Through the Rabbit Hole

H and I just popped out of the rabbit hole. A rabbit hole, you say? Well, actually we just returned from his native Holland, where we had a grand time visiting with family in Amsterdam. "Going through the rabbit hole” is something H mentions each time we travel there because, regardless of whether we are going or coming, on the other side of that huge ocean is a whole different world with sights, smells and sounds all its own.

I had this grandiose idea of blogging every couple of days while over there. Why I thought that I have no idea, but it would have been pretty cool if I could have pulled it off. Alas, I didn’t. BUT, I have a fabulous memory (Translation: I made lots of notes) and I took over 1300 pictures (Translation: You’ll think you’re right there with me). So get ready ‘cause we’re going back through that rabbit hole.

Images of Amsterdam from top to bottom:
1. View from our hotel room
2. H (on the right) and his brother, D
3. Canal view
4. D and my nephew, M, biking through the city

Feline Right at Home

I took P the cat to the vet this morning. At his advanced age of seventeen, we have to stop by for check-ups more often than we used to. The staff there is great, and since they cater only to felines, everything about the office makes us feel at home. (Well, at least I feel comfortable – P could care less.) As with each previous visit, we were warmly greeted by the resident hostess, Gigi, a lovely eighteen-year-old calico. Still light on her feet despite her age, Gigi waltzed in from the back room after sensing that someone had entered the lobby. Friendly but not overbearing, chatty but not too much so, she made her rounds peeping into cat carriers and nuzzling up to customers, always gracious with a quiet understanding of that apprehension that can come with a visit. She does her best to instill calm. (Again, let me point out that these were my observations, not P’s, who was pretty miffed about being there and had no interest in etiquette, hostess or no hostess.) Gigi made me start thinking about Welcome Wagon.

For those who may not remember Welcome Wagon, here is a little history taken directly from their website:

“Welcome Wagon was founded in 1928 by an insightful marketing man in Memphis, Tennessee, Thomas Briggs. Mr. Briggs was inspired by stories of early Conestoga “welcome wagons” that would meet and greet westward travelers, providing fresh food and water for the journey. He created Welcome Wagon to embody this same spirit of warm hospitality and welcome. He hired "hostesses", women who were friendly and knowledgeable about their neighborhood, to personally deliver baskets of gifts supplied by local businesses to new homeowners. Over a cup of coffee, hostesses would tell new home buyers about local civic and cultural activities in the community while handing out gifts and coupons from local businesses”.

I remember our family being visited on several occasions by the Welcome Wagon ladies after big moves to Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. I don’t know that I can conjure up an image of specific individuals, but I do recall the baskets full of information and goodies that they dropped off at our new home. I remember Mom being pleased.

According to their website, Welcome Wagon is still in existence but the manner in which they greet new families has changed with the times. The personal touch of face to face visits stopped in 1998 when “the increase of two-income families meant fewer people were home to accept visits.” Now the focus is on connecting through the mail and internet with a booklet of information and coupons from local businesses and services to help families acclimate to their new lives.

Today, the ideal neighborly welcome would be an old-fashioned knock on the door with a plate of homemade cookies and a friendly smile. In reality, it’s probably more like a simple wave from the driveway as the morning paper is gathered. I must admit that I lean heavily towards the latter. Our lives tend to be so full that it’s easy to get caught up in “us” and become immune to “them.” We can forget how it feels to be “new,” as well as the isolation and loneliness that often accompanies the new.

 

We all want to feel connected, to be a member of a family, a community – it’s a need deep within our beings. Working in a church office has made me acutely aware of this. Fortunately, every day God offers me new and unique opportunities to work on my welcoming skills. I’m a slow learner, but I’m willing.

The List keeper

I have a drawer that I toss all paperwork into with the intention of filing it away at a later date. It could be months, sometimes longer, but eventually it finds a new home. When the drawer won’t close properly, I know it’s time to start organizing, a task that can take anywhere from two to three hours. Each time I face the drawer I vow, once again, to “file, not pile” in the future. Well, another season has gone by since I last filed, and (Surprise! Surprise!) the drawer stopped closing last week. And, true to form, it took me almost three hours to straighten, purge and file. It’s a mindless task and one that I don’t relish. However, on this occasion I actually made a delightful discovery. As the papers were flying around me, my mother’s handwriting flashed before my eyes and I smiled.




You see, Mom was a list keeper, a recorder of information. She was the most organized woman I’ve ever known. As far back as I can remember she kept a calendar hanging in an easily accessible place, usually in the kitchen, where she recorded everything: upcoming activities and appointments, meeting dates and times, long-distance phone calls made, our vacations, and special events. In her purse was a smaller version of the house calendar, as well as a notepad filled with to-do lists for groceries, needed school supplies, clothing options for our spring/fall school shopping sprees, church committee notes, birthday lists, and more. The refrigerator was decorated with magnets, each holding an individual reminder in plain view, including my personal favorite, the dinner menus – a single piece of paper stuck on the refrigerator and filled with two to three weeks of meal planning. The comings and goings of our daily family life was well-documented and we always knew where we were supposed to be, at what time, and who with.

It’s evident that Mom rubbed off on us since my sisters and I are also list keepers, each to varying degrees. Out of all of us, I probably record the most extensive amount of minutiae. I have several fully noted calendars; my work areas at home and the church office are covered with sticky notes, note pads and scraps of papers all informing me of something. I usually don’t think much about it because it feels so normal to me, merely an extension of my mother. In fact, I have kept a thick stack of Mom’s dinner menus and quite a few years of her calendars. Somehow it makes me feel more connected to her even though she’s been gone for fifteen years. Of course, after plowing through that drawer, I have no idea why I kept my old notes with information that was no longer usable; my mother didn’t even do that. Hmmmmmm – Wait a minute! Maybe I need to make a note to look into that.

"It Has Awoken"

Today I moved into the 21st century… not because I wanted to, but because H refuses to allow me to stay in the Dark Ages. Unlike me, the Prince makes a point of keeping up with technology… in fact, he THRIVES on it. I do my best to take it all in and respond to his enthusiasm with inquisitive and intelligent questions, but I usually find it confusing, complicated, and often a bit daunting. Trying to understand not only the new and improved, but also the potential and possibilities, is a challenge for me.

Consider the cell phone. I have a dinosaur of a unit – massive enough to break a toe if it fell on your foot, yet sturdy enough to survive any impact. I love this phone. It’s the first one I ever owned and I’m quite comfortable with its technology. It was a gift from H seven years ago. Pretty fancy in its heyday, it’s now so outdated that the battery is no longer available. I have babied and coddled it trying to extend its life, anything to keep old faithful operational, but it needs recharging more and more often. I fear its days are numbered.

I have come to learn that H is a very patient man. He has coolly waited, biding his time ever so quietly, until one day my battery began to sputter its last breath. As luck would have it, Apple’s new iPhone began shipping the same week. And H shouted to the heavens (in his head, of course) “Hallelujah! Amen!” He knew he had me, my dinosaur now extinct.

So, this week I dutifully handed over my little relic and followed H to the AT&T store where he purchased the newest iPhone 4 (fully gadgeted) and kindly upgraded me to his older iPhone 3GS. When the customer service technician activated H’s new device, it gurgled a small ring sound and I heard H whisper, “It has awoken.” Bliss.

Yes? What? What’s that? Oh NO! Drat! Gotta Go, dear readers! My new phone is making a sound – I think it’s ringing – and once I find it, I’m not sure how to answer it.

Workin' Like a Dog!

My husband works from home – he’s a computer guy. I know that’s not a technical term, but I’m not very technically minded. However, I do know that when H tells me he works very hard at what he does, I believe him. He’s at command central when I leave for work in the mornings, and he’s still there when I return eight hours later, often working late into the evenings. But sometimes, when H tells me he’s been “workin' like a dog,” I wonder exactly what that means.