Now that I have completed my EMT course and my kids are headed back to college, I only have volunteer EMT duties, two books that I’m writing, a book trailer to edit, a political fundraiser to plan and host, 6 animals to feed/train/groom and a husband to feed/train/groom, so, as you can see I have a lot of idle time on my hands. I don’t idle well. I must move forward or I begin to get all clogged with anxiety and self-doubt and eventually I stall out. So, I have a very exciting new project to help me fill up all the spare time. We have purchased a little house on a lake and it needs some work.

It’s a little investment project.

A little fixer-upper.

First, “house” is a rather generous word for the structure that we now own. It’s a boat house that looks a bit like a trailer home. Here is a view of the downstairs. Someday there will be a kitchen here:

I know, just stunning, isn’t it?

But, just out of the range of the camera, to the right, there is a big garage door, which will someday be a series of French doors. When you look out from these doors, you see this:

Here’s the view from upstairs:

It’s tiny. I’ll show you the exterior later, after we have alarms installed. You can’t just go showing your trailer to the world without taking precautions. Somebody might hitch it to the back of their truck and drive off with it.

We’re very excited about the lake house. The kids like to water-ski, I like to kayak and plan to relearn how to sail and Denis likes to skate.  Holly likes to sit on the deck and pretend that she’s on board her very own yacht:

(i carry it in my heart)” e.e.cummings

Maybe it’s because I had a bit of a rough time becoming a parent in the first place. Maybe it’s because, for reasons that defy conventional laws of probability or psychology or even the luck of the draw, my husband and I have been blessed with two wonderful, beautiful, wise, caring, funny, creative, hard-working ….oh, enough. Suffice it to say that we have two great kids and yesterday we dropped the youngest off at her college and it was a very exciting day for all of us, and also a little sad.

Dropping her off isn’t the best way to describe what happened, as it sounds like we sped past, slowing down just long enough to deposit her and her bags at the curbside and then raced off. In fact, we drove there rather slowly and got lost, even though it’s not a terribly long drive from our house.  We were just all a little nervous, I think.  And we had formed a sort of caravan which always makes for a tricky drive.   Devin and I led the way (she drove, I gave bad directions), followed by Jack in one car and Denis in a third car.  It’s not that she had so much stuff, it’s just that that we all wanted to take her and then afterward, we were all heading off in different directions.

We finally found the school, and as we drove through the gates and all the welcoming older students cheered hellos and guided us to her dorm, I saw a slow, confident smile come across her face. She was driving.  I think that was important, that she drove us into her new life – an adult now, she our guide, and we her temporary passengers.

I thought about the first time she drove off down our driveway without me. I thought about the first time I left our older son, Jack, with a babysitter for the first time, and then about the day we dropped him off at college. It feels, when you first leave a child, like the ground drops out from beneath you for a minute, like you’re suspended, floating in space; the umbilicus that once anchored you to something solid and real, severed, once again, leaving you grasping for something. A hand-hold, I guess. You can’t help but think of the little hand you used to hold.

Well, it was what what they call a “bittersweet” time, yesterday.  A young woman who has worked very hard to learn enough facts and information to be admitted to her favorite college is going on to learn who she really is.  So, we helped her get started. We helped her set up her bed and her room. We accompanied her to the office where she received her meal card and then we had lunch with her in the dining hall and talked about how nice her roommates seemed.  Her brother set up her alarm clock and ran out to get her a power  strip and other dorm necessities that we hadn’t thought of. Her father, full of nervous energy, helped people move stuff, asked people if they needed help moving stuff, then moved more stuff.  I helped her make her bed.  Last week,  she and I had bought one of those foam mattress pads and a quilted mattress cover.  We put these on the hard dorm mattress and covered them with the sheets we had bought. Then we hung her clothes, decorated her bed with cheery pillows, placed her framed photos of her friends, her dogs, us, on her dresser. And then there was nothing left to do.   She walked us to the car.  She said goodbye.  Then she turned and walked into that big brick dorm. The dorm is quite imposing. The entrance is arched and fortified with massive slabs of carved stone, like the gateway to a fortress or a cathedral, and even though the doors were propped open, we couldn’t quite see inside from where we stood, though we tried.  I wanted her to look back as she walked away, and I didn’t want her to.  She didn’t.  She walked up the steps and through the great doors and then it was time for us to go.

I’m back from Marblehead. Yesterday was the memorial service for my stepfather, Stephen Howe.  Steve was a great man who rescued my family during a difficult time, many years ago. We’re all so sad that he’s gone.

My sister Meg remarked last week that there was never a time when somebody made the connection that she was related to Steve (even though it was through marriage), that she didn’t feel immensely proud.  I know my brother and I have always felt the same way.

Steve has three sons and seven grandchildren and though I  haven’t seen them much during recent years, I got to see them yesterday, and I glimpsed in each of them, a little bit of Steve.  A sly smile here, a confidant stance there, and, of course, Steve’s trademark; an unbiased graciousness toward others and a sense of proper decorum, even amongst the youngest.

My stepbrother David Howe said during yesterday’s service that Steve always believed, foremost, in duty toward his family and his community.  David wrote the obituary for Steve, which can be found here, and which details his military service in World War II and his life-long commitment to serving his community.  David reminded us that Steve was devoted to community service long before it was a trendy thing for students to try to cram into their schedules to impress future college admissions reps.  Steve served others in the most charitable way possible – he did it quietly, without expecting anything in return.  He would have been embarrassed if one were to acknowledge his many kindnesses, as he rather liked to be perceived as a curmudgeon.  In addition to being elected as the Marblehead Town Moderator for 43 consecutive years, he served on numerous boards and also did many, many hours of pro-bono work for people and organizations who needed legal help – again, quietly and selflessly.  The one and only time Steve threatened to resign from his position residing over the town’s meetings was when there was a motion to raise his salary above $100 a year.

Steve was a lawyer in the best sense of the word, by which I mean that he truly believed in justice for all and a duty to observe and uphold the laws.  He was also, in my mind, a Republican in the best sense of the word, and by this I mean that he didn’t care to make reproductive choices for women nor did he care who married whom.  He just believed in small government; in a pure democracy  for these United States that, if it were peopled by people who were all as conscientious toward others as Stephen Howe, would indeed be a wonderful place.

BARTER by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And childrens’s faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstacy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Leonardo DiCaprio in INCEPTION

I finally got to see the movie Inception last night.  I was very excited to see this movie because my kids had each seen it twice and  raved about it. My husband had raved about it. Many newspaper and magazine critics have raved about it. Everywhere I have gone this summer, people have been carrying on about this film, so last night I went to see it with my sister Meg and her family and there I endured three of the longest hours of my life.  I LOVE action films and psychological thrillers and somehow I had arrived at the mistaken assumption that this movie would be an action-packed thriller taking place in the fascinating realm of the subconscious human mind.  I thought that I would be riveted to the screen, especially because we watched it in an Imax theater. Instead I found myself leisurely responding to texts on my phone 2 hours into it. My teen-aged niece was reading emails. My brother-in-law had himself a much-needed nap.  My sister laughed at the supposedly serious parts, which made us all laugh, and so the time wasn’t completely wasted.

If you haven’t seen the movie, nothing I will say here is a spoiler.  You can’t really give away the plot of this movie because it’s so simplistic and and at the same time, filled with holes, that there’s not much to tell.  Quite a few people I know have told me they went back to see it again, to see if they “missed” something and came away satisfied that they hadn’t.  ”It makes total sense,” my daughter told me last night when I spoke to her about it.  ”You just didn’t get it.”

It’s not that it didn’t make sense to me, I just didn’t find it suspenseful enough to be a thriller. Chris Nolan’s cinematic dream world is pretty much limited to car chases and gunfights and exploding buildings, except for the erotic dreams which in this film, are infuriatingly G-rated.  Apparently when men dream about beautiful women, the dreams consist of walks on the beach and building sand castles.  I felt a mounting shame, last night,  as I mentally compared my erotic dreams with Caprio’s character (DUM? DOM? ).  A man so sinister that he steals people’s ideas from their heads, dreams of holding hands with his sweetie and kissing. His gorgeous wife is supposed to have given in to the dark side of her dreams (we’re told by Dom. Again and again).  Is that the dream where her childhood home is on a watery street?  That’s dark?

I think the problem is that I’m spoiled by my own dreams.  In my dreams I can fly and I can also walk around with my eyes closed and not bump into anything.  I often show up at parties with no clothes on and manage to keep people from noticing that fact by talking to them about how I came to be a sunflower.  My teeth fall out and it doesn’t hurt.  I discover that my horse Gabriel is my shrink (or husband, dog, mailman – Gabriel is a major player in my dreams.)  Sometimes there are wars and battles but when there are, the sky opens up and the seas swell and there are monsters and demons and angels….

Another problem for me is that Inception involves a plot that has to be explained through constant expository and contrived dialogue (rather than through images).  Instead of watching the action unfold, as you do in the wonderful Jason Bourne movies or any other number of recent action/fantasy films (Children of Men also comes to mind), you have baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio as your Chatty Cathy protagonist, explaining everything to everyone in the film, and the film audience, over and over again.  He even decides to tell us what the word inception means, in case we didn’t know, so that we would understand why it is the title of the film.

So there you have it. My very first film review. What did you all think?  Of my blog, I mean. I know everybody loved the film.

In loving memory of Stephen W. Howe

PUTTING IN THE SEED by Robert Frost

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

I’ve been in Boston the past few days.  A family member is in the hospital but things are looking better for him, so yesterday I drove to a small town outside Hartford, CT, at a predetermined time, because I had important business there. Important Government business.  I parked my car in front of the large office building and went inside, sweating and shivering at the same time.  I was met by a receptionist who had me read some regulations, then I was photographed and fingerprinted.  Then I was lead into an interior chamber where I was again fingerprinted and all of my personal belongings (except for my clothes) were stored in a locker.

Then it was time.

I was about to take the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians cognitive test.

This was the last of the tests that I would need to take in order to become a certified Emergency Medical Technician.  I was told there would be 70 -140 questions and that the computer asks more or less questions based on your answers (please, I have no idea). There would be two hours to take the test.

So I began.  I was introduced, one by one, to a very interesting and, I hate to say it but easily the most depressing cast of characters I have ever encountered.  I signed an agreement at the testing site that I wouldn’t share details of the test, so I can’t be specific, but there were disoriented diabetics, toddlers who couldn’t breathe, violent drug-addicts, injured cyclists and old people clutching their chests.  My job was to not be distracted by the confusing wrong answers to the questions about each patient, but instead, to pick the right answer.  It took me a few minutes to get used to the computer but then I was moving along and had gotten myself into a rhythm when suddenly the computer ended the test. I had only answered 70 questions. I had another 60 minutes!

I called Bernie, the chief of our town’s EMTs and told him what had happened and he said, “You either did really well, or abysmally bad”.  He explained that if you answer enough questions correctly, the computer decides you don’t need more, but also, if you don’t answer enough answers correctly, it’ll also end the test.  It could have been either, I decided, and I drove home.

Hours later I got an email from my EMT instructor, Susie.  I had passed!  I am now a nationally registered Emergency Medical Technician!

Many thanks to my instructors: Susie, Steve, Ellen, Demetri, Shannon and all my classmates.

And of course, thanks to this great crew, who originally inspired me:

Well, now I’ll have more time to devote to the blog and my first order of business is to choose a new book for the nightstand. Shall we do a classic?

We’re back from our vacation. It was wonderful, but because of upcoming EMT exams (took one this morning, don’t know results yet), I spent most of the time on the beach taking practice multiple choice tests. As a result, I’ve found that the multiple choice format has replaced my former methods of thinking and communicating. Worse, I view everything as a “scenario” in which a certain protocol is required. Here’s an example taken from a real-life incident that occurred in our house this morning. Let’s see how you do:

You decide unilaterally that it is too warm in the house. You know that your kind but fragile wife loathes air-conditioning, but you have a bit of perspiration on your forehead. The thermostat is in the room where your dear wife is lying supine at her bed-desk. What is the proper course of action?

a) Beg the wife’s pardon, and gently ask if the temperature may be lowered. When she snaps at you that she’s freezing and if you want to be cold maybe you should have married Sarah Palin, you humbly ask her forgiveness and slink out of the room
b) Tell the hag that she’ll have plenty of heat where she’s going to end up, and crank the a/c.
c) Walk by the thermostat and distract her by asking if she heard a puppy yelping outside. When she leaps to the window, crank the a/c.
d) Just turn up the a/c. When your back is turned, she’ll lower it. Then just turn it back up. Never say a word but spend the day repeating these maneuvers, silently cursing each other under your breath.

The man and woman pictured above:

a) Are married
b) Are siblings
c) Really might be cousins (mothers have same maiden name)
d) Decided not to delve too deep when they learned of shared names. Kids ended up looking normal, so what’s the big deal?
e) Most of the above

While not studying, I spent my time on vacation:

a) Whining
b) Eating
c) Worrying
d) Slowly spiraling into a state of diminished mentation in which I became convinced that I might have talent as a visual artist, producing works such as this:

Two of the four people in this photo repeatedly humiliated the other two on the tennis court. Can you pick the winners? For extra credit, can you identify the losers by name? (Hint: Identify them correctly by adding a comma and then the word loser after their names)

For double extra credit, based on photos, can you guess where we went?

Because of predicted storms, Roxbury’s annual Pickin’& Fiddlin’ Contest has been postposed until tomorrow. So everybody who was planning to compete can lay down your bows, head indoors and rest your phalanges for a spell. Oh, sorry, phalanges is what we almost medical personnel call fingers. Yes, I passed my EMT class final exam and now only have to pass the state and national certification tests (only). Anyway, try to make it tomorrow. Bring a blanket, a picnic, some refreshing beverages and enjoy wonderful acts like this:

In the meantime, my NPR radio interview with author Wendy Burden is now on iTunes. You can go there and search “Ann Leary WHDD”  and download the podcast for free.  Or just click here to listen.

I’m a sucker for parades and patriotic songs and fireworks. My favorite part of any American sporting event is when they get some amazing singer to walk out onto the ice or the playing field to sing the national anthem.  It doesn’t matter how dextrous and elastic this warbler’s vocal chords, how vast their musical range, or how many hit records they’ve sold, they always arrive at that dangerous cliffhanger of the song and it’s almost more exciting than the first pitch or the start of the fireworks, waiting to see if they muck it up or not.  You all know the part I’m talking about. It begins with the spellbinding, “Oh say does that star-spangled baaaaaannee-er ye-et waaaaaave…”

And then, there they are, at the edge of the abyss, at what I consider to be the black-diamond run, the bungie-jump free fall, the most treacherous terrain of songdom.

“O’er the la-and of the free-EEEEEEE!  (giant roars of applause, or deafening boos) And the. Home. Of the.  Brave.”

I decided to go on YouTube to find some good national anthem fails to post and was surprised to learn that for many singers, it’s the actual lyrics rather than the impossible range that poses the most challenge.

So, in honor of the 4th of July, my favorite star-spangled fuggups.  If you can’t view the embedded videos, just click on the links.

First, Michael Bolton. The whole point of writing cheat notes on your fingers is so that you can be kind of inconspicuous when you glance at them. I’m an expert at this. You can write the notes near the nail beds and it looks like you’re admiring the polish. I have a weird form of paralyzing social anxiety that sometimes makes my mind go completely blank when I see somebody, even if it’s somebody I know quite well, so I sometimes do finger cheat notes in social situations. Like this:

“Hi… (quick glance at fingernails) Mom.  How are you?”

Wish he had consulted me:

This is a little painful to watch because the girl is so lovely and young, but I love how the gallant hero came to her aid:

Here’s a good one:

I guess you’re not allowed to laugh uproariously at cop graduation ceremonies:

And finally this.  Happy Independence Day!

Since I blogged endlessly all winter about the reconstruction of our bathroom and the subsequent relocation of some poor tenants that we had, I thought I’d show you the bathroom now that it’s finished. I love it and I don’t miss the bats nearly as much as I thought I might.

Do you like it?  How about a little house tour then?  Here’s our sunroom:

The front porch:

The view from our porch:

Lulu guarding the front yard:

My favorite tree:

And our patio:

And now, here’s a poem I came across, that I love very much. Despite all the beauty around me, I tend to be sad in the summer. I KNOW. It’s a sin.  I’m perverse and ungrateful, I should be happy and joyous. I have so much beauty all around.  Anyway, here’s the poem: