Christmas: Drones and Brothers

Christmas was fabulous fun. We were all together at my daughter’s and we ate great food, shared funny and imaginative presents and we laughed and laughed, but when you get right down to it, it was all about the drones.

Every grandson—that’s four—got a drone. Two received smallish ones and my two older grandsons, ages 28 and 25, received UdiR/C, quad rote, six-axis gyro, mini R/C UFOs. (Don’t ask me what any of that means. I copied the info off one of the boxes.)

When my oldest grandson, Chris, got his set up, out we all went—thank God for fair weather—and watched him fly it. Then another grandson came out with his and up it went while we all gasped and cheered in amazement.

Up and over the roof

Up, up and away!

These were not the very expensive drones that you have to register with the FAA, not that big and fancy, but spectacular enough to enthrall us all on Christmas day, that is until one got caught high in the tree tops and there was nothing to do but stare.

A recovery plan was developed. This is how it went.

Chris, whose drone it was, and Alex and Zach each got balls: two footballs and one rubber ball—it was decided that a baseball thrown hard enough to get that high might damage the drone—and they began taking turns firing up at the drone. Mind you, it was way up there.

Mike cheered them on: his team of sons. “So close, Chris. You almost had it!” A little far left, Alex!”  Good arm, Zach, you hit the tree branch!” and on and on it went.

I thought the boys’ arms were going to give out. A dislocated shoulder perhaps? It was never going to happen; I didn't see how they could reach it. They must have been at it non-stop for fifteen minutes at least, these three brothers with one common goal. All youth and muscle and determination. Suddenly Chris fired up a direct hit and that drone fell out of the tree and dropped like a stone.

I raised my fists in the air, “Yay!!” And the whole family began to shout and chant, “Cloop! Cloop! Cloop!” (Chris’ podcast nickname.)

 Laughing, Chris took a bow.

Later, when we were all back in the family room, I heard Chris say to Alex, “I never would have hit it if you hadn’t fired that shot before that moved it further along the branch,”

Alex ran his hand though his hair and grinned, “Yeah, I guess I was the set up.”

“Yeah,” Chis agreed and he flopped down on the chair near his brother.

My heart smiled.

Something About This Time Of Year

Something about this time of year. Since multi-tasking is no longer my best sport, I find myself dominated by lists and wanting nothing last minute to happen. I understand the shopping that needs to be done—don’t we all?—but leave me with my lists and plans. No going off the path. In the face of the unexpected? I falter.

For example: I email my busy, New York lawyer daughter- in- law asking what she would like for Christmas and right back at me comes: “gloves.” She doesn’t want black because they are “too easily lost in the back seat of cabs.”  

Gloves, I think. That’s easy. I can do that. Zip up to Lord and Taylor’s in Trumbull and they’ll probably be on sale. I write to her, “What size are you?” Right back again, “Oh, I don’t know. Probably a 5/6.” That seems small to me, but who am I to say?

 So last weekend I am in Trumbull buying gloves, along with most of Fairfield County. It’s OK, because I am seething with purpose, filled with self-satisfaction that I am getting this done! Yes! 

Deciding that no one over twenty-one could possibly be a size 5—I buy her 6s. One lined, leather, New York-type pair on sale and one pair—to surprise her—that I like, newly offered by UGS, the last word in comfort and warmth. Done!

Then what do you know? I get an email from her this week telling me that she has discovered that her glove size is a size 7.

 What? I stare at the packages from Lord and Taylor. This is not good. I have gift slips for the gloves. Can I get back up there? Maybe it would be better for her to take these back and get the color and gloves she really wants? I fret. The gloves remain in the bag on the kitchen floor, staring at me.

Also this week my daughter, who hosts us all for Christmas, emails me and asks if I will be responsible for dessert? Maybe a Buche de Noel?  

I experience a momentary, “Oh, No!” I don’t bake. Even if I did, all I could produce would be a modest gingerbread. Certainly not a Buche de Noel. Not a lot of places will take orders practically past Thanksgiving, but suddenly I am all over this one and grabbing the phone to call Riverside Baking Company in Fairfield. (203 451 0331)

“Richie,” I plead. “I know it is late but could you possibly make me a Buche de Noel for pick up on Christmas Eve? There will be thirteen of us.”

“Sure, Cecily,” Richie Schneider obliges.

My shoulders drop down three inches.

 Richard Schneider is possibly the best baker on the planet and has started his own baking company just this year. I’ve known him and his wife for years and am thrilled that he can do this. I will be bringing the best Christmas dessert my family has ever tasted.

 A long outbreath.

Now about those darned gloves . . .

And thus it is at Christmas. Remembering to expect the unexpected. Remembering, for example, a baby born to ordinary people “of low estate” in a stable in a no account village where there was no room for them in the inn. A baby who would change the world.

Prophesies notwithstanding, how unexpected was that?

                                           ***

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!  Like you, I am sure, I pray for peace in this twisted world of ours.

I love this by the Indian poet, Rumi. I pray that in 2016 we are able to find even a corner of the field of which he speaks.

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make sense any more.”

Trump's "hate speech:" Great Britain Steps Up

Did you see it? The article in the 12/10/15 New York Times entitled, “Petition In Britain Calls for Trump To Be Denied Entry into Country.” Amazing! The Brits nailed it.

If you missed it here are some highlights.

“More than 360,000 people,” (in Britain) “angered by Donald J. Trump’s call to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States have signed a petition accusing him of hate speech and asking the government to bar him from the country.”

 The 360,000 signatures easily surpass the 100,000 supporters required by British law to demand that Parliament consider debating the issue.

And the issue is “hate speech.” That, in Britain, no matter how rich and famous you are, even if you are a presidential candidate, is considered “unacceptable behavior.”

The article notes that, Trump’s “call for the United States to shut its borders to Muslims has prompted an outcry by leading political and cultural figures across the political spectrum around the world.” Trump’s “hate speech” is seen as potentially “inflaming tensions,” thereby increasing the threat of radical Islam. 

My English friend, Sallie, kept me posted yesterday. First she alerted me that the petition had been put on the Internet; then she kept me abreast of the ever-increasing numbers. At one point she wrote that the site, overloaded with responses, had crashed. They got it up and running again and by the end of the day they had acquired the 360,000. (According to the Times today, 12/11/15, there are now 500,000 signatures supporting this petition.)

Sallie also wrote that it was her understanding that, if Parliament passes on this, Trump cannot be barred in general. It would happen only if he actually flew into Heathrow or, for that matter, anywhere else in the UK. He would be forbidden entry through immigration.

The article goes on to describe the outrage of British law enforcement officials over Trump’s statement on the MSNBC “Morning Joe” program, that “parts of London and Paris were so radicalized that the police were afraid for their lives.”

In addition, the article reports that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland has “withdrawn Mr. Trump’s status as a business ambassador to Scotland, while Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has stripped Mr. Trump of an honorary degree it bestowed on him in 2010 in recognition of his business achievements.”  

Sometimes the chickens do come home to roost. We will see what Parliament does. I am thinking maybe we should have stuck with the Brits in 1776.

***

!2/11/15:  FYI: The Times reports that the Trump push back against Scottish disapproval is a threat to withdraw some 300 million of his investments in that country.
                                                   ***
This will be my blog for this coming week. I cannot wait until Monday to post this. If you don’t already have this information, I want to share it with you now.

Don't We All Have A Soul Place?

“Oh, my bags are packed; I’m ready to go . . .” Thank you, John Denver, who loved those Aspen Rockies so much that he gave us wonderful music about them. “Rocky Mountain High, Colorado,” and then he died, crashing his experimental Rutan Long EZ plane into Monterey Bay in California. So much too young: so much more music to write.

I’m not headed for Aspen though. Just to upstate New York to visit my son, Lock, and his spouse, Ken, for the weekend. Good enough for me. To see the rolling Berkshire Hills, the horses and sheep in pastures, their coats thickening with winter and the sharp blue/gray Catskill Mountains in the distance.

I yearn for space around me: something Connecticut doesn’t offer. Once an English friend in New York on business, visited me in Connecticut and, upon arrival at my house, looked upwards and asked, “Where is the big sky?”

“Not here” I replied. “You’ll have to go to Colorado or Montana. Somewhere west. Not here.”  Understanding perfectly, I commiserated with his disappointment.

The only place here where we can find a “big sky” is possibly on a boat out on Long Island Sound. Then, perhaps, we can feel a smattering of the great and awesome expanse of the universe, something I find healing, inspiring and comforting. But here in Southport, pretty as it is, we are pressed against I 95 and each other. The “Big Sky “ eludes us.

This affects me: body mind and spirit. As I said, I yearn for space the way one might yearn for chocolate, or the sight of one’s children or breathing clean air. This hankering for space never quite leaves me, but, instead, bubbles quietly deep within my psyche, occasionally boiling over, erupting, until it feels like some kind of madness, a persistent hunger that cannot be sated.

But my bags are packed and soon I will walk among the hills, breathe the country, highway-free air, and admire the red barns with their sloping roof- lines. I will stop and look for trout in the clean, gurgling stream that runs beneath the bridge just up the road from Lock and Ken’s house.

Standing on the bridge over the stream, I will drop two carefully chosen sticks, matched as closely as possible for size, into the frothy water on one side of the bridge and, watching them both as the current catches them, try to guess which one will emerge first on the other side. Crossing the bridge I will lean over the railing and happily await their appearance.

A child’s game that I love.

What do you yearn for? Maybe you already live in your perfect, soul-nurturing spot. If so, God bless and well done you. But, if not, let’s go right past the easily obtained chocolate to the big stuff. What place, space, nurtures your essential being?

My cottage in St. Mawes, Cornwall, England did that for me. But it’s gone now.

I can’t help but think that once having identified that longing for space, water, mountains, a certain city: having awakened to that necessity within us, we—all of us—need, for our spiritual health and well being, to fulfill it as often as possible.