Cranky Crone News

Happenings and Possibilities
by
Marj Becker

NOTABLE HAPPENINGS 2022
Once in a while, I do something right, like not traveling to Wisconsin for Christmas 2022.  With some health concerns for Daughter #3 and family, it would have been too much for the Williams family if Daughter #1, Lady, and I had descended on their house for Christmas.  And, then¸ of course, there was the winter storm of snow, blizzards, and below zero temperatures on the day we would have left home for travel to Appleton.  Sometimes, we do something right!

A friend, Martin, sent a holiday message to all members of a poet’s society where we both belong.  The message contains a list of things to think about.  It is positive messages for our contemplation.  I asked him if I might have his permission to use the list from his message for my blog, and he, kindly, agreed.  Thank you, Martin.  Here is his list.

I am pleased to have another new person added to my caregivers and friends.  Caleb takes care of my hearing; I saw him during this past week because one of my hearing aides needed attention.  During my appointments, we sometimes spend a few minutes talking about things unrelated to hearing or hearing aides.  I am old enough to be most people’s grandmother, or great-grandmother, or great aunt – anyway, somebody older in life, but you know that.  And, Caleb is a younger parent.

(I wrote this in June when the daytime temperatures were high and climbing.  The cold weather, today, is a good time to publish.)

I’m old, I know, and I know that our language changes.  Probably with every generation.  But, what has happened to “You’re welcome?”  What has happened to “of,” and all of the other words we seem to be dropping, these days?  What vulgarities are deemed acceptable in our language, today?

A note to my readers.  This may be the hardest article I’ve ever written, which would make it a very hard article to read.  So, feel free to forego this article if you wish.  Otherwise, know that I want each of you to be blessed and safe.

There is the thinking that “there is nothing new under the sun.”  I believe this era fits that thinking.

I’m writing this blog because of something that happened at my grocery store and because my journalist friend Mary Jane in Nebraska said I should.  And, because this is the season for giving.  So, here goes.

Of the some twenty years of Ranch memories running around in my head, the most spiritual, even religious experiences, are with Pomona Hallenbeck, one of the finest watercolorists – ever.  Her teaching method, particularly of how to create subtle changes in color palette, seem to mesh with the sometimes delicate, sometimes harsh, spirit of the extraordinary land of Ghost Ranch.  I am so fortunate that she has been my friend, instructor, and mentor.  I spent those years as her assistant, class support, and the one who helped students with the gear box of painting (to this day, I’m not sure what the gear box of painting really is), as well as driving the class participants about the country on field trips.

As I hung up the telephone, I thought what a very pleasant experience I had just had.  Fully expecting problems, I realized that this forty-five minute call was not that.  I’m old.  So, I sometimes (more than I want to admit) make mistakes when using electronic equipment.  You know, I think that sometimes, all it takes is looking at the remote for the TV to change something that should not be changed.  And as it happened, my television program was suddenly silent.  I had a very fine picture.  The closed caption was working.  I just didn’t have any sound.

As this week progressed, I was thinking, again.  You may remember that Larry would say, “Don’t you ever stop thinking?”  Well, I suppose the answer is still, “No.”  We are always thinking.  Even when people are meditating, I think they are thinking.

Recently, at a soirée for authors of a terrific new book, Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life From Northern New Mexico, The Four Corners, and The West (soon to arrive on bookstore shelves; vignettes brought together by friend, Sara Frances), I talked with an author of one of the vignettes in the book, the writer and her husband who are associated with the Greek Orthodox Church in Denver; t hey both grew up in Greece.  Somehow, the topic of conversation got around to dowsers.  Neither of them had ever heard of a dowser, and, when I began to explain it for them, I used the term “water witch.”  That was even more confusing.  They had never heard of a water witch, either.