This site, started in 2013, contains a variety of short and longer poems, along with some essays and travel narratives. Some were written for a specific occasion or about a specific person or place. Others were intended to be more general and to have a longer shelf life. I post irregularly, but try to get an entry in at least every month or so. From time to time, I “prune” the blog to remove outdated entries and to update some which would be clearer with a few style changes. I hope an entry here or there may resonate with your experiences. Enjoy!
Sally Letter 23: Beltane/May Day 2026
Friday, May 1, 2026 (Beltane/May Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
A somewhat “upside down” spring here. We experienced our hottest March on record, with a number of days of 90+ highs, and almost no moisture. The dry heat made it awkward to figure out what and when to plant—I started a couple of eggplant seedlings much earlier than I typically would have. I’m experimenting with sweet potato slips in the raised bed in the backyard. They’re surviving, but would be much happier with cooler weather and more sky-gifted moisture.
The temperatures didn’t stop us from attending the latest of a series of “No Kings” rallies in downtown San Diego. The event, on the final Saturday of March, coincided with part of grandson Parker’s spring break from college. He gave us a ride to our nearest trolley stop, avoiding the need to drive downtown. I was a little disappointed the crowd was not larger (estimated by police at 40,000, by organizers at closer to 50,000). I’m pretty sure that weather was a factor. I really liked some of the clever homemade signs people carried, a marked contrast to the uniformity of red hats and pre-printed signs at Trump rallies:
“Don’t bite the hands that feed you,” (superimposed on an image of the flag of Mexico)
“Trump: $20.28 per gallon” (simultaneously debunking notions that theorangeman is entitled to run for a third term, and pointingout the soaring price of gasoline, mostly due to the war with Iran)
“Honor the troops, question the wars”
“Grandmas against Fascism” (held aloft by an older woman who’d come with her lawn chair and sat in the shade at the edge of the parade route)
One middle aged man I talked with briefly wore his slogan on his t-shirt. He was an entomologist at an area university. His shirt (and hat, too) proclaimed for all to see: “We only need one monarch, and it’s a butterfly.”
For me, one of the most telling and most concise summaries of our current situation had just six words: “Sicker, poorer, dumber, meaner—Thanks, Trump!”
My fervent hope is that we will avoid another pandemic or related health emergency while the current occupant of the White House and his health administrators continue to dismantle any relevant safety nets and health insurance funding. Other, smaller rallies were held throughout San Diego County the same day, with overall attendance estimated at nearly 100,000 people in 22 different venues. Now if all of us will only vote come November!
A few weeks earlier, Jim and I had met son Scott, Morgan, and granddaughter Kenley in Las Vegas for a long weekend. We’d negotiated the logistics ahead of time—if we’d provide babysitting services one evening, Scott and Morgan would bring Kenley with them and stay in “Sin City” for a couple of extra days. The two adults would attend a concert by the Backstreet Boys, one of Morgan’s favorite groups, at the immersive venue The Sphere. Fans converged in droves to concerts of this “boy band” formed in Florida during the 1990’s. Maybe a little like the cult of Elvis when we were teenagers? I’d looked up a few of their musical hits, and vaguely recognized the tunes and lyrics.
I’d packed a few kids’ books to gift to a not-quite-four-year-old who’s beginning to work on learning her letters. The evening of the concert, Kenley got fixated on one older book (from a library book sale) about shopping, with alliterative products at each store—groceries, clothing, flowers, etc. We must have read it together at least 30 times. It got lost in their packing to go home, and seems to be out of print, so Kenley will continue to learn her letters via other media.
The day after the concert, the five of us went together to “Shark Reef,” a large aquarium in the basement of one of the resort complexes in town. Kenley got a charge out of trying to “pet” the stingrays.
In early April, I took a “solo sabbatical” and spent a day of quiet at one of the California missions fairly close to us. The Mission of San Luis Rey is about 20 miles from where we live. It bills itself as “king of the missions, a place for solitude, healing, and revitalization with a variety of spiritual and educational programs.” I’d registered online ahead of time and paid the small fee for access to a private room and the beautifully landscaped gardens between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. I arranged with a local post-covid personal driver to get me to the mission in the morning and then to pick me up after the worst of rush hour in the evening. The short break from everyday chores and from media was just what I needed.
Media or no media, I can’t quite ignore the passing years. I’ve had another birthday and so am closing in on the “big eight oh” next spring—it somehow seems more daunting than a seven. I don’t remember much about Mom’s 80th, except that she seemed to want to downplay her aging. Perhaps we all do. It would be special if you could come to whatever celebrations Jim and I choose to have (he’ll hit 80, too), but I don’t expect it to happen.
So far, this year’s May Day finds me healthy (mostly), wealthy (somewhat), and perhaps a tiny bit wiser than earlier in life. I hope the same is true for you. Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Posted in Everyday Wonders, holidays, travel, Uncategorized
Tagged cross-quarter days, democracy, gardening, pandemic
Sally Letter 22: Imbolc/Groundhog Day 2026
Monday, February 2, 2026 (Imbolc, Groundhog’s Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
Happy Groundhog Day! We had this year’s Village “Groundhog Gala Brunch” a few days early, last Friday morning. I enjoyed it a lot. Good food, good company, good entertainment. As part of the program, I presented a synopsis of a 1916 episode of extreme weather in San Diego. Earlier in the winter, I’d come across a book at the downtown library describing the disastrous 1916 flooding in San Diego County, and the possible role of “rain wizard” Charles Mallory Hatfield in helping precipitate it. At our gala, I displayed a couple of copies of the book and shared excerpts with Village attendees. A slightly abbreviated version: after the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego was a big success, city officials planned a second season for summer 2016. Concerned about possible water shortages, they hired Hatfield to create enough rain to fill the new Lake Morena reservoir, hoping it would then provide enough irrigation water to keep the exposition site welcomingly green throughout 1916’s exposition.
Hatfield and an apprentice started work at the beginning of the year in a remote area near the reservoir, constructing several wooden towers, then placing trays filled with a secret formula of chemicals on platforms on the towers. The theory was that fumes from the chemicals would waft aloft and coax moisture from the clouds. In mid-January, a couple of weeks after Hatfield had started working, parts of the county began to see heavier and heavier rains. Some locations got as much as 30 inches that month; resulting floods washed out several dams and caused nearly 3 million dollars worth of damage (in 1916 dollars). Hatfield was never paid for his efforts (nor were he or the city sued for flood damages).
We also played a couple of rounds of “groundhog bingo” with other Villagers, adapting clues from a matrix Jim had found online. Over the weekend, we entertained some of the neighbors with Groundhog lore (and ate up some of the leftovers). Cool, pleasant weather for the entire week.
As we get more thoroughly “planted” in this part of San Diego, I’m gradually finding more ways to contribute that nourish me as well. One involves local transportation: about a year ago, I bought an electric-assist cargo tricycle, after checking to make sure that it was narrow enough (just) to fit into one of our storage sheds for shelter and security. Supposedly the trike can go up to 30 miles on a full charge, though I’ve never let it get below half charged so far. Riding my trike helps keep me healthier—the “assist” is just that: I still have to peddle as I would on a non-electric bike, but the motor kicks in and provides some additional “oomph” on uphill climbs. The trike’s main use so far is hauling me and assorted garden seeds, plants, and tools between home and the giving garden. Since the route from here to the garden is mostly uphill, the assist feature helps a lot. The return trip back down can be a real thrill! Do you remember sledding or biking down Lawyers Hill? Some of the same elation, even at my “advanced” age. The savings on gas add up, too, little by little. I’ve logged about 300 miles since I bought it. Our neighborhood has good bike lanes on most of its major streets, so I’m pretty safe riding. I have a good helmet, a day-glo vest, and bike lights front and back.
In addition to my triking/gardening combination, I’ve experimented intermittently with volunteering at several local food pantries—one run by our church, a couple of others to provide no-cost staples and fresh produce to tenants in a nearby military housing complex.
My third, intermittent be-a-good-neighbor venture has been periodically attending immigration hearings at the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego. My friend Jean alerted me to an interfaith training for volunteers to witness and/or accompany those coming to federal court for required immigration hearings. After I’d been trained, I told Jean about a good alternative to driving downtown to the courthouse: rapid bus. By now, I’d used the bus system enough to realize we could take an express bus from a stop about a mile from home, avoiding both the expense and hassle of downtown parking. Once or twice a month, Jean and I have ridden the bus together to the stop nearest the courthouse and joined other volunteers for a shift. It can be discouraging work—too often the immigrants, many of whom have been in the U.S. for a generation or more and have U.S. citizen children, are detained or deported. We’ve been trained not to protest or try to intervene, but just to provide a supportive presence. It gives me a somewhat different perspective than what I hear or read on the news.
I was especially troubled by the attempted deportation of a fellow UU who’d been in this country since his teens. When he was about three years old, parts of his family escaped from war-torn southeast Asia. He doesn’t remember anything about having lived there. His family spent nearly a decade in regional refugee camps before they were admitted to the U.S. Now in his 50’s, he’s employed full time and also helps care for a couple of older members of his family. Immigration officials, it seems, have been combing through more and more records to meet deportation quotas. They noticed a long-ago gang-related felony conviction on his record from when he was a teenager. They tried to use that as justification for booting him out. He had long since completed his prison and parole time. He was no longer in any sense a danger to the community. It took extensive interventions by our minister, lots of letters and appeals from fellow congregants, and an official pardon to halt his deportation proceedings. Most immigrants do not have that kind of support network.
It seems to me that it’s well past time for us to figure out a workable compromise on immigration that, while reducing the U.S. presence of truly “bad elements,” provides various avenues for those who have been here for the longest and/or contributed the most to stay and eventually to become citizens.
But enough ranting. Hope you’re looking forward to spring. Please take care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Sally Letter 21: Samhain/Hallowe’en 2025
Friday, October 31, 2025 (Samhain/Hallowe’en); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
One important item crossed off my bucket list—I’ve now experienced some of the wonders of Yosemite National Park. I’m not sure if it’s a place you’ve ever visited in person. I seem to remember your prior attendance at numerous conferences and workshops in the San Francisco Bay area, the park’s closest major urban center. If Yosemite hasn’t yet been part of your direct experience, I wish you future visits to this very special place. I’ll do my best to describe my experience of it. Over the years, I’d read a good bit of John Muir and looked at Ansel Adams photos of the park. If you have access to Muir books and/or Adams photographs, please look at them some more. They capture a good bit of the spirit of Yosemite. Even with these as background, though, I wasn’t totally ready for the majesty and beauty of Yosemite Valley and the surrounding mountains and cliffs. As our bus rounded the final turn before entering the valley, all of us gasped out a collective “Aah!”
Jim and I had originally planned to visit as a couple just after Consultants’ Camp 2023 took place on the Monterey Peninsula. That year, though, wildfires enveloped much of the park in smoke and closed several of its areas. We decided to wait for a better opportunity. This year was also a bit iffy on the wildfire front. In the weeks leading up to our trip, we followed weather reports and area news closely. However, because this year was less dire on the covid front, we hazarded our first group travel since long before the pandemic. We signed up with Road Scholar (formerly known as Elderhostel) for a group tour of Yosemite highlights for much of the second week of September, 2025.
Our first foray into Road Scholar travel had both plusses and minuses. Plusses: Our trip leaders were experienced at working with older adults (our primary leader, Mary, was in her early 70’s herself); the itinerary included a good mixture of planned activities and free time, so we could take naps or just veg out if the preceding day’s pace had worn us out; inside the park, we spent all our nights in the same central lodge, so we had a minimal amount of packing/unpacking to do; we had near-constant views of El Capitan from just in front of our room at the lodge, plus a very easy accessible hike to Yosemite Falls; almost all our meals were provided—no hassles with long restaurant lines.
Minuses: time constraints that wouldn’t have been as strict had we been on our own; on hikes, we were only as fast as our slowest member. Perhaps most annoying was that in order to see the park’s highlights in slightly less than a week, we spent what seemed like an excessive amount of time on a tour bus. (In its entirety, Yosemite is about the same size as the state of Rhode Island.) Despite great guides and diversions via films shown on the screen at the front of the bus, we still spent hours of seated, somewhat boring bus time. Our first and last tour days involved six hour jaunts between the Bay Area and the park. Nearly every other day included at least a couple of hours to get from our base in Yosemite Valley to another park area—the Mariposa groves of sequoias, Glacier Point, Olmstead Point, Lake Tenaya, and finally Tuolomne Meadows near the eastern edge of the park. All were worth seeing; given the chance to visit again, I’d have tried to find a tour with twice as much time. Still, I was very grateful for our bus drivers—I considered what an awful alternative it would have been for us two older drivers with somewhat compromised eyesight and slowish reflexes to navigate the park’s sometimes steep slopes and hairpin turns.
One of my favorite park memories is not solely of terrestrial scenery. The non-profit park support group Yosemite Conservancy puts on periodic evening sky watching programs near Yosemite Valley Lodge. Our tour’s dates included the night of one, available for sign-up at the lodge. Conditions were not ideal—nearly all week there had been wisps of smoke from wildfires in the general vicinity. Our sky watch night coincided with a waxing moon, which would dim out the stars once it rose. Jim begged off, but I decided to go anyway. Our guide was a long-time area resident and science teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge of local stars and constellations. We met at the conservancy office and walked a short way to a flat open area that served during the day as the local school’s athletic field. Our guide had prepositioned a series of plastic tarps on the field. Once we arrived there, our guide told us to lie flat on the tarps and to douse our flashlights and any other lights. It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark. We had an unobstructed view of the sky. As stars winked in and out, our guide pointed out three bright stars visible despite partial cloud cover: Arcturus, Rigel, and Vega. Later, after the moon rose, we all watched the play of moonlight and shadow on Yosemite’s cliff faces. At the end of the session, I waited a moment or two in the sheltering darkness before turning on my flashlight and then returning to the lodge.
In the days surrounding Consultants’ Camp, the two of us also had chances to visit briefly with younger sets of friends in Silicon Valley. We had lunch one day with “Number 1 Japanese daughter” Eiko and her family—husband Dan and daughter Hannah. Eiko had lived with us in Richmond for about a year during 1996-97 when she was serving as a business intern at a local non-profit. Now married to an American and mother to a recent high school graduate, Eiko gave us an off-hours tour of the robotics lab at Stanford where she serves as administrative assistant. Another day, we shared a Sichuan-style Chinese feast with former Ya’an colleague “Joey” and his family—wife “Lou”, daughter “Jane,” infant son “Song,” and Lou’s mom, who’s in residence for a few months to help with the baby. Joey now works at one of the area campuses of Google, while Lou takes some parenting time off before reentering the paid work force as a financial analyst.
The older we get, the more special it becomes to spend time with some of our next-generation protegés. I’m grateful they’re willing to make time for us. I could write at length about a solo side trip I took to the seaside village of Pacific Grove, one-time home to the “Chautauqua of the West,” but I think I’ve used up my writing time and your patience for now. Hope your protegés are providing all the help you need. Happy vicarious travels! Happy Hallowe’en! Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Sally Letter 20: Lammas/Midsummer 2025
Friday, August 1, 2025 (Lammas/Midsummer); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
A number of milestones during the past three months—oldest grandchild Parker graduated from high school; youngest grandchild Kenley turned three. Quite an age range, though not nearly as great as the twenty-nine year span among our great-grandmothers that I wrote about at May Day.
Around the time of Kenley’s birthday, we got to spend a weekend with her and her parents in the Cleveland area, after spending a couple of midweek days there with one of Jim’s long-term friends Rick and wife Karla in their new-to-them place in University Heights. Getting to Cleveland was somewhat easier for us than getting to Scott’s small town would have been, so we’d arranged a vacation rental in the Cleveland area. Our friend Rick had lived in Cleveland earlier in his life. In retirement, he’d returned to his roots to be near a brother as they both aged. Rick gave us some of his time for just hanging out, along with brief tours of parts of Shaker Heights.
A couple of days later, when Scott, Morgan, and Kenley arrived, we switched gears toward the younger end of the age spectrum. After too much sogginess in our original venue, we moved to a chain motel with an indoor swimming pool, a big hit with Kenley. Scott was able to find bathing suits and water wings somewhere on short notice. When the skies paused in their dripping, we took a brief side excursion to Chagrin Falls, named for an early settler, not the emotional state. The falls were at their roaring best due to the recent rains.
In addition to the May trip that Jim and I took to Ohio as a couple, I did a solo June trip to Maryland, mostly to attend a nationwide gathering of Unitarian Universalists in Baltimore. Brother Bruce and sister-in-law Wendy graciously hosted me at night. On the several mornings I attended UU sessions, Wendy took me to the nearest commuter rail station, where I could catch a train that would deposit me just across the street from the convention center where the UUs were meeting. The weather was steamy, not especially unusual in Baltimore in late June, so the chance to ride in air-conditioned cars and trains was most welcome.
I spent a little “break time” during convention days revisiting old haunts from the couple of years when Jim and I had lived in Baltimore City as newlyweds. Though I never made it to the row house near the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus where Jim and I had rented our first apartment as “married folks,” I did see the three story stone building on West Monument Avenue where we rented during our second Baltimore year. It looked very much the same as I remembered it, at least on the outside. The area around it was mixed.
What we Voris kids had experienced during our 1950’s childhoods as a vibrant downtown Baltimore commercial corridor along Howard Street had long since disappeared. The former Hochshild/Hutzler/Stewart’s department store area is mostly derelict. From what I could tell in a brief walk around, central Baltimore is now a checkerboard mixture of development, gentrification and decay. Large-scale redevelopment efforts like the convention center and the inner harbor sit cheek by jowl with areas that I would be hesitant to walk through after dark. I was a little nervous walking some places even during the day—a light rail line gave me the option of making most of my jaunts in a somewhat less exposed way.
Not far from the convention center, I discovered the current iteration of the Lord Baltimore Hotel. According to family lore when I was growing up, Granny’s job as housekeeping supervisor there during part of the 1930’s helped keep the Pressley family financially afloat through the worst of the Depression. Efforts have been made to resurrect Lexington Market, where Granny had taken me as a child on Greyhound bus trips between Elkridge and downtown Baltimore. Periodically, Granny would make a trek to Lexington Market to get some of the delectables she could not find in the grocery stores nearer Elkridge where Mom usually drove her to go shopping. (Granny never learned to drive.) This trip, I had lunch at one of the market stalls during a recess from UUism.
I also spent time looking through archives at the nearby Maryland Historical Society. The venue brought back memories of Mom and her late-life researches into the history of Elkridge. A helpful volunteer found some clippings for me about the Dobbin sisters of Lawyers Hill, prior owners of the “Wayside” property that Mom and Dad bought from the Dobbin estate in 1957 or early 1958. One clipping was the obituary of Rebecca Dobbin, who’d died in September, 1953. According to the obituary: “[Miss Dobbin] was noted for her weather vanes usually made from automobile steel in the forms of roosters, fish, wild animals, horses, or sailboats. One topped the clubhouse at Pimlico [horse racing track].” I could almost imagine the three spinster Dobbin sisters plying their various crafts in the two small outbuildings on the property. I’m pretty sure there were still some weathervanes in the “studio” when Mom and Dad started cleaning it out.
I wish we had been able to link up in Taneytown, and am sorry to have missed you yet again. I’ve spent much of the rest of the summer either at our small yard (watering the fruit trees and the flowers in hanging pots, tending a few tomatoes in the raised bed), or at the giving garden. My plot is growing tomatoes again this year, but no volunteer pumpkins, thank heavens. Though I would be hard pressed to learn how to be a full-scale farmer, being able to grow a little of my own food nourishes me both physically and emotionally.
I’m flummoxed that it’s nearly time for school to start again. Please take good care as the season winds down. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Sally Letter 19: Beltane/May Day 2025
Thursday, May 1, 2025 (Beltane/May Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
I’ve survived another three months of Trump 2.0. If someone as relatively privileged and sheltered as I am is having trouble stomaching our current environment, I hate to think how it’s impacting the most vulnerable.
There have been losses and near-misses among my near and dear. Partway through February, husband Jim had what has been labeled after the fact as a likely mini-stroke. He felt dizzy one evening and had trouble forming his words. This had happened for short stretches in the past when he’s had what he labels as migraines. However, this time conditions hadn’t resolved the next morning. I drove him to the emergency room, where they immediately started stroke protocols and kept him for observation for most of the day. By mid-afternoon he was much improved. He was released to go home, with a prescription for several weeks’ worth of blood thinners. So far, knock wood, no recurrences. He’s become more diligent about working out at the gym several days a week. Our good local friend Jean lost a younger brother in late February; we lost our Lithuanian-heritage friend Grazia in late April, but not before she dictated to husband Marc the final chapters of what’s now tentatively titled “Where the Storks Raise Their Young: A World War II Survival Story.”
One of my coping strategies has been to continue tending a plot at the giving garden, where I moved “next door” for this gardening year. Garden coordinator Carolyn is having the timbers surrounding each raised bed replaced over time. The aging boards of my prior plot were on this year’s replacement list, while an adjoining plot, with new timbers already in place, just became available.
I’m also seeing if I can build up an “alternate transportation network” for the eventuality of no longer being able to drive. I’ve spent some time exploring San Diego’s bus/trolley system. A companion exploration has been learning about some of the other public library branches in our library-gifted city. For me, one of the worst aspects of covid-era lockdowns had been widespread library closures. Now that we’re “open” again, I remember to thank our librarians more often and have ramped up my library volunteerism.
For a while, I made a game of seeing how many library branches I could reach easily on public transportation. I quickly found twelve that were within an easy walk of a trolley or bus stop. Each branch has its own personality and size. The downtown library is one of my favorites—a soaring domed structure completed in 2013 to replace a smaller, aging building a few blocks away. The top floor, the 9th, has an extensive patio area with great views of parts of San Diego harbor and the Coronado Island bridge. On pleasant days, I select a book that’s a good, light read and then set up a portable chair and small reading table near the patio railing. From my perch, I get a bird’s eye view of the bridge and of parts of our tourist-friendly downtown. I can happily sit for an hour or more, alternately reading and enjoying the view.
The ninth floor is also home to the library system’s special collections, including an extensive set of books and folios of genealogy, many donated by members of the local genealogical society. A couple of mornings a week, one of their genealogy volunteers comes to help library patrons research their family history. I’ve done a little more online sleuthing to round out what I learned from the older generations of our family back in 1999 when I was researching our family memoir. I now have confirmation of the existence and a few additional details for all four of our great-grandmothers:
Mary Boyd (Pressley), born in South Carolina around 1830
Margaret Dudley (Leckey), born in Virginia in 1840
Lucy Atkinson (Voris), born in Indiana in 1855
Isabelle Peoples (Rea), born in North Carolina in 1859
I try not to pay too much attention to national politics. A day of intense exposure to pontifications from Mr. Trump or his minions can spike my blood pressure. The latest vogue for “government efficiency” seems to me to be ill-planned and overblown. I vaguely remember political jockeying among Dad and his sisters long ago when we went for Sunday dinners to Dad’s family place in Laurel. Aunt Anna would tell stories about minor government inefficiencies she’d noticed in her work at the National Gallery of Art. Her high dudgeon at “use it or lose it” vacation days seemed almost comical at the time. I wonder what she’d make of Mr. Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency.” It seems ironic to me that Mr. Trump is using an immigrant from South Africa to spearhead willy-nilly dismantlement of the federal workforce, while at the same time expanding his anti-immigration efforts. Some nurses I know locally have balked at “efficiency” mandates at the Naval hospital. What is a neonatal care nurse supposed to record? “This shift I kept five babies from dying.” How would that rate on some hypothetical efficiency scale? Whyever Mr. Musk thinks he can snap his fingers and remake a whole series of institutions is beyond me. Weird times!
We’ve somewhat settled into an extended family routine here in San Diego. We’re able to dog-sit Jason and Kelly’s dog Ginger when they go on trips. If I have enough energy, I sometimes prune their leggier garden plants when they’re away. If we’re going to be away for a while, they pitch in to check our mail and water our plants. Grandson Parker has turned 18, will finish high school soon, has been accepted at U.C. Berkeley, where he’s looking forward to his first extended experiences as a “young adult.” In the fall, Ada will switch from the private school she and Parker have attended for the past three years to a large public “magnet school” somewhat north of us. They grow up so fast!
Hope you’re having a lovely spring. Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Sally Letter 18: Imbolc/Groundhog Day 2025
Sunday, February 2, 2025 (Imbolc, Groundhog’s Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
Not a great past few months for your older sister. Aging can be serene at times; at others it’s no picnic, as I’m sure you know. Jim had a second retinal tear, though this one seems to have been less severe than the first. It still means that I have had to take over driving him to doctor’s appointments, plus driving to any non-Jinny social activities he wants to attend. He’s getting to be a regular at monthly ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out) events and sometimes wants to be chauffeured to weekly bridge games. I wish I could say I was learning patience as I get older. Perhaps, at least, I’m getting more practice. We’ve had the first couple of follow-up eye appointments, and he seems to be healing well. It will just take time (weeks or months rather than years, thank God) until he’s back up to snuff.
Covid may be mostly gone, but I still have some of the habits I acquired when infection rates were higher—I hesitate to shake hands with people; I carry hand sanitizer with me whenever I’m away from home; at pedestrian crossings, I use a sleeve or an elbow to push the “walk” button instead of pressing it with my hand; I’m uncomfortable being indoors around large groups of people.
We had a quiet Thanksgiving at son Jason and Kelly’s, though Jason and grandson Parker were away—Parker was competing in the final high school cross-country meet of the season at a course near Fresno. Kelly, granddaughter Ada, Jim, me, and the Schaefer grandparents ate mostly vegetarian fare, with ham for the meat eaters and pumpkin and apple pies for dessert.
Christmas was quiet, too. Son Scott, Morgan, and Kenley went to Connecticut to visit with Jim’s brother Paul and sister-in-law Vivian. They traveled a couple of weeks before actual Christmas, when flights were less crowded and less expensive. We got to participate via video call. It was good to see them together. Kenley very much enjoyed being the star of the show. At Christmas itself, we spent some in-person time with Jason and crew, and some video and phone time with the rest of the extended family. None of us adults need anything any more, so we just get perishables for the grown-ups, make charitable contributions in relatives’ honor, and reserve toy or clothing purchases for the kids.
We’ve spent an increasing proportion of our social time with an older couple we met through Tierrasanta Village—Marc and Grazia. We especially admire Grazia’s resilience as we learn more about her past. Born in the late 1930’s, Grazia spent most of her childhood in Lithuania. Her family was badly impacted by the upheavals of the World War II era. For the past decade, she’s worked intermittently at writing a memoir about her childhood, with a tentative title of “surviving Stalin and Hitler.” When she was about 3, the Soviets invaded a formerly independent Lithuania. Her father, who had been a high government official, was imprisoned nearby, but later escaped with the tacit connivance of a sympathetic young prison guard. Times were tense. For a while, Grazia and her mother hid in a remote wooded area. After Hitler declared war on the Soviets in 1941 and the Soviets retreated, Grazia’s father reunited with his wife and daughters. He also tried to locate and support the rest of their extended family. Most had either been killed or deported to Siberia. Facing food shortages in their town, the immediate family relocated to a farm near the German border that had originally belonged to Grazia’s paternal grandmother. For the middle years of the war, Grazia’s family was away from the fighting. They lived a peaceable, if near-subsistence existence on her Grandma Ona’s farm. Near the end of the war, conditions again deteriorated. The Soviets returned. The Nazis fled back to Germany. Grazia’s family also fled west into Germany to escape near-certain deaths at the hands of vengeful Soviets.
While the family were interned under the Nazis amid increasingly stark conditions, Grazia’s youngest sister starved to death. At the end of the war, the surviving members of her immediate family made a perilous escape through Berlin toward the West. They spent several years in relocation camps in Europe before eventually being sponsored to come to the U.S.
It seems to me that Grazia’s story is worth telling and can help put some of our current discontents into a broader context. I’ve been serving as an early reader. Grazia, now in her late 80’s, has a variety of health issues. I’m really hoping she’s able to complete a draft while she’s still alive. One of the ways she has survived her various traumas is through art and an extravagance of Christmas decorations—at a festive New Year’s gathering at their place, we counted nearly 50 (mostly artificial) holiday trees of various sizes and shapes, all lavishly and lovingly decorated. Not a biological family gathering, but a joyous holiday just the same.
So far, 2025 has had a rather bad start. You’ve probably seen footage of the huge wildfires that wiped out a couple of sections of the Los Angeles area in early January—one a partially posh enclave replete with movie stars and other big names (Pacific Palisades), the other a more modest area that had over generations become home and community to a substantial number of upwardly mobile black families (Eaton/Altadena). Over 200,000 people had to evacuate. Over 16,000 structures were destroyed. It’s not clear when/whether rebuilding can take place. Nearer to us, San Diego County had a big wildfire at the end of January, but it burned in a wilderness area and didn’t destroy any structures. Still, the “Border 2” fire singed over 6,000 acres. All the fires were associated with strong Santa Ana winds, some reaching 100 miles per hour. These sorts of “mega fires” seem likely to become more common as time goes on. Our existing housing patterns and infrastructure make it difficult to contain them.
In addition to the fires, we’ve had to deal with the start of “Trump 2.0.” If initial indications can be trusted, his second term may turn out to be even worse than the first. According to my reading of his initial mutterings, Mr. Trump has promised to protect Americans from
a) immigrants (except for his wife and her family?);
b) government overregulation (except for huge no-compete contracts for his friends and cronies?);
c) climate mitigation efforts (got to prop up those oil companies!); and
d) the horrific (to him) specter of a diverse, inclusive country.
He quickly signed executive orders to start his efforts in motion, gleefully using his sharpie on a whole stack of official-looking documents. (I’m not sure how any of his policies will make my life any easier or more meaningful, but that’s just me.)
Probably needed a good Groundhog celebration to offset some of the world’s woes, and got it—a very nice weather day today, a good assortment of family, friends, and neighbors in our freshly cleaned carport. We avoided talking politics and just enjoyed each other’s company. Hope you had a quiet day with enough heat from the wood stove to keep things toasty. Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Posted in Uncategorized, holidays, travel, Everyday Wonders
Tagged gardening, climate change, democracy, pandemic, covid-19, cross-quarter days
Sally Letter 17: Samhain/Hallowe’en 2024
Thursday, October 31, 2024 (Samhain/Hallowe’en); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
Happy Hallowe’en! This is the first, and possibly only, Hallowe’en when we can decorate with home-grown pumpkins. By late August, all dozen pumpkins at my giving garden plot had matured to slightly smaller than basketball size. About half were “pumpkin-colored” on the outside. The other half had cream-colored skin, but orange flesh when cut open. I donated three to the drop-in center, set aside one indoors for later use at son Jason and Kelly’s place, cooked one as part of a spicy Indian-style stew, and put the rest into “cool storage”—layered with newspapers inside two of the coolers we keep in our storage shed. I hoped that would shelter them from any remaining heat waves. Maybe not the most elegant solution, but it seems to have worked.
I’m generally happy with the cooler weather and shorter days, but am keeping busy. During the early part of August, we watched a good bit of television—the latter parts of the Paris Olympics, with some events in venues we remembered from our springtime visit; the Democratic National Convention, always quite a visual spectacle, regardless of who’s running. The latter part of the month, I kept busy working at the giving garden and also doing my part in a “postcard campaign” to encourage intermittent voters of both parties in battleground states to make the effort to show up at the polls in 2024.
On August 29, we flew east for a brief visit with Scott and family, including deferred auxiliary birthday celebrations for Scott and stepson Brooks, who’s just turned 11 and is very sports minded. One day while the younger generations were at work or at school, we had a pleasant restaurant lunch with Morgan’s parents, getting to know each other a bit better while assiduously avoiding talking politics. All four of us had to chuckle that we’d received nearly identical texts from Morgan (cautioning her parents) and Scott (cautioning us) to avoid any potentially inflammatory subjects. We ate at one of the down-home-style restaurants in the quaint, well-preserved downtown of Wapakoneta, enjoying delicious hamburgers from what was most likely a locally bred steer.
At the very start of September, we drove our rental car from Scott’s place a couple of hours north to a state park and conference center just outside Toledo, OH. We settled in at Maumee Bay, along the shore of Lake Erie, for yet another year of Consultants’ Camp. Thinking that covid was behind us, we relaxed any restrictions on masking or testing during our first ever stay at this multi-group conference locale.
A couple of days before the end of camp, I started feeling a little “off,” but chalked it up to seasonal allergies in a climate quite different from San Diego. I continued to participate, if sometimes from the fringes of the group. I spent a lot of time outdoors. I composed and helped rehearse a comical camp song for our camp’s closing. I chose to spoof the barbershop style song “Lida Rose,” in honor of new camper Dan, who was part of a barbershop quartet back at his home town in Washington state. Each year since the 1990’s, fellow camper Judah and I had taken turns doing a camp-themed song parody. This year Judah had to leave early, so I sharpened my Mom-legacy parodic wits, then taught the song’s tune from “Music Man” to the younger campers who formed part of our “choir.” Judah wrote me later that the song got added to the “camp song book” he’s been keeping.
Just before camp was set to close, I was chatting with another camper at lunch at an open-air picnic enclosure when I started feeling woozy. The next few minutes are a blank to me. The next thing I remember, a couple of the heftier campers were hoisting me away from the table and stretching me out face up on the lawn outside the picnic enclosure. A set of EMTs had been practicing nearby. A camper waved them over. They arrived in next to no time to check my vital signs and to try to make a preliminary determination of what was wrong. Someone else who observed the episode later explained to me that my head and torso had tipped forward slowly, my head eventually coming to rest on the picnic table’s surface, atop a paper plate loaded with the generous portion of apple pie I’d chosen for dessert.
After my first-ever ambulance ride and several hours in a nearby emergency room, I was discharged as a surprise covid-positive older woman pumped full of IV fluids. No evidence of concussion (thanks, apple pie!). Our covid laxity had caught up with us—by the end of our weeklong “unconference,” about a third of our contingent of thirty campers were testing positive for the virus. We’re not sure if a camper brought the infection, or if we picked it up from a center employee or a different set of conference center visitors. Jim and I made it back home to San Diego the following day, masking on the plane ride to reduce our chances of infecting anyone else. It took a couple of weeks before we felt “normal” again. Son Jason helped us a lot, delivering groceries and supplies to our back patio until we were virus-free and could do our own shopping again.
Not sure how closely you’ve followed the presidential campaign. I’m slightly hopeful that we’ll avoid another Trump presidency and the worst of his previous excesses. At the same time, I’m somewhat discouraged that we’re not likely to move as quickly as needed to rein in our over dependence on fossil fuels, with their negative impacts on environment and health, regardless of who wins the election. When I tried to do my own post-mortem on the one presidential debate in mid-September, I journaled that “Both candidates seemed, either directly or indirectly, to acknowledge the outsized role that fossil fuels (and fossil fuel industry campaign contributions) play in our national politics. As evidence, I’m reminded of the extended discussion of fracking in Pennsylvania, one of our so-called ‘battleground states.’” Ah, well.
Heard from brother Jim V. that the fall trip he and Chris often take to the mountains of western North Carolina was hampered by the passage of Hurricane Helene, but that the town where they like to stay, appropriately named Highlands, was above most of the damage. From what we’ve heard on the news, substantial parts of Asheville were wiped out. A couple of my older women friends live in a retirement community at Asheville’s edge—by now I’ve heard from both that they’re all right, if saddened by the widespread destruction closer to the rivers.
Tomorrow I’ll start work at one of our area’s late-opening voting centers—in the auditorium of a Catholic school nearby. I worked the primary there in the spring. I’ll have a short set-up day tomorrow, then four days of increasingly long shifts, including about 15 hours next Tuesday on Election Day itself. Our work crew is diverse and generally congenial. Hope we’ll have good turnout and few problem voters.
Time for me to get some rest—the alarm will go off early. Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
Posted in Everyday Wonders, travel, Uncategorized
Tagged climate change, covid-19, cross-quarter days, democracy, gardening
Sally Letter 14: Imbolc/Groundhog Day 2024
Friday, February 2, 2024 (Imbolc, Groundhog’s Day); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
The cooler weather months here seem to be when I “feel my age” more intensely. This year’s rains so far have come in spurts. The days when I’m stuck indoors because of the weather feel longer somehow. Still, here on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the weather was pleasant enough for an outdoor Thanksgiving feast at son Jason and Kelly’s. They had pushed together a set of tables to accommodate Jason, Kelly, Parker, Ada, and all four grandparents plus J&K’s next door neighbors, whose son Sander is about Parker’s age and one of his best friends. It was a special occasion, with the option of eating outdoors a plus.
The one year there had been an “extended Batterson family” Thanksgiving at our house, I remember having been quite nervous. It was a couple of years after Jim’s father died. Both Jason and Scott were home from college. Our initial “Japanese daughter,” business intern Eiko, was part of the household, too. Jim’s brother Paul and sister-in-law Vivian came down from Connecticut, picking up Jim’s mom in New Jersey on their way. I’d gotten a special “organic” turkey that took much longer than expected to cook. I eventually wound up having Jim carve parts of it and then microwaving the meat so we could eat before the rest of the meal got stone cold.
I don’t know if you’ve had access to coverage of the late November Rosalynn Carter funeral—a partial respite from some of our political slug-fest. All of the living former First Ladies showed up. There seemed to me to be less feigned camaraderie or blatant bullying than usual. The ladies, at least, seem to have managed a temporary “truce.”
I’ve heard you have a good acupuncturist friend. Mostly to calm myself down, I’ve been going to an acupuncturist in a different part of San Diego on a fairly regular basis. She works at an alternative health clinic along one of the public bus lines across Mission Valley from where we live in Tierrasanta. The sessions seem to help, especially now that being indoors for a treatment doesn’t pose quite so much covid risk. Watching too much media coverage of all the current global armed conflicts can wear me down emotionally. Sometimes, even after a good acupuncture session, I have to take a “media sabbath,” not that it makes the conflicts go away.
The longer evening intervals after sundown this time of year provide good times for reading. I’ve gone through Heather McGhee’s The Sum of Us, Madeline Ostrander’s At Home on an Unruly Planet, and David Brooks’ How to Know a Person in fairly quick succession. None discount the difficulties our societies and natural world are going through, but all seem at least somewhat hopeful that humanity can craft better survival tools for ourselves and for the planet.
This year was a “no travel” Christmas for Jim and me. Early in December, I wrote out a holiday letter and sent it to most family members and friends the old-fashioned way, via postal mail. I still enjoy buying holiday cards. I find the “peace on earth, goodwill toward all” sentiments in my favorite designs uplifting. Hope they can spread just a little holiday cheer to others. Hope you got yours.
The Saturday before Christmas, Jason, Parker and Ada went with me to a “camel dairy” in a rural part of San Diego County about 15 miles east of here. It sounds as if the dairy owners had previously been employees at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park and had branched out to run the dairy. They sell camel rides plus toiletries and small “camel milk” gifts. They also give educational presentations about camels to visitors for a fee. I think the grandkids enjoyed it. They got to feed some goats in a separate pen from the large camel enclosure. Neither opted for a camel ride. Jason graciously agreed to drive for an excursion back and forth on roads I was unfamiliar with.
Because of advances in video conferencing technology, we can arrange calls with the rest of the family that are “almost as good as being there.” We saw a little of the holiday celebrations in Ohio and in Connecticut. Granddaughter Kenley is quite mobile by now and is starting to have more words. She’s a big fan of an Australia-based cartoon show called “Bluey,” sort of the Aesop’s fables for this generation, from the little I’ve seen of it. Paul and Vivian were having a fairly quiet Christmas. Vivian has an artificial tree that looks almost real. She decorates it beautifully every year. We exchanged greetings briefly with brothers Bruce and Jim V. and their wives. All seem to be doing well.
We celebrated this year’s Groundhog Day twice —in the morning with Villagers at the clubhouse we rent in one of the surrounding condo communities, then in late afternoon here in our alleyway for neighbors and family. Jason came with the grandkids. Half a dozen neighbors showed up to munch cookies, drink cider, and share weather stories. We’d earlier gone online and purchased a groundhog inflatable—yard-sized inflatables seem to be the latest decorating fad in this part of the country. If I remember, I’ll put in a snapshot of family posed around the 7-foot groundhog, which a built-in motor keeps upright once you plug him in.
Enough for now. Please take good care. Hugs all round!
Love, Jin
Posted in Everyday Wonders, travel, Uncategorized
Tagged biodynamic farming, covid-19, cross-quarter days, gardening
