedly as did my grandfather. They settled down, worked hard and eventually retired to a lovely old apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. In July of 1992, my family moved back down to the Seattle area from the Olympic Peninsula. I got a job in downtown and went to live with my grandparents so I was close to work. They were very good to me that long hot summer and the only time I felt a bit put upon was during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. My grandparents watched every minute of both of them. It was agony. I spent every night of the conventions out on the stoop of the building.

Four years later in 1996, I was still living in the apartment on Capitol Hill and my sister had joined me there while she was going to the University of Washington. My grandparents were living close to my parents south of the city in order to get the extra care they now needed. As I blissfully watched everything but the conventions that summer, my grandparents were once again glued to the television.

As I am sure you are all aware, goofy things happen at the conventions. It is a red letter year when some bizarre event from one convention or the other hasn’t made the national headlines and 1996 was no exception. “Macarena” had spent 14 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1996. The song was everywhere along with the corresponding dance and at the Democratic National Convention, “was frequently played between activities, and large groups of delegates and other attendants would be seen doing the Macarena dance.” [Wikipedia]

Enter my grandmother. In the summer of 1996, she was 75 years old. She also had suffered from a slow progressing form of Parkinson’s disease for several years. As a result, she shuffled when she walked and she had a pronounced tremor. She had sat watching the convention for a week. She heard the song over and over and saw the delegates doing the dance so that when my sister and I arrived home to spend the weekend with our parents, she was ready for us.

We went over to see her as we always did when we came home for the weekend. She practically met us at the door and she was FULL of gossip about the Democratic National Convention. But mostly, she was determined to show us the dance they kept doing. So she stood up and proceeded, “Now they keep doing this dance and they put one arm out like this.” A right arm was shakily thrust out at shoulder height. “And then they put their other arm out like this.” A left arm did the same. “And then they put first one arm and then the other arm behind their head like this.” She almost overbalanced with both arms bent and her hands grasping the back of her neck. “Then they put one hand on their hip like this.” A right arm trembles all the way down until a right hand is resting on her right hip. “And then the other one.” A left hand joins the other but on her left hip. “AND THEN they waggle their hips about.” My 75 year old grandmother managed a hip waggle that would have been the envy of any of the girls in the Macarena video. At this point, all of us are laughing and laughing hard. It was just as well none of us had a full bladder because odds on that one of us would’ve had an accident.

Nearly twenty years later, I can still see in my mind’s eye my gran doing the Macarena and it makes me smile every time. Thanks for the memory!

5x7 Folded Card

Picture In Portrait 5x7 folded card

Unique party invitations and announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Motivation

I was listening to NPR on my way home from work recently and they were doing a piece about the Berlin Patient.  He was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 and in 2007 he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant from someone who was immune to HIV.  It turns out about 1% of white people are immune to HIV.  Since his transplant, the Berlin Patient has tested negative for HIV ever since.  They test him regularly and the interview with him was about how they are hopeful that they may have finally found a road that will lead to a cure for this dreadful disease.

What I found intriguing and made me go down a long and winding side road of thought was this: when they asked the man why he continued to participate in testing which was intrusive and time consuming, I anticipated that he would answer something to like "so I can help others who have HIV and hopefully find a cure for the many people around the world stricken with this awful disease" or something along those lines.  Something noble and worthy, that's what I expected his answer to be.  Instead, in a moment of naked and frankly disturbing honesty, he said "I am motivated by guilt."  I actually gasped when he said that.  Instead of a great thankfulness to be alive, he felt guilty.  He carried a huge burden of self-loathing that he had lived while others had died and that was why he continued to participate in testing.  He wasn't motivated by anything good or noble, he was motivated by guilt.

I was flabbergasted and vaguely disappointed by his answer largely because I could not even begin to understand it.  I have heard of survivor's guilt and while I kind of "get it" at the same time I don't.  Obviously I have not walked a mile in this man's shoes and have no idea what brought him to a point where he was motivated by feeling guilty for being alive so I decided to do some hard self examination and look at what truly motivates me.

I finally came to the conclusion that the thing that gets me out of bed everyday was love.  The reason I get up, stagger around while feeding a dog, a cat, packing a husband's lunch, getting cleaned up and off to work was because of the love I have for my husband, my family, my home and my faith.  I was a little concerned when I started down this road that I would find out that I was motivated by something really foolish like money or "stuff" or discontent or even fear.  One never knows when one delves into the depths of one's soul what one will find lurking in a dark cupboard under the stairs.  The more and more I thought about it, the more I realized that the thing that mattered to me was a happy life and that happy life is because it is filled with those I love.

I thought further about what if I didn't have some of the people and things I do have in my life, would I still be so motivated by love and I don't know the answer to that question.  I hope so and I think so.  I thought about if I were to have health trouble and had to rely and be a burden on other people, would love still motivate me.  Again, I like to believe that it would.  I gave further thought about the people I have lost and realized that the memory of the love I had for them and they for me continues to be a driving force in my life.  I thought about why I obey the rules and laws of the land and while fear of punishment is certainly part of why I do, the thought of disappointing or hurting the people I love is the truer reason why I do.  Lastly, I thought about what a large part faith plays in my life and that when one is forgiven much, one loves much.

When I finally came up for air after so much deep cogitation, I felt better about things.  The mundaneness of day to day life can weigh us all down at times and to know what keeps me getting up everyday helps me continue on even when my spirits flag and the flesh is weak.

I am also motivated by a good laugh but that's another story.

How Christmas Got Its Shine Back

Doris Waud is one of the most remarkable people I have ever known. Born in 1920, she grew up in Aldershot, England. She was a young woman when World War II began and she lived through the war years in the military town where the troops were amassed for the D-Day invasion. She used to go up on the hill above the town and watch the Nazi bombs fall on London.

She met and married a Canadian soldier during the war much to her mother’s chagrin. Her mother said, “You could’ve married an English soldier or a Welsh soldier or a Scottish soldier or EVEN an Irish soldier. Why do you have to marry a Canadian soldier?” It wasn’t because the man was objectionable in and of himself. It was the thought of her dear daughter living so far away that bothered her. Godfrey Waud was a good man and he made sure that somehow, they scraped together the money for her to go back and visit at least once every five years while her parents were still living. That was quite a feat on their income.

Fifty years later, she was quite prosaic about the war and I always got the impression that it hadn’t fazed her that much. I was wrong, of course, but my grandmother always seemed to take life in her stride. Doris was my grandmother. I use the past tense because she is past now. I could fill pages with my memories of her and of her memories of her life. She would freely tell my sister and me about it, sometimes because we asked her to and sometimes just spontaneously. I am so glad now that she was so forthcoming with her memories because they are so precious to me now. My little English Gran (the diminutive favored by English children) left a huge hole in my life when she died.

My Gran loved Christmastime. After spending Christmas in England once, I truly understood why she loved the season so much. England does Christmas tremendously. The food, the music, the decorations and everything about Christmas in England is terrific. They celebrate good and proper and most of the country seems to shut down from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day. We spent just about every Christmas I can remember with my grandparents and very often both sets of grandparents. They were friends before my parents ever got married and my American grandmother would often include them in all the holidays because they didn’t have much family in the United States.

I don’t really remember actual Christmas gifts from my grandmother. What I remember is going to the beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill in Seattle and having Christmas tea on her best dishes. I remember the little artificial tree decorated with bird ornaments and eggs that had been blown out and decorated. I remember her Nativity set which I have always loved. It decorates my home now. I remember how much my grandmother reveled in the season. She loved the carols, she loved the decorations and she wouldn’t for worlds have missed seeing my sister and me in the Christmas play at church every year. Christmas had a shine on it for me because of her.

After her death, Christmas lost some of its bloom for me. I was in my twenties and single. I would still decorate the beautiful apartment on Capitol Hill where I now lived. I would still make cookies and candy and go see A Christmas Carol or The Messiah or The Nutcracker. I would still sing the carols and enjoy going to church and hearing the Christmas story. Each year that passed though, I seemed to be less and less enthusiastic about Christmas. Even now, this time of year brings a little heartache because I miss my Gran with every carol that’s played and every decoration I see.

How did Christmas get its shine back?

His name is John. We have known each other since we were children but five years ago he came back into my life. Four years ago, we were married. Christmastime has always been hard for him. His father died when John and his twin brother were about 8 and their brother Jeff was only 3. It was close to Christmas when they lost him because one of the memories John has of the funeral was that the Christmas decorations were up in town as they drove to the cemetery. Once I was in love with him, it became very important to me for John to have a Merry Christmas from now on if it was in my power to give it to him.

So now Christmas belongs to us. We got our first Christmas tree together the year we were engaged. When he cut the bottom off the Christmas tree's trunk to get it in the stand, he saved the disk of wood and made me a Christmas ornament the next year out of it. He has made one for me every year since. He takes the fresh cut and lets the disk dry out all year. The next year he sands it down, carves our names and the date in it. John drills a hole in it and I put a ribbon from one of our wedding or my shower gifts through it and hang it on the tree. We got a lot of presents for our wedding. Four years later, I still have ribbons from our wedding gifts.

I love to shop for his Christmas and birthday gifts. His birthday is right after Christmas. Like many born so close to the holiday, he has always felt a little cheated when it came to his birthday. I make sure I never buy “this is your birthday/Christmas” gifts. My very favorite thing at Christmas now is to surprise him with something he really wants but had no expectation of getting. He will grin from ear to ear, look at me with eyes that have tears in them and whisper “Thank You”. It makes my year and puts the shine back on Christmas for me.

Bitterness

Bitterness has been on my mind for a few weeks. The dictionary defines bitter a number of ways. It can refer to taste, a painful sensation, something difficult to accept, exhibiting strong animosity, expressive of severe disappointment or marked by resentment. The reason it has been on my mind stems from a chance remark someone with a very sweet nature made to me that was so rancorous and bitter that it took my breath away. The remark was not directed at me or about me but it was still so full of intense bitterness that I could think of little else for the rest of the day. It ruined my day and had me close to tears every time I thought back on it.

I thought about the circumstances that were the root of the bitterness, I thought about how many years the bitterness had be held onto and nursed and I felt as badly as if I had been the one to have caused them to be bitter. In truth, I was in no way involved and likely, the person never realized how much their bitterness had surprised and hurt me. I think they would be amazed that I had even noticed what they had said.

When I was younger, I would tend to hold a grudge. I still struggle with that from time to time even as I get older but usually I only manage to heave it along for a few days and then I feel silly and let whatever it is that upset me to begin with go and move on with my life. I cannot really point to the time in my life when I decided that carrying a grudge and being bitter were harmful to me and a complete waste of energy and emotion. I can tell you that there came a day when I found myself rehearsing an incident from years earlier and getting angry about it all over again when it hit me that it was ridiculous to hold onto the hurt and the bitterness and the sense of injustice and that I needed to put those things outside my soul. It is not an easy thing to do especially when you feel aggrieved. However, it is so much better for you to get on with your life and it removes the power from the person or situation that caused your bitterness.

You might be wondering why I chose to use a picture of my cousin's two beautiful little girls to talk about bitterness. It is because, unfortunately, some of the worst bitterness begins at home and in families. I have heard grown children speak of their parents in ways that makes me heartsick especially when I happen to know that their parents, while imperfect, did the best they could and were quite good parents under the circumstances. I have heard brothers and sisters talk about the time that their sister or brother got something or other that they had wanted and their sibling had not deserved with as much vitriol as if the disappointment had happened the day before not forty years ago. I have heard parents speak of ungrateful and unfeeling children that I knew were nothing of the sort simply because of a single incident that had been held onto instead of the dozens of happy and loving memories that were predominant. Bitterness is a cancer. If left unchecked, it will spread throughout you and color your past, darken your present and make hopeless your future.

Sometimes people direct their bitterness at God, at the government, at their boss, at life. I have an overdeveloped sense of justice and so I understand when people feel bitterness over injustice. The problem is bitterness solves nothing, achieves nothing, helps nothing. If you continue to hug it close, it will eventually suffocate you under its weight. Cast it away. Get rid of it. Instead pray the Serenity Prayer: Change what you can, accept what you can't and have the wisdom to know the difference.

Beautiful You

I have been trying to decide for a few weeks what I should write about. There are a few topics that I would like to talk about but I am still ruminating on them at this point. Beauty is one I have been thinking about for some time. The picture I used is one of my cousin, Kristin, who is undoubtedly a beautiful girl. So are all her sisters. I never look at any of them without being struck by how beautiful they all are. Part of her and her sisters' beauty lies within them. They are fun, sweet, funny and lovely girls. This, as much or more, contributes to their beauty to me as their physical appearance.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I suppose that must be true but I tend to behold a lot of beauty in a lot of people that, if you asked them, would say they are not beautiful and might even call themselves ugly. I have found that if you really look at people carefully, there is often something beautiful about each person. It took me some time but the day I woke up and really looked at my friend, John, I saw the diamond that was there. Now I am married to the handsomest man in the world. When he looks at me with his deep blue eyes all crinkled at the corners because he is smiling down at me, I know I am looking at the most beautiful man in the whole world.

A lot of Hollywood consists of people that are thought of as "beautiful" and if you were going on appearance alone, I suppose you would have to admit that many movie stars are very attractive. I don't know any of them personally and so, I have to say, that their beauty eludes me somewhat. I think you find beauty where you look for it and not just based on a person's appearance.

I have a lot of friends and every single one of them is so very beautiful to me. Some of them if you were to pass them on the street, you would not perhaps see how beautiful they are if you were just looking at their appearance but, if you took the time to get to know them, they would leave you with the impression of great loveliness.

Many of my friends have something beautiful about them that you might miss if you were just looking for "perfect" beauty. Vicki and Jane have gorgeous eyes and expressive mouths. Lisa has the prettiest hands and feet. Jan, when she laughs, is so exquisite. Laura, Angela and Kristin have great figures and can wear anything and look fantastic. Liz has a Texan drawl and throaty voice that melts you. Muriel has the most beautiful hair. If Elfie smiles at you, you feel the urge to give her the world. When Lissa is enthusiastic about something, she could be Miss America.

I realize that partly I find these girls attractive because I love them but I have found that if I really look at people I don't even know I can often still find something beautiful about them. This morning a lady smiled at me as we passed each other. She had a great smile. When the guy in front of me in line at Starbucks extolled the virtues of his smart phone to me I noticed he had really earnest and intense blue eyes. The girl across from me on the train last night had a mane of curly black brown hair and such an amazing complexion. If I hadn't been looking for it, I might have missed their beauty. I hope the people that love them see what I saw.

Next time you look at a person (yourself included), have a good look for the beautiful. If you are having trouble seeing it, ask someone that loves you what about you they find beautiful. If you know me, ask me and I will tell you because I promise you, I've noticed something about you that is beautiful and just haven't had the chance to tell you yet. The ugly in life sticks out so much that sometimes, it is all we see. Look for the beautiful, it is there too.

The Cat & The Christmas Carol

This is Shadow. I took her in reluctantly when a former boyfriend of mine moved back in with his parents. His dad was both allergic to and had a dislike of cats. She lived with me for awhile until the boyfriend moved back into his house and could take her back again. Then, like the cat that came back the very next day, she was once again foisted on me when he moved back in with his parents again. The second time, after I paid to have her "fixed" (not to mention what I had spent of food, cat litter and damages), I told him that she was now my cat and would be staying with me permanently. After a rocky start, she has grown on me.

When you pet Shadow, she feels like a kitten. She is so incredibly soft for an adult cat. She is not a very vocal animal and, other than a rather strange obsession with Healthy Choice Fudge Bars and blue raspberry popsicles, she is just your average cat. She got her name because as a kitten she followed my old boyfriend around all the time. She responds to her name so there is no changing it now. She likes to sleep on me at night but on top of the covers and she is not particularly a lap kitty.

A few years ago, I found out that if I sing, she will come from wherever she is to stand at my feet and meow at me, rub my legs and sometimes even try and give me a little nibble. So, I started singing "Goodnight Shadow" at bed time to get her to come in the bedroom for the night. I sing "Buffalo Cats" (to the tune of Buffalo Gals) when I can't find her in the house during the day. Then I discovered "Once in Royal David's City".

"Once in Royal David's City" was my grandmother's favorite Christmas carol. She was from England and really missed some of the English hymns and carols. As a result, our entire family knows "We Plow the Fields and Gather the Good Seed on the Land", "Eternal Father, Strong to Save", "Once in Royal David's City" and several others. When I start singing Christmas carols around the house during the holidays, it is one of the first that comes to mind. The first time I was yodeling it around the house, Shadow came from another room and tried to climb up my legs and join in with several loud and insistent MEOWS. It is evidently her most or least favorite of the songs I sing.

Shadow is an indoor only kitty with a lot of curiosity about the great outdoors. One day recently, she got outside when my husband's back was turned. He and my mother searched frantically all over outside for her to no avail. Then my mother remembered, she stopped and belted out the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City". My mom has a killer soprano voice that does much more justice to it than my croaky alto. Sure enough, Shadow hopped up into a window outside the kitchen and started to sing along allowing my husband to sneak up from behind and capture her.

Unfortunately, I forget sometimes when guests are around how odd this all is. We had a couple of friends over for dinner last week and my parents joined us for appetizers beforehand in order to visit with them. When they went back home, Shadow followed them out the door and refused to be shooed back inside. So I stood with a dish in my hand in the middle of the kitchen and proceeded to call forth the opening strains "Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed" and before I had reached "where a mother laid her baby in a manger for His bed" Shadow had trotted back in and joined in for the last line: "Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ, her little child." I then serenely turned and sat the dish on the table. In looking up, both my guests were looking at me like I was the Christmas fruitcake and perhaps it was time to be going. I mumbled something about it being the cat's favorite song which clearly was not the explanation calculated to restore their confidence in my sanity. I wonder if I will ever see them again?

Smile! People will wonder what you’re up to!

Do you know the pony joke?

The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

What does it mean to be happy? Why are some people happier than others? How do you get happy? I was pondering these questions on my walk to work this morning. So many people I passed were walking with their head and eyes downcast looking sleepy or resigned or defeated.

I am an incurable optimist and aggressively cheerful. I get asked sometimes, “Why are you always so happy?” It always stumps me a little. I have had a variety of explanations put forward as to why this is so. People who share my faith say it is because I am a Christian. People that aren’t so fond of me say it is because I am not very smart. Others have told me it is because I haven’t faced true hardship in life. While these all may be true, I think there is another explanation that must be taken into account: heredity.

My sister is about as different from me as you can get but she is also a little sunbeam of happiness most of the time. Our paternal grandmother and our maternal grandfather were some of the most cheerful people I have ever met in my life. My mother once said that I was like my father’s mother because I could walk into a roomful of pessimists and they would become optimists in self defense! Our father looks on the sunny side of life in spite of being a pastor for over thirty years. (I say in spite of because unless you have been a pastor or lived in the parsonage you cannot appreciate how much of the time you see people at their very worst.)

I have thought long and hard about why I tend to be such a happy person and about the people I know that are genuinely cheerful most of the time. I don’t know that it is something that can ever be learned. I think to some extent it is just “how you are”. I find even times when I have been in the depths of despair (and believe me, I have had my moments) I have never felt like good times would not come around again.

I have a friend that has been through the most difficult time this last year. She has been through the wringer and yet, she still looks for the pony. I have another friend that has a lovely life -- a house, a great family, a job and friends. He has a good thing going but he is never satisfied. He is always trying to “find happiness” but it constantly eludes him.

If you want the secret to happiness, I will be happy to share my faith with you. It is definitely a contributing factor. If being smarter means I will be unhappy, I will stay ignorant and I hope if I face true hardship in life, I will manage to do it with a smile. I count my blessings often especially if I get to feeling like the toys will just break. The very nicest thing my husband has ever said was this: “The day I married you, I married my sunshine.”

Death by Cooking

I think I may need an intervention. Yesterday I had the day off work for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. John and I had talked about going to Auburn to visit the jeweler we like to use to have our rings cleaned and mine checked to make sure all the prongs are tight. We called ahead and found out he wasn't going to be open so after tossing around some other ideas, we decided to just stay at home.

I got up Monday morning, collected my mother from upstairs and ran into the city to go to the Franz Bakery Outlet for English muffins and some other breads, then on to Costco's flagship store to pickup butter, water and some other essentials before stopping at Saars in town to get a turkey breast, onions and a few necessaries. We went back home and I proceeded to spend the rest of the day cooking.

Cooking has become my hobby and my passion. I lost the ability to crochet with the development of carpal tunnel syndrome so I needed to find a new hobby. I like to scrapbook now and then and I really enjoying reading books but cooking is my favorite thing to do.

While the turkey breast defrosted in my folks' microwave, I got busy making Shepherd's Pie for our Tuesday night supper. I use a combination of ground beef and pork along with onions, mushrooms and carrots all simmered in the Colman's Shepherd's Pie mix packet along with a little water before turning it into a baking dish, topping it with some shredded cheese and then mashed potatoes which were left over from Sunday dinner.

Next, I moved on to lasagna. I had picked up whole wheat lasagna noodles during the week but first I cooked some more ground pork and beef along with some bulk sweet Italian sausage with some onions in my big 12 inch cast iron skillet. Next I made a red sauce and a white sauce from scratch. My white sauce was completed with a package of Boursin Garlic and Herb goat cheese that had been languishing in my fridge since Christmas. The turkey breast was thawed out so that was dealt with and popped in the oven to bake while I finished making the lasagna. Finally, I cooked the noodles, thawed out some spinach I had frozen, chopped up and sauteed mushrooms and got the mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano and ricotta cheeses out and ready to to go. I assembled a white lasagna for our dinner that night and two smaller red lasagnas to go in the freezer for future use.

About the time I had finished and cleaned up, the turkey breast was coming out of the oven. I carved it up almost immediately so I could cool the meat enough to handle it and so I could deposit the carcass in my big stew pot with onions, celery, garlic, salt and pepper and water to begin simmering into stock. Now it was time to chop up the turkey into bite sized pieces. Two-thirds of the turkey was put in a bowl, mixed with diced green chili, shredded cheese, chopped olives and two cans of green enchilada sauce before being wrapped in tortillas, covered in more enchilada sauce and cheese and wrapped up for the freezer. I had some of the turkey enchilada filling left over so I put that in a baking dish, topped it with cheese and breadcrumbs and froze it as well. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, John and I will have that over rice for dinner.

As the white lasagna baked for dinner, I took the remaining one-third of the turkey, added onions and fresh mushrooms to it and sat it in the fridge. I chopped up red potatoes and carrots and boiled them for ten minutes before adding them to turkey mixture. I thawed out two pie crusts I had leftover from Thanksgiving and Christmas baking, made a white sauce, mixed in the turkey stuff and put a homemade turkey pot pie together before wrapping it and putting it in the freezer.

The white lasagna was wonderful for supper and I am looking forward to the piece I have in my lunch as well. I went to bed at 8:30 last night and slept until morning. I had a ball and while it was tiring, it also left me with a wonderful sense of accomplishment and will make life easier in the coming weeks as well.

13 Coins

Last night, my husband and I went and had dinner at 13 Coins across from the airport. My husband has grown up in Seattle and yet had never eaten there. I decided it was time to remedy that and we wanted to celebrate a little victory. So early evening found us being ushered to the counter and tucked into the big comfy chairs you see in the picture to have some dinner.

13 Coins has been around longer than I have, since 1967 according to their website. They are open 24 hours a day, famous for their Eggs Benedict and their "open" kitchen. Living in the city, you find quite a few restaurants that are open very late and a few that are continually open. For twelve years in my twenties and early thirties, I lived up on Capitol Hill in Seattle. I had moved back to the city from a small town on the Olympic Peninsula where I had never felt at home. Now, living in the neighborhood where my grandparents lived for almost as long as I could remember, I had come back to my native heath.

For the eight years I had been away, I would hear radio ads for the opera, the symphony, Broadway shows, festivals and sporting events that were going on in Seattle. I promised myself that one day, I would move back to the city and I would enjoy all the things I was missing out on by living away from it. My chance finally came and at 21, after finding a suitable job with opportunities for promotion, I came home. Little by little I kept my promise. At first, I could only afford the occasional show or hockey game but, as I rose in my company, I began to truly live the life I had envisioned for myself. Soon, I had season tickets to the Seattle Thunderbirds and the Seattle Opera. If something or someone came to town that I wanted to see, I went. I got to see Mikhail Baryshnikov dance, see Dr. John perform live, go to Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera, see The Nutcracker, go to Bumbershoot and so much more. It was during this time that I made some of the best friends I've ever had.

Eating out after a show or a game became standard practice because often I would not have time between work and an event to do more than shower, get dressed and go. I've stood at Dick's Drive-In in a full length gown on my way home from the opera devouring a Dick's Deluxe, fries and a shake with transvestites and homeless guys. I've eaten with friends at 3 in the morning at the IHOP off Broadway. Finally, one night after the ballet, my friend, Angela, took me to have dinner at 13 Coins in downtown Seattle. We sat in captain's chairs at the counter, flirted with the staff and had dinner. I love Eggs Benedict so that was the natural choice for me. I think Ange had pasta or a steak and we ordered dessert. It was one of the most memorable dining experiences I have ever had.

Since that time I have eaten at 13 Coins many times but the memory that comes back to me is always that meal with Angela. I think we got to the restaurant about 10:30 or 11 and we didn't leave until after 1 a.m. I remember thinking as we walked out to the car that it was for evenings and experiences like this one that I moved back to the city.

John had their prime rib special last night and I had a shrimp louis. Afterwards, we split one of their massive creme brulees. It was relaxing to sit and watch the salad/dessert prep cook do his work. I watched him make my salad and my husband's eyes just about came out of his head when the guy lit up the blow torch to caramelize the sugar on our creme brulee. We got a kick out of banter that went on among the staff and were waited on most attentively. It was another great experience.

"The "13 Coins" name is of Peruvian origin. The story goes that a poor young man loved and wished to marry a wealthy girl. Her father asked what he had to offer for his daughter's hand in marriage. The young man reached into his pocket. He had only 13 coins, but assured the father he could pledge undying love, care and concern. The father was so touched, he gave his daughter's hand and "13 Coins" has come to symbolize unyielding love, care and concern."

My Sister, My Friend

I have written here before about my sister. She is five years younger than I am. I don't really remember clearly when she was born. I remember a time before she was there. I remember when she started being old enough to play with but not so much about her being a baby.

From the beginning, I was very protective of my sister. She shows up in my dreams more often than anyone else. Some of the earliest dreams I remember are of trying to help her find and go to the bathroom only to wake up and have to run for the bathroom myself. As I got a little older, if I had nightmare it usually involved someone chasing me and my sister and trying to help her run faster and to protect her.

I suppose partly because she is my only sibling, we have always been close but I think it is also because we are enough different and enough alike to be friends. I think too because I am the oldest and she is the youngest, our relationship has worked well. People were always surprised to hear that she was both the messy one and the stubborn one. I was obsessively neat and her room always looked like a bomb had hit it. Also, I am very stubborn myself and my sister tends to be more compliant but I learned very soon that if she decided to "lay her ears back and dig in her heels" about something, I may as well give in because there was no changing her mind.

She is also the smart and gifted one which has been a source of joy to me and never anything to be envious about at all. Her sixth grade teacher came to my parents after testing one year and told them what her IQ was. It was high evidently because my mother still shakes her head in amazement when she talks about it. Except for the trumpet, my sister has never picked up an instrument that she couldn't play after some practice. It has been a delight over the years to hear her play the piano, the violin, the flute, the guitar, the clarinet and she has a lovely singing voice too.

I don't want to give the impression that we never had our moments. From ages 10 to 13, I didn't want a little sister always hanging around me and my friends. We didn't really fight though. As our mother would say, "You were not ALLOWED to fight." We did have our little spats and we still occasionally drive each other a little nuts but mostly, we have had a very harmonious relationship.

We had seven wonderful years of living together when we were in our twenties. Now we are both wives and she is a mother. Thanks to instant messaging and the telephone, we talk often and still love each other very much. This weekend she and her family will be here for a visit. On July 20, she will celebrate her birthday and I will celebrate having her as my sister.

Memorial Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Oh, to be in England!

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

This is the first stanza of my grandmother's favorite Robert Browning poem. I never tired of hearing her quote it. Later on, she never tired of hearing me read it to her. For the last few months of her life, she was in a nursing home. Every day on my way home from work, I would stop and see her for a few minutes and help feed her dinner when she got weaker. As her health worsened and conversation became more difficult, I began reading to her each evening.

We would both relax more and I would tend to stay longer after I started reading to her. I would always start with poetry because she loved it. Before I would read anything else, I would read Oh To Be in England by Browning and then the daffodil poem by Wordsworth. They became so familiar to me I could quote them almost as well as she could. After those were finished I would wander through the book reading whatever took her fancy. Even when I began to read her The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, I would still preface it with those two poems. The night she died, I read them to her and again at her memorial service I managed to struggle through both poems because I was reading them for her not for the people that were there.

Now, of course, both poems bring tears to my eyes when I hear them or read them as they will be forever connected with some very sweet memories of my gran. Recently, the daffodil poem was read aloud on NPR as I listened to my radio on my way home from work. I cried the whole way home. This year Oh To Be in England has plagued me for months. For in a few days, I will be in England in April.

My husband and I are going over for a family wedding. My grandmother was an Englishwoman by birth. She loved her adopted country and considered it her home but England held part of her heart always as it does my father's and mine as well. This will be my sixth trip but only mark the second time I have been in England in April just like the poem.

The Christmas Letter

Dear Family & Friends:

“How are you enjoying married life?” This seems to be the standard question people feel compelled to ask a newly married couple. Do you walk up to people that have been married 20 or 30 years and ask them “So, are you enjoying married life?” But, in case you were wondering, we are enjoying it very much!

We have had a good year. John’s birthday is in January and this year we celebrated with a trip to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), dinner at Ivar’s Salmon House on Lake Union and a visit to the Sci-Fi Museum. In February, we took John’s brother, Jared and our friend, Zachary, on a trip to the Museum of Flight. We also added Rex to our family. He is a dappled miniature daschund and he seems to think the sun rises and sets on John.

John braved last season at the Seattle Opera with dad and I. We saw The Pearl Fishers, Bluebeard’s Castle and The Marriage of Figaro. John said that M of F was more what he expected opera to be like. Dad and I are going the new season alone. We started off in October with La Traviata which was excellent!

John and I took on the roll of youth group leaders at our church. In January, we did a progressive dinner to various church members’ houses and in March, the girls had a slumber party at our house. September, we had the kids over for homemade pizza and a movie and in November we took them to MOHAI for a photo scavenger hunt and dinner at Dick’s Drive-In on 45th. We are having a lot of fun and the kids seem to be too.

We did have some health related adventures this year. John’s stepfather, Gary, had hip replacement surgery in April and will have a second hip replacement surgery on the other side in December. John had shoulder surgery to remove bone spurs on his right AC joint in August. He is still recovering from it but continues to improve.

In April, we took a trip up to San Juan Island to celebrate our 1st anniversary. We had a very relaxing time at the Lonesome Cove Resort. In May, John took Jared to Walking with Dinosaurs for his birthday. We also went up to Snohomish for the annual variety show and a poke around the antique stores. Over Memorial Day weekend, we helped my folks host a 40th birthday party for my mother’s sister, Beth. June took us to Leavenworth for a little getaway. John took his first whack at fly fishing in the Icicle River.

We went down to Portland in July to visit our friends Bruce & Dawna. Dawna and her sister, Nancy, drove us out to the McMinnville Air Museum and we got to see the Spruce Goose. I also took John for his first visit to Powell’s Bookstore. July was also our church’s annual camp out and my mother and I hosted a baby shower for my cousin, Bethany. In addition to John’s surgery in August, my friend, Monica, visited from Minnesota on her way to her sister’s wedding in Oregon. It was so much fun to get to spend a few days with her. She was here for our annual church picnic as well.

We made it to three Mariners games this year. We took John’s mom and step-dad to a game in June for their anniversary and did the same for my folks in August for theirs. In September, our friends, Bruce & Dawna, came up and went to the Mariners/Yankees game with us. Also, we had a visit from my friend, Ana, from San Francisco who was in town to go to a wedding that same weekend. John had his first experience with the St. Demetrious Greek Festival in September. In October, we went to M____ R____ High School’s homecoming football game with John’s family.

In November, I was privileged to sing a solo for Pat N___'s memorial service. Her husband, Jim, is one of our church members. We also went to see Jeff Dunham at the Tacoma Dome. Thanksgiving was spent with my sister and her family in Chewelah. Dad, Mom, John and I made the long drive there and back without incident for which we are thankful. December promises to be busy with parties and other events.

I continue to enjoy going to book group, playing the piano for church and working for the Court of Appeals. John has taken up collecting fossils (besides his wife) and fly fishing. He is back doing light duty for Total Reclaim as he continues to heal from surgery. We trust you are happy and well. Feel free to call me some or John sometime or drop us an email if you get the chance!

With Much Love & Wishes for a Happy New Year,
John & Laurie

A Keeper

My husband is a keeper. I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday. It started Sunday night with a migraine headache and a poor night’s sleep and just went downhill from there. I struggled through the day and was thoroughly despondent by the time I headed for home.

When I got home, there were a dozen peach colored roses in a vase on the table. He said he knew I had a bad day and he wanted to cheer me up. He had also put up the new racks we had bought to hang our coffee mugs on and greeted me with a kiss and a smile. By the time I had fixed and eaten dinner and sat in the hot tub with him for awhile, my whole frame of mind was back where it should be.

Today, I woke up feeling refreshed and in a much better state of mind. I am so thankful for John. What did I ever do without him?

The American Socialist Party

My dad told this story Sunday night as an illustration in his sermon. I’ve heard it before but it had been quite awhile since the last time he told it. When we lived on Beacon Hill in Seattle, we always shopped at the Safeway down on Rainier Avenue. The American Socialist Party had a semi-permanent booth outside the store and invariably there was some earnest young man or woman appealing to people to throw off the yoke of the oppressor and go join a union.

This particular day, the young man was particularly pressing and called to dad as he passed, “Sir, we workers need to unite against “the man” and form unions to establish a more equal society.” My father stopped and riposted, “Young man, I work for the best employer in the world and He has never wronged me.” It sucked the wind right out of the kid’s sails and the best he could come up with was “WHO do you work for?” Dad smiled at him and said “I am a minister of the gospel and I work for the Living God. He has never wronged me and it is my privilege to work for Him.” The boy was left speechless.