MotherPie

Princess Diana & Mementos At The Fence

"The best mother in the world," is how her sons want her to be remembered. The gate and fence of Kensington Palace filled with flowers and framed photos and notes, expressions of grief piled high, on Diana's death 10 years ago.  The first glimpse of the grieving family we had was when they paraded in front of the gates, noting all the piles of stuff to express sadness and connections. Just like the Oklahoma City bombing, the tragic event was played and re-played 24/7 on cable, and people came to the fence demarking the boundaries of the lives and spaces on the other side and left teddy bears and ribbons and notes. The royal anniversary of Diana's death will contain no living fences but mourners still gathered at the Kensington gate while the official tribute held elsewhere was invitation-only.  People today marked the fence with mementos.

I, too, watched both events unfold on tv -- her death story unfolding and the OKC bombing coverage. I lived in Texas at the time where crosses had started popping up at the sides of roads demarking the place of deaths.  Hispanic memori mentos, these markers on the spots are called descanyos* and their increasing frequency of appearances along highways correlated with the rising rates of immigration across our southern border.

JFK's death never spurred people to place flowers and mementos on the place but it was the first where everyone watched the family grieve on national tv, standing at the curb as the body rolled by.

Now when a death occurs in a public place, this recognition-at-the-place is how we mark it.   The fences are cleaned up at Kensington Palace and they are kept clean at the World Trade Center site, too, where the mementos are official - top-down, rather than a place for the bottom-up expressions of sadness from the common people.

Media might be changing the way we express our grief.  Sadness at the fences. 

*descanyo is spelled descano with the n having a tilde but I don't know how to type that Spanish letter.

image credit: right, Kensington Palace, Shaun Curry, Bloomberg News, front page online NYTimes today; lower right Wikipedia; left: AP photo of mourner at the Gate of Kensington, on today's online front page of the Washington Post

Money for Trouble...

Leona Helmsley might be dead at 87 but this blog isn't.  Hello, I'm back, just to report that Helmsley's 8 year-old white Maltese dog, Trouble, will get $12 million in trust.  The dog goes to her brother, who gets $8 million.  There isn't a provision for what to do when the dog dies, but  two of the four grandchildren that got something from her over $4 billion fortune have to go visit the grave of her only son once a year or they lose it. 

Lucky dog, that Trouble.  I'm not making any money for my trouble, my effort at blogging.  But hey, that's ok with me.

image

Blog Break...

Life happens.  Shifts in plans and priorities.  Many life changes bring an altered focus and reshaping habits and finding new goals and new directions. They also bring a need for a break!  I've not missed a day of posting since this blog started as a school project in February '06, but I'm not sure where to go with a blog named MotherPie.  I've kept at it through graduate studies, adjusting to a new move to NYC, rebounding children, launching children from the nest, a cross-country move, wedding planning, selling a Manhattan high-rise, moving to the mountains, changing family pace and gears with a now-retired husband and more. It has been a consistent outlet and a fun hobby during interesting times.

Wishing everyone good thoughts, wishing for a nice break. 

 Blog nap time. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thunder Rolls & Hurricane Drama...

Hurricane Dean is heading for the honeymooners, due to hit in 12 hours and they are...going sailing.

It had rained here most everyday but maybe two, leading up to the wedding in Northern New Mexico last weekend.  Ominous clouds had gathered as guests were seated.  Standing at the gazebo, she had to pause for a thunder roll before she said, 'I do."  The rains came just as the ceremony ended.   It is supposed to be good luck to rain on the wedding day.  But hurricanes on the honeymoon?

Will mothers never cease to worry?  Ah, the drama. Storms.  Brewing. 

Off to College: Hello Target...

Two children head to college this week and Target is where they will go for what they need.  Any wonder that four of the top ten ads recalled are Target's?  The highest rated one is about decorating dorm rooms.   Can you name their tag line? Expect more, pay less.

Forbes: Perhaps the most useful dorm gadget out there is one that gets the sleepy student to class on time. The 12-volt  Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock does the job by literally shaking your newbie awake with pulsating lights, a 113-decibel alarm and a remote vibrating bed shaker.

This is old hat by now.  We've got it down.

Why do I still have bad dreams about missing college classes?

Formal, Structured Times or Helicoptered College Kids?

My youngest daughter flipped through her grandmother's college scrapbook and the talk turned to how times have changed,  from then to now.  From sign-in desks for dates, from dance cards, from proper behavior, from single sex dorms, to?  What?

Are colleges leaning so far from hands-on guidance and kids leaning/careening to everywhere out-of-bounds that this, this place,  just isn't good for them, us or society?  What is it, parents?  Hmmmm.  The movie, Knocked-Up.  Is it a tiptoe into another space of the idea of "doing what is right" ?????

Maybe curfews are a good idea.  Maybe the old days were the good old days.  Maybe it is time to bounce something back.  I thought so after reading about kids dying at college - the story, to me, is Bigger Than Dallas. The stories of kids driving and dying from alcohol-related accidents, of fraternity deaths -- these are what parents talk about when pulled together nationally, I've found.  At least in the last ten years.  The best thing my Dad got out of college was my mom, and she got a poodle from his fraternity house mom.  I say that, tongue-in-cheek, but college experiences speak as much to life as academics and life preparations. 

Freedom isn't always a good thing.  And to think, we're spreading the idea all over the world, politically speaking.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll, peace, love and be free.  What in the world is going on?  Let's talk about this helicopter parenting...   Who is protecting whom and what and from what and what for. 

Whatever.  Maybe, like fluffed and trimmed up poodles, our academic environments need a little duded-up structure in real life and while the virtual life is let loose.  Is it happening, already?

What is it when dogs really are being treated more like people and kids are totally off-leash?  Or are they on the tight, GPS, cell-phone attached ephemeral 24/7 umbilical cord?

image credit

Empty Nest...

This is the pic I snapped of the empty dove nest right outside our bedroom window.  Two hatched and flew the nest earlier this summer.

I snapped the nest pic right after my youngest drove down the driveway in her car, headed for college, after I took a few photos of her loaded car with a few of her life-long treasures propped up next to her.  She has a big smile on her face.  My eyes held tears.

The baby has flown this coop.

Yep. Empty nest.

Faded Roses...

The flowers are hung up to dry.  The wedding is over, the bride and groom are off to begin their life together. 

What else is there now to do?  What is next?

Directions, Navigation, Sun: GPS, Not Compass?

Mapquest.  A childhood less free to roam in natural spaces.  Who knows?  All of a sudden it hit me that my children had never been taught how to tell the four directions by the sun.  Surely they have just forgotten what I must have taught them.  Are we failing to teach our children ways to navigate life because of new technology?  Was my family so urbanized and used to grid cities?  Big shift.

"Colorado is that way and you can see all the way there," I say, pointing my arm north/northwest on a hike in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos north of Santa Fe.

"You are off on your north," my husband says and I immediately challenge him.

All of a sudden we are checking our shadows to get an accurate read on due north and west.  My oldest daughter had never known this and as a mother, I am aghast she is devoid of this means of navigation.  My husband grabs sticks and shows her how to make a compass.  All you need is Maquest, she tells us. 

Love is...

All in the hormones?  A Washington Post article focused on the logic and emotions of love with an interview with one of today's experts on love matches.  A Rutgers University anthropologist who studies romantic love (and is the love science director for a top online dating service) says Hillary Clinton has high testosterone, according to her love match science.  She looked at the presidential candidates in terms of anthropological love styles. I've read her stuff before.

It might be interesting to track the online dating-to-marriage survival stats as compared to old fashioned ways of meeting/dating.  I'm running into more people who met their loves on the internet.

My parents stand up together after 50 years of marriage and just their being together this long is an example and light.  I listened carefully at rehearsal dinner toasts to the toasts of two men married for years. The advice they gave to the soon-to-be married couple might well be taken to heart.  My Dad read a Bible verse standing beside the bride and groom; these were words of wisdom.  The thunder cracked right before she said "I do" -- what a heavenly drumroll creating a precient pause.

Love is (scientifically) magical.  We're learning more and more, like the fact that we even pick our friends based on genetics; genes drive our social structures. But don't we all know anyway that opposites attract?  Or is it that birds of a feather flock together?

Love is especially in the air here so I've not had time to read about how some couples just might want to maintain misery.  I'll go read the NYTimes magazine article, Can This Marriage Be Saved, later.  I've felt so sappy happy about marriage that is seems rather unrelevant to me but hey.   Who has a perfect marriage ? We know life is not always mountain top experiences.  Being a mother and being married -- hardest work around but also the most rewarding.  Lucky in love, heavenly blessed?