1 Last day to go

Its time to take the dogs to Super Care Kennels for their care while we’re away. This isn’t new for them as each year we usually travel for about two weeks. Ipo and Pico love their caregiver, Pam Spencer, and her open spaces in the south of the Big Island



Buzz and the dogs wait for Pam while I am having my nails done. That's Buzz' finger admonishing them. Pico looks ashamed while Ipo is wary of that finger.





Time for the handover.


Bye now - don't look so sad, but cuddle up for your hour long trip south. We'll see you in a month!!

2 Days to go

All the heavy stuff is done, purchased or made and packed. Now the fine details - Buzz is confirming our plane reservations to Honolulu; I am checking all prescriptions but can't find the bottle in which I put the vitamins. Won't hurt to go a month without, I guesss. Also I collected quarters in change as I shopped the last days in order to use laundry facilities on the ship. Buzz said, "the purser can help you" but I prefer to go prepared.

Last minute shopping at Costco brought us treats for the rest of the week (doughnuts) and snacks to carry on the plane (Macadamia Roca) which is more than half eaten already. My carryall that I use instead of a purse is full (and heavy) with two books to read on the plane, a notebook to write in, snacks, crossword puzzle book with pencils and extra pair of glasses.

3 Days to go

On our way home from picking up my new glasses, we stopped for the mail. Although we have a mailbox on the highway one mile above our home, we prefer to keep a box at
the main (and only) post office in our village.

4 Days to go

I've worn framed glasses, contact lenses since the first grade. Without that aid, I not only cannot drive, I can't find lost things around the house or worse, for me, read well. Three weeks ago we went to Costco to order a backup pair of glasses and today we went to pick them up. I'm shocked to find the glasses before me are sunglasses!! How did that misunderstanding happen? I know they would have replaced them with indoor glasses but decided to keep them for outdoor wear.
©Natalie Norman Baer 6/2/10

5 Days to go

I checked the Mango trees today and see they are ripening.



I'll let Vanesa (my son's wife) know she's welcome to pick as much as she wants while we're gone. Other years I've tried slicing and drying the pieces when I'm overloaded with the fruit, but they become a bit chewy. I'd rather give them away.
Good advice from Empress Bee (of the high seas) to get rest because the port calls tend to be strenuous.
©Natalie Norman Baer 6/1/10

6 days to go

It's Memorial Day, the day our family took flowers to the graves of our people. I looked in vain through photo albums filled over the past twenty years searching for a picture of our family graves. In vain, indeed, but not from memory. I am the last of our family to be part of this tradition. My three sisters and I would cram into the little Ford Coupe along with Mother and Dad, eager for the 75 mile drive to Forestdale, Mass. As we headed out of Greenville, we'd drive through Providence, Seekonk and passing the towers at the head of Cape Cod, Mother would take a deep breath and say, "Ah, smell that fresh air."

Before crossing the Bourne Bridge, we'd stop to buy flowers - usually gladiolus, Spring flowers. Then it was but a few miles through Sandwich to the Forestdale Cemetery. While Mother would arrange the flowers at the headstone of her father and the one next to it of her grandparents, we girls would wander about the small graveyard reading the headstones. I didn't know until my daughter, Barbara, researched it, that my 3rd grandparents Prince and Azubah Fish were buried here. Facing the road was a long line of gravestones for Calvin and Martha Fish along with many of their 11 children. While I still live, I want to clean the black mildew from their stones.
Today I am sad because I am too far to lay flowers on any of my family stones: I lay in my mind flowers in memory of my sister Doris with Herb and my Dad at the Veteran's Cemetery in Exeter, RI; sister Edie is with Ralph in Attleboro, Mass, Cemetery; while my last sister Nancy is with Arlie, my Mother and stepfather and my always remembered first husband, Ralph, at the cemetery in Kaneohe, Hawaii. You are always alive for me.
©Natalie Norman Baer 5/31/10

7 days to go

I'm clearing out books I've read or don't want to read (after a good start) and taking them to Kona Bay Books, undoubtedly the best used book store on our island (and I haven't seen his brother's store in Hilo) Buel's store has grown in just the past seven or so years from a small rented section of a building in downtown Kona to his own library-size building in our "Old Industrial Area" not far from town. I bought "Italy in Mind" here, a book of essays written over the past two hundred years on Venice, Rome, Naples, Sicily and other spots in Italy.



Now I'm returning it, with others purchased there or elsewhere, for a credit of 50% on original used store price. With that credit, I broused the History Section, and bought a book on the history of Croatia. From now until we leave, I'll make notes on its history for background when we tour Dubrovnik. I'm not good at remembering dates, but have already read that it has been 1000 years since Croatia was last an independent country, before being divide by Hungary and Venice. But I have to make those notes before swearing the truth of the above.
©Natalie Norman Baer 5/30/10

8 days to go

This is what supper looks like when I've decided to "slow down". It's an embarass- ment, my weekly menu list and the pantry/refrigerator are full of fast food, grab it off the shelf, be grateful for small favors (a husband who eats whatever is put in front of him).

But Natalie is a "picky eater" since childhood and grimaces at the hamburg. There is no excuse, I could have jazzed it up with a slice of cheese, a tomato. This is just a small demonstration that I have no idea of what "slowing down" is. It's either full steam ahead or nothing.
©Natalie Norman Baer 5/29/10

9 Days to go

The dogs (that's Pico on the right, Ipo on the left, with Jamie, the daughter of the pet center holding them) know something is up. They sense a change in the household. Up the stairs they run, down again, whine to go out, whine to come in. Ipo bats me with her paw and on my fragile skin are the marks of her claws. Below the knuckle of the small finger is a tiny slit, below it and down to the wrist are three more slits, progressively larger until you get to the wrist with its three cornered tear from her dew claw. By the time I board the plane in just nine days, the whole back of my hand will be a mass of bruises. Earlier I had tripped over a bowling bag and scraped the skin above my ankle. I look to Buzz and say, "I think I better slow down" he gives me the look like what have I been saying?
Dear heart, my husband, my Southern born gentleman husband, how can he ever understand his driven, dogmatic, hustle to get everything done, can't keep still a minute wife of his who has never grown away, in her 40 years in Hawaii, from her New Engand roots?
You've got it!!
©Natalie Norman Baer 5/28/10

10 days to go

Today is the day for my haircut. See the straggle over my ears? Buzz driving, stayed at his bowling league, I took over and in my day dreaming drive to the salon, missed my turn and ended on King Kam IV road. Oh well, I had plenty of time, turned around and headed back toward town, took another wrong turn, then another but saw my doctor's new office was straight ahead of where I had pulled in. Might as well take care of prescriptions - said hello, gave my request of a prescription for traveler's complaint, waited and was asked for my street address. As I've said before - we live a mile down the mountain from the mailbox (remember, turn right at the geraniums?) Job done, made it to my appointment with five minutes to spare.




We're done, with lovely Susie putting on the final touches. Tomorrow it's shopping for our final week of groceries, returning books. Time's a'wasting
©Natalie Norman Baer 5/27/10

11 Days to go

That isn't me but it is the new skirt and sweater set I've ordered with the gift certificate from my daughter for my upcoming birthday. It will be just the outfit to wear as Buzz and I sit around the piano tapping our feet and smiling at all the other passengers sitting with us on our cruise. I'm waiting for that phone call from Mel, the UPS man, to say he'll meet me at the top of the hill with the package from Travel Smith. Our friends say we live "in the jungle" but its really not that bad, just .9 mile down a two lane road to a gate, take a left turn and bump along the dirt path (usually rutted from feral pigs who love to toss up the soil and rocks.) Then another gate and into our part of the farm. It's still a dirt roadway but no pigs. Thank God we fenced them out several years ago after they destroyed my flower garden. You would be surprised what damage they can do in one night. Back to the UPS man - he knows me by now and the territory in which we live which does not accomadate the width of his truck.


Here's my last minute list to take to town tomorrow when I get my haircout (the part that's scribbled off.) The plumber came yesterday. Our indoor facility is working fine, thankyou, but we had to move a standpipe away from the fence we share with our neighbor. We had a survey a month ago and they gained a few feet, so it was move the pipe or go without water. The notes to the left of my reminder list have nothing to do with the trip, just times today when we used the generator that needs upgrading when we get home in July. The address is the new office for my doctor, the phone number, who knows.
©Natalie Norman Baer

12 days to go

That's the stole and the evening gown I will be wearing at a formal dinner in a little over two weeks as we cruise the Atlantic on the Queen Mary2. This is Buzz trip - the one we've saved for two years.





That's my lunchtime outfit








and here's the shoes to go with it (the heels are hidden under the shelf), along with my crossword puzzle book, daytime clothes, camera. Now all I need to do is get them into the suitcase:



It's just twelve days before we board the plane - have them weigh the luggage and hope its not over 50 pounds. I'm well prepared with my lists of things to buy, haircut to get, nails to be polished, you know what it is when you take a trip. But its also the time when my life falls apart, I lose the camera and then I find it, I forgot to fix supper because I'm busy with this blog. Buzz is left to get himself some scrambled eggs and I'll make myself a sandwich.
You would think that an accountant, a CPA even, would be so well organized that the preparaton of one year would go easily. It does, on paper, but its putting the written words into practice that breaks my soul. Have I bought the treats to eat on our 14 hour air flight to New York for boarding the ship? Got my credit card ready to buy bottled water when flying, or is it free? And our passports?
And how do I put a hold on messages?

The bane of my childhood

Winters in New England often meant cold, mean, nasty days; sometimes it began as a dripping rain that turned to ice and snow on an instant notice. We kids donned our snuggies (see the picture); underwear that was a horror bestowed on thin girls who would rather shiver in the cold than have the pink ribbed underpants fall beneath her knees for all to see. Snuggies only came in three sizes – small, medium and large. With our skinny frames, we needed something shorter in the legs. None of us thought to tie them up with a string tight above our knees or maybe fasten them up with safety pins.
Fully dressed in ski pants, sweaters and coats, hoods and mufflers, boots and mittens we started the long trudge to school. The wind howled down on my sisters and me. Living at the bottom of a hill, it was a long half mile up to the school. Our classmates, lucky to be on the school bus, waved to us as they went by. Mother had talked to the town officials but the ride was only for children living more than a mile. We traipsed up that hill, leaning against the mean wind that seemed to enjoy blowing down on us little children. I kept my scarf wrapped around my mouth and nose, breathing as shallowly as possible. I hated that cold.
Once in the school house, I took off my outer clothes, hitched up my snuggies and sat at my desk, waiting for instructions from the teacher. This year it was Miss Fallows, a stern disciplinarian who made sure we learned our lessons. Those winter days I kept my head down, hoping I wouldn’t be called to the blackboard at the front of the room to work on a sum or spell a word. It was the snuggies, always falling beneath one or the other my knee that kept me to my chair.
This day I was out of luck as Miss Fallows called me to the board to work out a problem in addition. Keeping my legs together as closely as possible, I waddled cautiously to the board. I smiled at Miss Fallows and turned to the board, chalk in hand. Absorbed in my work, I forgot my problem until I felt them begin to slip. A hitch at the waist slowed the process but then as I worked again at the board, they slipped again.
“Please, dear God, don’t let them show to the other kids, please God.”
Why hadn’t I just slipped them off when I arrived in school and dropped them into my ski pants? (Because the same God I prayed to for relief, would see me and let my mother know.)
I heard a giggle, and then a tee-hee. I knew it was too late. The pink, ribbed pants I wore were in blatant display. Miss Fallows didn’t notice my distress but heard the giggles and frowned at the class.
“Very good, Natalie,” she said as I hitched up my underwear and scurried to my seat, knowing what lay ahead for me at recess:
“I see England, I see France,
I see Nat-lee’s underpants”
©Natalie Norman Baer

Goodbye my Sister

That’s surely not my sister
Lying in the heavy wooden coffin.
Her, with the poofed up hair,
The bright blue suit, hands folded nearly

She's cold, for God's sake,
give her a blanket, wake her up.
bring a smile to her lips,
a glitter to her eyes.

Up Edie, times awasting,
we need you, kid
There are dishes to wash,
pies to bake, hearts to heal.


You climbed higher than I,
In trees when we played.
You pinched my butt, laughed
at my blush and ducked my slap

Come back, my sister, I miss
your mischief, your ready laugh
Me, the older one, promise to listen
Not to laugh and sneer

But the lid comes down
the coffin is lowered.
Tears to tears, dust to dust
Edith doesn't live here anymore.

Her sister 2003
©Natalie Norman Baer

Writers Group

That's George and Sandy at our biweekly writer's group here in Kailua-Kona. We've been together some seven or eight years reading our latest story, memoir, poem. George has had two or three stories published, Aurora finishing up her murder mystery, Alaina her years in Ireland as a child and Jerry his novel of a search for a missing GI. I'm still at "Witches in Season" the story of my 9th great grandmother who died in 1692 at Salem jail adjudged a witch and bits and pieces of memories. I don't know what will become of it all, perhaps packed in a box marked "Read after I'm gone".

Sunday in the Thirties

This is the four of us on a Sunday. In years earlier than this, Mother would dress us in our best clothes, sit us on the couch and say,"Don't move", while she readied herself to take us to church. I loved my Sunday School with its singing and stories but absolutely hated church, the long dreary sermons, the sitting still, make no noise, relieved only by the ocassional hymn. Mother would say, "You can give one hour a week to the Lord." but I didn't think so, and quit going to service as soon as I got away to college.
Our main meal on Sunday was after church, usually a fat chicken with lots of good, overcooked vegetables, my dad carving at the head of the table and passing each plate down. Afternoons in the years before the war (there was only one war in my youth - the Second World War) were to be spent quietly, no running around outdoors, but playing with dolls was OK. We Baptists (Northern Freewill Baptists) didn't believe in dancing or playing cards on Sunday. But visiting relatives was fine and we'd load up our small Ford coupe, all four girls, Mother and Dad, and be off to visit the Simonini's, my Father's people. They were Catholic and didn't have the strictures of Sabbath behavior that we had at home - as long as my grandmother didn't know about it, we played with flair outdoors.
The war changed all that - fashions of behavior loosened up, we could even shop on Sundays, imagine!!
I wouldn't go back to those prewar years, I prefer the tug and tussle of life as I live it now but those early memories remain tucked away like a delicate handkerchief to take out and touch on this Sunday afternoon so many miles and years away from my New England childhood.
Natalie-Hawaii
©Natalie Norman Baer

Star Spangled Banner

I was a young adult during the cold war, fearing USSR, the atom bomb. During the Cuban Crisis when we lived in Southern Indiana within range of such danger, I found a place for our family to hide under the basement stairs.
Two years ago, almost fifty years later we were on a three week river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburgh,Russia. I was so proud to hear their army band play our anthem.
I have never belted out our national anthem as lustily and loudly as I did that summer month standing in front of their World War II Armory in Moscow.

The Last of us Four

Here we are, a combination of first generation ItalianAmerican and 11th generation Yankee. We were a happy family of sisters - that's Doris on the left, a real beauty who was laid low by Tuberculosis when only 15 but survived and lived until her seventies, the first of us to go. Next is Nancy, my closest companion all through our lives growing up in Rhode Island and Hawaii in our later lives; I'm the second from the right, a bit shy and oversensitive (I still worry a lot about doing the right thing); last my kid sister, Edie, you can see the devilish gleam in her eyes.
We might have had our spats as children but as adults we were always there for each other.
I miss my sisters, never expected that I'd outlive them all. But life is that way, we don't get to choose, just to love and appreciate each other while we are alive.
As we used to say - "See ya later, alligator".

Before the Drought

That's our view looking down from our lanai - at the time this was taken we had had several months of frequent rain. Living as we do on the side of Mt. Hualalai, I can almost make up my climate. On the news report, given over two hundred miles away in Honolulu, I hear that the weather in Kona is clear and sunny. At the same time, I look out the window at a steady rain. We live on the Big Island (called Hawaii). When people ask, I describe our location as a mile or so above MaDonalds in Kona. When I hear on the news that if we don't mail in our census form, census workers will call on us. Sure - if they can find us. Needing service, we tell the worker, "Drive in exactly two miles from Palani junction, turn right at the Geraniums, come down .9 of a mile, be sure to stay on concrete strips, open the gate, the one that has a decoration from Christmas 2009, turn left, go another half acre, open another gate and park at the top of the hill. Sometimes, we just give up and meet the visitor on the highway.
Four other families beside ours "live off the grid". Telephone and electric companies have never run their lines to serve us. We survive with solar power, propane and generator power. Very nicely, we say, as we laugh when the power goes out over the island.
Months of drought - not a drop except from the hose - have taken the lovely green groundcover, handwatering couldn't save it. The orange tree there has blossomed but not produced fruit and I'm redisgned the plat. My method is called - whatever grows, keep it. Purslane and Akikuli (sedums?) are spreading and another picture will come. Just give it time.

Sailing the Andes

From my journal of trip to South America:
We are bushed,, weary, fagged out, worn out and tired. Our wakeup call came 5 minutes AFTER we were supposed to board the bus. (We two who are always the first to arrive.) We threw on our clothes, scooped up toiletries from the bathroom and ran for the elevator. Our tour guide met us as we got off the elevator with an apology. As we climbed onto the bus, we were met with applause.
It was a drizzly day that turned into a steady rain. Our trip "sailing the Andes" was by bus alternating with boat across each lake between Argentina and Chile, across the Andes. As we crossed one lake, our boat would toot twice for the arrival of another boat with a passenger, or sometimes to pick up goods from our boat. On one leg while riding the bus, we were told the road had been washed out and we were to cross it by foot, holding onto a rope. We'd be met then by the bus to Chile. As we approached the gap in the road, our driver had other plans and gunned the bus across the washout (as I looked for a place to roll in case the bus fell down the mountain.) Lunch was atop a mountain that we had to ride up on a gondola. Made a great Christmas card that year.
©Natalie Norman Baer