Work and Germany Part II: Abandonment Recovery

[New Leaf]

I do not know this tea bagging thing I will have to look it up.......

 

[New Leaf]

So, here is our Leafy, then.

Nice hat, Leafy.

:O)

Cedar

I just love hats Cedar thank you for my Marilyn photos marvelous, just marvelous.
Leafy

 

[Copabanana]

taking a stance against their own culture, because it is their job, their livelihood, their retirement. It goes against their very nature.

Some are stoic, and proud.

Others, you can see the wrestling going on inside of themselves, in their eyes.
Their faces betray the horrific emotions and thoughts running through their beings.
A people, set against their own people.

I was really touched by this, New Leaf.

He must know this. And he will.

As you take your stance in kapu aloha

he will learn
and he will know
that he cannot go to this place.
Ever.

Thank you.

Take your stance with your son, Copa,
do not permit him to divide
your relationship with his words,
and also, do not allow this to burden your heart.

Thank you for your kindness, New Leaf.

How is your carrot/finger? Oh ouch Copa!

It hurts. But I think the onion skin is helping. I will soon go to bed and read. That will help.

He will be a hungry papa bear tomorrow.

I bet you are a great cook, New Leaf. What will you cook for him?

You know, my Dad was a Merchant Marine and he lived in Hawaii for years. Before that he lived in San Francisco, and so did I. We would go to Chinatown to his friends apartments where the extended family occupied the whole building. I just remember how delicious the food was. When we at at their house they cooked the best steaks in the world, with fried rice!!! When we went to restaurants, we would be at long banquet tables with delicacies and all kinds of liquor. I was too young to drink. But I wanted to. I love ceremony.

I am praying that he will be fine.

I believe he will be. Tell him we have all decided he needs to stay off work and that you will look into the retirement options.

He deserves to live fully and not work himself into the ground. Literally.

Make sure, New Leaf, and look at my posts about illness and retirement options. While I did not do this, I know some about it.

COPA

 

[InsaneCdn]

Copa - I sent a PM.

 

[New Leaf]

ewwww tea bagging.....

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You are so gentle in your way with your husband, Leafy. I love him too, because you find such value in him.

And because he launders daughter's clothing when she comes home.

***

Copa, I hope your cut is healing well. I have not heard of onion juice.
That makes perfect sense, though. I have heard that onion is a very strong antiseptic.

ewwww tea bagging.....

I forgot to tell you why that mattered.

That is what we named our Book Club.

Because we are all ladies between forty and fifty and we all loved tea, we believed ourselves to have been very clever. And we loved our name and called ourselves that for years and years, until we learned those words had an entirely different meaning.

Having nothing in the world to do with Book Club ladies or tea drinking.

We don't have a name, now.

It's safer, that way.

***

The dishes were beautiful, Copa. I don't remember more about them than that they were unique and beautifully matched, though the settings were not identical to one another.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

I bet you are a great cook, New Leaf. What will you cook for him?

I shall have to see what he can eat. They are trying to rest his digestive system. I would cook him simple things. I will start with chicken soup. I wish I had saved our turkey bones. There is a recipe called juk. We cook the turkey bones for hours, then save the broth. I usually would freeze it in cubes. When one is ill, it is a good food, juk, a porridge. We would take out the cube, heat it up, add rice, and a thumb of ginger, a bit of salt, cook it down till soft. It is very hearty, yet simple.

It is hard to cook for hubs, he is on a low potassium diet, for his heart. All of the good things we would eat green leafy veggies, he cannot. His mom was an excellent cook. She would cook all kinds of ethnic foods. Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian. I like Chinese, with their cut up meats mixed with vegetables and oyster sauce. He likes his veggies al dente, stir fried.
I shall have to think about our cooking. I would like to buy farm fresh local produce. Support the few farmers here. Trouble is, it is quite pricey, farm fresh. I think worth it. Who knows what is on vegetables to preserve them, shipped over from the continent.
Organic.
Home grown.
I have talked with my girls about coming once a month to work the land. My Blossom and Sun, are willing and discussing it. They are planning to start when Sun comes home. She is on a short trip abroad dancing hula, with her Kumu hula (hula master).
They are quite celebrated, our Kumu hula. They are in Japan and will be going to Bangkok. Imagine that, she is just 20, my Sun. I miss her. She will return next week, full of stories. When she comes home, we shall have a dinner. Barbeque. Steak, chicken and fresh salad. Then we will plan our family work days.

You know, my Dad was a Merchant Marine and he lived in Hawaii for years. Before that he lived in San Francisco, and so did I. We would go to Chinatown to his friends apartments where the extended family occupied the whole building. I just remember how delicious the food was. When we at at their house they cooked the best steaks in the world, with fried rice!!! When we went to restaurants, we would be at long banquet tables with delicacies and all kinds of liquor. I was too young to drink. But I wanted to. I love ceremony.

I remember you writing of this Copa. When hubs and I were just starting out, we had a little apartment in a three story walk up. The building was occupied by mostly one Hawaiian family. They would have big parties, and gatherings.

There was a transgender Kumu Hula living there. One year, she put together a Christmas show, and had everyone decorate the building. She had secret rehearsals for the kids in the building and they sang Christmas songs and danced.
It was beautiful.

One day, she shared with me photos of her days in the 60's as a drag Queen. Polynesian Queens with manly features, prominent eyebrow bones and broad noses, made up into glorious beings with sky high beehive hairdo's gazed at me from the pages of her album. They looked like such a fun, dramatic, theatrical, raucous group.

There is no one that compares to Polynesian "mahu"
Here is an article that explains
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/28/hawaiian-culture-transgender_n_7158130.html

Here is Kumu Hina, a celebrated mahu and kumu,who had a battle within as a young child.

I am rambling all over the place. Huh.
How did I get onto this subject?

Maybe it is a part of the battle within that we face, sisters.

I believe he will be. Tell him we have all decided he needs to stay off work and that you will look into the retirement options.

Yes, Copa, thank you. He is in pain as well, he has arthritis in his knees, the doctor says he needs knee replacement surgery, perhaps this, too, is a way.....I truly appreciate your suggestions. I think I will seek out friends who have retired on disability here, too. They must have some insight.

He deserves to live fully and not work himself into the ground. Literally.

I wholeheartedly agree.
I teased him last night. He has returned for a visit, the man I once knew, who was soft spoken, relaxed and somewhat conversational.

Perhaps after this experience, he will become more unto himself, as we are trying here.
huh.

mahalo nui loa Copa and Cedar

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, I cannot believe you named your book club that.

Once I named a stray dog Buddy. I loved him. He was a Cockapoo I think. I may have stolen him because after a week or so I put up a sign on the main street where I had found him and some lady came to my house to accuse me, and I had to give him up.

So anyway, Edward, my boyfriend, who was from Jamaica (and for many years my true love) told me that Buddy in Jamaica means female genitals. But Buddy had to leave me and go to his real home. Anybody who lets their dog roam on a busy street, deserves to have him kidnapped. I was saving him not stealing him. (Except Romy does occasionally get out. He and Dolly work as a team. She digs under the fence and Romy escapes. But there are no busy streets here.)

New Leaf, all of your ideas sound great. I love the idea of the family garden.

I have made Juk. I love it so much. Talk about the ultimate comfort food. That and sticky rice. Which I love, too. I used to cook with oyster sauce. (At that time I had a close friend, Sonya, who was born in China.) Some day I will post about her. Like your HUBS, I have stuff bottled up, too. I don't just blurt out EVERYTHING.

But HUBS takes the cake. M worked like that, too. He had a lot of pain, too.

I think the idea of the operation is great.

Is his heart problem treatable? With diet? They say that heart trouble can reverse itself with a certain diet. Pritikin? I am not sure. There is the one Bill Clinton is on, too. I do not know if it is the same. I had a friend I worked with. She was a 7th Day Adventist, like Ben Carson, Cedar's newest Mom. She told me that a Vegan Diet reversed all manner of maladies (she was a medical doctor) including heart disease. I think there was a study called the China Study I think that talked about it.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Buddy in Jamaica means female genitals.

And our own nlj told us FOO (as in Family of Origin or FOO Chronicles) means that too!!!

In Welsh.

But we are done running from others' interpretations of us.

Except for my Book Club. When we were telling one another what the alternate meaning was? The story was whispered around the table, one lady to the next.

By the time we got to the last lady?

The rest of us had been struck speechless.

And on that note, we went home.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

I am still busy laughing about the dishes. It is so fun to laugh at the folly of others.

And I need to add here, at the Teabagging Book club. Too funny, Cedar.

Excuse me, I need to go and look at dishes on EBAY. That and Fernella's Jools jewelry. Except I have stopped buying. Maybe just one more thing.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Try to take care of yourself. I am on constant guard too. On the phone, even. I defend myself from attack. I have no joy talking to him. It is pure defense. Somebody could say it is rejecting. When the calls go bad, I get sick and depressed for a few days. I do not know what to say. When do we count?

Copa, I am so sorry for the pain of this. I hope you are feeling better.

We always count.

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Is his heart problem treatable? With diet? They say that heart trouble can reverse itself with a certain diet. Pritikin? I am not sure. There is the one Bill Clinton is on, too. I do not know if it is the same. I had a friend I worked with. She was a 7th Day Adventist, like Ben Carson, Cedar's newest Mom. She told me that a Vegan Diet reversed all manner of maladies (she was a medical doctor) including heart disease. I think there was a study called the China Study I think that talked about it.

Hi Copa,
Hubs went off to work this morning, he is feeling much better. We will have to discuss his retirement, on his time. I picked up a different man from the hospital. He was very grumpy from his stay. While he was there, he was so sweet. Hmmm.
I think I shall have to go and look for that guy. It is too much for him and I, all this stuff. Rain coming around.

His heart Copa, open heart surgery in 05, aortic stenosis. He had a mechanical valve put in.
I do believe diet is most important. I will look into it. He is watching documentaries and tv shows about the poison we are subjected to in foods, processing, etc.

I cannot write too much, off to work.

I hope you are feeling better today, it was a rough weekend for the both of us.
I am feeling like the sad Norma Jean, eating chocolates in bed.

But sad, tired leafy has to go to work.
sigh.

I am blessed, though, there are folks out there, who do not have jobs. Or, their health.

Mom said "There by the grace of God, go I."

So, here we are. By the grace of God.

Go I, to work.

leafy

Cedar, I think Welsh FOO is quite appropriate, otherwise, how would we be here?

We have a famous landmark, Koko Head Crater, the name was changed from the old Hawaiian name. I can only imagine what the prudish missionaries looked like, when they realized the meaning of the name.........

http://maunalua.net/Kohelepelepe.html


Hawaiians......they have flying body parts........how cool is that?

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Oh, I love this story! How differently the fire between us was seen by other religious traditions. I love the idea of flying sexual organs resting against the land and rising again, having imprinted something for us to know.

Something about respect and what is real, and what matters. Something about joy, and not shame.

I like this earthiness of thinking the Hawaiians do.

To me, they are Jewish, in that way.

Earthy, and really funny and kind and generous in their interpretations of self and other.

Thank you, Leafy.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

Oh, I love this story! How differently the fire between us was seen by other religious traditions. I love the idea of flying sexual organs resting against the land and rising again, having imprinted something for us to know.

Something about respect and what is real, and what matters. Something about joy, and not shame.

I like this earthiness of thinking the Hawaiians do.

To me, they are Jewish, in that way.

Earthy, and really funny and kind and generous in their interpretations of self and other.

Thank you, Leafy.

Your welcome Cedar, the Hawaiians have many legends and dances relating to interconnections with all things.
I agree with a lot of this thinking. It has proved itself over and again to me.

leafy